What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason

Rating:
Summary: Creation science applied to artificial intelligence
Review: Creation science is to evolution what this book is to artificial intelligence.

Creation "scientists" often have no credentials in the field they attack; similarly, Dreyfus is a philosopher, not a computer scientist.

Creation "scientists" often use inflated rhetoric and impute dishonesty to their opponents; similarly, Dreyfus has likened AI to alchemy and made scandalous allegations against AI researchers such as Simon.

Creation "scientists" only attack evolution; they do not provide any scientific alternative; similarly, Dreyfus only attacks strong AI and does not offer any alternative line of research.

The criticisms of creation "scientists" are based on religion; Dreyfus bases his critique on philosophy. Neither critique has any scientific foundation.

Creation "scientists" continue to advance objections that have been decisively refuted, such as arguments based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics or the bogus Paluxy River tracks. Bogus claims are rarely retracted. Similarly, Dreyfus has rarely acknowledged that many of his previous claims have been refuted.

Finally, creation "scientists" have had essentially no impact on evolutionary biology, but great impact among the lay public. Similarly, Dreyfus' book is popular among non-scientists, but has had very little impact among people who actually do AI.

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Rating:
Summary: What AI researchers can't do on computers - yet
Review: Dreyfus' book is about the history of failure of Artificial Intelligence researchers such as Marvin Minsky to embody intelligence at the human level. It is easy to read, but is rather exasperating. It is like riding in a truck driven by Minsky, and other AI researchers, where they are trying to make a long trek across a country without roads. They keep getting caught in swamps, blowing tires, and hitting trees, all the time shouting "We're almost there!" Meanwhile Dreyfus is a dog in the bed of the truck continually barking at dangers, and the folly of the drivers. Amidst Dreyfus' continuous cacophony of sarcastic cynicism there are some important points on what assumptions are doomed to failure, which he made quite clear by tedious repetition.

Basically there are two types of mistakes made by Minsky and many others:
1. believing they were getting close to understanding human thought,
2. repeatedly announcing same to the world.

The philosophy of Dreyfus in the first 300 pages is largely concerned with fallacious assumptions made by AI researchers. Finally in the last 50 pages (350 page book) he settles down and gives us some interesting concepts that should be understood if we are to seek AI at the human level. He develops the concept of "nonformal behavior" - which we humans usually learn by generalizing examples and following intuition without use of formal rules. Examples: chess at the gestalt master level, and disambiguation of broken sentences.

Dreyfus acknowledges the possible importance of neural network architectures, but dismisses them as outside the scope of his critique. He touches on the poor idea of AI trying to program a full functioning adult, and further carries out a critique of machine learning ("reinforcement learning").

The most important point he makes is that of nonformal behavior -- the non-logical almost Zen-like process that humans must go through. The irony is that we have to struggle with our nonformal thinking to do simple formal tasks such as long division; whereas the computer must struggle with its built-in hard logic to attempt nonformal tasks such as pattern recognition.

The book is for the most part quite dated, but nevertheless, it is very worthwhile reading for anyone in a serious pursuit of machine intelligence. My criticism of his style is just that. I have only a minor criticism of the intelligent content and his restrictions in scope.

Rating:
Summary: What AI researchers can't do on computers - yet
Review: Dreyfus' book is about the history of failure of Artificial Intelligence researchers such as Marvin Minsky to embody intelligence at the human level. It is easy to read, but is rather exasperating. It is like riding in a truck driven by Minsky, and other AI researchers, where they are trying to make a long trek across a country without roads. They keep getting caught in swamps, blowing tires, and hitting trees, all the time shouting "We're almost there!" Meanwhile Dreyfus is a dog in the bed of the truck continually barking at dangers, and the folly of the drivers. Amidst Dreyfus' continuous cacophony of sarcastic cynicism there are some important points on what assumptions are doomed to failure, which he made quite clear by tedious repetition.

Basically there are two types of mistakes made by Minsky and many others:
1. believing they were getting close to understanding human thought,
2. repeatedly announcing same to the world.

The philosophy of Dreyfus in the first 300 pages is largely concerned with fallacious assumptions made by AI researchers. Finally in the last 50 pages (350 page book) he settles down and gives us some interesting concepts that should be understood if we are to seek AI at the human level. He develops the concept of "nonformal behavior" - which we humans usually learn by generalizing examples and following intuition without use of formal rules. Examples: chess at the gestalt master level, and disambiguation of broken sentences.

Dreyfus acknowledges the possible importance of neural network architectures, but dismisses them as outside the scope of his critique. He touches on the poor idea of AI trying to program a full functioning adult, and further carries out a critique of machine learning ("reinforcement learning").

The most important point he makes is that of nonformal behavior -- the non-logical almost Zen-like process that humans must go through. The irony is that we have to struggle with our nonformal thinking to do simple formal tasks such as long division; whereas the computer must struggle with its built-in hard logic to attempt nonformal tasks such as pattern recognition.

The book is for the most part quite dated, but nevertheless, it is very worthwhile reading for anyone in a serious pursuit of machine intelligence. My criticism of his style is just that. I have only a minor criticism of the intelligent content and his restrictions in scope.

Rating:
Summary: A response to Jeffrey Shallit.
Review: Mr. Shallit compares the critique of cognitive science by Professor Dreyfus to 'creation science'. He remarks that Dreyfus is not a computer scientist. This is true. But many 'cognitive scientists' aren't either, cognitive science being an interdisciplinary pursuit engaging philosophers, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists, anthropologists and sociologists. It is unfortunate that Dreyfus allowed himself to polemicize by using the word 'alchemy' to characterize his opponents, but he has, by far, been the victim of unargued diatribes against his work. The fact is: most of the salient issues in cognitive science are logical and conceptual, NOT technological. Here, Dreyfus broke new ground (although I would have preferred his treatment to have been more Wittgensteinian than Heideggerian). Phil Agre's brilliant book on computation and human experience (Agre IS a computer scientist) shows that SOME AI-workers have found aspects of Dreyfus's work very telling. But, of course, the issues are, again, not empirical but logical in this field. See, for example, Graham Button et al., "Computers, Minds and Conduct" (Polity/Blackwell, 1995) which picks up where Dreyfus left off. Shallit remarks that Dreyfus has been 'refuted': where? by whom?

The fact is that cognitivism is hotly contested by serious thinkers in many disciplines, but Shallit's name-calling (and the comparison of cognitivism's serious critics to creation scientists) smacks of an abdication from serious engagement and argument.

Dreyfus's revised edition is a fine piece of work, worthy of serious intellectual discussion and confrontation. His many aarguments against Fodor, Chomsky, Simon and others have great merit. It is unfortunate that some folks simply close their eyes and argue from authority. But appeals to (even 'scientific') authority wear thin when left to stand alone!!