Early successes in programming digital computers to exhibit simple forms of intelligent behavior, coupled with the belief that intelligent activities differ only in their degree of complexity, have led to the conviction that the information processing underlying any cognitive performance can be formulated in a program and thus simulated on a digital computer. Attempts to simulate cognitive processes on computers have, however, run into greater difficulties than anticipated.
An examination of these difficulties reveals that the attempt to analyze intelligent behavior in digital computer language systematically excludes three fundamental human forms of information processing (fringe consciousness, essence/accident discrimination, and ambiguity tolerance). Moreover, there are four distinct types of intelligent activity, only two of which do not presuppose these human forms of information processing and can therefore be programmed. Significant developments in artificial intelligence in the remaining two areas must await computers of an entirely different sort, of which the only existing prototype is the little-understood human brain.
Author(s): Hubert L. Dreyfus
Year: 1965
Language: English
Pages: 98
SUMMARY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Part I
THE CURRENT STATE OF THE FIELD OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
SIGNS OF STAGNATION
Game Playing
Problem Solving
Language Translation
Pattern Recognition
Comments and Conclusions
Part II
THE UNDERLYING SIGNIFICANCE OF CURRENT DIFFICULTIES
HUMAN VS. MACHINE INFORMATION PROCESSING
Fringe Consciousness Vs. Heuristically Guided Search
Essence/Accident Discrimination vs. Trial and Error
Ambiguity Tolerance vs. Exhaustive Enumeration
Perspicuous Grouping--A Derivative of the Above Three Forms
Fringe Consciousness
Context-Dependent Ambiguity Reduction
Perspicuous Grouping
Conclusion
MISCONCEPTIONS MASKING THE SERIOUSNESS OF CURRENT DIFFICULTIES
The Associationist Assumption
Empirical Evidence for the Associationist Assumption: Critique of the Scientific Methodology of Cognitive Simulation
A Priori Arguments for the Associationist Assumption: Conceptual Confusions
Underlying Confidence in Artificial Intelligence
CONCLUSION
Part III
THE FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
THREE NON-PROGRAMMABLE FORMS OF INFORMATION
The Infinity of Facts and the Threat of Infinite Progression
The Indeterminacy of Needs and the Threat of Infinite Regress
The Reciprocity of Context and the Threat of Circularity
AREAS OF INTELLIGENT ACTIVITY CLASSIFIED WITH RESPECT TO THE POSSIBILITY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN EACH
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
