Alchemy And Artificial Intelligence (1965)

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. 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