Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!teknowledge-vaxc!sri-unix!quintus!certes!jeff2
From: jeff2@certes.UUCP ( jeff)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Why?
Message-ID: <218@.certes.UUCP>
Date: 21 Sep 88 20:32:10 GMT
References: <867@taurus.BITNET>
Organization: Teradyne/ALSIWest, Inc.,  Milpitas, CA
Lines: 56

in article <867@taurus.BITNET>, shani@TAURUS.BITNET says:
> 
> In article <6823@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu.BITNET writes:
>>         Why does anyone want artificial intelligence?
>>
>> What is it that you're seeking to gain by it?  What is it that you would have
>> an intelligent machine do?
> 
> Or let me sharp the question a bit:
> 
>                   How will we know that a machine is intelligent, if we lack
>                   the means to measure (or even to define) intelligence ?
> 
> This may sound a bit cynical, but it is my opinion that setting up such
> misty goals, and useing therms like 'intelligence' or 'value-systems' to
> describe them, is mainly ment to fund something which MAY BE beneficial
> (since research is allmost always beneficial in some way), but will never
> reach those goals... why who would like to fund a research which will only
> end up with easyer to use programming languages or faster computers?
> 

Consider the following:
	1): it takes nearly 30 years (from conception to expert level)
		to train a new programmer/software engineer

	2): the average "expert expectancy" of this person is (I'm guessing)
		probably 10 - 15 years

	3): there are nearly 100,000,000 working people with ideas to improve
		the way their jobs are done.

	4): that (perhaps) 1 person in 10 of these has the skills to 
		automate the job.

At least two people are required to automate some portion of a task; one to
describe the process and one to automate it; this increases the cost of the
automation process (two salaries are being paid to do one job), and limits
the number of tasks that can be automated at any one time to the number of
automaters available. 

As a result, the number of tasks to be automated is expanding much more
rapidly than the number of people to automate it. Given that few automaters
remain experts in their field long enough to be fully replaced, we have no
choice but to reduce the skill level required to automate a task if we want
to improve our abilities to automate tasks. This alone is justification for
research into "easy to use" languages.

Additionally, it would be nice if AI could create a tool for the development
of the other automation tools that are sufficiently close to those in current
use (e.g. English) that little training is required to use them.

-- 
/*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
 Jeff Griffith       Teradyne/Attain, Inc., San Jose, CA 95131 (408)434-0822
 Disclaimer:         The views expressed here are strictly my own.
 Paths:              jeff@certes!quintus or jeff@certes!aeras!sun