velasco@kenallen.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/07/91)
As part of a graduate AI class, I will be working on a semantic network
type of database to answer qeustions about the genealogy of the AI
family of researchers. The more family members we have, the better.
We would like for everyone who has written a thesis in the area of AI
to be in the genealogy.
Minsky, McCarthy, Simon, Newell and other participents in the Dartmouth
conference are to be the patriarchs. Although they obviously decended
from lower order life forms we will not be concerning ourselves with
"missing links."
To begin we would like to have a complete list of all the participants
in the Dartmouth conference. This doesn't seem to be a trivial task.
We would greatly appreciate any help in compiling this list. We are
hoping that some of the people reading this group either participated
in the conference or had a thesis advisor or grand-advisor or
great-grand-advisor that they know for sure was at the conference.
We would also like to have lots of people supply us with their
genealogy to help us come up with a complete family tree. It should be
interesting to find out where all of you are in the tree. The
professor for this class is only two generations away from Simon
through one of his committee members and he didn't even know it until
he started doing this research.
Please take the time to fill out this form so that we can place you in
the AI family tree. The end product will be a system called BIBLIO
which will be put into the public domain. BIBLIO will be a
bibliographic database augmented with "cultural" information. We
believe that this will help us characterize important intellecutal
developments within AI. Of course, we will be able to do regular
familty tree type operations with the data such as printing out the
family tree and stuff like that.
Also, if you know some of these facts about your advisor (committee
members), and their advisors, etc., I would appreciate it if you could
send me that information as well. One of our goals is to trace the
genealogy of today's researchers back as far as possible. If you do
have any of this information, simply duplicate the questionnaire and
fill in a separate copy for each person.
I'm velasco@cs.ucsd.edu
My advisor on this is:
Richard K. Belew
Asst. Professor
Computer Science & Engr. Dept. (C-014)
Univ. Calif. - San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093
619/534-2601
619/534-5948 (messages)
rik%cs@ucsd.edu
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AI Genealogy questionnaire
Please complete and return to:
velasco@cs.ucsd.edu
NAME:
Ph.D. year:
Ph.D. thesis title:
Department:
University:
Univ. location:
Thesis advisor:
Advisor's department:
Committee member:
Member's department:
Committee member:
Member's department:
Committee member:
Member's department:
Committee member:
Member's department:
Committee member:
Member's department:
Committee member:
Member's department:
Research institution:
Inst. location:
Dates:
Research institution:
Inst. location:
Dates:
Research institution:
Inst. location:
Dates:
--
________________________________________________
<>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give |
/___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." |
/\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|jj@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (John Josephson) (03/07/91)
Of course many of us researchers doing important and significant work will not be shown in the AI family tree constructed simply by teacher-student decent from the participants at the Darthmouth conference. .. jj
moskowit@paul.rutgers.edu (Len Moskowitz) (03/08/91)
There are two fallacies inherent in this approach. First of all it seems to excludes the lines of research that arose after the Dartmouth conference. Second it appears to be badly biased in favor of academic researchers to the exclusion of industry and military researchers, both of whom play a significant role in the development and continuation of AI. Len Moskowitz
fass@fornax.UUCP (Dan Fass) (03/08/91)
In message <velasco.668293642@kenallen>, Gabriel Velasco writes that he is working on a semantic network-type database to answer questions about the genealogy of the AI family of researchers. Gabriel and anyone else interested in the genealogy of AI might want to look at James Fleck's article "Development and Establishment in Artificial Intelligence" (in Brian P. Bloomfield, ed., The Question of Artificial Intelligence: Philosophical and Sociological Perspectives. Beckenham, Kent, England: Croom Helm Ltd., pp. 106-164, 1987). Fleck's article traces the social history of AI in the US and UK. The article refers not only to the now-famous 1956 Dartmouth conference, attended by Minsky, McCarthy, Simon, Newell and others, but also mentions an earlier 1952 conference on `Automata Studies' ``organised largely by John McCarthy'' on behalf of Claude Shannon. According to Figure 3.1 on page 118 and the accompanying text, McCarthy, Minsky and Newell all attended Princeton as graduate students; McCarthy worked with Shannon; Minsky was associated with W. McCulloch; and Seymour Papert was either a student of or worked for McCulloch. -------------- Dan Fass fass@cs.sfu.ca
minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) (03/08/91)
In article <JJ.91Mar7100015@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu> jj@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (John Josephson) writes: >Of course many of us researchers doing important and significant work >will not be shown in the AI family tree constructed simply by >teacher-student decent from the participants at the Darthmouth >conference. .. jj Quite so. Furthermore, Warren McCulloch and Alan Turing were not at that conference. Or Donald MacKay, etc. I could not possibly be more pleased than I am by how much my own students have accomplished, but the formal relation of thesis advisor is not a very good indicator of the evolution of ideas in the community of international science.
scotp@csc2.essex.ac.uk (Scott P D) (03/08/91)
In article <5466@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes: >Quite so. Furthermore, Warren McCulloch and Alan Turing were not at >that conference. Or Donald MacKay, etc. I could not possibly be more >pleased than I am by how much my own students have accomplished, but >the formal relation of thesis advisor is not a very good indicator of >the evolution of ideas in the community of international science. I have never met Gabriel Velasco, the originator of these genealogical enquiries. However it seems I am to be cast in the role of his intellectual grandfather, since I was his advisor's advisor. I am afraid I have bad news for Mr Velasco that throws doubt on his academic legitimacy: though very active in the field at the time, my own advisor was not among the immortals attending the Dartmouth conference. If Mr Velasco wishes to remove this blot from his escutcheon, several possibilities are available; all of which have the effect of extending the category of founding fathers to include people, such as those Marvin Minsky lists, who were important to the field but didn't happen to go to one particular conference. For example, one might also classify anyone who published anything in AI prior to 1960 as a founding father -- I think the bibliography in Feigenbaum and Feldman (1963) would make it fairly easy to create such a list. While a change like this would bring Mr Velasco back into the family, it wouldn't do much to remove my main reservations about the proposal. Thesis advisors are only one of many influences on graduate students, and anyway most of us spend far more time engaged in AI and being influenced after completing our degrees than before. Much of this type of influence could be captured by considering the laboratories where people have both studied and worked, although this too would have serious limitations -- some of us occasionally read stuff written by people we have never met in places we have never visited. Thus ultimately I don't see a way of avoiding actually considering what AI practitioners have written about their own work -- for example by doing a citation analysis. This would obviously be a mammoth undertaking, but do we really want to provide more ammunition for those who compare us to drunks searching for keys under lampposts? Paul Scott, Dept Computer Science, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.
valdes+@cs.cmu.edu (Raul Valdes-Perez) (03/08/91)
I think that the proposed project is worthy of carrying out. Any inferences drawn at its conclusion should be cautious, and made with due regard to its assummptions. But that is true of any experimental work, particularly historical-data gathering. In any case, the criteria for inclusion likely would evolve as the project progressed. -- Raul E. Valdes-Perez valdes@cs.cmu.edu School of Computer Science (412) 268-7698 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213
velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/10/91)
jj@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (John Josephson) writes: >Of course many of us researchers doing important and significant work >will not be shown in the AI family tree constructed simply by >teacher-student decent from the participants at the Darthmouth >conference. .. jj Yes, that's true. This is actually a starting point. It would be nice to expand the system later. For now, this gives us a very clear starting point. We are actually very interested in the influence of other disciplines on AI. -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|
velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/10/91)
moskowit@paul.rutgers.edu (Len Moskowitz) writes: >There are two fallacies inherent in this approach. First of all it >seems to excludes the lines of research that arose after the Dartmouth >conference. Part of this study is to see how the original lines of research in AI have evolved. We are certainly interested in the influence of other areas on AI. Eventually the system should be expanded to include these and maybe even to include all research ever published. >Second it appears to be badly biased in favor of academic >researchers to the exclusion of industry and military researchers, >both of whom play a significant role in the development and >continuation of AI. One big reason for the bias is that theses are public information. They are easy to verify and usually easy to look up ( by searching through a library database, for instance ). Also, there is a traditional, historical relationship that already exists between an advisor and his advisee in an academic environment. -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|
velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/10/91)
minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) writes: >Quite so. Furthermore, Warren McCulloch and Alan Turing were not at >that conference. Or Donald MacKay, etc. This is just a starting point. I suppose we would eventually like this system to go all the way back to the greek philosophers. >I could not possibly be more >pleased than I am by how much my own students have accomplished, but >the formal relation of thesis advisor is not a very good indicator of >the evolution of ideas in the community of international science. Actually, this is one of the things that we would like to determine. Has anyone ever actually proven the last quoted statement? -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|
velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/10/91)
scotp@csc2.essex.ac.uk (Scott P D) writes: >I have never met Gabriel Velasco, the originator of these genealogical >enquiries. However it seems I am to be cast in the role of his intellectual >grandfather, since I was his advisor's advisor. I am afraid I have bad news >for Mr Velasco that throws doubt on his academic legitimacy: though >very active in the field at the time, my own advisor was not among the >immortals attending the Dartmouth conference. Mom, why didn't you tell me? :-) I've already stated in some other postings that this is just a starting place. We would eventually like to expand the system to include all disciplines. It would obviously not be rooted in the Dartmouth Conference. But, let's look at my advisor's family group record: Name: Richard K. Belew Ph.D. year: 1986 Ph.D. thesis title: Adaptive information retrieval: machine learning in associative networks Thesis advisor: Stephen Kaplan, Psychology Thesis advisor: Paul D. Scott, CCS (a.k.a. Grandpa) Committee member: Robert K. Lindsay . . . Lindsay was advised by Herbert Simon. So, there's some legitimacy there, but it's through a great uncle (or something like that). >If Mr Velasco wishes to remove this blot from his escutcheon, several >possibilities are available; all of which have the effect of extending the >category of founding fathers to include people, such as those Marvin >Minsky lists, who were important to the field but didn't happen to go to >one particular conference. Again, we definitely hope to eventually do that. >Thus ultimately I don't see a way of avoiding actually >considering what AI practitioners have written about their own >work -- for example by doing a citation analysis. This would be an interesting problem as well, but I think it's valid to ask the question of how influential advisors have been? How much has this relationship affected the course of research in the field of AI? This would be lost if all we did was citation analysis. AI is a good field for investigating this because we can pick a point where it all started. It may not have a very sharp point, but it's more pointy than most other fields. >This would obviously >be a mammoth undertaking, That's another problem. We have to have at least part of this done in one week. I'm doing it as part of a class. It's my advisor's on-going interest. -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|
smoliar@isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (03/10/91)
In article <velasco.668560284@beowulf> velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) writes: >minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) writes: > >>I could not possibly be more >>pleased than I am by how much my own students have accomplished, but >>the formal relation of thesis advisor is not a very good indicator of >>the evolution of ideas in the community of international science. > >Actually, this is one of the things that we would like to determine. >Has anyone ever actually proven the last quoted statement? > I'm not sure to what extent you can talk about "proof;" but you can certainly muster evidence. Bertrand Russell was thesis advisor to Ludwig Wittgenstein. The TRACTATUS was the thesis, and it may be viewed as an obedient attempt to continue along Russell's approach to mathematics and logic as embodied in the PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA. However, by the time Wittgenstein got around to defending it, he already had serious doubts about both its contents and most of what Russell stood for. The rest of his career involved tearing down all that he had received from Russell in matters of logic, semantics, and the foundations of mathematics. Ultimately, Wittgenstein thrived on viewing Russell as his chief antagonist. By the way, as long as we are willing to generalize to "international science," didn't Crick's advisor (Bragg?) keep discouraging him from spending all his time on DNA? -- USPS: Stephen Smoliar 5000 Centinela Avenue #129 Los Angeles, California 90066 Internet: smoliar@venera.isi.edu
demers@odin.ucsd.edu (David E Demers) (03/10/91)
In article <1991Mar8.155651.17264@cs.cmu.edu> valdes+@cs.cmu.edu (Raul Valdes-Perez) writes: >I think that the proposed project is worthy of carrying out. Any inferences >drawn at its conclusion should be cautious, and made with due regard to its >assummptions. But that is true of any experimental work, particularly >historical-data gathering. In any case, the criteria for inclusion likely >would evolve as the project progressed. I concur. Though I am not working on this project, I am aware of it, and my understanding is that the intent is NOT to be exclusive. Rather, as INCLUSIVE as possible. But one must start somewhere. -- Dave DeMers demers@cs.ucsd.edu Computer Science & Engineering C-014 demers%cs@ucsd.bitnet UC San Diego ...!ucsd!cs!demers La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 (619) 534-8187,-0688 ddemers@UCSD
velasco@ngagi.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/11/91)
smoliar@isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) writes: >>minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) writes: >>>the formal relation of thesis advisor is not a very good indicator of >>>the evolution of ideas in the community of international science. >>Actually, this is one of the things that we would like to determine. >>Has anyone ever actually proven the last quoted statement? >I'm not sure to what extent you can talk about "proof;" but you can certainly >muster evidence. Bertrand Russell was thesis advisor to Ludwig Wittgenstein. >The TRACTATUS was the thesis, and it may be viewed as an obedient attempt to >continue along Russell's approach to mathematics and logic as embodied in the >PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA. However, by the time Wittgenstein got around to >defending it, he already had serious doubts about both its contents and >most of what Russell stood for. The rest of his career involved tearing >down all that he had received from Russell in matters of logic, semantics, >and the foundations of mathematics. Ultimately, Wittgenstein thrived on >viewing Russell as his chief antagonist. Nothing like an ungrateful son. But, seriously folks, it seems like Wittgenstein's career *was* influenced by Russell. It may have been a negative influence, but it was an influence. Wittgenstein had a Russell-Stuff node in him that could take on a negative or positive value. If Russell had not been his advisor, then he may not have had a Russell-Stuff node in him at all. Additionally, part of this study will be to see if there is a correlation between the students environment ( i.e., advisor, department, school, etc. ) and the type of terminology they use. Initially we will be looking at the theses' titles to see if the theses of students from similar environments contain similar words. My guess is that Wittgenstein used a lot of the same words that Russell did, even if it was to contradict him. -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|
velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/12/91)
smoliar@isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >... there is a danger of getting hung up >on the words themselves. One of the greatest dangers in artificial >intelligence is a tendency to push words around too casually--particularly >words for which it is unclear that any two users of the words really have >corresponding intuitions. Figuring out just what an AI person is talking >about when he uses a particular word is often an extremely challenging task. It would be interesting to see if people who are more closely related in the AI genealogy tree have more closely corresponding intuitions about the meanings of particular words. -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|
coven@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (H. Justin Coven) (03/12/91)
Your genealogy process is rather obnoxious. It appears as if you are basing credibility of AI work on proper parentage. It insults a great number of individuals. I certainly hope there are many who have ideas from places other than their advisors, otherwise we are a rather slow witted bunch. I believe your interest in words used by different groups is but a guise to hide behind, otherwise you would be looking more in depth in subfields of linguistics. Likewise trying to clothe "genealogy" as history of science is also a guise. Determing how succesful ideas are passed on is rather subjective. Choosing what are succesful ideas; are thought processes taught; are projects passed; are contacts and facilities passed on; do the best inate students just gravitate to the best sources of information; is the field stagnant because there are no original thinkers seperate from their advisors (if so why is this true). As you can see your original genealogy question touches upon many subjective and controversial points. Justin Coven Arizona State University coven@enuxva.eas.asu.edu
velasco@mangani.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/13/91)
coven@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (H. Justin Coven) writes: > Your genealogy process is rather obnoxious. It appears as if you are basing >credibility of AI work on proper parentage. We are not really dealing with credibility. We are simply looking for correlations. Eventually we hope this will also be a tool for people doing research. The idea is that there should be one central database of what type of AI research has already been done so that nobody tries to reinvent the wheel. We will design the system to do more sophisticated searches than the normal key word search that is usually done. This would also be a valuable tool for people who want to make sure that they will not be suspected of plagiarism. >It insults a great number of >individuals. I think I've already addressed this by stating that we just needed a good starting point. We know that valuabel research is being done in places other than colleges. One problem with trying to determine what kind of research is going on in governent, for example, is that much of it is classified. Theses are an easy thing to check because they must be made public. There is no problem here with invasion of privacy or security. >I certainly hope there are many who have ideas from places >other than their advisors, otherwise we are a rather slow witted bunch. We think that it is an evolutionary process. These ideas from the non-slow-witted may take the form of mutations of the ideas from their advisors. I think that your advisor hopes that s/he has had or will have a positive influence in your education. I also think that your advisor would like you to go beyond what s/he has done, but I'll bet you use a lot of the same words. If for no other reason than the convenience of being able to talk to each other without confusion. >I believe your interest in words used by different groups is but a >guise to hide behind, What are we hiding from? On the net there has been flak, but I have received lots of responses; many with good comments attached. >otherwise you would be looking more in depth in >subfields of linguistics. I'm not sure what you mean here. We will be using linguistics techniques to analyse the data. It is primarily an information retrieval exercise. AI deals with linguistics, so that is bound to show up in the database. >Likewise trying to clothe "genealogy" as >history of science is also a guise. I don't think we're trying to disguise anything. We're just looking at a problem that seems interesting to us. It seems like this type of database will have practical applications. >Determing how succesful ideas are passed on is rather subjective. Maybe this can help us add some objectivity to the task. >[some interesting issues deleted] >As you can see your >original genealogy question touches upon many subjective and >controversial points. That's what makes it interesting and important. Are you saying that we should not do research because it's controversial? -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|
coven@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (H. Justin Coven) (03/13/91)
In article <velasco.668803445@mangani>, velasco@mangani.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) writes: > coven@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (H. Justin Coven) writes: > > > >I certainly hope there are many who have ideas from places > >other than their advisors, otherwise we are a rather slow witted bunch. > > We think that it is an evolutionary process. These ideas from the > non-slow-witted may take the form of mutations of the ideas from their > advisors. I think that your advisor hopes that s/he has had or will > have a positive influence in your education. I also think that your > advisor would like you to go beyond what s/he has done, but I'll bet > you use a lot of the same words. If for no other reason than the > convenience of being able to talk to each other without confusion. > We obviously disagree about the amount of novelty and creativity that is evident in doing research. The best kind of advisor is one which fosters in their students creativity seperate from their own. The History of science, the study of word useage and the development of a refenence database are all very valuable areas of research, and I encourage you in developing your work here. However in the history of science and politics groups connected politically and by blood have typically formed powerful monopolies upon the resources of a community. Focusig upon genealogy can only stregthen this terrible stereotype. Justin Coven Arizona State University coven@enuxva.eas.asu.edu
hendler@dormouse.cs.umd.edu (Jim Hendler) (03/13/91)
I've been watching this debate develop, waiting for someone to point out one other problem with the idea, but as no one has, I'll take a stab. While I think the "parentage" idea is an interesting one, I think there's a time factor that needs to be taken into account in some important way. For example, by your genealogy I'll be a "grandchild" of an attendee of the Dartmouth Conference (MInsky -> Charniak -> me), but Charniak had been on his own for a long time before I came along. It is unclear how much effect, therefore, Minsky still had on him (and thus on me). Further, my more recent students are working on things that are more and more removed from what I did as a grad, so their separation from Charniak (and thence Minsky) will grow (in fact, most of them have never met either person). While I feel Eugene drastically effected how I view AI and etc., it's less clear how much effect that will have as time passes and my own style becomes more and more pronounced. Your advisor has done some work on hybrid systems in information retrieval, maybe you'll have to do some weight space adjusting based on time :-) -Jim H.
wipke@secs.ucsc.edu (03/13/91)
We talk about not reinventing the wheel, but even today, engineers are still perfecting the wheel (automotive-lower rolling friction, lower noise, more cooling for brakes, style, traction, etc.). Since so few AI projects ever get to a "performance" stage, many good wheels have only been talked about, or suggested, but never demonstrated in a performance fashion. I like Brooks' approach, there is a performance to observe. Regarding the genealogy of AI, I suspect that the performance systems that operate in applied fields like chemistry will not be covered because there is no blood link via Ph.D. lineage to "pure" AI ancestors except in a few cases. wipke@secs.ucsc.edu 25th anniversary of UCSC, where innovation is a tradition.
minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) (03/14/91)
In article <31363@mimsy.umd.edu> hendler@dormouse.cs.umd.edu (Jim Hendler) writes: >some important way. For example, by your genealogy I'll be a >"grandchild" of an attendee of the Dartmouth Conference (MInsky -> >Charniak -> me), but Charniak had been on his own for a long time >before I came along. It is unclear how much effect, therefore, Minsky >still had on him (and thus on me). Further, my more recent students >are working on things that are more and more removed from what I did >as a grad, so their separation from Charniak (and thence Minsky) will >grow (in fact, most of them have never met either person). ... I noted in my well-known paper on Frames that Charniak's thesis discussed the activation, operation, and dismissal of expectation and default-knowledge demons -- and that "many of his ideas have been absorbed into this essay." I've always had a lot of ideas of "my own", but I've been really outstandingly good at learning from those so-called "students". I am somewhat dubious about the feasibility of tracing the ideas themselves, etc. However, I can see a good reason for carefully studying what happened in the vicinity of the small number of 1950 AI pioneers -- namely to understand why our laboratories were so productive. The simple answer is that many smart students recognized AI (and computer science) as important, but only a few older people did -- and so a lot of talent got concentrated in a few places, and achieved some sort of critical mass. The management styles may have been relevant, too. I got my "lab-ideal" image through Oliver Selfridge and Jerry Lettvin from Warren McCulloch. If that is important, then this is another geneology to examine. (Better do it quick. McCulloch has already left.)
velasco@ngagi.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (03/15/91)
minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) writes: >I noted in my well-known paper on Frames that Charniak's thesis >discussed the activation, operation, and dismissal of expectation and >default-knowledge demons -- and that "many of his ideas have been >absorbed into this essay." I've always had a lot of ideas of "my >own", but I've been really outstandingly good at learning from those >so-called "students". Dr. Minsky brings up a good point. It would be interesting to see how advisors are affected by their students. As he notes many of his students' ideas have been absorbed into his essays. This would imply that there is an even stronger advisor-student relation; strengthened by the influence that the students have on the advisor. This relation, of course, would not be evident if we only examine theses. -- ________________________________________________ <>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give | /___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." | /\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|
fnwlr1@acad3.alaska.edu (RUTHERFORD WALTER L) (03/18/91)
In article <velasco.668803445@mangani>, velasco@mangani.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) writes... > >I'm not sure what you mean here. We will be using linguistics >techniques to analyse the data. It is primarily an information >retrieval exercise. AI deals with linguistics, so that is bound to ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >show up in the database. > Pardon the digression, but... I am having trouble thinking of a subject that AI doesn't or can't "deal with" to some degree - except, of course, the subjects which HUMANS can't think of (deal with). AI knows mathematics. AI knows linguistics. AI knows physics. AI knows music. AI knows Diddley! :-) Hmmm. I started out a bit "tongue in cheek", but I had never considered subjects which computers might one day be able to handle which we will never be able to fathom. Being the species chauvinist that I am I don't think that computers will ever be able to out-think us in that way. Here are some subjects I can meta-think about (think about thinking about) without actually being able to _truly_ reach them - to my way of thinking. a) Eternity / timelessness b) My non-existence c) Everythings non-existence Will computers be able to REALLY think the unthinkable someday? How about subjects which we can understand but which computers will always be unable to grasp? Emotions perhaps? Nah - If we can ever get over the first hurdle and get a machine to be aware (of us and its own existence) then it should be able eventually to handle any thought we can handle. Once again species chauvinism says we will one day create a machine "in our own image". Thanks to this group for this group as a trading place (in my case birth place) for ideas. It has really given me something to think about. You are now returned to your regularly scheduled program. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Walter Rutherford P.O. Box 83273 \ / Computers are NOT intelligent; Fairbanks, Alaska 99708 - X - / \ they just think they are! fnwlr1@acad3.alaska.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------
gowj@novavax.UUCP (James Gow) (03/21/91)
In article <velasco.668636953@ngagi> velasco@ngagi.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) writes: >smoliar@isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: > >>velasco@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) writes: >>>minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) writes: > >>>>the formal relation of thesis advisor is not a very good indicator of >>>>the evolution of ideas in the community of international science. > >>>Actually, this is one of the things that we would like to determine. >>>Has anyone ever actually proven the last quoted statement? There is an article in the Information Technology Quarterly 1985 vol. 4 no. 4 winter that goes into a great detail regarding this subject of genealogy. It mentions a ratio club and teleogical society and a fellow named weiner who invented cybernetics. There are 19 references. The title "Artificial Intelligence: A long and winding road" Kind of appropriate for this discussion right? linc james