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From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Challenge to Connectionists
Message-ID: <740@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Dec-86 18:55:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.740
Posted: Mon Dec 22 18:55:48 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Dec-86 00:08:24 EST
References: <425@mind.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 38
Keywords: connectionism, Perceptrons, artificial intelligence, neural models

In article <425@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>... meeting one or the other of the
>following criteria will be necessary:
>	(i) Prove formally that not only is C not subject to perceptron-like
>	constraints, but that it does have the power to generate
>	mental capacity.
>	(ii) Demonstrate C's power to generate mental capacity empirically...

     Minsky and Papert's analysis of perceptrons was based on a very
exact and restricted type of machine.  It seems to me that the
emphasis in the discussion about connectionism should be on proving
that the connectionist approach cannot work (possibly *using*
_Perceptrons_-like arguments), rather than that _Perceptrons_-like
proofs *cannot* be applied to connectionism.

     I think both connectionists and anti-connectionists should be
involved in this proof process, however.  I wouldn't want the
discussion to turn into yet another classic AI political battle.

>To summarize, my challenge to connectionists is that they either
>provide (1) formal proof or (ii) empirical evidence for their claims
>about the present or future capacity of C to model human performance
>or its underlying function.

     If you mean by this that we should not study connectionism
until connectionists have done one of these things, then (as you
point out) we might as well write off the rest of AI too.  The
main thing should be to try to learn as much from the connectionist
model as possible, and to accept any proofs of uselessness if
someone should come up with them.  We can't expect to turn all
connectionist researchers into Minskys in order to prove theorems
about it that must needs be very complex.

--Jamie.
...!seismo!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto, you're beautiful"
  This probably does not represent the views of the UBC
  Computer Science Department, or anyone else, for that matter.