lukeprog comments on Less Wrong Rationality and Mainstream Philosophy - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (328)
According to the link:
So, we have a spectacular mis-estimation of the time frame - claiming 33 years ago that AI would be seen as important "within a few years". That is off by one order of magnitude (and still counting!) Do we blame his confusion on the fact that he is a philosopher, or was the over-optimism a symptom of his activity as an AI researcher? :)
ETA:
I'm not sure I like the analogy. QM is foundational for physics, while AI merely shares some (as yet unknown) foundation with all those mind-oriented branches of philosophy. A better analogy might be "giving a degree course in biology which includes no exobiology".
Hmmm. I'm reasonably confident that biology degree programs will not include more than a paragraph on exobiology until we have an actual example of exobiology to talk about. So what is the argument for doing otherwise with regard to AI in philosophy?
Oh, yeah. I remember. Philosophers, unlike biologists, have never shied away from investigating things that are not known to exist.
I didn't read the whole article. Where did Sloman claim that AI would be seen as important within a few years?
I inferred that he would characterize it as important in that time frame from:
together with a (perhaps unjustified) assumption that philosophers refrain from calling their colleagues "professionally incompetent" unless the stakes are important. And that they generally do what is fair.