From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!news.oc.com!spssig.spss.com!markrose Fri Oct 30 15:17:51 EST 1992
Article 7414 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!news.oc.com!spssig.spss.com!markrose
>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: grounding and the entity/environment boundary
Message-ID: <1992Oct28.000703.5993@spss.com>
Sender: news@spss.com (Net News Admin)
Organization: SPSS Inc.
References: <719720414@sheol.UUCP> <1992Oct23.161211.5628@spss.com> <1992Oct27.205040.117959@Cookie.secapl.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 00:07:03 GMT
Lines: 24

In article <1992Oct27.205040.117959@Cookie.secapl.com> frank@Cookie.secapl.com 
(Frank Adams) writes (quoting me):
>>Actually I'm coming to believe that grounding does have to be kept up,
>>though on a scale of years rather than hours.  Chris Malcolm's post on 
>>this about 10 days ago was very good.
>
>This ignores the difference between human memory, which deteriorates over
>time, and computer memory, which need not (at least not on comparable time
>scales).

Really?  You have an AI that's been working continuously for 70 years or so,
so you can judge?

Why shouldn't computers be subject to the same memory (and grounding) problems
humans are?  I think you have to ask why memory deteriorates in humans.
Sometimes it's biological-- e.g. a stroke.  Computers aren't immune to
hardware problems.  Maybe our memories fill up; or an accumulation of hard or
soft errors makes the grounded memory unusable; or we run into the kind of 
neural net limitations (i.e. not enough nodes) they talk about over on 
comp.ai.neural-nets.  All these could apply to computers.  Plus, of course, 
grounding is necessary to understand new experiences.

Actually it may be human memories that outperform computers'.  How often
does your heap get corrupted?  How often do you crash due to a page fault?


