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March 03, 2006
Grumbling 16 years too late
Ta, Robin.
Testing, testing.
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OK. So I have to think of something to say now.
Well, there was one thing. More of a niggle than anything substantial.
I've been reading ‘The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence’, a collection of articles edited by Margaret Boden. I bought it as an undergraduate (a while back, then) but was never particularly taken with it. Some of it I found more interesting to read now than then. I only just realised that the articles by David Marr and Drew McDermott dove-tail quite nicely with the anti-AI argument in the Dreyfus & Dreyfus piece. I doubt that was deliberate…
But I digress.
The book contains John Searle's article ‘Minds, Brains, and Programs’ where he introduced his famous ‘Chinese Room’ argument. I won't go into it. My opinion then was that that the argument and the whole debate it spawned were all most desperately dull: worrying about whether computers could ever really understand what they were doing, like, really really. So I avoided paying much attention.
Boden selected one of her own pieces as a reply to Searle. I'd not noticed before, but it seems she forgot to check what she was replying to.
From Searle's opening paragraphs:
I find it useful to distinguish what I will call ‘strong’ AI from ‘weak’ or ‘cautious’ AI (Artificial Intelligence). According to weak AI, the principal value of the computer in the study of the mind is that it gives us a very powerful tool. For example, it enables us to formulate and test hypotheses in a more rigorous and precise fashion. […] I have no objection to the claims of weak AI, at least as far as this article is concerned.
Boden's first sentence:
John Searle, in his paper on ‘Minds, Brains, and Programs’ (1980), argues that computational theories in psychology are essentially worthless.
I never thought Boden was the sharpest pencil in the box (I once read her rather unfortunate book on art from a CogSci standpoint), but that's not even trying.
Posted by robin2 at March 3, 2006 12:03 AM