richw@ada-uts.UUCP (01/31/86)
Has anyone read the article about AI in the February issue of
"Technology Review"? You can't miss it -- the cover says something
like: "In 25 years, AI has still not lived up to its promises and
there's no reason to think it ever will" (not a direct quote; I don't
have the copy with me). General comments?
-- Rich Wagner
"Relax! They're just programs..."
P.S. You might notice that about 10 pages into the issue, there's
an ad for some AI system. I bet the advertisers were real
pleased about the issue's contents...miles@vax135.UUCP (Miles Murdocca) (02/03/86)
> Has anyone read the article about AI in the February issue of > "Technology Review"? You can't miss it -- the cover says something > like: "In 25 years, AI has still not lived up to its promises and > there's no reason to think it ever will" (not a direct quote; I don't > have the copy with me). General comments? The article was written by the Dreyfuss brothers, who are famous for making bold statements that AI will never meet the expectations of the people who fund AI research. They make the claim that people do not learn to ride a bike by being told how to do it, but by a trial and error method that isn't represented symbolically. They use this argument and a few others such as the lack of a representation for emotions to support their view that AI researchers are wasting their sponsors' money by knowingly heading down dead-ends. As I recall ["Machine Learning", Michalski et al, Ch 1], there are two basic forms of learning: 'knowledge acquisition' and 'skill refinement'. The Dreyfuss duo seems to be using a skill refinement problem to refute the work going on in knowledge acquisition. The distinction between the two types of learning was recognized by AI researchers years ago, and I feel that the Dreyfuss two lack credibility since they fail to align their arguments with the taxonomy of the field. Miles Murdocca, 4G-538, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Crawfords Corner Rd, Holmdel, NJ, 07733, (201) 949-2504, ...{ihnp4}!vax135!miles
dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin) (02/03/86)
> > Has anyone read the article about AI in the February issue of > "Technology Review"? You can't miss it -- the cover says something > like: "In 25 years, AI has still not lived up to its promises and > there's no reason to think it ever will" (not a direct quote; I don't > have the copy with me). General comments? > > -- Rich Wagner It's just Dreyfus and his old line about the impossibility of AI. His methods are flawed, so his conclusions are meaningless. But it's been his ticket to prominence. Paul Benjamin
pcook@milano.UUCP (02/03/86)
In article <7500002@ada-uts.UUCP>, richw@ada-uts.UUCP writes: > > Has anyone read the article about AI in the February issue of > "Technology Review"? You can't miss it -- the cover says something > like: "In 25 years, AI has still not lived up to its promises and > there's no reason to think it ever will" (not a direct quote; I don't > have the copy with me). General comments? > This article is a plug for a book and use of a current topic to get back at the AI community for an imagined snub. Hubert Dreyfus was stood up by John McCarthy of Stanford at a debate on on a third echelon public tv station in the bay area, and is still mad. First, the premise: AI, expert systems, and knowledge-rule based systems have been overly optimistic in their promises and stand short of delivered results. Probably true, but many of the systems, once implemented, lose their mystical qualities, and look a lot like other computer applications. It's the ones that are in the buliding process which seem to present extravagant claims. As presented, however, the article is a shrill cry rather than a reasoned response. It leans heavily on proof by intense assertion. As a pilot I find examples which range from dubious to incorrect. As a scientist I object to the gee whiz Reader's Digest tone. As a retired Air Force Officer I object to the position that the commander's common sense is the ideal form of combat decision making. And as a philosopher (albiet not expert) I object to the muddy intellectual approach, rife with questionable presuppositions, faulty dilemmas, and illogical conclusions. I agree that the topic is worthy of discussion- our work to realize the potential of computers must not degenerate into a fad which will fade from the scene. But I object to a diatribe where advances in the field are dismissed as trivial because current systems do not equal human performance. -- ...Pete Peter G. Cook Lt. Colonel pcook@mcc.arpa Liaison, Motorola, Inc. USAFR(Ret) ut-sally!im4u!milano!pcook MCC-Software Technology Program 512-834-3348 9430 Research Blvd. Suite 200 Austin, Texas 78759
lab@rochester.UUCP (Lab Manager) (02/03/86)
In article <7500002@ada-uts.UUCP> richw@ada-uts.UUCP writes: > >Has anyone read the article about AI in the February issue of >"Technology Review"? You can't miss it -- the cover says something >like: "In 25 years, AI has still not lived up to its promises and >there's no reason to think it ever will" (not a direct quote; I don't >have the copy with me). General comments? They basically say that things like blocks world doesn't scale up, and AI can't model intuition because 'real people' aren't thinking machines. An appropriate rebuttal to these two self-styled philosophers: "In 3000 years, Philosophy has still not lived up to its promises and there's no reason to think it ever will." -- Brad Miller Arpa: lab@rochester.arpa UUCP: rochester!lab (also miller@rochester for non-lab stuff) Title: CS Lab Manager Snail: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept. 617 Hylan Building Rochester NY 14627
lamy@utai.UUCP (Jean-Francois Lamy) (02/03/86)
In article <7500002@ada-uts.UUCP> richw@ada-uts.UUCP writes: >like: "In 25 years, AI has still not lived up to its promises and >there's no reason to think it ever will" (not a direct quote; I don't Still thinking that fundamental breakthroughs in AI are achievable in such an infinitesimal amount of time as 25 years is naive. I probably was not even born when such claims could have been justified by sheer enthousiasm... Not that we cannot get interesting and perhaps even useful developments in the next 25 years. >P.S. You might notice that about 10 pages into the issue, there's > an ad for some AI system. I bet the advertisers were real > pleased about the issue's contents... Nowadays you don't ask for a grant or try to sell a product if the words "AI, expert systems, knowledge engineering techniques, fifth generation and natural language processing" are not included. Advertisement is about creating hype, and it really works -- for a while, until the next "in" thing comes around. -- Jean-Francois Lamy Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Departement d'informatique et de recherche operationnelle, U. de Montreal. CSNet: lamy@toronto.csnet UUCP: {utzoo,ihnp4,decwrl,uw-beaver}!utcsri!utai!lamy CDN: lamy@iro.udem.cdn (lamy%iro.udem.cdn@ubc.csnet)
marek@iuvax.UUCP (02/04/86)
ha ha ha! "taxonomy of the field" -- the latest gospel of AI? Let me be impudent enough to claim one of the most misguided AI efforts to date is taxonomizing a la Michalski et al: setting up categories along arbitrary lines dictated by somebody or other's intuition. If AI does not have the mechanism-cum-explanation to describe a phenomenon, what right does it have to a) taxonomize it and b) demand that its taxonomizing be recognized as an achievement? -- Marek Lugowski an AI graduate student (in perpetual blush for AI's excesses) Indiana U. CS
franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (02/04/86)
In article <7500002@ada-uts.UUCP> richw@ada-uts.UUCP writes: >Has anyone read the article about AI in the February issue of >"Technology Review"? You can't miss it -- the cover says something >like: "In 25 years, AI has still not lived up to its promises and >there's no reason to think it ever will" (not a direct quote; I don't >have the copy with me). General comments? > >P.S. You might notice that about 10 pages into the issue, there's > an ad for some AI system. I bet the advertisers were real > pleased about the issue's contents... This doesn't really have anything to do with AI, but the advertisers should have been pleased. The article will attract the attention of the kind of people they are trying to reach. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108
shebs@utah-cs.UUCP (02/07/86)
In article <3600036@iuvax.UUCP> marek@iuvax.UUCP writes:
...one of the most misguided AI efforts to date is
taxonomizing a la Michalski et al: setting up categories along arbitrary
lines dictated by somebody or other's intuition. If AI does not have
the mechanism-cum-explanation to describe a phenomenon, what right does it
have to a) taxonomize it and b) demand that its taxonomizing be recognized
as an achievement?
I assume you have something wonderful that we haven't heard about?
Or do you believe that because there are unsolved problems in physics,
chemists and biologists have no right to study objects whose behavior is
ultimately described in terms of physics?
stan shebs
(shebs@utah-orion)ladkin@kestrel.ARPA (02/08/86)
In article <15030@rochester.UUCP>, lab@rochester.UUCP (Lab Manager) writes: > "In 3000 years, Philosophy has still not lived up to its promises and > there's no reason to think it ever will." An interesting comment. Whenever a problem is solved in Philosophy, it spawns a whole new field of specialists, and is no longer called Philosophy. Witness Physics, which used to be called Natural Philosophy. When Newton took over, it gradually became a new subject. Witness our own subject, which arose out of the attempts of Frege to provide a formal foundation for mathematical reasoning, via Russell, Church, Curry, Kleene, Turing and von Neumann. Much work in natural language understanding arises from the work of Montague, and more recently speech act theory is being used, from Grice, Searle and Vanderveken. The list goes on, and so do I. Would that AI bear such glorious fruit. I think it might. Peter Ladkin
bantz@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU (02/09/86)
Dreyfus's book "What Computers Can't Do" was a pretty sorry affair, insofar as it purported to have a positive argument about intrinsic limits of computers. However uncomfortable it makes the AI community feel, though, the journalistic baiting with extensive quotations from the AI community itself, ought to have demonstrated the virtues of a bit more humility than is often shown. [I'm refering to his gleeful quotation of predictions that, by 1970 or so a computer would be world chess champion, that fully literate translations of natural languages would be routine...] The responses here, so far, seem to be guilty of what Dreyfus is accused of: failing to engage the opponent seriously, and relying on personal expressions of distaste or ridicule. Specifically, Dreyfus does reject the typology of learning in AI, on the not implausible grounds that it is self-serving, and not obviously correct (or uniquely correct). [Please! I am *not* a fan of Dreyfus, and do not endorse most of his claims.]
gilbert@aimmi.UUCP (Gilbert Cockton) (02/10/86)
In article <15030@rochester.UUCP> lab@rochester.UUCP (Lab Manager(Brad Miller)) writes: >......... An appropriate rebuttal to these two self-styled >philosophers: >"In 3000 years, Philosophy has still not lived up to its promises and >there's no reason to think it ever will." Which is why I'm so sceptical about the grander claims for AI. I'm unable to see how having faster computers, smarter algorithms and fancier versions of LISP will allow us to crack problems that have dogged philosophers and others for centuries. I accept that IKBS techniques do allow a person or group to encode (some/most of/all) their expertise into an interactive program. However given the hard problems of ontology and epistemology, I cannot believe that the expertise's status as knowledge (as opposed to belief) and a representation of `reality' can ever be determined on line. The problems of philosophy remain problems of philosophy regardless of any new modes of communication and information encoding that can be developed. One can be ignorant of the distinction between recursion and iteration and still find gaping holes in much current AI research. Furthermore, one can pick up any basic philosophy text and find many accepted arguments which provide an education as to why these holes seem unclosable. Has any inductive system come up with a refutation of Hume's argument against induction? One example will do me! You can encode some of the people some of the time, but ... -- Gilbert Cockton, Alvey MMI Unit, Scotland USENET: ..(EUROPE)mcvax!ukc!cstvax!hwcs!aimmi!gilbert JANET: gilbert@uk.ac.hw.cs (aimmi not NRS registered yet) ARPA: gilbert%cs.hw.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk ( ditto ) DESERT ISLAND: disk in a green bottle marked GC
jon@uw-june (Jon Jacky) (02/20/86)
> (Technology Review cover says...) > After 25 years Artificial Intelligence has failed to live up to its promise > and there is no evidence that it ever will. Most of the comment in this newsgroup has addressed the second clause in this provocative statement. I think the first clause is more important, and it is indisputable. The value of the Dreyfuss brothers' article is to remind readers that when AI advocates make specific predictions, they are often over-optimistic. Personally, I do not find all of the Dreyfuss' speculations convincing. So what? AI work does not get funded to settle philosophical arguments, but because the funders hope to derive specific benefits. In particular, the DARPA Strategic Computing Program, the largest source of funds for AI work in the country, asserts that specific technologies (rule based expert systems, parallel processing) will deliver specific results (unmanned vehicles that can drive at 40 km/hr through battlefields, natural language systems with 10,000 word vocabularies) at a specific time (the early 1990's). One lesson of the article is that people should regard such claims skeptically. Jonathan Jacky, ...!ssc-vax!uw-beaver!uw-june!jon or jon@uw-june University of Washington
mfidelma@bbncc5.UUCP (Miles Fidelman) (02/20/86)
About 14 years ago Hubert Dreyfus wrote a paper titled "Why Computers Can't Play Chess" - immediately thereafter, someone at the MIT AI lab challenged Dreyfus to play one of the chess programs - which trounced him royally - the output of this was an MIT AI Lab Memo titled "The Artificial Intelligence of Hubert Dreyfus, or Why Dreyfus Can't Play Chess". The document was hilarious. If anyone still has a copy, I'd like to arrange a xerox of it. Miles Fidelman (mfidelman@bbncc5.arpa)
eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (02/28/86)
<1814@bbncc5.UUCP> > > About 14 years ago Hubert Dreyfus wrote a paper titled "Why Computers Can't > Play Chess" - immediately thereafter, someone at the MIT AI lab challenged > Dreyfus to play one of the chess programs - which trounced him royally - > the output of this was an MIT AI Lab Memo titled "The Artificial Intelligence > of Hubert Dreyfus, or Why Dreyfus Can't Play Chess". > > The document was hilarious. If anyone still has a copy, I'd like to arrange > a xerox of it. > > Miles Fidelman (mfidelman@bbncc5.arpa) Excuse the fact I reproduced all that above rather than digest it. I just attended a talk given by Dreyfus (for the first time). I think the AI community is FORTUNATE to have a loyal opposition following of Dr. Dreyfus. In some defense, Dreyfus is somewhat kind to the AI community (in constrast to some AI critics I know) for instance he does believe in the benefit of expert systems and expert assistants. Dreyfus feels that the AI community harped on the above: Men play chess. Computers play chess. Dreyfus is a man. Computer beat Dreyfus. Therefore, computers can beat man playing chess. He pointed out he sent his brother (supposedily captain of the Harvard chess team at one time) and he beat the computer (we should write his brother at UCB CS to verify this I supose). While I do not fully agree with Dreyfus's philosophy or his "methodology," he is a bright thinker and critic. [One point we do not agree on: he believes in the validity of the Turing test, I do not (in the way it currently stands).] --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene eugene@ames-nas.ARPA p.s. I would not mind seeing a copy of the paper myself. :-)