hafner@corwin.ccs.northeastern.EDU (carole hafner) (04/19/88)
In article <1134@its63b.ed.ac.uk> gvw@its63b.ed.ac.uk (G Wilson) writes: >I think AI can be summed up by Terry Winograd's defection. His >SHRDLU program is still quoted in *every* AI textbook (at least all >the ones I've seen), but he is no longer a believer in the AI >research programme (see "Understanding Computers and Cognition", >by Winograd and Flores). > I'm glad to see "Understanding Computers and Cognition" mentioned in this discussion. It includes a lengthy section listing all the "justifications" for AI, and then refutes them one by one. Conspicuously absent from this list is "curiosity". I think AI is the expression of the species' curiosity about this new artifact (the computer) that it has invented. We want to find out what else can it do, how smart can we make it, can we find a way to make it improve itself? Of course, we have to pretend that we have socially relevant goals like helping people or national defense in order to get the money to pursue these inquiries. And sometimes the two (curiosity and socially relevant goals) are compatible, since we need some tasks to focus our attention and test our theories. Is this heresy? Or merely stating the obvious? --Carole Hafner