Two Contrasting Definitions of AI

1. "The science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by humans."
   —Marvin Minsky
   • Using humans to tell us how to program computers.
   • Consistent with AI viewed as engineering, computational psychology, and computational philosophy

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2. "The use of computer programs and programming techniques to cast light on the principles of intelligence in general and human thought in particular."
   —Margaret Boden
   • Using computers to tell us something about humans.
   • Consistent with AI viewed as computational psychology and computational philosophy

• In fact: it's both—a 2-way street

• My preferred definition:
  • A better name for AI is: computational cognition

  • Computational cognition is the branch of computer science (working with other disciplines) that tries to answer the question:
    • How much of cognition is computable?

  • Working assumption:
    • All of cognition is computable
      • "The study [of AI] is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."
        • (McCarthy, John; Minsky, Marvin L.; Rochester, Nathaniel; & Shannon, Claude E. (1955), "A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence")

  • Open research question:
    • Is what's not yet known to be computable computable?
      • If so, then what? (Turing test)
      • If not (Chinese Room Argument), why not, and what does that tell us about cognition?

• For more definitions, see Some Definitions of Artificial Intelligence