[comp.ai.digest] Me, Karl, Stephen, Gilbert

dg1v+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (David Greene) (06/15/88)

Date: Tue, 14 Jun 88 08:18 EDT
From: David Greene <dg1v+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: ailist@kl.sri.com
Subject: Re: Me, Karl, Stephen, Gilbert
In-Reply-To: <digest.0Wh7fTy00UkcQ0W1RU@andrew.cmu.edu>

In AIList Digest   V7 #29, Stephen Smoliar writes:

> What have all those researchers who don't spend so much
> time with computer programs have to tell us?


I'm not advocating Mr. Cockton's views, but the limited literature breadth in
many AI papers *is* self-defeating.  For example, until very recently, few
expert system papers acknowledged the results of 20+ years of psychology
research on Judgement and Decision Making.  It seems odd that AI people
studying experts decision making would not reference behavioral/ performance
research on human/ expert decision making.

The works of Kahneman, Tversky, Hogarth and Dawes (to name some luminaries),
all identify inherent flaws in human (including experts') judgement.  These
dysfunctional biases result in consistent suboptimal decision rules across many
realistic conditions (setting aside debates on "optimality").  Yet, AI
researchers and knowledge engineers attempt to produce fidelity to the expert
and compare the resultant system to the experts performance.  Is it a wonder
that many ES's don't work in the field...

Perhaps a broader literature/ research exposure could be advantageous to AI (or
any field)...


-David
dg1v@andrew.cmu.edu
Carnegie Mellon

"You're welcome to use my oppinions, just don't get them all wrinkled..."