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The Dark Ages of AI: a Panel Discussion at AAAI-84

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The Dark Ages of AI: a Panel Discussion at AAAI-84 AI Magazine Volume 6 Number 3 (1985) (© AAAI) The Dark Ages of AI: A Panel Discussion at AAAI-84 Drew McDermott Yale University, New Haven, Comecticut 06520 M. Mitchell Waldrop Science Magazine 1515 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D C. 20005 Roger Schank Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 B. Chandrasekaran Computer and Informatiollal Science Department, Ohio State Ufziversify, Columbus, Ohio 43210 John McDermott Department of Coqmter Scieme, Carnegie-Melloll Ulziversity, Pittsburgh, Penmylvania 15213 Drew McDermott: what extent is it due to naivet6 on the part of the public? In spite of all the commercial hustle and bustle around AI What is the role of the press in this mismatch, and how these days, there’s a mood that I’m sure many of you are can we help to make the press a better channel of com- familiar with of deep unease among AI researchers who munication with the public? What is the role of funding have been around more than the last four years or so. agencies in the future going to be as far as keeping a realis- This unease is due to the worry that perhaps expectations tic attitude toward AI? Can we expect DARPA and ICOT about AI are too high, and that this will eventually result to be stabilizing forces, or is there a danger that they may in disaster. cause people in government and business to get a little To sketch a worst case scenario, suppose that five years bit too excited? Are funding agencies going to continue from now the strategic computing initiative collapses mis- to fund pure research, even if AI becomes a commercial erably as autonomous vehicles fail to roll. The fifth gen- success? Will the perception remain that we need to do eration turns out not to go anywhere, and the Japanese some things that are not of immediate commercial inter- government immediately gets out of computing. Every est? And, finally, what should each of us do to insure his startup company fails. Texas Instruments and Schlumber- survival in case of problems? ger and all other companies lose interest. And there’s a Here to discuss these issues are Mitch Waldrop, from big backlash so that you can’t get money for anything con- Sczence Magazine, representing the press; Ron Ohlander, nected with AI. Everybody hurriedly changes the names of from DARPA, representing a funding agency; Roger their research projects to something else. This condition, Schank, from Yale University; B. Chandrasekaran, from called the “AI Winter” by some, prompted someone to Ohio State; and John McDermott, from Carnegie-Mellon ask me if “nuclear winter” were the situation where fund- University. The first speaker will be Mitch Waldrop. ing is cut off for nuclear weapons. So that’s the worst case scenario. Mitch Waldrop: I don’t think this scenario is very likely to happen, First, I would like to relate an experience I had earlier nor even a milder version of it. But there is nervousness, this week when I was attending a seminar in New York and I think it is important that, we take steps to make sure state that Isaac Asimov organizes every year. This year the “AI Winter” doesn’t happen-by disciplining ourselves the topic was Artificial Intelligence, and the idea was to and educating the public. bring in people from all walks of life and, over the course This panel has been assembled to discuss these issues. of several days, work up a human impact statement for I’ve asked the panelists to discuss the following questions artificial intelligence. Marvin Minsky, as well as myself in particular: Are expectations too high among consumers and others, were on the resource panel. The result was of AI, such as business and military? If they are too high, what you might expect: A combination of silliness and then why? Is there something we can do to change this seriousness, with not a great deal of informed insight into mismatch between expectation and reality? To what ex- AI. But there was a very good cross-section of the general tent is this mismatch our fault? There’s a charge often public, and I gained some very interesting insights while leveled against AI people that they claim too much. To trying to answer their questions. 122 THE AI MAGAZINE Fall, 1985 One, is that most of these people make essentially no leagues in the news and media have heard me rant about distinction between computers, broadly defined, and arti- imbecile reporters and relentlessly shallow TV reporters, ficial intelligence-probably for very good reason. As far and I’m not going to give that speech here. It would be as they’re concerned, there is no difference; they’re just superfluous. worried about the impact of very capable, smart comput- But I bring up the general public’s attitude to point ers. out that reporters, editors, and TV people, are human Enthusiasm and exaggerated expectations were very beings; they are reflections of the society in which they live much in evidence. The computer seems to be a mythic They write about or film what their readers are interested emblem for a bright, high-tech future that is going to in and what they are interested in; what seem to them to make our lives so much easier. But it was interesting to be important issues. That brings us to the key problem in hear the subjects that people were interested in. Educa- covering something like AI. The problem is not a matter tion seemed to capture their imagination most-computer- of imminent deadlines or lack of space or lack of time or aided instruction potential. If you want to see some real people straining for “gee whiz” or “Oh, my God” type passion, start talking about what happens to people’s kids headlines. The real problem is that what reporters see in their school-room environment. as real issues in the world are very different from what This was followed by an absolute fascination with cog- the AI community sees as real issues, and the trick is to nitive science and what artificial intelligence is telling us bring these into consonance. Where does that leave the AI about how we think. As for applications to health-they community? There seems to be broad agreement here that were a little vague beyond potential for diagnosis. In fact, the coverage of AI is abysmal. So what do you do about they didn’t make much distinction between artificial intel- it? Something that is very unhelpful is to take an attitude ligence and biotechnology. that everybody out there is a pack of idiots except us, who There was even some interest in the possibilities of really understand. Cheap shots at reporters get big laughs what could be done with very large databases, searching at meetings like this but are not very helpful. Some of us it with intelligent database searchers, etc. HAVE taken predicate calculus and can understand it very I’m not sure what it means, but it’s interesting that nicely. this seems to be in roughly the inverse priority to what AI What would be useful is to ask yourselves: If you don’t people give these subjects. like the coverage that you’re getting now, what would good What really struck me was the flip side of exagger- coverage consist of? What would be a good story about ated expectations-exaggerated fears. The computer is AI? What would you like to see? AI is about giving opera- not only a mythic emblem for this bright, high-technology tional definitions for things. What’s an operational dehni- future, it’s a mythic symbol for much of the anxiety that tion of a good story? I’m not going to attempt to answer, people have about their own society. The most obvious, but it might be helpful if you think about that. what you might call the “1984 Big Brother Is Watching When a reporter comes to talk to you, what message Anxiety,” is that somehow the computer will erode our are you trying to communicate? It might be helpful to freedom and invade our privacy. Who writes the computer- know ahead of time. If what you want to communicate is aided instruction programs for our children? They control the latest stuff on some nonmonotonic, backward chain- what our children learn, and how they think. There seems ing, I don’t think it is going to be too compelling to the to be an implicit assumption that there’s always going to reporter. If it is about the nifty expert system that you be some big, manipulative power structure up there con- hope to be marketing next month, it’s probably going to trolling things. look very funny to the reporter. He would be very suspi- A second anxiety, what you might call the “Franken- cious. But just in general, ask yourself what it is you are stein Anxiety,” is the fear of being replaced, of becoming trying to communicate. Think of it as an opportunity, not superfluous, of being out of a job, and out on the street. as an interruption and an irritant. A third, closely related anxiety might be called the The idiot reporters and the insensitive editors are al- “Modern Times Anxiety.” People becoming somehow, be- ways going to be worthless. I cannot offer you any wis- cause of computers, just a cog in the vast, faceless machine; dom or magic formula to make them go away. The best the strong sense of helplessness, that we really have no con- you can hope to do is help the conscientious reporters who trol over our lives, that computers, being inevitably very do come by and may just be confused or not know, but rigid, brittle machines, becoming more and more powerful, are genuinely willing to try to learn as much as they can inevitably result in alienation, isolation, enforced confor- given their time constraints.
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