NICK@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Nick Papadakis) (05/27/88)
Date: Mon, 9 May 88 23:11 EDT
From: larry@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV
Subject: Philosophy: Informatique & Marxism
To: ailist@kl.sri.com
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Resent-Date: Tue, 10 May 88 02:06 EDT
Resent-From: Ken Laws <LAWS@KL.sri.com>
Resent-To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu
--The following bounced when I tried two different ways to send it directly.
Gilbert Cockton: Even one reference to a critique of Systems Theory would be
helpful if it includes a bibliography. If you can't find one without too much
trouble, please send at least a few sentences explaining the flaw(s) you see.
I would dearly love to be able to advance beyond it, but don't yet see an
alternative.
--The difficulty of formalising knowledge.
Cockton makes a good point here. The situation is even worse than he
indicates. Many, perhaps most or all decisions seem to be made
subconsciously, apparently by an analog vector-sum operation rather than
logical, step-by-step process. We then rationalize our decision, usually so
quickly & easily that we are never aware of the real reasons. This makes
knowledge and procedure capture so difficult that I suspect most AI
researchers will try (ultimately unsuccessfully) to ignore it.
--Marxism.
Economics is interesting in that it produced a cybernetic explanation of
production, value, & exchange (at least as early as the 17th century) long
before there was cybernetics. Marx (and Engels) spent a lot of time studying
& explaining this process, and much of their work is still useful. Other
parts have not been supported by advances in history & knowledge.
The workers (at least in America) are predominantly opposed to revolution and
support capitalism, despite much discontent about the way bosses treat them.
Part of this may be because our society holds out the hope that many of us can
become bosses ourselves. Another reason is that many workers, either directly
or through retirement plans, have become owners. Technology has also
differentiated the kinds of workers from mostly physical laborer to skilled
workers of many different types who sympathize with their own subclass rather
than workers in general.
Further, once workers feel they have reached an acceptable subsistence,
oftentimes they develop other motivations for work having nothing to do with
material concerns. People from a middle-class or higher background often
stereotype the "lowest proletariat" as beer-drinking slobs whose only interest
is food, football, and sex. Coming from a working class background (farmers
and factory laborers), I know that "doing a good job" is a powerful motivator
for many workers. The "higher proletariat" (who are further from the
desperate concern for survival) show this characteristic even more strongly.
Most engineers I know work for reasons having nothing to do with money; the
same is true of many academics and artists. (This is NOT to say money is
unimportant to them.)
Just as the practice of economics has deviated further & further from the
classical Marxist viewpoint, so has theory. Materialism, for instance, has
changed drastically in a world where energy is at least as important as
matter, which has itself become increasingly strange. Too, the science of
"substance" has been joined by a young, confused, but increasingly vigorous,
fertile and rigorous science of "form," variously called (or parts of it)
computer science, cybernetics, communications theory, information science,
informatique, etc. This has interesting implications for theories of monetary
value and the definition of capital, implications that Marx did not see (&
probably could not, trapped in his time as he was).
Informatique has practical implications of which most of us on this list are
well aware. One of the most interesting economically is the future of
guardian-angel programs that help us work: potentially putting us out of a
job, elevating our job beyond old limits, or (as any powerful tool can)
harming us. And in one of the greatest ironies of all, AI researchers working
in natural language and robotics have come to realize the enormous
sophistication of "common labor" and the difficulties and expense of
duplicating it mechanically.
Larry @ jpl-vlsi