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I guess what bothers me the most about Murray's work described
below is that when a researcher launches out in an unusual new
direction, with lots of specialized terminology and concepts, there
are certain obligations to the community that can get ignored.
What can happen is that the researcher fails to explain the links
between what he or she is doing and the large body of work already
done and being done. That allows the researcher to avoid any
criticisms by comparisons. Much of the work that has been and is
being done in AI and Cog Sci is excellent and well-documented and
carefully related to extant work.
All (conventional) scholars are careful to describe how they are
building on the work of others ( "If I have seen further it is by
standing on ye shoulders of Giants." - Newton). In fact,
any paper for a journal or conference is reviewed with an eye to its
discussions of the literature - do the authors fully understand what
has gone before and how what they are presenting builds on that?
When a researcher avoids the traditional, they can also isolate
themselves from criticism. I would be delighted to see a
scholarly discussion of the Mind4th system that relates it to other
work and relates its terminology and concepts to already existing
ones. If the Mind4th system is better, let's see a detailed
comparison of its strengths versus existing work. If the terminology
and concepts and relations among them are better, let's see a defense
that describes current work and explains why the new work is better,
why neologisms are really needed. As a starter, how does it
relate to the view of AI presented in AIMA and PAIP?
All students and researchers should pay attention to the
description I've just given of the way research and scholarship
works. AI invites people to wax rhapsodic about all sorts of
vague and marvelous ideas. But unless the ideas can be brought
down to earth and tied into what has come before, they may not be that
useful. Einstein and Schrodinger and other scientists with
radical new ideas understood this and related what they did to the
existing knowledge of Galilean relativity and Newtonian
mechanics.
Here's a quote from one of the ACM URLs that was included in
Murray's post. I include it for what it's worth, neither supporting or
refuting it:
"Six years ago in this journal we discussed the work of
Arthur T.
Murray, who endeavored to explore artificial intelligence using
the Forth programming language [1]. His creation, which he called
MIND.FORTH, was interesting in its ability to understand English
sentences in the form: subject-verb-object. It also had the
capacity to learn new things and to form mental associations
between recent experiences and older memories. In the intervening
years, Mr. Murray has continued to develop his MIND.FORTH: he has
translated it into Visual BASIC, PERL and Javascript, he has
written a book [2] on the subject, and he maintains a wiki web
site where anyone may suggest changes or extensions to his design
[3]. MIND.FORTH is necessarily complex and opaque by virtue of
its functionality; therefore it may be challenging for a newcomer
to grasp. However, the more dedicated student will find much of
value in this code. Murray himself has become quite a
controversial figure."
Murray, who endeavored to explore artificial intelligence using
the Forth programming language [1]. His creation, which he called
MIND.FORTH, was interesting in its ability to understand English
sentences in the form: subject-verb-object. It also had the
capacity to learn new things and to form mental associations
between recent experiences and older memories. In the intervening
years, Mr. Murray has continued to develop his MIND.FORTH: he has
translated it into Visual BASIC, PERL and Javascript, he has
written a book [2] on the subject, and he maintains a wiki web
site where anyone may suggest changes or extensions to his design
[3]. MIND.FORTH is necessarily complex and opaque by virtue of
its functionality; therefore it may be challenging for a newcomer
to grasp. However, the more dedicated student will find much of
value in this code. Murray himself has become quite a
controversial figure."
Disclaimer: I have not taken the time to study Murray's
work in detail, but what little I've seen of it immediately triggered
the concerns I expressed above. After 30+ years of working in AI
areas, I've seen lots of marvelous work and lots of off-the-wall
things too. I can usually tell the difference.
-- Bob Futrelle
http://mind.sourceforge.net/mind4th.html mow invites Netizens
to install a JavaScript Seed AI as "Mind" on their computers.
http://mind.sourceforge.net/Mind.html now includes a recursive
link back to itself so that users may update their local copy.
http://mind.sourceforge.net/userman.html ordains AI diaspora.
> First you start the JavaScript AI Mind by clicking on it.
> You may also host the AI Mind on your own hard disk
> or your own Web page and then bring the Mind to life by
> running MSIE, then using "File/ Open" with the AI filename,
> or by clicking on the Seed AI link that you have transplanted.
> Notice at the end of this User Manual that there is a link to
> C:\Windows\Desktop\Mind.html that will work only when you
> have made your own local copy of the JavaScript Seed AI. You
> have the opportunity to spread your artificial intelligence
> by planting the Seed AI on as many computers as possible.
> If the computer that you use is shared by a group of users,
> other people may stumble upon the ghost in the machine and
> may accept the challenge of programming a more powerful AI.
> If you are a manufacturer or distributor of computers, you
> are free to install the JavaScript Seed AI on every desktop.
A. T. Murray
--
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/307824.307853
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1052883.1052885
http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/agiradar.html
http://www.sl4.org/archive/0205/3836.html
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