Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert
From: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: AI and Sociology
Message-ID: <1301@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 30 May 88 09:33:23 GMT
References: <1033@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Reply-To: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland
Lines: 69

Firstly, thanks very much to Richard O'Keefe for taking time to put
together his posting.  It is a very valuable contribution.  One
objection though:
In article <1033@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>But of course AI does no such thing.  It merely announces that
>computational approaches to the understanding are part of _its_ territory,
>and that non-computational approaches are not.
This may be OK for Lakatos, but not for me.  Potty as some of the
ideas I've presented may seem, they are all well rehearsed elsewhere.

It is quite improper to cut out a territory which deliberately ignores
others.  In this sense, psychology and sociology are guilty like AI,
but not nearly so much, as they have territories rather than a
territory.  Still, the separation of sociology from psychology is
regrettable, but areas like social psychology and cognitive sociology
do bridge the two, as do applied areas such as education and management.
Where are the bridges to "pure" AI?  Answer that if you can.

The place such arguments appear most are in curriculum theory (and
also some political theory, especially Illich/"Tools for Conviviality"
and democrats concerned about technical imperialism).  The argument
for an integrated approach to the humanities stems from the knowledge
that academic disciplines will always adopt a narrow perspective, and
that only a range of disciplines can properly address an issue.  AI can be
mulitidisciplinary, but it is, for me, unique in its insistence on a single 
paradigm which MUST distort the researcher's view of humanity, as well as the 
research consumer's view on a bad day.  Indefensible.

Some sociologists have been no better, and research here has also lost support
as a result.  I do not subscribe to the view that everything has nothing but a
social explanation.  Certainly the reason the soles stay on my shoes has
nothing much to do with my social context.  Many societies can control the
quality of their shoe production, but vary on nearly everything else.
Undoubtedly my mood states and my reasoning performance have a physiological
basis as amenable to causal doctrines as my motor car.  But I am part of a
social context, and you cannot fully explain my behaviour without appeal to it.

Again, I challenge AI's rejection of social criticisms of its paradigm.  We
become what we are through socialisation, not programming (although some
teaching IS close to programming, especially in mathematics).  Thus a machine
can never become what we are, because it cannot experience socialisation in the
same way as a human being.  Thus a machine can never reason like us, as it can
never absorb its model of reality in a proper social context.  Again, there are
well documented examples of the effect of social neglect on children.  Machines
will not suffer in the same way, as they only benefit from programming, and
not all forms of human company.  Anyone who thinks that programming is social
interaction is really missing out on something (probably social interaction :-))

RECOMMENDED READING

Jerome Bruner on MACOS (Man: A Course of Study), for the reasoning
behind interdisciplinary education.

Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" and the collected essays in
response to it, for an understanding of where behaviourism takes you
("pure" AI is neo-behaviourist, it's about little s-r modelling).

P. Berger and T. Luckman's "Social Construction of Reality" and
I. Goffman's "Presentation of Self in everyday life" for the social
aspects of reality.

Feigenbaum and McCorduck's "Fifth Generation" for why AI gets such a bad name
(Apparently the US invented computers single handed, presumably while John
 Wayne was taking the Normandy beaches in the film :-))
-- 
Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science,  The University, Glasgow
	gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs !ukc!glasgow!gilbert

	     The proper object of the study of humanity is humans, not machines