Xref: utzoo sci.lang:1687 comp.ai:1157
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!uwmacc!uwmcsd1!marque!gryphon!sarima
From: sarima@gryphon.CTS.COM (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.ai
Subject: Re: the role of biological models in ai
Message-ID: <2590@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 15 Dec 87 03:06:02 GMT
References:   <23@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM>
Reply-To: sarima@gryphon.CTS.COM (Stan Friesen)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 25
Keywords: models, purpose of ai

In article <23@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM> rolandi@gollum.UUCP () writes:
>
>   According to some AI theorists, (see Schank,
>R.C., (1984) The Cognitive Computer. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley)
>AI is "an investigation into human understanding through which we learn
>...about the complexities of our own intelligence."  Thus, at least for
>some AI researchers, the automation of intelligent behavior is secondary
>to the expansion and formalization of our self-understanding.  This is 
>assumed to be the result of creating computational "accounts" of (typically 
>intellectual) behavior.  Researchers write programs which display the 
>performance characteristics of humans within some given domain.  The
>efficacy of a program is a function of the similarity of its performance 
>to the human performance after which it was modeled.  Thus AI programs are 
>(often) created in order to "explain" the processes that they model.
>
My problem with this class of AI research is that I question it
validity/usefulness. Why should there be only *one* algorithm for a
particular 'behavior'? What evidence do we have that the algorithms that
we are writing into our programs are in fact related in any way th the
ones used by the human brain? Mere parallel behavior is NOT sufficient
evidence to claim increased understanding of a human behavior, some
evidence from neurology and psychology is necessary to at least
demonstrate applicibility. In particular, I find most current AI
algorithms to be far too analytical to be realistic models of human,
or even animal, cognition.