The Artificial Intelligence Debate: False Starts, Real Foundations [Paperback]

Stephen R. Graubard (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 1988

In this broad and provocative collection of original essays on artificial intelligence today, eighteen distinguished scholars set out to explain why and how certain discoveries about the human brain have or have not been used by the AI community, and whether the AI endeavor has increased out, understanding of human cognition. Their exploration focuses on the many controversies and debates that continue to vitalize the field.

Contributors include Jack D. Cowan, Daniel C. Dennett, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Stuart E. Dreyfus, Gerald M. Edelman, W. Daniel Hillis, Anya Hurlbert, John McCarthy, Pamela McCorduck, Seymour Papert, Tomaso Poggio, Hilary Putnam, George N. Reeke Jr, Jacob T. Schwartz, David H. Sharp, Robert Sokolowski, Sherry Turkle, and David L. Waltz.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Artificial Intelligence Debate is an outstanding contribution to understanding this complex and important field of research. For the past 25 years the hype on AI has far exceeded its accomplishments. This book, better than any textbook, defines the fundamental conceptual and cognitive problems that the field is wrestling with, articulates what the limits and constraints are, and outlines the future directions that must be taken."
- C. A. Zraket, President and Chief Executive Officer, The MITRE Corporation

About the Author

Stephen Graubard is Editor of Dacdalas, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Brown University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 317 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; MIT Press ed edition (October 3, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262570742
• ISBN-13: 978-0262570749
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,307,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Genuine Insight, June 19, 2001

By 

Timothy (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Artificial Intelligence Debate: False Starts, Real Foundations (Paperback)

If you want to understand the fundamental issues related to the issue of artifical intelligence, especially relating to the war between the formal systems advocates and the neural network folks, this book is invaluable. It is a collection of compelling essays by some of the brightest and/or most lauded researchers in the field.

One essay rips apart the seams of the phenomological challenges of making a generally intelligent system and explained why (in 1988) that the attempt was doomed to failure, at least for the foreseable future.

The sad fact is, there are still people like Steven Pinkert who continue to repeat the "Symbol System Hypothesis" with religious fervor. If you read and understand Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus's essay "Making a mind vs Modeling a Brain" you will come to understand why Artificial Intelligence has failed its promise for more than 30 years and why it is such an incredibly difficult problem to solve.