HALL.UCI-20B%Rand-Relay@sri-unix.UUCP (12/14/83)
After listening in on the communications concerning definitions
of intelligence, AI methods, AI results, AI jargon, etc., I'd
like to suggest an alternate perspective on these issues. Rather
than quibbling over how AI "should be done," why not take a close
look at how things have been and are being done? This is more of
a social-historical viewpoint, admitting the possibility that
adherents of differing methodological orientations might well
"talk past each other" - hence the energetic argumentation over
issues of definition. In this spirit, I'd like to submit the
following for interested AILIST readers:
Toward a Taxonomy of Methodological
Perspectives in Artificial Intelligence Research
Rogers P. Hall
Dennis F. Kibler
TR 108
September 1983
Department of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92717
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to explain the apparent confusion of
efforts in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) research in
terms of differences between underlying methodological perspectives
held by practicing researchers. A review of such perspectives
discussed in the existing literature will be presented, followed by
consideration of what a relatively specific and usable taxonomy of
differing research perspectives in AI might include. An argument
will be developed that researchers should make their methodological
orientations explicit when communicating research results, both as
an aid to comprehensibility for other practicing researchers and as
a step toward providing a coherent intellectual structure which can
be more easily assimilated by newcomers to the field.
The full report is available from UCI for a postage fee of $1.30.
Electronic communications are welcome:
HALL@UCI-20B
KIBLER@UCI-20B