osborn@ultima.socs.uts.edu.au (Tom Osborn) (03/08/91)
velasco@kenallen.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) writes: >As part of a graduate AI class, I will be working on a semantic network >type of database to answer qeustions about the genealogy of the AI >family of researchers. The more family members we have, the better. >We would like for everyone who has written a thesis in the area of AI >to be in the genealogy. >Minsky, McCarthy, Simon, Newell and other participents in the Dartmouth >conference are to be the patriarchs. Although they obviously decended >from lower order life forms we will not be concerning ourselves with >"missing links." Well perhaps this is a rather quaint little exercise for a group of AI students. However, it begs the question of the validity of identifying the discipline(s) of AI with the celebrities. It would seem to me far more interesting and relevant to look at the evolution and growth of particular ideas and approaches than to set up a totem pole. Maybe we could then learn a little about the structure of a discipline that has a lot to say about structures of knowledge. But maybe what we would find is much more politics than would be palatable... Tomasso. PS: Does the exercise look demanding enough for a grad student class? -- Tom Osborn, School of Computing Sciences, " Beware of the small carrots " University of Technology, Sydney, PO Box 123 Broadway 2007, AUSTRALIA. R H-M.