cooper@pbsvax.DEC (Topher Cooper) (07/20/84)
LINES: 74
RETURN ADDRESS: see below
"Alex.Rudnicky" asks:
"It may be fun to speculate about the super-normal and the para-normal,
but what does it have to do with AI?"
Answer: A number of things. First let's discuss the "super-normal", a phrase
which I will take to refer to "exceptional human performance."
1) Like it or not, we're stuck (at least for now) with describing the "I" in
"AI" in terms relative to human performance. In most instances average human
performance is all that is required of our programs, but sometimes, the
exceptional is called for. Human performance serves as a guide to what CAN
be done, because it HAS been done. According to the standard assumptions of
AI, if humans can do it, so can sufficiently powerful, well-programmed
machines. If humans cannot, then there may well be a NP-hard or worse problem
involved. For example: can the type of associative memory retrieval associated
with human intelligence be merged effectively with total recall? Or must the
information available by free-form association always be strictly limited?
If total well-indexed recall is done by at least one human being than it can
presumably also be done by a machine. Otherwise, it remains an open question.
2) An understanding of human information processes is seen as either absolutely
necessary or (depending on what "school" of AI philosophy you subscribe to) at
least very useful to AI programming. If your model of human information
processing cannot account for exceptional human performance then it is either
incorrect or incomplete. Knowledge that some adults have "eidetic" memory
(near perfect image memory) may well be critical to understanding all memory.
Knowledge that a large percentage of children (perhaps all if we could test
them young enough) have eidetic memory and then lose it as they grow up,
should be taken into account in theories of information acquisition from a
near "tabla rosa" state.
In other words, knowing the limits of human information processing is, in the
long term, very important to the field. In the short term, given our
distance from our ultimate goals, the need is less critical. Some relatively
brief exchanges in an informal forum seems appropriate to keep people thinking
about it.
Which brings us to the paranormal. First of all, claims of paranormal
abilities would seem to be included as exceptional human information processing
capabilities. My previous comments about the "super-normal" applies.
Some effort (probably not much from the viewpoint of current AI) should be
applied to determine whether or not, in general, the phenomena exist and if so
whether they should be considered as an exceptional cognitive skill or only
an exceptional perceptual skill. In the latter case its relevance is much
reduced. (My own opinion is: the experimental evidence makes it much more
likely than not that psi exists, and I would tend to see it as sensory/motor
rather than cognitive, though ESP seems to share many characteristics with
memory and dreaming).
Second, paranormal phenomena brings considerable doubt to the basic assumption
of AI: that human cognitive function can be explained as information processing
and therefore can be simulated or approximated by a sufficiently powerful and
well programmed artificial symbolic processor. This is of minor pragmatic
concern if psi is simply a rarely used IO channel. Several parapsychologists
have theorized, however, that psi functioning as perception is simply "leakage"
from its fundamental purpose in the organism; to wit, an essential part of
one or another cognitive function. Candidate functions I have seen mentioned
are intuition, creativity and memory. If so, (and I personally doubt it) then
human cognitive processing may not be simulatable on a Turing machine but only
on a Turing machine plus (you'll pardon the expression) oracle.
IN SUMMARY: while it seems premature to spend too much time now worrying about
exceptional (particularly paranormal) human performance, the AI community
should remain aware of this area. It might become very important to us and
we should not be caught unaware.
Topher Cooper
USENET: ...decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-pbsvax!cooper
ARPA: cooper%pbsvax.DEC@decwrl.ARPA