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Article 1735 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Philosophical Foibles of John McCarthy
Message-ID: <1991Nov28.173516.5976@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 91 22:35:14 GMT
References: <JMC.91Nov24203029@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1991Nov25.180643.5898@husc3.harvard.edu> <5705@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
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In article <5705@skye.ed.ac.uk> 
jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>In article <1991Nov25.180643.5898@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
>>Consider the following: your stated goal in the theory's development is
>>to formalize a certain ontological assumption, i.e. that "the objects
>>that can be shown to follow to have a certain property P by reasoning
>>from certain facts A are all the objects that satisfy P" (cited from
>>your 1980 article in "Artificial Intelligence"); 

JD:
>I'm lost already.  "the objects that can be shown to follow to have a
>certain property P" -- can anyone parse that for me?

Sorry: `to follow' must be disregarded.

MZ:
>>On the contrary, I believe that AI has a radiant future ahead of it,
>>especially after it gets itself a proper name, like `technonoetics'.
>>Briefly, I see the situation as similar to that of alchemy and astrology:
>>given a few centuries of pompous pronouncements, and numerous calving of
>>successful derivative disciplines which, embarrassed by their shameful
>>parentage, will invariably choose alternative, descriptive names 

JD:
>In the UK, there's already been an attempt to avoid using the term
>"Articifial Intelligence".  After the Lighthill Report more or less
>demolished British AI, it seemed better to call it something else
>when the 5th Generation project led to a revival.  Hence the term
>IKBS (Intelligent Knowledge-Based Systems) and, I suppose, to some
>extent, the term IT (Information Technology).

The Harvard Bookstore has changed the name of its Artificial Intelligence
book section to `Cognitive Science' about a year ago; similar trends have
been observed elsewhere.  Alas, to my ear, `Cognitive Science' and,
especially `Intelligent Knowledge-Based Systems' sound quite as offensive
as the original.  On the positive side, the Cognitive Science books are
often located next to Critical Theory...

My favorite Eighties acronym belongs to a Silicon Valley company that
called itself `Artificial Intelligence Design Solutions', or some such
thing.  I wonder if they are happy with the free publicity...

>-- jeff


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