Dr. Dobb's Says AI is OK Again

Posted 10 Sep 2007 at 22:00 UTC by steve

A Dr. Dobbs article summarizes the last 51 years of AI research and concludes that AI is on the rise again. After the failure of the over-hyped attempts to model human intelligence at the symbolic level in the 1980s, AI research fell into disrepute. The article suggests that the research is coming back in a more modest form: "AI advances are not trumpeted as artificial intelligence so much these days, but are often seen as advances in some other field." The article also suggests that AI work has moved more toward applied over theoretical projects.

Too ambitious..., posted 13 Sep 2007 at 13:34 UTC by TheDuck » (Journeyer)

I think the *goal* of artifical intelligence is quite aggressive. But just like eliminating cancer, it's a fine goal to have.

My guess is the average person actually expected, because the field is called artifical inteeligence, that there would be computers-just-like-people in a year or two. I think if we called it Ultimately We'd Like Some Sort of Adaptive Apparent Cognition, it would have fallen flat long before you could finish saying it (and the acronym is pretty painful, too).

So I say we continue to strive for AI, and still be happy with the steps in between.

Best Regards,

HAL 9000

AI and the Performance of Human Consciousness, posted 27 Sep 2007 at 14:21 UTC by Christophe Menant » (Master)

Indeed, "the balance in AI work seems to be tipped toward applied over theoretical". But I feel there is an important aspect of this fact that deserves more attention. It is the performance of human consciousness that has been neglected in AI work.
Human consciousness is the capability to represent oneself as existing, with the corresponding free will and capability to introspect. This key performance of human mind has not been really taken into account in AI work so far, be it connectionist or symbolist. The reason for that may be our lack of understanding of human consciousness.
Only in recent years have we seen a growing interest towards the field of artificial consciousness. It can be a good starting point on this subject. And it may have an interesting future.
(see for instance http://www.consciousness.it/CAI/CAI.htm)

Best Regards

Christophe Menant

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