mgv@duke.UUCP (Marco Valtorta) (07/05/84)
[For line eaters] I would like to point out the existence of a "pilot survey" on the "cultural premises of [the] artificial intelligence com- munity." The survey was carried out during IJCAI-8 in Karlsruhe by Massimo Negrotti, a sociologist with the University of Genoa, Italy. The research was sponsored by the Italian National Research Council (CNR), and I think that you can obtain a copy of the report by writing to Massimo Negrotti, Chair of Sociology of Knowledge, University of Genoa, Genova, Italy. Within its limitations (e.g., small sample size), the survey shows that AI researchers from different geographical areas have different views of the world. For example, "human understanding" is most often defined as "reduction to familiar terms" by British researchers, but as "general representation of facts" by Con- tinental Europeans. It may be interesting to note that almost 60% of the inter- viewed researchers answered "yes" to the following question: "From your point of view, is it plausible a pure A.I. theory [sic] without references to the philosophical tradition?", but that this percentage was as high as 67.8 for Continental Europe- ans, and as low as 37.8 for USA researchers. Marco Valtorta (duke!mgv)