yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) (12/04/89)
In article <11870@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes: >Chris Malcolm asked for a definition: > >Those who believe in Strong AI believe that thinking is computation >(i.e., symbol manipulation). Those who believe in Weak AI believe that >computation is a means of studying and testing theories of (among other >things) thinking, which need not be just computation (i.e., not just >symbol manipulation). > >The typical error of believers in Strong AI is a misconstrual of >the Church-Turing Thesis: Whereas it may be true that every physical >process is "equivalent" to symbol manipulation, i.e., is simulable by >symbol manipulation, it is decidedly NOT true that every physical >process IS symbol manipulation. Flying, heating and transduction, for >example, are not. How does one fall into this error? By becoming lost >in the hermeneutic hall of mirrors created by the semantic >interpretations we cast onto symbol systems. We forget the difference >between what is merely INTERPRETABLE as X and what really IS X. We >confuse the medium with the message. I think this points out a need for a third class of AI research: research directed toward building intelligent systems which takes account of the need for an intelligent system to act in the real world -- not just think about acting in Blocks World. For example: the work of Brooks and Moravec would fall into this category. This type of research seems to be emerging under a number of different names, in a number of different fields: behavior-based robotics, mobile robotics, reactive systems, artificial life, artificial creatures, cybernetics. I think the term Artificial Creatures, coined by Rodney Brooks, is the most descriptive. Traditional AI deals with high-level cognitive abilities, Artificial Life deals with abstract populations of extremely simple organisms, Artificial Creatures deals with building autonomous organisms which are of intermediate complexity between amoebas and logicians. _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department _______________________________________________________________________________
cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) (12/09/89)
In article <1989Dec3.185506.22039@cs.rochester.edu> yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >In article <11870@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes: >>Chris Malcolm asked for a definition: >> [defn of strong and weak AI omitted] >>The typical error of believers in Strong AI is a misconstrual of >>the Church-Turing Thesis: Whereas it may be true that every physical >>process is "equivalent" to symbol manipulation, i.e., is simulable by >>symbol manipulation, it is decidedly NOT true that every physical >>process IS symbol manipulation. Flying, heating and transduction, for >>example, are not. How does one fall into this error? By becoming lost >>in the hermeneutic hall of mirrors created by the semantic >>interpretations we cast onto symbol systems. We forget the difference >>between what is merely INTERPRETABLE as X and what really IS X. We >>confuse the medium with the message. >I think this points out a need for a third class of AI research: >research directed toward building intelligent systems which takes >account of the need for an intelligent system to act in the real world >-- not just think about acting in Blocks World. For example: the >work of Brooks and Moravec would fall into this category. I agree. >This type of research seems to be emerging under a number of different >names, in a number of different fields: behavior-based robotics, >mobile robotics, reactive systems, artificial life, artificial >creatures, cybernetics. I agree. I'm delivering a paper at the IAS2 conference in Amsterdam next week on just this topic: "A new emerging paradigm in robotics", but in order not to excite too much controversy I don't mention the last few categories :-) >I think the term Artificial Creatures, coined by Rodney Brooks, is the >most descriptive. Traditional AI deals with high-level cognitive >abilities, Artificial Life deals with abstract populations of >extremely simple organisms, Artificial Creatures deals with building >autonomous organisms which are of intermediate complexity between >amoebas and logicians. If you build artificial creatures like Brooks. Because my game is assembly robotics, a task with a logical complexity which (IMHO) is beyond smart reactive local decisions, but involves some kind of foresight or planning, my artificial creatures are assembly robots which have to plan and then execute an assembly task in the real world. This involves a hybrid architecture, where a classical ideal-world planner plans in terms which are derived from the behavioural capabilities of a behaviour-based assembly agent. The assembly agent is designed with a similar philosophy to that of Brooks, but since it is designed not only to succeed in its tasks, but to present a suitable virtual world to the planner, there is an extra constraint on the task modularisation. That constraint is sometimes referred to as the symbol grounding problem. As you have recognised, this kind of research doesn't fit the Procrustean strong/weak AI dichotomy. Hence my interest in new terms. -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
woodruff@hpavla.HP.COM (Terry Woodruff) (12/09/89)
/ hpavla:comp.ai / arshad@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Arshad Mahmood) / 3:22 pm Dec 3, 1989 / In article <11870@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes: >Chris Malcolm asked for a definition: > >Those who believe in Strong AI believe that thinking is computation >(i.e., symbol manipulation). Those who believe in Weak AI believe that >computation is a means of studying and testing theories of (among other >things) thinking, which need not be just computation (i.e., not just >symbol manipulation). I suspect Chris already knew this! I thought his question was do you feel comfortable if asked which school you belong to, and if not what would be your response. Chris was perhaps hinting at a hierachy of possible definitions, where each person can sit at the position at which they feel comfortable, (week-AI, strong-AI, strong-AI without thermostats, ....). There may well be such a hierarchy but I have seen no evidence of it, but then again I am a neo-Strong AIite (well you have to be, among so many disbelievers!!). A. Mahmood Laboratory fo Foundations of Computer Science Edinburgh University Scotland ----------