Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk (Oliver Sparrow)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!news.alpha.net!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!pipex!demon!chatham.demon.co.uk!ohgs
Subject: Re: Mixed motives
Distribution: world
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Organization: Royal Institute of International Affairs
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Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 07:57:52 +0000
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Welcome, Bruce, back from Lurkerhood. You points are good ones and I am 
also concerned with the social institutions which we shall need in a society in 
which it will be possible to adduce so much about an individual from their 
behavioural record and from their genes. A flake of skin will tell a potential 
employer, spouse, insurance company, Government, parent what an individuals 
potential and predispositions are likely to be in terms of health, wealth
and sociopathy. We shall need ways of coping with this; as we are learning to  
cope with aspects of biotechnology.

That aside, I was asking myself what AI was *for*. What products could I 
envisage that were anything more than a book of rules, a better way of 
searching a database or a substitute human being. Once one discards the Fifties 
trash of smart vacuum cleaners and doors that answer back, one is left with 
systems which anticpate needs and integrate the frail island that is me safely 
and constructively into the network of the multi-layer, multi-interest 
comonality. This shows up as foresightful multimedia, home controllers with 
some of the properties of an infineitely patient governess, business process 
analaysts which direct flows of inetraction where they can be thought to do 
most good. Seamless, real world stuff, in which the "AI" bit vanishes and 
becomes as deeply a part of everyday life as the convertability of currencies 
or the rising of bread: notable only when it fails.
 _________________________________________________

  Oliver Sparrow
  ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk
