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From: iic@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Ian Clarke)
Subject: Re: Does AI belong in neural nets? (Marvin Minsky quote)
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References: <4gm5c9$phk@saba.info.ucla.edu> <D> <DnLF5n.G7n.0.staffin.dcs.ed.ac.uk@dcs.ed.ac.uk> <4h80e2$8cc@news.cis.okstate.edu> <313880CC.4267@ccs.neu.edu>
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 21:13:34 GMT
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In article <313880CC.4267@ccs.neu.edu>, Chad Loder <cloder@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
> I'd like to post an quote from a good paper about this (long-running) 
> division between neural networks/natural intelligence and symbolic 
> artificial intelligence by Marvin Minsky. I think it sort of puts things 
> in perspective - Minsky's been around for a long time (he's seen both 
> sides of the neural net vs. symbolic AI war). This is probably a good 
> example of the Hegelian Dialectic at work.
> 
> 
> "AI research must now move from its traditional focus on 	particular 
> schemes.There is no one best way to represent knowledge, or to solve 
> problems, and limitations of present-day machine intelligence stem 
> largely from seeking "unified theories," or trying to repair the 
> deficiencies of theoretically neat, but conceptually impoverished 
> ideological positions. Our purely numerical connectionist networks are 
> inherently deficient in abilities to reason well; our purely symbolic 
> logical systems are inherently deficient in abilities to represent the 
> all-important "heuristic connections" between things---the uncertain, 
> approximate, and analogical linkages that we need for making new 
> hypotheses. The versatility that we need can be found only in 
> larger-scale architectures that can exploit and manage the advantages
> of several types of representations at the same time. Then, each can be 
> used to overcome the deficiencies of the others. To do this, each 
> formally neat type of knowledge representation or inference must be 
> complemented with some "scruffier" kind of machinery that can embody the 
> heuristic connections between the knowledge itself and what we hope to 
> do with it." 
> 
This thread is not a simple debate of the "my method of building
intelligent beings is better than your method".  It is a debate as to
whether Neural Networks should be classed as part of Artificial
Intelligence.  This quote would support my claim that it should.

-- 
|IAN CLARKE        I.Clarke@sms.ed.ac.uk  "..until human voices wake  |
|                  iic@dcs.ed.ac.uk       us, and we drown" - Shelley |
|                  I.Clarke@ed.ac.uk      ianc@aisb.ed.ac.uk          |
