AIList-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (AIList Moderator Nick Papadakis) (05/25/88)
Return-Path: <@AI.AI.MIT.EDU:JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> Date: 22 May 88 0644 PDT From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> Subject: the free will discussion To: ailist@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Here are the meta remarks promised in my previous message giving my substantive views. I hope the moderator will put them in an issue subsequent to the one including the substantive views. There are three ways of improving the world. (1) to kill somebody (2) to forbid something (3) to invent something new. During World War II, (1) was appropriate, and it has occasionally been appropriate since, but, in the main it's not appropriate now, and few people's ideas for improvement take this form. However, there may be more people in category (2) than in category (3). Gilbert Cockton seems to be firmly in category (2), and I can't help regarding him as a minor menace with his proposals that institutions suppress AI research. At least the menace is minor as long as Mrs. Thatcher is around; I wouldn't be surprised if Cockton could persuade Tony Benn. I would like to deal substantively with his menacing proposals, but I find them vague and would prefer to respond to precise criteria of what should be suppressed, how they are regarded as applying to AI, and what forms of suppression he considers legitimate. I find much of the discussion ignorant of considerations and references that I regard as important, but different people have different ideas of what information should be taken into account. I have read enough of the sociological discussion of AI to have formed the opinion that it is irrelevant to progress and wrong. For example, views that seem similar to Cockton's inhabit a very bad and ignorant book called "The Question of Artificial Intelligence" edited by Stephen Bloomfield, which I will review for "Annals of the History of Computing". The ignorance is exemplified by the fact the more than 150 references include exactly one technical paper dated 1950, and the author gets that one wrong. The discussion of free will has become enormous, and I imagine that most people, like me, have only skimmed most of the material. I am not sure that the discussion should progress further, but if it does, I have a suggestion. Some neutral referee, e.g. the moderator, should nominate principal discussants. Each principal discussant should nominate issues and references. The referee should prune the list of issues and references to a size that the discussants are willing to deal with. They can accuse each other of ignorance if they don't take into account the references, however perfunctorily. Each discussant writes a general statement and a point-by-point discussion of the issues at a length limited by the referee in advance. Maybe the total length should be 20,000 words, although 60,000 would make a book. After that's done we have another free-for-all. I suggest four as the number of principal discussants and volunteer to be one, but I believe that up to eight could be accomodated without making the whole thing too unwieldy. The principal discussants might like help from their allies. The proposed topic is "AI and free will". [Editorial note - This seems very reasonable to me