Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mfci!yale!krulwich-bruce
From: krulwich-bruce@CS.YALE.EDU (Bruce Krulwich)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Acting irrationally (was Re: Free Will & Self Awareness)
Message-ID: <28798@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Date: 10 May 88 16:25:58 GMT
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <10942@sunybcs.UUCP> <31024@linus.UUCP>
Sender: root@yale.UUCP
Reply-To: krulwich-bruce@CS.YALE.EDU (Bruce Krulwich)
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT  06520-2158
Lines: 27
Keywords: I should stay out of this, but what the hell...

In article <31024@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort) writes:
>It is not uncommon for a child to "spank" a machine which misbehaves.
>But as adults, we know that when a machine fails to carry out its
>function, it needs to be repaired or possibly redesigned.  But we
>do not punish the machine or incarcerate it.
>
>Why then, when a human engages in undesirable behavior, do we resort
>to such unenlightened corrective measures as yelling, hitting, or
>deprivation of life-affirming resources?

This can be explained easily in light of AI theories of the roles of
expectations in cognition and learning.  Your example could be
explained as follows:

    1.  Yelling at and hitting a person because of something he's done
	is irrational
    2.  People have the expectation that other people act rationally
    3.  When someone yells at you, it triggers a failure of this
	expectation
    4.  So, the person being yelled at or hit tries to explain this
	expectation failure, hopefully concluding that he did
	something that the other person feels strongly about
    5.  Thus he learns that the other person feels strongly about
	something, which most of the time is the goal that the yeller
	or hitter had in the first place

Bruce Krulwich