Date: Sat 25 Jun 1988 15:22-EDT From: AIList Moderator Nick Papadakis Reply-To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Us-Mail: MIT Mail Stop 38-390, Cambridge MA 02139 Phone: (617) 253-2737 Subject: AIList Digest V7 #45 To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Status: R AIList Digest Sunday, 26 Jun 1988 Volume 7 : Issue 45 Today's Topics: Philosophy: Re: Cognitive AI vs Expert Systems Re: Ding an sich the legal rights of robots possible value of AI metaepistemology H. G. Wells Smoliar's metaphor more on dance notation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Jun 88 15:10:39 GMT From: mikeb@ford-wdl1.arpa (Michael H. Bender) Subject: Re: Cognitive AI vs Expert Systems I think terms like "hard AI" and "soft AI" are potentially offensive and imply a set of values (i.e. some set of problems being of more value than others). Instead, I highly recommend that you use the distinctions proposed by Jon Doyle in the AI Magazine (Spring 88), in which he distinguishes between the following (note - the short definitions are MINE, not Doyle's) o COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY ANALYSIS - i.e. the search for explanations based on comutational complexity o ARTICULATING INTELLIGENCE - i.e. codifying command and expert knowledge. o RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY - i.e. the cognitive science that deals with trying to understand human thinking o PSYCHOLOGICAL ENGINEERING - i.e. the development of new techniques for implementing human-like behaviors and capacities Note - using this demarcation it is easier to pin-point the different areas in which a person is working. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jun 88 15:31:22 GMT From: steinmetz!vdsvax!thearlin@uunet.UU.NET (Thearling Kurt H) Reply-to: steinmetz!vdsvax!thearlin@uunet.UU.NET (Thearling Kurt H) Subject: Re: Ding an sich In an earlier article, John McCarthy writes: >meaningful and possible that the basic structure of the >world is unknowable. It is also possible that it is >knowable. It just depends on how much of the structure >To illustrate this idea, consider the Life cellular >automaton proposed by John Horton Conway and studied >by him and various M.I.T. hackers and others. It's >described in Winning Ways by Berlekamp, Conway and >Guy. There is a very interesting article related to this topic in the April 1988 issue of Atlantic Monthly. It is about the semi-controversial physicist/computer scientist Edward Fredkin and is titled "Did the"Did the Universe Just Happen." An interesting quote from the article is "Fredkin believes that the universe is very literally a computer and that it is being used by someone, or something, to solve a problem." kurt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Kurt Thearling thearlin%vdsvax.tcpip@ge-crd.arpa General Electric CRD thearlin@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com Bldg. KW, Room C313 uunet!steinmetz!vdsvax!thearlin P.O. Box 8 thearlin%vdsvax@steinmetx.uucp Schenectady, NY 12301 kurt%bach@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (518) 387-7219 kurt@bach.csg.uiuc.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jun 88 12:59:34 EDT From: "Bruce E. Nevin" Subject: the legal rights of robots There is an article entitled `The Rights of Robots' by Phil McNally and Sohail Inayatullah in the Summer 1988 issue of _Whole Earth Review_. They work for the Hawaii Judiciary (inter alia). A more complete legalese version was submitted as a report to the Hawaii Supreme Court. A footnote to the article says you can obtain this report and related correspondence from the authors at PO Box 2650, Honolulu, HI 96804. The same issue has an article by Candace Pert of NIH about neuropeptides and the `physical basis of emotions'. This article suggests to me that the computer may be inappropriate as a metaphor for mental process, perhaps as inappropriate as the steam engine metaphor that Freud's thinking was grounded in. (Freud's libido, channelling, repression, release, all presumed passive neurons as pipes and valves, no metabolism: the neurophysiological wisdom of the day.) Bruce Nevin bn@cch.bbn.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 88 16:52 EST From: DJS%UTRC%utrcgw.utc.com@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: possible value of AI Gilbert Cockton writes: "... Once again, what the hell can a computer program tell us about ourselves? Secondly, what can it tell us that we couldn't find out by studying people instead?" What do people use mirrors for? What the hell can a MIRROR tell us about ourselves? Secondly, what can it tell us that we couldn't find out by studying people instead? Isn't it possible that a computer program could have properties which might facilitate detailed self analysis? I believe some people have already seen the dim reflection of true intelligence in the primitive attempts of AI research. Hopefully all that is needed is extensive polishing and the development of new tools. David Sirag UTRC ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Jun 88 18:46 O From: Subject: metaepistemology Distribution-File: AILIST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU In AIList Digest V7 #41, John McCarthy writes: >I want to defend the extreme point of view that it is both >meaningful and possible that the basic structure of the >world is unknowable. It is also possible that it is >knowable. Suppose an agent which wants to know what there is there. Let the agent have methods and data like a Zetalisp flavor. Let it have sensors with which it can observe its environment and methods to influence its environment like servo motors running robot hands. Now what can it know? It is obvious the agent only can have a representation of the Ding an Sich. In this sense the reality is unknowable. We only have descriptions of the actual world. There can be successively better approximations of truth. It is important to be able to improve the descriptions, compare them and to be able to discard ones which do not appear to rescribe the reality. It also helps if the agent itself knows it has descriptions and that they are mere descriptions. It also is important to be able to do inferences based on the descriptions, for example to design an experiment to test a new theory and compare the predicted outcome with the one which actually takes place. It seems that for the most part evolution has been responsible for developing life-forms which have good descriptions of the Ding an Sich and which have a good capability to do inference with their models. Humans are the top of this evolutionary development: we are capable of forming, processing and communicating complicated symbolic models of the reality. Andy Ylikoski ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jun 88 09:26:02 PDT From: Stephen Smoliar Subject: H. G. Wells I was disappointed to see no reaction to John Cugini's quotation from H. G. Wells. Is no one willing to admit that things haven't changed since 1906? ------------------------------ Date: Wed Jun 22 13:46:40 EDT 1988 From: sas@BBN.COM Subject: Smoliar's metaphor In Volume 7, Issue 41, Stephen Smoliar presents an interesting metaphor, relating the components of a knowledge representation system to the parts of speech. In particular he described ACTIONS as verbs and TYPES as nouns. INSTANCES were merely described as "entities". I was wondering if it might work better to describe TYPES as "adjectives" and INSTANCES as "nouns"? If nothing else, it kind of makes one think. Just wondering, Seth ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jun 88 09:21:39 PDT From: Stephen Smoliar Subject: more on dance notation I accept most of John Nagle's response to my remarks on dance notation. However, I think we both overlooked one area in which, to the best of my knowledge, NO dance or music notation has served as an effective medium of communication: This is the matter of how the dancers (or moving agents) are situated in space and how they interact. Most notations, including Labanotation, make use of relatively primitive floor plans with little more than vague attempts to coordinate the notations of individual movements with paths on those floor plans. In addition, Labanotation has a repertoire of signs concerned with person-to-person contact; but these signs lack the rigor which went into the development of the notation of movement of the limbs and torso. The original discussion was provoked by the question of what could not be communicated by a formal system, such as mathematics. From there we progressed to physical movement as a candidate. That was what led the discussion into dance notation. However, whatever has been achieved regarding the movement of an individual has not served the problems with communicating the interactions of several moving individuals. I would stipulate that this is still a thorny problem which, in practice, is still handled basically by demonstration and imitation. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************