On 10 Nov 2006 at 13:48, Eric Baum wrote: > I am arguing that if you find a code that solves a range of naturally > presented problems, that is so constrained (for example by being > extremely concise) that the only way it could have existed > is if it is based on an ingenious abstraction hierarchy with modules > exploiting real structure in the world and reused in different > contexts to solve different problems, then it will continue to solve > most new problems,
Ok, that seems pretty obvious, at least for anyone who accepts the basic premise that the real world is highly ordered. I don't think you're saying anything controversial there, though people who don't like the idea of AIs being based on serial-looking code will probably nitpick 'range of naturally presented problems' in the hope of demonstrating that only fuzzy/connectionist/massively parallel code can solve nontrivial challenges (I'm not one of those people). Generalising to this level isn't really saying anything useful though, as you've pushed all of the challenge into finding that code/module set/abstraction hierarchy in the first place. Clearly you have done a lot of work on that challenge, but that may not be apparent to people reading these sweeping generalisations. Solid statements about how to handle uncertainty and lossy compression, however concise, would help make this descriptive (in the sense of definitely selecting a narrow subset of possible designs; overly general bits of AI wisdom suffer from the problem that virtually any researcher can claim compliance with them with a bit of judicious rephrasing and repackaging of whatever their current ideas are). Though I'll understand if your response is another 'just read the book' - reiterating one's ideas can get tedious. :) Michael Wilson, Director of Research and Development, Bitphase AI Ltd Web demos page: http://www.bitphase.com/apex ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
