Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!se-sd!jim
From: jim@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Jim Ruehlin, Cognitologist domesticus)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What actually is AI?
Message-ID: <3814@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 7 Sep 90 17:36:10 GMT
References: <90241.112651F0O@psuvm.psu.edu> <90243.142616F0O@psuvm.psu.edu> <6560@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de>
Organization: NCR Corporation, Systems Engineering - San Diego
Lines: 49

In article <6560@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de> powers@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de (David Powers AG Siekmann) writes:
>We have now seen 2 definitions, I prefer to characterize them so:
>the engineering perspective: 
>	to build systems to do the things we can't build systems to do
>	because they require intelligence
>the psychological perspective:
>	to build systems to do the things we ourselves can do to help
>	us to understand our intelligence

As I understand it, these are really the definitions of Cognitive 
Science (I admit it - I'm a Cognitive Scientist), as seen from the
computer and psychological points of view.
Cognitive Science intersects AI in many areas, but there are areas where
"AI" isn't "CS".

>I would say the real ai definition is this:
>the heuristic perspective:
>	to build systems relying on heuristics (rules of thumb)
>	rather than pure algorithms

I've heard it said by some that AI was purely the discovery of heuristic
search techniques - AI is a field of complex computational searching.
Actually I like this definition.  It avoids that sticky but important
question of "what is intelligence?", and looks at what actually is performed
when executing an AI application.
An Expert System can be seen to be a complex, custom search of a database
(searching for a solution), vision recognition is classifying and
identifying previously seen or similar patterns.  There's lots more
examples.

>This brings us back to the cognitive science definition.
>The definition which guides my own work is:
>	to build systems which are capable of modifying their
>	behaviour dynamically by learning

I'd say this was a definition of machine learning, a subset of AI and/or
Cognitive Science.  I don't believe an intelligent system has to learn
to be intelligent.  Some expert systems display intelligent behaviour
but don't have the capacity for learning.

>Another definition of AI is:
>	Anything written in LISP or PROLOG.  

Sorry, I can't accept that the implementation platform or language defines
intelligence.  I can write a LISP program that adds numbers, but this is
no display of intelligent behaviour.


- Jim Ruehlin