Monday, August 15, 2005
In-der-Blog-sein
Open Texture explains Why AI Won't Work:
Open Texture explains Why AI Won't Work:
So here's where I do my best to explain another pestilent European philosopher. Martin Heidegger wrote in dense, obscure prose about things that have become the cliche image of philosophers, like "what is the meaning of being?" To make this terribly simple, Heidegger was arguing against some of the most basic and fundemental assumptions of the last 2000 years of philosophy.And the explanation that follows about that pest is challenged by chronology and more, but for certain audiences it pays to be simplistic. Think TV. ¶ 11:58 AM
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Trying to do a one paragraph summary of Heidegger for some target audience is almost always difficult. I'm always impressed when someone pulls it off. Whenever I read comments I write at my blog that do the oversimplified summary, I'm always embarrassed but can't think of anything better to say.
BTW - Dreyfus is the philosopher he's thinking of, isn't he? I don't remember when Dreyfus first started criticizing AI via Heidegger though. I thought his book on the topic was from the early 90's though.
I'm pretty sure he's referring to Dreyfus. Searle or William Barret are also candidates, but less likely.
The 2nd edition of Dreyfus if from 1991, but the first edition's from 1972 (What Computers Can't Do). He also wrote a book with his brother Stuart, but I don't know when that was first published. I believe Stuart criticized AI via Systems Theory.
Dreyfus was teaching Philosophy at MIT in the 1960s when students started telling him the work in the AI Lab would make philosophy obsolete. From his studies of Heidegger's criticisms of Descartes, he saw the problems in the predictions made by the AI researchers. RAND published his paper "Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence" in 1965.
Simplifying Heidegger is fraught with peril. Especially in English because of the ambiguous vocabulary introduced by the different translators, and the contradictory interpretations. My intent is to promote the good stuff out there, point out what I see as the obvious errors, and keep simple myself. I generally try to add some gentle humor in pointing errors as I don't want to discourage people from learning more. The exception is when someone comes across as pompous or just plain malicious, in which case they should get as good as they give. And I'll still try to keep it succinct and entertaining.
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The 2nd edition of Dreyfus if from 1991, but the first edition's from 1972 (What Computers Can't Do). He also wrote a book with his brother Stuart, but I don't know when that was first published. I believe Stuart criticized AI via Systems Theory.
Dreyfus was teaching Philosophy at MIT in the 1960s when students started telling him the work in the AI Lab would make philosophy obsolete. From his studies of Heidegger's criticisms of Descartes, he saw the problems in the predictions made by the AI researchers. RAND published his paper "Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence" in 1965.
Simplifying Heidegger is fraught with peril. Especially in English because of the ambiguous vocabulary introduced by the different translators, and the contradictory interpretations. My intent is to promote the good stuff out there, point out what I see as the obvious errors, and keep simple myself. I generally try to add some gentle humor in pointing errors as I don't want to discourage people from learning more. The exception is when someone comes across as pompous or just plain malicious, in which case they should get as good as they give. And I'll still try to keep it succinct and entertaining.
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