Talk:Neats and scruffies

message: Someone who subsequently decided they needed a wiki vacation said it isn't clear why this page is important.  I find this a bit rich having just been going through the full theory of Dr. Who's origins on wikipedia (for no good reason --- o wait, I think the TARDIS was actually a featured article! now that's important) a few days ago, but anyway there may be a point.  It's clear to a computer scientist that while we treat holy wars and everything else somewhat light-heartedly, that this page actually reflects a serious, long-term debate in the field.  Is there a way to communicate this to the general reader?  (besides linking to the holy war page?) --Jaibe 16:33, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point, changing the name of the page might help I guess; there's no debate anyway scruffies RULE! :) But yeah anyone who says something like this isn't a worthwhile page should look in to the amount of Stargate pages ;) Ultima 22:41, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I would go farther: it's not just a serious, long-term debate; it's central to the field of AI.  I don't think one can really claim to understand AI (to the extent anyone does) without understanding the distinction and how various approaches fall on either side of it or combine elements of both.  Slburson 23:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: A provably-correct solution is not necessarily elegant (see the Four Color Theorem for an example), nor is an elegant solution necessarily provably correct (for example, the human brain). I can't help but wonder if this is a false dichotomy.
Metasquares 16:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The human brain isn't elegant, but that's beside the point, of course. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

text: You're correct, Metasquares. I balked at the use of strictly defined terms in the article, e.g. being provably correct, converging, mathematical elegance, being complete vs being NP complete, and so forth. I'm trying to clean up this imprecise usage by not wikilinking to the terms. The words are perfectly fine English usage, so I am not necessarily altering them. Charles, that is a non-sequitur, about the "inelegance" of the human brain. I think Metasiquares made a good point, um 14 years ago.--FeralOink (talk) 10:34, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elegant != Formal 

message: The intro currently reads:
The distinction was originally made by Roger Schank in the middle 70s to characterize the difference between his work on natural language processing from the work of John McCarthy, Alan Newell and others whose work was based on logic (Prolog, Soar, etc.).[1] The "frames" introduced by Marvin Minsky in 1975 were also considered "scruffy" at the time.
Since casual readers will not understand the difference between Schank's work and McCarthy's, this first sentence is a poor description.  Can someone familiar with the details of the differences add some qualification to "his work on natural language processing"?  E.g., ", which was more ad-hoc" or "which was based on approximate heuristic solutions".  This will set up an opposition to "work ... based on logic".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.175.74 (talk) 20:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've fixed this, which blossomed into a fairly complete history of the term. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  intro 

message: Are the individuals listed in this section self-described as being in these categories, or has the label been attributed to them by others?  Each individual should have proper sourcing for the label.  If they all called themselves that, then the section might be more suitably renamed "Self-described neats and scruffies".  "Well-known" is not an encyclopedic term and should be avoided, like the word "obvious".  (Obvious to whom?  Well-known to whom?) Robert K S (talk) 20:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The word obvious isn't used in the article is it? The reason the title “well-known” is used, is that they have been defined by the nature of their own work. The terminology links in with the two main philosophical viewpoints of strong and weak AI with both Neats and Scruffies having a specific point of view on both. Scruffies - believe that Strong AI can only come about from emergent processes, and not an ontological representation of knowledge. Essentially Scruffies differ from Neats in that they believe human like intelligence can only come about from representing the underlying system of intelligence, rather than trying to qualify high-level mental process as logic or something similar. Although it might not appear particularly encyclopaedic the list of names helps to define the difference between the two points of view in a way that is more tenable for people not familiar with AI. Can you think of something different we could do to better illustrate the difference? MattOates (Ulti) (talk) 13:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the researchers listed are now in the history section, with some citations as to whether they are "neat" or "scruffy". The lists are basically correct, I think. Not sure about David McAllester, Daphne Koller or Steve Grand. The first two make sense, from their short Wikipedia biographies. Steve Grand seems wrong to me, because artificial life (i.e. "let's use an elegant evolutionary algorithm and a elegant machine learning algorithm so an intelligent machine creates itself!") seems inherently neat to me. However, if Steve Grand's version of artificial life is "let's painstaking study and generalize the systems and subsystems and circuits and sub-sub-circuits of animal nervous systems to create an intelligent machine", then he's scruffy.  ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

text: There needs to be reliable sources that say these people are scruffy or neat else we fall foul of WP:OR or WP:SYN. I looked at several people's article and there was no mention of scruffy or neat. pgr94 (talk) 09:57, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm knocking out the ones that aren't mentioned in Crevier, McCorduck or Russell and Norvig. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:29, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Well-known neats and scruffies

message: Please, add more links to related articles, because I was looking for a related philosophic/AI problem, but could only remember "neats vs. scruffies". This would be a good general improvement for AI articles on this site. Erudecorp ? * 00:31, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: More links, please

message: It seems like a better term than "neats vs scruffies".  No offense, but that sounds pretty ridiculous.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.157.218 (talk) 16:17, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: lol! I prefer slobs vs snobs too, as it is alliterative and easy to remember! Unfortunately, the neat vs scruffy terminology is explicitly referenced by those active in the field in the 1970s through 1990s, so we need to stick with that.--FeralOink (talk) 10:37, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Why not call it "slobs vs snobs" instead?

message: The current article title Neats vs. scruffies is unnecessarily adversarial by virtue of the word "versus".  I strongly recommend renaming this article to Neats and scruffies in order to retain a NPOV, as this fits more with established style, and the nature of the article is contentious enough as it is.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.254.117 (talk) 22:44, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: DONE! And thank you for your suggestion.--FeralOink (talk) 10:38, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename 

message: It seems as if I arrived a little late to this discussion.
I do not think that there is "the victory of neats in the 1990s."  In my opinion, this is similar to the concept of yin and yang; one cannot have one without the other.  It would be nice to see better wording, because this is not a competition between the two types of approaches.
The argument for either approach depends on one's personality type.  A person's personality type conditions one's philosophical approach too.  This is a psychological truth.  See Carl G. Jung's Personality Types.
I would argue that an eclectic approach is the most appropriate approach to any field of study, especially problem solving.
AndrewMcGraw1970 (talk) 14:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Russell and Norvig have retracted their "victory of the neats" comment in the latest edition (2021) of their textbook, because the fine-tuning of deep learning networks is more scruffy than neat. The article has been updated to be more specific. See the final paragraph of the lede. ---- CharlesTGillingham (talk) 19:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ongoing debate ...  

message: Mca politics 154.159.237.54 (talk) 19:34, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Address political rally