Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article (was: Roger Penro
Message-ID: <Cyyq3w.5D1@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <39kfm2$77u@epicycle.lm.com> <39menf$8c0@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu> <push-0711941937480001@mind.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 18:59:56 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <push-0711941937480001@mind.mit.edu>,
Pushpinder Singh <push@mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <39menf$8c0@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu>, hpm@cs.cmu.edu wrote:
>
>> Sean Matthews (sean@mpi-sb.mpg.de) wrote:
>> > Anyway, Scientific American is not Analog magazine; it is supposed to
>> > be a *bit* more conservative, and this means not publishing what is
>> > indistinguishable from science fiction (right down to frontspiece
>> > picture of anthropomorphic robot looking down gently and comfortingly
>> > into eyes of trusting, and wonderfilled girl).
>> 
>> That robot is a prototype version of the latest robot from Rod Brooks'
>> labs, COG.  COG is controlled by a supercomputer implementing
>> heirarchies of reflexive behaviors making the robot able to, among
>> other things, track external visual and auditory objects, by
>> implementing psychological theories of visual and auditory perception.
>> The "girl" is Lynn Stein, who is co-principal investigator of the
>> project.  Your characterization of her is grossly insulting.
>
>Actually the woman is Cynthia Ferrell, one of Rod Brooks' most senior
>graduate students.  Otherwise, though, you're right -- Matthews'
>characterization of her is grossly insulting.
>
>-push

Just curious: why do people (at least the two above) find a characterisation
"trusting, and wonderfilled" as insulting? Would a characterisation of this
person as "suspicious, filled with cynicism" be more to the taste of the
critics? Would she be happier to be described like this? Can one be a scientist
if one is not "wonderfilled"? And what is wrong with being "trusting"?
In particular, I find it surprising that Hans Moravec considers "wonderfilled"
as insulting. Were you not "wonderfilled" at the prospects of AI technology
when you thought up an idea of "mind children" (which I find quite impressive,
btw)?

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
