Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethics-l
Date:         Sun, 22 Nov 1992 19:28:38 PST
From:         Woody Weaver <woody@STMARYS-CA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: What are the claims of AI
Comments: To: ETHICS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

I'd like to address the issue of AI.  I'm not sure that it is something that
directly impacts the charge of this list, but occasional digressions are
healthy.

One perspective, given by Dr. Setzer, is that AI is useful in that
whatever it comes up with is what intelligence is not; this is possibly true
(although I think merely a semantical miscommunication) but not insightful.
Another perspective, given by Dr. Covaleskie, is that AI has as part of
its goals to create and understand human intelligence, whatever that may be,
and asserts this is the perspective given by the lay press.

I would like to chart a middle course.  To study the issues of intelligence
and knowledge is a good thing.  To assert that anything that we can write
down is not what intelligence is, is IMHO true, but trivializes the correct
issue.  I'm willing enough to be mystical and believe that the nature of a
human being transcends the finiteness of silicon.  So of course to write
down an algorithm, no matter how complex, is to produce an imperfect model.
But to say that it is not what intelligence is, is to say that Newtonian
mechanics is not what mechanics is, because we've missed the relativistic
and quantum effects.  It is nevertheless true that study into and insight of
Newtonian models leads to useful and helpful knowledge of the nature of
mechanics; AI may well lead to useful and helpful knowledge of the nature of
intelligence.

During this last week, I have tried to pay particular attention to AI
issues.  These will hopefully serve as data for how AI is perceived in the
lay press and inside the profession.  I received a packet of ads in the mail
for computer texts, and sifted out all texts whose copy referred to AI.  The
first is "Evolutionary Art and Computers" by Stephen Todd and William
Latham, who are `two of the foremost collaborators in the controversial
field of human-machine creativity'...  Next is "Search Methods for Artificial
Intelligence" by Leonard Bolc and Jerzy Cytowski, and the topics list
suggests things I am familiar with, the mathematical issues of the
np-complete problem of state space searches and how to deal with them
effectively.  Finally, the last title is "Artificial Intelligence in
Engineering Design" a collection edited by Christopher Tong of Rutgers and
Duvvuru Sriram of MIT, whose volumes consist of "Design Representation and
Models of Routine Design", "Models of Innovative Design, Reasoning about
Physical Systems, and Reasoning About Geometry", and "Knowledge Acquisition,
Commercial Systems, and Integrated Environments".  Also this week was an NPR
show featuring Minsky talking about nanotechnology and related issues.  Last
night, on a popular television show, arose the question of whether a
particularly interesting computing device was "alive" (they meant sentient)
-- it was clearly adaptive, and seemed to exhibit a non-programmed tendency
to act toward self preservation.  A test was devised, to see if a
non-programmed act of self-preservation would recur, and it did not, but the
test was later determined to be faulty.  A crisis occured, and these
computing devices seemed to be a part of a solution that would involve their
destruction; the devices however proposed a solution that would not involve
their immediate destruction, then after resolving the crisis, one machine in
an act of apparent non-programmed self-sacrifice saved the other devices.
The show ended, without sentience being confirmed, so as to leave the
audience the issue to consider.

What I'd like to say is that Dr. Covaleski(sp)'s perception of the lay press
is probably correct.  Mary Shelly's precedent shows this is a topic the
public is interested in.  Minsky's long popularity over time and this
television script seems to suggest that one perspective of what AI is about
is to understand and create (human) intelligence.  I've heard the guy who
started the Cyc project speak, and certainly he thought he'd be generating
something he'd be able to talk to.  My only response to that is that ever
since 1960 the computer Powers That Be have been asserting that within ten
years the world champion of chess would be a computer.  This decade they may
well be right, but...  Yes, people have honestly believed that they would be
able to create (human) intelligence.  I think that maybe they can find
something worth talking to, in the sense that interaction with such programs
may well be helpful and insightful.  And it may be that, to a first order
approximation as Newtonian mechanics is to mechanics, that we can create
programs of sufficient diversity and richness to pass the Turing test and
simulate the intelligence of a human being.

However, it behooves us to be precise in our terms here.  Returning to the
dictionary, in the synonym list for mind we find "Intelligence applies to
adaptive behavior, as in solving problems, learning from experience, and
reasoning abstractly."  These are things computers can do.  "Mind [...]
pertains broadly to capacities not distinctly physical and not associated
with the heart, soul, or spirit."  If we take this to be precise, then
perhaps even Dr. Setzer would agree that these goals are possible to
achieve: we can not create capacities that are distinctly physical, because
we are working in a different medium.  We can not create an artifact
dependent upon the heart, soul, or spirit, whatever these things may be,
because they are transcendent of the material capabilities of the machine.
[Even Pygmalion required the divine intervention of Aphrodite to make his
love alive.]  But those things that are not forbidden, we may do -- and
we can create intelligence.  Artificial Sentience would rightly earn Dr.
Setzer's wrath, but Artificial Intelligence is reasonable and IMHO
desirable.

But note what the textual references to AI consisted of: schemes for graphics,
state space searches, engineering design (Knowlege Acquisition).  My degree
is in mathematics; in computer science I will forever be a student.  I can
not profess for the profession, but only for myself.  But I do profess that in
the literature, the term is used correctly: tools, processes, metaphors, and
models for computer implementation of the acquisition and application of
knowledge.  Yes, the field has some people who fall in love with the statues
they are carving, and may hope and believe they will spring to life.  Every
profession needs its impassioned members, but I think the rest of settle for
the more mundane issues of getting our boxes to do useful work.  That's all
we can really hope for when it comes down to AI.

--woody
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