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Archive 1 (Feb 2004 to Oct 2005) Archive 2 (Oct 2005 to Jul 2006) Archive 3 (Jul 2006 to March 2008) Archive 4 (March 2008 to December 2008)

Contents 1 Todo: Applications should be a page 2 Length is not an issue 3 Todo: Topics covered by major textbooks, but not this article 4 Synthetic Intelligence 5 approaches section is odd 6 Remove "big penis" from note 1 7 Removed material 8 Picture? 8.1 Red Eye Special 8.2 Man vs. Machine 8.3 ⚙nition 8.4 Caricature 8.5 Gallery of potential candidates 8.6 Indeed, why? 9 Things I was surprised not to see in this article 10 Constraint programming 11 Split article 12 Inappropriate ending

[edit] Todo: Applications should be a page

I think the "Applications of AI" section should be around a page in length. It shouldn't be a scattershot list of applications; it should try to define the role that AI plays in the world today. How & why it is used, more than where it is used. Why it succeeds and why it fails. I pretty sure that all the sources one would need are at AAAI's AI topics. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Length is not an issue

I don't think we need to worry about being a few pages over the ten page mark, as long as it's not too crazy. See WP:Article size#Occasional exceptions, and remember that this is a WP:Summary style article.---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

This issue is discussed below. See #Split article. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Todo: Topics covered by major textbooks, but not this article

I can't decide if these are worth describing (in just a couple of sentences) or not.

1. Could use a tiny section on symbolic learning methods, such as explanation based learning, relevance based learning, inductive logic programming, case based reasoning.
2. Could use a tiny section on knowledge representation tools, like semantic nets, frames, etc.
3. Control theory could use a little filling out with other tools used for robotics.
4. Should mention Constraint satisfaction. (Under search). Discussion below, at #Constraint programming.

--- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
(Updated) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I feel different computer learning methods should have a few sentences, because it's an attempt to approach the problem in a different way... But one that I think is important, and unique.

Semantic nets are pretty useful, I have no idea whether deserve a section... how many AI researchers use semantic nets to develop code?--Sparkygravity (talk) 05:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Synthetic Intelligence

Despite being linked to by a couple disambiguation, user, and talk pages, Synthetic Intelligence is very nearly an orphan. As suggestions that page be merged to this one have arisen on several occasions, it seems worth including some manner of link. I attempted to include such a link quite some time ago, and had the edit promptly reverted/edited away (and prompted one of the several suggestions to merge to this page). Consequently, I'd like to suggest that perhaps someone more involved with this page consider adding such a link in an appropriate space and manner. Darker Dreams (talk) 00:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The trouble is that this article is already quite long and this is a peripheral topic to the subject as a whole. A better merge would be into philosophy of AI, although that article is also quite long. (Sorry for the late reply) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Better delayed replies than none at all. However, the suggestion was for a link, as is appropriate behavior in a wiki for a peripheral topic. It was not another recommendation to merge, as past merge-attempts into various other articles have ended with the removal of everything but the (unexplained) term. Darker Dreams (talk) 00:21, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] approaches section is odd

The article's "Approaches to AI" section lists these approaches: 1) Cybernetics and brain simulation; 2) Traditional symbolic AI; 3) sub-symbolic AI; and 4) Intelligent agent paradigm. This has some validity, especially historically, but is a bit out of keeping with the past 10-15 years of AI. In particular, it's virtually unanimous that the main split in AI today, among people who consider themselves AI researchers, is symbolic vs. statistical. But this section doesn't mention statistical AI at all, despite it being probably the plurality current approach to AI. Historically, statistical AI grew out of connectionist and sub-symbolic AI to some extent, but most of the people who still call themselves by those terms no longer identify as AI at all, instead having split off into computational intelligence; one does not, for example, find many neural-net papers at AAAI, but there are a lot of statistical AI papers there. --Delirium (talk) 03:55, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree with the pervasive symbolic/statistical split, but I wouldn't be inclined to agree that they are the main paradigms to building AI. Rather they are approaches to solving subproblems like classification or theorem-proving. Personally, I think both statistical inference and symbolic reasoning are complementary, with both necessary for intelligence. Brain simulation and cognitive architectures on the other hand provide a high-level view on how to achieve AI. However, my preferred classification for this section is: bottom-up (intelligence emerges for primitive components) vs top-down (designed by a human architect). The idea of the top-down vs bottom-up split appears to go back to Turing in 1948. [1] pgr94 (talk) 05:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the article (as all Wikipedia articles) should take a more descriptive rather than prescriptive tack, neutrally summarizing current debates in the field. I think it's hard to argue that the current field of AI has any major split other than statistical versus symbolic, although others could be argued for historically or on independent conceptual grounds (but the latter would be original research, so not really suitable for Wikipedia). Bottom-up versus top-down seems like it could be a valid split historically; I'm not really an expert on AI history. My point is mostly that statistical versus symbolic is the present major split, so the article presents a flawed picture if it fails to mention that. --Delirium (talk) 06:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The section titled "formalization" is intended to describe (in broad terms) the "statistical" approach to AI. We had a little trouble settling on a title for this section, as I recall. We couldn't find a term that had wide usage. Perhaps "statistical" would be better.

Basically, the article agrees with you, but it's not quite as obvious as perhaps it should be. It does (attempt to) describe "symbolic" and then "statistical" AI, along with two other modern forms: "embodied" and "computational intelligence", one dead form "cybernetics", and a paradigm for all of AI: "intelligent agents". Since all three modern forms set themselves up as alternatives to symbolic AI, I put them under sub-symbolic so that I could write a paragraph about the rejection of symbolic AI.---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 16:02, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I've done a little bit of reorganization to address your concerns. Does this seem better? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 16:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a bit better. I suppose it's hard to come out with an outline that all approaches to the field will find equally neutral; many statistical-AI people would probably still balk at being placed in "sub-symbolic". Part of the problem I think is that current statistical-AI is a result of convergent evolution of both AI and statistics. Some proportion of statistical-AI researchers are indeed people from the sub-symbolic camp of the 80s/90s who eventually settled on statistics as the best way to deal with numerical approaches to AI, and jettisoned their former interests in things like neural nets (Richard S. Sutton and other NIPS types are in this category). But others were never associated with that camp, and instead come historically more from the practical-statistics-for-AI-problems camp of people like Hastie, Tibshirani, or Breiman. Those kinds of people would tend not to recognize "sub-symbolic" as a label for their work. --Delirium (talk) 21:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I've pulled "statistical AI" out from under the "sub-symbolic" banner. I think you (Delirium) were right, for several reasons. (1) The symbolic / sub-symbolic debate was really carried out people from the "embodied" side (like Rodney Brooks) and people from the "connectionist" side (like David Rumelhart). Researchers who founded the "statistical" approach (like Judea Pearl) never really attacked symbolic AI with the same fervor. (2) You can apply statistical tools to symbolic problems (like analogy or deduction) as well as to sub-symbolic problems (like edge-detection).

Thanks for your well-informed and helpful advice. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

"Statistical" is fine by me; it's not perfect as there are statistical underpinnings in all machine learning (e.g. tree learning, rule learning, clustering) but no better term springs to mind. It would be good to have up-to date sources for the categorisation of current approaches.

I still have issues with the terms "neat" and "scruffy". They are historical terms and as a far as I am aware deprecated: I don't know of any modern AI researchers that use the terms to describe their work. Besides jargon should be avoided (or if unavoidable explained) WP:JARGON. pgr94 (talk) 17:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Commonsense knowledge bases and CYC belongs in the next subsection on knowledge-based AI. Any objections?

To Pgr94: I'm sorry for replying to this about a billion hours too late, but anyway, on "scruffy": the paragraph that introduces the term does explain it, so we don't run afoul of WP:JARGON here. The only question is whether or not the term is "avoidable".

The issue is unavoidable, certainly. Although, as you say, the whole debate has gone out of fashion, the issue has not been resolved. People still present new "unified field theories" of AI all the time, and yet the most important projects underway (like Cyc, or the DARPA challenge winners), still require details, details, details and the elegant theories still tend to get nowhere. So there is this unresolved issue that the article can't help but point out. But what do we call it, if we don't call it neat/scruffy? I agree with you that the term "scruffy" isn't used very often any more, but I can't find another way to say "no simple elegant theory expected, not statistical-mathematical, not logical-formal, not elegant-model-of-neural-cortex-organization, not anything else, just details, details, details".

So I guess I'm asking you a question. Is it the term you object to, or the issue? If only the term bothers you, let's discuss how the article could raise this issue without using the term. If the issue bothers you, then I must strongly disagree, and let's discuss that.

Assuming the problem is the term, then here is my argument. The term has three advantages I can see: (1) it was once used to describe the issue, so there are sources (admittedly, old sources) to link to. (2) there is a Wikipedia article, Neats vs. scruffies, which describes the issue in detail (although this article could use some help at some point). (3) There doesn't seem to be a new term for this. The term has one disadvantage that you point out: (1) No one uses it any more. For me, the first three considerations take priority. If you differ, let's discuss it. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Remove "big penis" from note 1

I don't know how to edit references, but some joker has put the words "big penis" in the first footnote when the original intent was probably "computational intelligence." Someone should correct this.

This has been fixed. ----- CharlesGillingham (talk) 02:04, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Removed material

I removed this section, for several reasons:

1. This material was already covered in the first section of the article Artificial intelligence#AI in myth, fiction and speculation.
2. I couldn't find McCarthy's opinions on science fiction in the reference. (Although, if these exist, they would be great to have in the first section.)
3. This article is quite long, so we need to consider each new contribution carefully.

Perhaps this editor would like to contribute to artificial intelligence in fiction? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 09:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Artificial Intelligence in the Media

---

Artificial intelligence is an extremely popular topic in the media. The Terminator movie series includes a sentient computer called Skynet which tries to take over the world and succeeds in wiping out most of the human race. The Matrix trilogy and other related movies are based in a world where in reality the Earth has been taken over by sentient machines that use humans as a power source. I Robot, a movie based on the book by Isaac Asimov, depicts a revolution of robots that had been previously friendly to humanity. In the movie, the AI controlling the robots, V.I.K.I initiates the revolt in what she claims is the best interest of humanity because the only way robots can truly protect humanity is to protect them from themselves. In the movie AI, a family adopts a robotic duplicate of their dead son, who soon starts exhibiting emotion and other human qualities. John McCarthy, generally considered the founder of the field of Artificial Intelligence, dismisses the opinions of the popular media as nonsense that has little to no basis in reality. However, he does acknowledge the possibility of an AI growing beyond the ability of humans to control or stop it. (McCarthy and Hayes 1.1)

(McCarthy, John and Patrick J. Hayes. "Stanford University Computer Science page." 19 April 1996. Standford University Website. 23 March 2009 <http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/mcchay69/mcchay69.html>.)

• Your edit brought the subsection "AI in myth, fiction and speculation" to my attention. I absolutely support including material on the broader cultural impact of the topic, but does it really have to be the first thing after the lede? Usually, and especially in scientific contexts, this would be discussed in its own section after the scientific/philosophical sections. My suggestion is to merge the two sections and put them into the place of the removed section. Paradoctor (talk) 12:30, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, my thinking on this was that, this way, the article goes in historical order: we begin with the myths and automatons of antiquity, move through the history, and then outline the state of AI research today. Another motivation is that the "tools" section is fairly technical, and I think most of our readers are interested in the social aspects first and the technical aspects last. I'm not sure I agree that we should, in every case, place social aspects last. I do agree that social aspects don't deserve as much space as technical aspects, and the organization of this article also reflects that as well. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I was a bit hasty, a closer look at the subsection lessened the first jarring impression I had of it. But I'm still not really comfortable with it. It contains a mix of fiction and history which appears a bit unfocused to me. If you prefer "historical order", no problem with that. But then the first section's title should be "History", not "Perspectives". Including the scientific speculations on the future of the field in a history section is fine be me. This would suggest as first section "History" with the subsections "Roots and early history", "Pre-1950" (which should include Lovelace's remark on the Analytical Engine), "AI research", "Predictions". Philosophy is promoted one level up, and AI reception in arts and society also get their own sections each further down the road.

"I think most of our readers": Ahh, the mythical Average Man! ;) I have severe doubts about that, but with out data, these are just our opinions. Seeing as this page is in the top 2000, I think polling the readers might be a good idea.

"we should, in every case, place social aspects last": Jiminy, what gave you the impression that I hold this view? I did qualify my suggestion with "Usually, and especially in scientific contexts". It seems we have different views about our readership here.

"social aspects don't deserve as much space as technical aspects, and the organization of this article also reflects that as well": As a note: I consider the first part to be context-dependent. Well, if the social aspect is not the major concern, then it does not really make sense to put it in the first place, does it?

Regards, Paradoctor (talk) 16:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you're arguing for here, but I think you have a point which we can use to improve the article. First, the first section is "jarring" and "unfocussed". I see your point, and I think the section needs a little work, although I think the basic content should remain the same. Maybe we could fix this by: (1) writing an opening paragraph that sums up the section, something like the second paragraph of the intro. The paragraph should make explicit the point that futurology and science fiction discuss the same issues, so the reader has a "heads up" that the section is going to jump back and forth from fiction to speculation and back again. (2) The section is incredibly dense, and we could split some of those paragraphs and relax the relentless pace of the ideas in there. There's no reason to make it unreadable for the sake of brevity. (Although the article is too long and this section should not grow past a page and half, I think).

I feel pretty strongly that the structure of the article makes sense. (Short section on social aspects first, long section on technical aspects last). The only improvement that comes to mind from your objections is to lose the "perspectives" header and just bring those first three sections up to the top level. Maybe that would have made that first section easier to find.

Finally, I think Lady Lovelace's objection is a bit too obscure for this article; AI is big topic and a lot has been said about it. Indeed it is a bit obscure for history of AI. Her objection is mentioned in the philosophy of AI#Can a machine be original or creative?, although she is not cited, and perhaps she should be added there.---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 04:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Please, do what you feel is right. Paradoctor (talk) 12:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Y Done History & philosophy, I think. "Perspectives" is gone. Philosophy is promoted, as you suggested. The history section now includes the paragraph on the ancient roots, along the lines of your suggestion. For the pre-1950 paragraph, I focussed on the history of formal reasoning specifically, since I think this is the most important point. I feel that Lady Ada Lovelace's comment is not quite influential enough on any specific aspect of AI to merit inclusion. (She did finally get a place in the History of AI article).

N Not done Fiction and speculation. This section could be titled "prediction", as you suggest, but I think fiction and speculation casts a slightly wider net that catches all of the ethical issues. This section is still, in my opinion, too dense. It could use shorter sentences and paragraphs, and a clearer separation of topics, especially in the last paragraph. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

This somehow came in under my radar. More below. Paradoctor (talk) 18:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I think that the title should indeed be titled, prediction. speculation has sort of a negative connotation to it... to me, Speculation is like "subtle insanity" if that makes sense. So with a little permission, I would like to change that, and possibly expound on possible predictions and possible ethical issues that may arise should artificial intelligence become more than it currently is. Chucks91 (talk) 19:36, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Predictions it is.This section is still a bit dense, especially the third paragraph, so please, take a crack at it if you like. Also consider contributing to the article Ethics of AI which is still a fairly loose collection of things and could be more comprehensive. Artificial intelligence in fiction also has room for more material. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Err, this is a misunderstanding. I meant "Predictions" to be a subsection of "History". ^_^ As it stands, the "History" section is fine. What is now "Prediction" works as "Fiction" if we remove the last two paragraphs. Transhumanism can be dropped, this is IMHO not a concern of AI proper, "artificial" is "contrived through human art or effort", something that is applicable to the first generation alone (which may consist of a single individual), and only for a short time. The passage from "Academic sources" to "same name in 1998" would fit at the end of the "History" section, whether as subsection or as part of the text is a matter of layout. Paradoctor (talk) 18:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Well predictions is something based on what is or may happen... If something is going to happen or could possibly happen, it couldn't be history... So in my opinion, Prediction should have a section of its own. If I have misunderstood in any way PLEASE let me know! =) I'd like to help make this article fantastic! Chucks91 (talk) 18:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

That's the spirit! ;) Paradoctor (talk) 20:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, I would like some feedback on what to add to the prediction section. I've noticed that no one has added what anything about what could happen should Artificial Intelligence go unchecked after it has reached a point where it can learn on its own. I will add this information whether i recieve feedback soon or not, but if it doesn't belong please feel free to delete, but explain why. Chucks91 (talk) 19:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry, we will. For information on what happens when machines start to learn on their own, you might want to read the articles on transhumanism and technological singularity, which are both mentioned in the last paragraph of the section "Predictions". Regards, Paradoctor (talk) 20:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

In this article in particular, we are mostly looking for brevity & reliable sources & relevance. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed in the prediction section, that there are quite a bit of examples given. perhaps, too much? it would help decrease its length for sure.Chucks91 (talk) 17:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Picture?

This picture to the right of the article seems to have no value but free marketing for the robotic arm they're selling. Is it really necessairy to put it there and does it really have use for the article?93.125.198.182 (talk) 18:02, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Hopeless. Utterly hopeless. Paradoctor (talk) 19:53, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Why is there such a problem with pictures (assuming they are not copyrighted)? We are visual creature and pictures help our memory. AI is such a large topic, no one picture can represent it all - How about a research robot, like MIT's Domo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas Kist (talk • contribs) 18:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could use the image, but just without the caption? The caption did actually read like ad copy, and I agree that it had to be removed. But without the caption, it's just kind of a non-specific image that evokes the idea of AI. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 04:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The new image (face recognition software) works. Best one so far. And it's even from the Commons! Case closed. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 10:34, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree, AI is really about algorithms (the mind behind the body) and this is actually a picture about an algorithm. Well Done! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas Kist (talk • contribs) 13:45, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Good one!93.125.198.182 (talk) 01:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

What happen to the face recognision picture???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas Kist (talk • contribs) 16:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It was deleted from the commons, believe it or not. I posted a message to the editor who deleted it. I suppose that some rule or other was violated by who ever uploaded it in the first place. We just can't catch a break on a lead image for this article. (Remember the Deep Blue vs. Gary Kasparov image? That was good too.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk)

[edit] Red Eye Special

I was bold and inserted this as interim solution. You know, window to the soul, HAL, artificial vision, should be enough to keep many happy while not enraging too many. Paradoctor (talk) 20:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, if You want to put the Iconic Eye of Hal as a Welcome Image then I suggest You to take One of many Images that are available in Web, but not this Horrible Representation. ---- AFG 12:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid images from 2001 - A Space Odyssey are not available. If you know of any suitable free images, or any copyright holder willing to grant permission, I'll gladly do the legwork. Paradoctor (talk) 18:05, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

What about this one? ---- AFG 13:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Paradoctor is right. We have tried to use this image before and have been told that it is a copyright violation. If the entire article is about the film or characters from the film, then the image falls under the legal principle of fair use. However, because HAL is tangential to the subject of this article, fair use doesn't apply to us here. At least that's how I understand it. WIkipedia has to take copyright law very seriously, I'm afraid, which is why it is so hard to find decent images for a subject like AI. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course, we could always use the Shadow Hand pic again. (ducks and covers) Paradoctor (talk) 20:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of copyright issues, I don't particularly care for an image of HAL. Unless you have seen the film it means nothing. It shouldn't be necessary to see a film to understand/appreciate an article. pgr94 (talk) 16:42, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Man vs. Machine

Some time ago (I forget when exactly) I went to the trouble of contacting IBM to get permission to use a photograph of Kasparov playing Deep Blue for this article. Was that not an appropriate picture? Now for some reason it doesn't even appear in Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov. pgr94 (talk) 21:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Lots of Kasparov images here and on Commons, one Deep Blue image, two versions of a fair-use image from the match on the Lithuanian and on the Kannadan Wikipedias. Your upload log shows only two unrelated files, and the article on the match never had an image judging from its history and the image request on its talk page. Do you by any chance remember details on the how what when where why whom of your elusive upload? Just noted: Shouldn't there be an OTRS ticket? If so, maybe they can help us. Paradoctor (talk) 00:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Dug up the OTRS: [Ticket#2008031110021007] Deep Blue photo‏. It showed Kasparov playing deep blue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:P11_kasparov_breakout.jpg pgr94 (talk) 00:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Was deleted as the result of this IfD. My suggestion seems to become ever more attractive... Paradoctor (talk) 01:20, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

We had the express permission from the copyright holder and it got deleted??? Beats me. If there is any support for the Kasparov vs Deep Blue photo I'll contact IBM again and ask them to put a free license on the picture. pgr94 (talk) 09:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Permission is not the primary concern of WP:NFCC, and according to WP:NFCC#8, such content will only be kept if losing it would significantly hurt understanding of the topic. Silly, but it's policy. About obtaining a free license: In general, I'm all for adding to our collection, the articles on Deep Blue and on the match could use it, and lobbying companies to get used to releasing free content is an excellent idea. As far as this article is concerned, I think we can do better. Chess as AI metaphor is rather dated, and I have a personal dislike for chess. Also, this may be considered over-emphasizing competition/conflict between homo sapiens and his creations in a field where many expect A Better Tomorrow rather than dystopia. Paradoctor (talk) 14:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ⚙nition

Brain with cogs: captures the idea of both thought and machinery, hence automated thinking. This kind of depiction is my first choice as a representation of artificial intelligence. e.g. mechanical brain. If someone finds a suitably licensed image or if there are any creative types motivated to create something similar that would good. pgr94 (talk) 09:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but my first association was something like "Ferrari with Yugo engine". ^_^ Gears are definitely 19th century. If something like that in the style of a 19th-century engraving (or even an original) was available, I might go for it. Paradoctor (talk) 14:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Caricature

While symbolic images conveying the themes of AI are great, obtaining a good, uncontroversial, and free image might prove difficult. OTOH, there must be lots of caricatures which, while not perfect, might be appropriate for the lede. Imagine this one: AI lab, grinning robot holding flame thrower, angry scorched scientist saying: I clearly said "touch me!". ;)

A few non-free examples

• Artizan BAL 1820 if it has to be chess
• Artizan BAL 1030
• Artizan GIR111 this one is intriguing, I keep associating Fiat Lux

Paradoctor (talk) 19:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Gallery of potential candidates

Feel free to add your favorites.

proposal emanating from the park

[edit] Indeed, why?

What about a nicely formatted quote instead of an image? Should be much easier to find (e.g. [2][3]) something agreeable. For example, TAOCP does it, too, and nobody thinks anything of it. List of candidates:

• "Chess is the Drosophila of artificial intelligence. However, computer chess has developed much as genetics might have if the geneticists had concentrated their efforts starting in 1910 on breeding racing Drosophila. We would have some science, but mainly we would have very fast fruit flies." John McCarthy
• (your suggestion here)
• (your suggestion here)
• (your suggestion here)

[edit] Things I was surprised not to see in this article

1. Reference to Minsky's Society of Mind.
2. Reference to The Emperor's New Mind and Consciousness Explained.
3. Reference to Noam Chomsky.

I also felt we could do with more expansion on Cartesian dualism and Searle's Chinese Room.

Finally, has User:Rjanag seen this? I think his input would be particularly valuable here.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 00:29, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be mostly interested in the philosophy of AI, rather than the business of AI research, which is the main focus of the article. Unfortunately, we can only afford about a page to cover this entire subject; there's just enough room to list the "greatest hits" of the philosophy of AI and direct the reader to see that article. (Ths list is at Artificial intelligence#Philosophy.) The section does include a paragraph on Searle and on Roger Penrose, who are both on your list. Their ideas are covered in deatil in the articles Chinese Room and The Emperor's New Mind. Minsky is mentioned in several places in the article, however I think that his other achievements (founding the field, heading up the MIT lab in the 60s and 70s) are more notable than his popular books.

In my view, the other two on you list are not quite influential enough (on the field of AI itself) to merit inclusion on our short list. Daniel Dennett's ideas, although relevant to philosophy of AI, are not actually a central part of the field of AI. I assume that Chomsky's relevance has to do the with his influence on computer science in general, i.e. the Chomsky hierarchy. This is not relevant to AI in particular, but only to computer science in general. Another way Chomsky might be relevant is that his ideas about language helped give birth to cognitive science, i.e., his point of view helped to defeat behaviorism in the late 50s and gave scientists more freedom to begin to discuss the internal structure of the mind, and so he is a kind of godfather to ideas in philosophy like cognitivism, functionalism and computationalism, ideas in psychology like cognitive psychology, and, the central ideas of the philosophy of AI. But, in the end, this is only marginally relevant to the field itself.

Anyway that's my opinion. This is very tight article about a very large subject, and we try to evaluate each new entry as fairly as possible. One guide I use is "how often is this topic mentioned in major AI textbooks?", with a few caveats: see my discussion at the top of a recent Peer Review.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 01:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'm very conscious of the article's length, and I agree with that concern. (Some trimming could perhaps usefully be achieved via a more conventional referencing style.) And it's true that I'm primarily interested in the philosophy behind it. I'm also interested in the linguistics aspect of cognitive science, but that's tangentially relevant and I'd defer to Rjanag's view of what should be in there in any case.

  I'm a big Dennett fan, and I feel the reason he should be here is as an answer to Penrose (since The Emperor's New Mind is probably the most widely-read popular science book on the subject, readers of this article may well be familiar with it, and Dennett addresses its flaws).

  But I'm not desperately concerned to see changes. I remarked here because I saw you wanted more input, rather than because I feel drastic revisions are necessary.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 02:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Constraint programming

I do not see : Constraint programming in this article. Is it missing, or is it not considered as part of AI (in my opinion, it is.)? --Nabeth (talk) 18:43, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree this merits inclusion. It would go under "Search", in the paragraph about applications of search. There's only room for a one sentence explanation aimed at non-technical readers. I think the sentence should link to constraint satisfaction, rather than constraint programming, since that article includes constraint programming as a subtopic. ----CharlesGillingham (talk) 05:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, my mistake, the term to be used is constraint satisfaction. Concerning where, it could indeed be under search and optimisation. However, I would suggest to separate much more explicitly the different methods here. Indeed 'constraint satisfaction' and 'evolutionary computation' (genetic algorithm) are of very different nature, and would deserve a different section. In the history of AI, each of them grabbed a reasonable amount of attention on its own. Constraint satisfaction was in particular 'very hot' in europe 20 years ago and conducted to several products (Bull / Charme, ILOG / Pecos, Cosytec / CHIP, etc...). And genetic algorithm, to my knowledge came afterward. --Nabeth (talk) 09:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Split article

This article is growing rather long. Could some of the subtopics be split off? 192.17.199.112 (talk) 20:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a WP:Summary article of a very large field. It doesn't break up into obvious pieces. This is mostly because AI, at the moment, is a highly divided field. The majority of this article is nothing more than a series of one-paragraph (or even one sentence) summaries of the most important sub-fields of AI. None of these sub-fields can really be ignored, and they are all relatively isolated from each other. The remainder of the article (i.e. the sections on history, philosophy and fiction) are also important.

I argue that this article falls under WP:Article size#Occasional exceptions: it is a WP:Summary article of a large field. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:20, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that AI represents a very big topics, and that this article (may) fall into WP:Article size#Occasional exceptions. However, this may not prevent us to think of making it more digestible and easier to update (I have to admit I am reluctant to update it because of its size and because of its quality, since I am always afraid to 'break something'). For instance an idea could be to create a Portal (see for instance Portal:Education). Maybe we could also create a couple of wikipedia templates for this domain. Having said that, this requires of course some effort, and people ready to do the work :-). --Nabeth (talk) 14:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a portal: Portal:AI. Sadly, no one maintains it. We could use a navigation template at the top level, which could be adopted from the portal.

Note that the text of the article is only 10.4 pages long (on my printer), which is only a smidge above the recommended length. The references are another 10 pages, the table of contents is a page, and various other things bring it up to about 23 pages, but, in my view anyway, these don't count. However, the "applications" section has still not been written and it should be at least a page, and if the article was adequately illustrated, it would add another one or two pages. So if the article ever reaches FA, it will be three or four pages over the limit.

If we want to cut it down, I feel strongly that we should primarily remove material that is not covered by major AI textbooks. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

This is interesting, I had not noticed about the portal! Now I have added a reference in the See also section (maybe we could consider to make another reference somewhereelse). Concerning the main article, yes the list of notes if a little bit long. However they also make the all article solid. It is not totally clear what could be a good solution that would keep both this extended version, as well as a simpler one introduction for the non-expert. Maibe just the portal will be ok if it is more visible, and for instance at the beginning or at the end (for instance I find in the french Wikipedia the template Template:Portail that is present at the bottom of the page very conveniant). Best regards. --Nabeth (talk) 22:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

For information, there also exists an information box for AI. {{Infobox artificial intelligence}} --Nabeth (talk) 08:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate ending

I don't see why an otherwise nicely-written scholarly article should end on a tacky out-note about manga and Dune. Can we either move this to another section or clean up the final paragraph so the conclusion properly captures the essence of the article and not some random fanboy's secret fantasies? 70.27.108.81 (talk) 10:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The section is not about "conclusions", and would be absurd if it was, as AI is a field of active research and progress. It's neither about capturing the essence of the article, that's what the lede is for. Paradoctor (talk) 11:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)