June 15, 2005
Minsky slams modern AI:
Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of artificial intelligence research, has slammed modern AI as "brain dead".
Quoted in Wired magazine, he lambasted the last 30 years of work in the area, particularly the focus on creating AI driven autonomous robots.
However, the article finishes on a throwaway comment about the 'moving goal posts' problem in the perception of artificial intelligence, that belies much of the problem with how AI is perceived.
It is illustrated by the success of chess computers. In the 60s, it was said that computers will never beat people at chess, because that requires intelligence and computers aren't capable of intelligent thought.
When computers regularly started winning matches in the 80s, it was claimed that playing chess wasn't a test of real intelligence because computers could do it.
As there is no widely accepted definition for intelligence, this is often an example of the No true Scotsman fallacy.
Link to Wired article.
Link to Minsky on 'Smart Machines' from edge.org
Link to Wikipedia page on Minsky.
