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From: kovsky@netcom.com (skandananda)
Subject: Re: How is AI going? -- Minksy prediction
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Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 17:13:16 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:37148 comp.ai.philosophy:37952

A prior poster made the following statement about AI: 
>>I suggest you dig up some of the comical predictions made back 
>>in the 60s and 70s about what AI will achieve in the future, and when. 
>>They're very entertaining.  Do you believe we're any better at 
>>predicting the future now? 

Marvin Minsky replied (in pertinent part):

>I'd like to see your catalog, because I have a feeling that the
>oft-cited allegation that AI researchers produce a great deal of
>'hype' might actually be a myth propagated by the vitalists.  Possibly
>you, yourself may have become pawn of that still-influential
>philosophy.
>
>More specifically, it seems to me that the skeptics mostly repeat the
>second-hand misquotations of reporters. 

The following quotation is attributed to Marvin Minsky and cited to his 
<Computation:  Finite and Infinite Machines> (1977), p.2.  (See Dreyfus 
& Dreyfus, "Making a Mind versus Modeling the Brain"   Daedulus, Winter 
1988 at 33):

"...within a generation the problem of creating 'artificial intelligence' 
will be substantially solved."  (The Dreyfus brothers also report that 
"Minsky's mood changed completely in five years.")

