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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Minsky's Interacting Causes
Message-ID: <1995Jul24.155641.19810@media.mit.edu>
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References: <kovskyDC4HuB.E55@netcom.com> <3uu4qq$5jk@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu> <kovskyDC7Fyt.FHo@netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 15:56:41 GMT
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I think I'm replying to this silly posting because it has my name in
its subject line.

In article <kovskyDC7Fyt.FHo@netcom.com> kovsky@netcom.com (Bob Kovsky) writes:
 
>	Law is a system of reasoning based on rules.  It is a system rich
>in formalism.  It is a system that has been applied millions of times by
>bright people and by people not so bright.  It is a system that works
>pretty well most of the time.

I wonder if "most" people would agree with that.

>	It is also a system that is not amenable to the techniques of 
>AI.  Perhaps this says something about the limitations of AI.  It is AI 
>that declares that anything can be reduced to a construction of compass and
>straightedge.  Perhaps some different tools are needed.  I have suggested 
>some (a structural approach to freedom), but AI dogma rejects such an 
>approach without taking it seriously.

Your ignorance of AI is profound. It is a large field that includes
studies of logical foundations.  It also includes both informal and
formal theories of analogies, case-based reasoning, and heuristics and meta-heuristics.

>	Your cynicism about how legal decisions are made is common, but 
>not well founded.  In fact, law is an imperfect instrument; and one 
>method to overcome the imperfections is to increase the detail, i.e. 
>complexity.  It is, in my opinion, not much subject to "moodiness" and 
>only on the rarest occasions infected by bribery.  

Of course it is moody, reflecting the popular moods of the cultures in
which it grows.
>
>	What I am suggesting is that a study of law as a system of formal
>reasoning from and with rules might be fruitful.  AI researchers might
>learn something new, instead of just announcing that a few more factors of
>ten in computer power and program size will, somehow, create a true
>general purpose machine. 

Yuk.  No one says that.  Are you a lawyer, by any chance: if so, could
you suggest some sound way we could sue you for defamation or
something?

Seriously, some theorists like Moravec, Bremermann, and others have
tried to make estimates of what it would take to simulate in all
detail the computations of a human brain--but everyone understands
that quality of program does not come merely with size.

Can you suggest, *concisely*, four specific good ideas we could use from
legal reasoning?  

