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From: rhh@research.att.com (Ron Hardin <9289-11216> 0112110)
Subject: Re: Does AI make philosophy obsolete?
Message-ID: <DG00Kn.L47@research.att.com>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ
References: <JMC.95Oct3185544@Steam.stanford.edu> <44thq7$jjs@news.ox.ac.uk> <DFxqxs.GCL@research.att.com> <4506d5$pdq@news.ox.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 23:14:46 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:33894 comp.ai.philosophy:33444 sci.cognitive:9894 sci.psychology.theory:960

Patrick Juola writes:
 >>NP-complete problems are not solvable with blind dumb computation,
 >>at least not big ones.
 >
 >Um, my understanding of NP-completeness is that they are the set of
 >problems that we have no significantly better solution technique than
 >"blind dumb computation." 

I was thinking that blind dumb computation is exponential in problem size
and so the problem is undoable.

 >>This is accepted, though, as saying that they can't be solved
 >>by AI either (very reasonably).  Apparently the two domains
 >>are thought at critical moments to be co-extensive, which
 >>puts into question the other moments when talk of emerging
 >>consciousness and intelligence comes up.

 >Are thought by whom?  As I mentioned above, humans can't solve NP-complete
 >problems well either.  I've never encountered (outside of this discussion)
 >a claim that NP-completeness has anything to do with intelligence.

I think we agree, though I didn't want to speculate on whether humans
can solve NP-complete problems.  All I wanted was that for these problems,
the AI people - and also their detractors! - see no possibility of
help from AI.   So for these problems, therefore, the domains of
blind dumb computation and artificially intelligent computation are identical.
AI people are not inclined to see their techniques as special here.
I believe this is a rigorous step of this novel argument?

Therefore, I wanted to continue, the emergent intelligence and other
such things were thought not to occur when such a problem was being
computed;  whereas on the other hand the very same AI techniques
were thought to give rise to magical powers elsewhere.  I wanted this to
lead to wonderment about the mechanism that might govern the shift
in thinking in AI people.

 >Are you possibly being confused by the technobabble term AI-complete?

I am constantly confused by technobabble, but hadn't heard this one.
John McCarthy introduced `-complete' to my NP, which seemed good enough
to me at the time, seeming to mean non-polynomial, and pleasantly informal,
but what do I know.
