From: axs@cs.bham.ac.uk (Aaron Sloman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Colbys-Weizenbaum and Overcoming Depression 2.0
Date: 13 Jan 93 01:40:56 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK

chandra@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:

> Date: 11 Jan 93 16:33:29 GMT
> Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
>
> In article <C0o16u.49F@cs.bham.ac.uk> axs@cs.bham.ac.uk (Aaron Sloman) writes:
> >nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes:
> >
> >> Date: 9 Jan 93 17:36:13 GMT
> >> Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)
> >>
> >>       It seems a bit much for a system with no capability for living in the
> >> real world to issue advice on how to do so.
> >>
> >> 					John Nagle

[AS]
> >I can't see why people make such a fuss about expert systems giving
> >psychiatric or any other kind of advice. They don't make a similar
> >fuss about *books* giving the advice, and there are plenty of those.
> >(E.g. there's lots of advice in books on how to bring up children
> >for example, but no book has lived in the real world or brought up a
> >child.)
> > .....
> >In the mean time we are talking only about "interactive" documents,
> >so why make a fuss about them?
> >
> >Aaron
> >--

[BC]
> i. John Nagles's comment needs to be rebutted directly, I think. It is
> not obvious that advice can or should only be given by some entity that
> has experienced certain things.

I agree. A physiotherapist who has never broken her leg can help
someone who has recover from the injury. Male gynaecologists can
give pregnant women very good advice. Female sex counsellors can
help men with sexual difficulties. Some superb singing teachers are
incapable of singing nearly as well as their best pupils. Ditto
various kinds of athletics and sporting coaches. And not all human
psychotherapists need have experienced the problems concerning which
they try to help sufferers.

But I don't think that's the only point that lies behind some of the
emotional reactions to computer programs that give advice.

[BC]
> ii. Expert systems are not "mere" interactive retrievers, as Aaron
> seems to say.

Well, I did write

"An expert system is marginally more sophisticated than that."

The question is what you regard as marginal. If you are really
impressed by the use of a decision tree, or a forward chaining
production system, or a logical theorem prover, then you will
not agree that the difference is marginal.

If on the other hand you are more impressed by the great lack of
generality, flexibility, and modifiability through learning of
current expert systems, compared with human beings, then you
may be more inclined to agree that the difference is marginal.

It's like the question whether something is big or small. A big
flea can be a small animal.

[BC]
> iii.  The problem with the electronic shrink is how it is presented.

Or possibly whether the "customers" need better education.

> If the reason to use it is to give emotional comfort to the patient by
> implying that there is an agent in the computer that "cares" about the
> patient, or that the designers of the program (say, the Colbys) "care"
> about the patient (the individual patient, not patients in general), I
> think such use may be fair game for criticism.

I agree, and meant to imply that fraudulent claims or implications,
whether associated with computer programs or with books giving
advice, should be criticised.

> ...If, however, the
> shrink is used as a device by which relevant knowledge can be brought
> to bear on the patient's situation, an analysis is made, and plausible
> therapeutic options are suggested (including encouraging the patient
> to think in a certain way), that seems to me beyond reproach.  I think
> that at least in the current state of the art, there is every reason
                                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^
> to view such computers as cognitive agents, without necessarily
> attributing to them the full range of attributes of a mind.

Well I think "every reason" is a considerable exaggeration if you
take as your standard for a cognitive agent something with a high
proportion of the abilities of other known cognitive agents (e.g.
human beings, chimpanzees, and probably even cats, dogs, monkeys).

But if you compare them with other machines, then yes huge strides
have been taken in the right direction. (They are big fleas, even if
little animals.)

I think it is more important for the AI community to educate itself
and the rest of the world about the extent of the problems that
*remain* to be solved, and how AI techniques can be used (in
combination with any other relevant techniques) to attack those
problems, than to pat itself publicly on the back about what has
been achieved so far, which is as tiny a list as you would expect
from a discipline that's barely 40 years old, and has been subject
to a whole lot of swings of fashion even in that short time.

(Note that I am not against AI: I think it offers more hope for a
deep understanding of the human mind than any other single
discipline, because the others all lack any sufficiently rich notion
of the relation between structure and process whereas AI has taken
significant strides towards analysing that relationship, compared
with what went before (preceding fleas).)

> I have written something on this in the form of a discussion on
> a particular kind of "separability hypothesis."  Those interested,
> let me know, and I will send or post more.

Yes please.

Aaron
-- 
Aaron Sloman,
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, England
EMAIL   A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk  OR A.Sloman@bham.ac.uk
Phone: +44-(0)21-414-3711       Fax:   +44-(0)21-414-4281
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy