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Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI
By Rodney
Brooks
Until the mid-1980s, AI
researchers assumed that an intelligent system doing
high-level reasoning was necessary for the coupling of
perception and action. In this traditional model, cognition
mediates between perception and plans of action. Realizing
that this core AI, as it was known, was illusory, Rodney
A. Brooks turned the field of AI on its head by introducing
the behavior-based approach to robotics. The cornerstone
of behavior-based robotics is the realization that the
coupling of perception and action gives rise to all the
power of intelligence and that cognition is only in the
eye of an observer. Behavior-based robotics has been
the basis of successful applications in entertainment,
service industries, agriculture, mining, and the home.
It has given rise to both autonomous mobile robots and
more recent humanoid robots such as Brooks' Cog. This
book represents Brooks' initial formulation of and contributions
to the development of the behavior-based
approach to robotics. It presents all of the key philosophical
and technical ideas that put this "bottom-up" approach
at the forefront of current research in not only AI but
all of cognitive science. |
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Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us
By Rodney Brooks
Brooks, a leading "roboticist" and
computer science professor at MIT, believes that robots
in the
future will probably be nothing like such all-knowing
brain machines as 2001's HAL, nor will they resemble
the sleek cyborgs of other Hollywood nightmares. Rather,
they will be simple, ubiquitous, curious little machines
that will have more in common with humans than one might
think. Brooks, and his fellow researchers, suggest that
the focus of much AI and robot research has been to develop
superhuman devices that operate at the highest intellectual
levels. Much better, he says, to make a lot of simple,
cheap robots that can perform only a few tasks, but do
them well. Brooks begins with a brief but comprehensive
overview of the field of research into AI and robotics,
then dives quickly into his and his fellow enthusiasts'
work as they engineer one strange, insect-looking (and
weirdly human-acting) metallic creature after another.
Occasionally, Brooks's involvement with iRobots (he is
chairman and chief technical officer of the robot company)
shifts the book into an advertisement for upcoming products.
Brooks points the way toward a future where humans work
in tandem with and even begin to resemble a host of his
fast, cheap creations not a science fiction utopia, but
a future where people have a lot more and better tools
to work with.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. |
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Gödel,
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
By Douglas R. Hofstadter
Twenty years after it topped
the bestseller charts, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel,
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something
of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation
on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising
points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork
of Escher, and the mathematics of Gödel. It also looks
at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence
(AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader
and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard
for thinking about the future of computers and their relation
to the way we think. Hofstadter's great achievement in Gödel,
Escher, Bach was making abstruse mathematical topics (like
undecidability, recursion, and 'strange loops') accessible
and remarkably entertaining. Borrowing a page from Lewis
Carroll (who might well have been a fan of this book), each
chapter presents dialogue between the Tortoise and Achilles,
as well as other characters who dramatize concepts discussed
later in more detail. Allusions to Bach's music (centering
on his Musical Offering) and Escher's continually paradoxical
artwork are plentiful here. This more approachable material
lets the author delve into serious number theory (concentrating
on the ramifications of Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness)
while stopping along the way to ponder the work of a host
of other mathematicians, artists, and thinkers. The world
has moved on since 1979, of course. The book predicted that
computers probably won't ever beat humans in chess, though
Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. And the vinyl record,
which serves for some of Hofstadter's best analogies, is
now left to collectors. Sections on recursion and the graphs
of certain functions from physics look tantalizing, like
the fractals of recent chaos theory. And AI has moved on,
of course, with mixed results. Yet Gödel, Escher, Bach
remains a remarkable achievement. Its intellectual range
and ability to let us visualize difficult mathematical concepts
help make it one of this century's best for anyone who's
interested in computers and their potential for real intelligence. |
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Society of Mind
By Marvin L. Minsky
For some artificial intelligence
researchers, Minsky's book is too far removed from hard science
to be useful. For others, the high-level approach of The
Society of Mind makes it a gold mine of ideas waiting to
be implemented. The author, one of the undisputed fathers
of the discipline of AI, sets out to provide an abstract
model of how the human mind really works. His thesis is that
our minds consist of a huge aggregation of tiny mini-minds
or agents that have evolved to perform highly specific tasks.
Most of these agents lack the attributes we think of as intelligence
and are severely limited in their ability to intercommunicate.
Yet rational thought, feeling, and purposeful action result
from the interaction of these basic components. Minsky's
theory does not suggest a specific implementation for building
intelligent machines. Still, this book may prove to be one
of the most influential for the future of AI. |
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The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind
By Marvin L. Minsky
Twenty years after The Society of Mind, where
he introduced the concept that "minds are what brains
do," Minsky probes deeper into the question of natural
intelligence. Don't look for simple explanations: he
believes "we need to find more complicated ways
to explain our most familiar mental events"; we
need to break our thought processes down into the most
precise steps possible. In fact, in order to truly understand
the human mind, Minsky suggests, we'll probably need
to reverse-engineer a machine that can replicate those
functions so we can study it. Thus, he rejects the idea
of consciousness as a unitary "Self" in favor
of "a decentralized cloud" of more than 20
distinct mental processes. In this view, emotional states
like love and shame are not the opposite of rational
cogitation; both, Minsky says, are ways of thinking.
This is not a book to be read casually; Minsky builds
his argument with constant reference to earlier and later
sections, imagining objections from a variety of philosophical
positions and refuting them. A steady stream of diagrams
helps clarify matters, but readers will be forced to
dig for the "aha!" moments: they're worth the
effort.
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Understanding Artificial Intelligence
Scientific American
Called AI by followers and
practitioners, the field of Artificial Intelligence is dedicated
to the proposition that human brains are nothing more than
machines, albeit extremely complicated ones, whose abilities
will someday be duplicated-and surpassed-by computers. This
collection of essays discusses the wide spectrum of knowledge
compiled on the pursuit of this elusive goal. It includes
a fascinating overview of the subject by Douglas B. Lenat,
the president of Cycorp, Inc., and a forward-thinking essay
on "The Rise of Robots" by Hans Marvec, the principal
research scientists at the robotics Institute at Carnegie
Mellon University, which conservatively estimates that by
2050, robot brains based on computers will start rivaling
human intelligence. Other articles include "Here's Looking
at You," which profiles a robot who learns about itself
and its environment through trial and error, as well as a
profile on Marvin L. Minsky, the mastermind behind Artificial
Intelligence.The book-like the entire series-is targeted
to intelligent readers who want to expand their understanding
of complex scientific subjects and contains essays from top
scientists working in the field.Like the magazine, the book
encompasses a spectrum of innovation through expert-authored
articles that demonstrate the convergence of science, technology,
and the world economy, challenging readers with fresh, new
ideas and empowering them to make smart, strategic decisions. |
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Arguing A. I.: The Battle for Twenty-First-Century Science
Sam Williams
The drive to create artificial
intelligence has been contentious since its beginnings, and
the arguments have
sharpened our understanding of fields as diverse as mathematics,
neuroscience, and philosophy. Although the notion of A.I.
might conjure up images of science fiction movie characters,
it's actually a very real science, one that technophiles
are consumed in a serious debate over, especially since the
threat of technology surpassing human intelligence frightens
many. Science writer Sam Williams's brief history of the
controversies, Arguing A.I.: The
Battle for Twenty-First Century Science, is an excellent
starting point for readers interested more in arguments than
in circuit
diagrams. Its six chapters, while strongly focused, occasionally
go in curious directions; for example, while Jaron Lanier
is no doubt an important figure, he gets a surprising and
disproportionate amount of page space. Still, Williams defines
and clarifies the debates over the feasibility and desirability
of A.I. and includes plenty of paper and online resources
to inspire further investigation. Arguing A.I. presents
a compact yet detailed approach to the controversial subject
of artificial
intelligence. |
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