Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!venera.isi.edu!smoliar
From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Reply to Laske (was: Re: Music Research Digest Vol. 5, #14)
Summary: clearing the air about "knowledge engineering"
Message-ID: <12051@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 90 04:25:38 GMT
References: <132035@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <14095@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <1990Feb26.091939.3171@rand.org>
Sender: news@venera.isi.edu
Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar)
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In article <1990Feb26.091939.3171@rand.org> edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall) writes:
>_s{w3  There should be a special place in hell
>reserved for the person who coined the term ``knowledge engineering.''

(Wasn't he from Rand, Ed?)  :-)

>Like so much in AI, a term which started as a metaphor has been erroneously
>accepted as a factual entity and then further perverted into marketing
>hype.
>
All kidding aside, I think Ed has taken an important step in clearing the air
here.  Those who are interested in the relationship between artificial
intelligence and intelligent behavior know that knowledge engineering
is little more than a form of software engineering developed for the
symbol manipulation capabilities of rule-based systems (and, when all
is said and done, it does not amount to particularly GOOD software
engineering).  The term is used most heavily by those who are still
trying to pawn off expert systems as a manifestation of intelligence,
as opposed to simply a new approach to programming which had been utterly
foreign to all those poor souls who thought that programming was delimited
by the capabilities of FORTRAN and COBOL.  After these pitch-men, the term
is used primarily by people who want to "talk" the game of artificial
intelligence but are pretty much incapable of "playing" it.  Most of
these folks are in management, but there is also a high contingent of
non-technical types with a great urge to wax philosophical about intelligence.
As the evidence rolls in, it seems as if Laske falls in this latter category.
I would like to believe that if he rid himself of the urge to use everyone
else's jargon and use his own choice of simple language, he might have
something to say;  but I fear I'm still waiting to be convinced.  Meanwhile,
I suggest that those of us who are more interested in the intelligent behavior
side of the story forget all about the snake oil of knowledge engineering and
debate more serious issues, such as what is an appropriate methodology to
accommodate both the observation and the modeling of such intelligent behavior
as it pertains to making music.

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