Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
AIList Digest Volume 8 Issue 109
AIList Digest Thursday, 20 Oct 1988 Volume 8 : Issue 109
Philosophy:
The Grand Challenge (3 Messages)
What the brain is doing when it isn't thinking (3 Messages)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 88 15:29:08 pdt
From: Ray Allis <ray@BOEING.COM>
Subject: Grand Challenges
If AI is to make progress toward machines with common sense, we
should first rectify the preposterous inverted notion that AI is
somehow a subset of computer science, or call the research something
other than "artificial intelligence". Computer science has nothing
whatever to say about much of what we call intelligent behavior,
particularly common sense.
Ray Allis
Boeing Computer Services-Commercial Airplane Support
CSNET: ray@boeing.com
UUCP: bcsaic!ray
------------------------------
Date: 13 Oct 88 11:48:58 GMT
From: uwmcsd1!wsccs!dharvey@uunet.UU.NET (David Harvey)
Subject: Re: The Grand Challenge is Foolish
In a previous article, John McCarthy writes:
> [In reply to message sent Mon 26 Sep 1988 23:22-EDT.]
>
< part of article omitted >
> If John Nagle thinks that "The lesson of the last five years seems to
> be that throwing money at AI is not enormously productive.", he is
> also confusing science with engineering. It's like saying that the
> lesson of the last five years of astronomy has been unproductive.
> Progress in science is measured in longer periods than that.
Put more succinctly, the payoff of Science is (or should be) increased
understanding. The payoff of Engineering on the other hand should be
a better widget, a way to accomplish what previously couldn't be done,
or a way to save money. Too many people in our society have adopted
the narrow perspective that all human endeavors must produce a monetary
(or material) result. Whatever happened to the Renaissance ideal of
knowledge for knowledge's sake? I am personally fascinated about what
we have recently learned about the other planets in our solar system.
Does that mean we must reap some sort of material gain out of the
endeavor? If we use this type of criteria as our final baseline we
may be missing out on some very interesting discoveries. If I read
John McCarthy correctly, we are just short-sighted enough not to know
whether they will turn into "Engineering" ideas in the future. Kudos to
him for pointing this out.
dharvey@wsccs
The only thing you can know for sure,
is that you can't know anything for sure.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 88 14:03 EDT
From: PGOETZ%LOYVAX.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Neural I/O
Two important messages which were ignored:
Quote #1:
>From: peregrine!zardoz!dhw68k!feedme!doug@jpl-elroy.arpa (Doug Salot)
>
>If we were to accept the premise that Big Science is a Good Thing,
>what should our one big goal? I personally think an effort to
>develop a true man-machine interface (i.e., neural i/o) would be
>the most beneficial in terms of both applications and as a driving
>force for several disciplines.
Quote #2:
>markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins): Why?
>
> The first thing that comes to mind is our current situation
>as regards science -- its increasing specialization. Most people will agree
>that this is a trend that has gone way too far ... to the extent that we may
>have sacrificed global perspective and competence in our specialists; and
>further that it is a trend that needs to be reversed. Yet fewer would dare
>to suggest that we can overcome the problem. I dare. One of the most
>important functions of AI will be to amplify our own intelligence. In fact,
>I believe that time is upon us that this symbiotic relation between human and
>potentially intelligent machine is triggering an evolutionary change in our
>species as far as its cognitive abilities are concerned.
Here's some possiblities for research:
Neural format: How the brain stores/retrieves/manipulates
data/knowledge/etc., with the goal of learning to
hook into this system
Neural input: Camera eyes for the blind
Artificial ears for the deaf
Generic data input
Other
Neural output: Direct computer interface of some type
Neural communications/control systems for quadraplegics
I'm looking forward to the day when we'll have little
calculator/calendar/watches interfaced with our brains which will tell us
the time, notify us of appointments, and do arithmetic. Beyond that, as
noted in Mark Hopkins' letter, it may be possible for devices to store &
recall information for us (a big data bank which can communicate to your
brain all those things we now spend years memorizing - foreign words,
the effects of medical drugs, mathematical formulae, chemical compositions
of materials, laws & equations of physics, the Gettysburg Address,
the complete works of Pink Floyd, etc.) Note that such data might be
manually entered at a terminal. (Also note that it might be nearly as good
to carry around a small computer with intelligent search capabilities -
provided they were allowed in exams....)
Does anyone know:
how realistic such hopes are?
what work is being done towards them?
from what discipline (computer science, biology, medical
engineering,...)
how soon (in decades) advancements might be made?
any graduate programs that touch on this (ie the
MIT cognitive science dept.)?
I gather that a major problem is that those little neurons
are too darn small & numerous to link up to...
Phil Goetz Nord: What's that sticking out of your hat?
PGOETZ@LOYVAX.bitnet Bert: Oh, that's my optical drive.
FRED'S BRAIN-MATES: Here's our PhD model for $100,000... our MS for $50,000...
our BS for $25,000... and our MBA for $1.75!
Shatner & Nimoy in '92!
------------------------------
Date: 16 Oct 88 21:07:06 GMT
From: buengc!bph@bu-cs.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Subject: Re: Here's one ...
In article <409@soleil.UUCP> peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) writes:
>>>
>>>Have you ever thought about what the brain is doing between thoughts?
In article <1116@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>
>>Sleeping.
In article <1614@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> cww@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu.UUCP
(Charles William Webster) writes:
>
>Do you mean that between the rapid succession of conscious "moments"
>is a sleeplike state, or that there is nothing between these "moments",
>except longer periods of sleep? Much current research on dreaming
>is converging on the generalization that dreaming is a kind of
>"consciousness". If this were true, then what is between dream
>thoughts? You may have been joking but I think it would be fascinating
>if the the brain was sleeping between "thoughts". But would it be
>the sleep of dreams or the sleep of little deaths?
I meant that there is no "between thoughts" except for sleep,
expecially the deeper sleep, not that associated with partial
consciousness, such as REM sleep.
--Blair
"...with a hedge for whatever
non-thinking states
meditationalists are able
to achieve..."
------------------------------
Date: 18 Oct 88 05:27:29 GMT
From: leah!gbn474@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Gregory Newby)
Subject: Re: Here's one ...
In a previous article, Blair P. Houghton writes:
> >>>Have you ever thought about what the brain is doing between thoughts?
> >>Sleeping.
>
> >
> >Do you mean that between the rapid succession of conscious "moments"
> >is a sleeplike state, or that there is nothing between these "moments",
> >except longer periods of sleep?
Research result (unpublished) from a recent conference:
Participants were instructed to watch a string of blinking holiday
lights (the xmas tree kind, which blink more or less randomly).
A beatles' song was played (I forget which one). When polled
afterwards, most participants reported seeing the lights blink
on and off IN RYTHM to the music.
Possible conclusion: consciousness, like most things we can name
in nature, oscillates.
I leave it for your consideration.
--newbs
(
gbnewby@rodan.acs.syr.edu
gbn474@leah.albany.edu
)
------------------------------
Date: 18 Oct 88 13:52:33 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watdcsu!smann@uunet.uu.net
(Shannon Mann - I.S.er)
Subject: Re: Here's one ...
In a previous article, Gregory Newby writes:
>Research result (unpublished) from a recent conference:
>
>Participants were instructed to watch a string of blinking holiday
>lights (the xmas tree kind, which blink more or less randomly).
>A beatles' song was played (I forget which one). When polled
>afterwards, most participants reported seeing the lights blink
>on and off IN RYTHM to the music.
>
>Possible conclusion: consciousness, like most things we can name
>in nature, oscillates.
>
Other possible conclusion: we unconsciously attach meaning to apparently
randon patterns i.e. we hear the music, we see the lights, we notice that there
are some of the lights lit on the beat, and disregard the rest as noise.
Hence, we have a pattern where none existed before. Sounds like pattern-
recognition to me. :-)
Seriously, I believe Neuro-Linguistics uses tapping, or rubbing motions to
influence the pace of communications between two people. Don't know why,
just seems to work.
>I leave it for your consideration.
>
>--newbs
-=-
-=- Shannon Mann -=- smann@watdcsu.UWaterloo.ca
-=-
'I have no brain, and I must think...' - An Omynous
'If I don't think, AM I' - Another Omynous
P.S. I'd like to know what 'oscillating consciousness' is supposed to mean.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
********************
