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From: jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Bad AI: A Clarification
Message-ID: <486@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 6 Jul 88 15:16:08 GMT
References: <1242@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <1299@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <451@aiva.ed.ac.uk> <1336@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jeff@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: Dept. of AI, Univ. of Edinburgh, UK
Lines: 43

In article <451@aiva.ed.ac.uk> jeff@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Jeff Dalton) writes:
1 Are you really trying to oppose "bad AI" or are you opportunistically
1 using it to attack AI as a whole?  Why not criticise specific work you
1 think is flawed instead of making largely unsupported allegations in
1 an attempt to discredit the entire field?

In article <1336@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
2 No, I've made it clear that I only object to the comfortable,
2 protected privilege which AI gives to computational models of
2 Humanity.

If that is so, why don't you confine your remarks to that instead of
attacking AI's existence as a discipline?

2 Anything which could be called basic research is the province of other 
2 disciplines, who make more progress with less funding per investigation (no
2 expensive workstations etc.).

Have you considered the costs of equipment in, say, Medicine or
Physics?

2 I do not think there is a field of AI.  There is a strange combination
2 of topic areas covered at IJCAI etc.  It's a historical accident, not
2 an epistemic imperative.

So are the boundaries of the UK.  Does that mean it should not exist
as a country?

2 My concern is with the study of Humanity and the images of Humanity
2 created by AI in order to exist.  Picking on specific areas of work is
2 irrelevant.

The question will then remain as to whether there is any work for
which your criticism is valid.  

2 But when I read misanthropic views of Humanity in AI, I will reply.
2 What's the problem?

Perhaps you will have a better idea of the problem if you consider
that "responding to misanthropic views of Humanity in AI" is not an
accurate description of what you do.

-- Jeff