4 - GOFAI
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
Summary
Introduction
Good Old-Fashioned AI – GOFAI, for short – is a label used to denote classical, symbolic, AI. The term “AI” is sometimes used to mean only GOFAI, but that is a mistake. AI also includes other approaches, such as connectionism (of which there are several varieties: see Chapter 5), evolutionary programming, and situated and evolutionary robotics. Indeed, most work in artificial life (A-Life) falls within AI broadly defined, despite A-Lifers’ tendency to distance themselves from it (see Chapter 14). Here, however, we are concerned with symbolic AI alone.
Both technological and psychological AI employ the full range of AI methodologies, GOFAI included. But they are driven by different motivations. The goal of the former is to build useful computer systems, doing, or assisting with, tasks that humans want done. The goal of the latter – which can also be called computational psychology – is to develop explanatory theories of mind. Sometimes (according to “strong” AI: see Section 4.4), it also aims to build computer systems that are genuinely intelligent in themselves. Accordingly, psychological AI is the more likely to raise questions of interest for the philosophy of mind.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence , pp. 89 - 107Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
References
(ed.) (1990). The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. Oxford University Press. This collection contains some of the classical and some more recent papers on AI, focusing on theoretical/philosophical issues rather than practical methodologies. (A companion volume in the same series focuses on A-Life.)
(2006). Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, 2 vols. Oxford University Press. This book describes the past history and some current state-of-the-art work in all the disciplines of cognitive science. The parts especially relevant to GOFAI are chapters 10, 11, and 13 – plus sections 4.i–iv, 6.iii, 7.i.e–g, 7.iv–v, and 9.x–xi. (Cybernetics, connectionism, and artificial life are discussed in Chapters 12, 14, and 15, and in Sections 4.v–ix and 5.iv.)
(1992). What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. An updated version of Dreyfus’ classic (1972) attack on GOFAI. Its statements about the achievements and limitations of AI in practice are not always reliable (see Boden 2006, ch. 11.ii). However, it offers a well-written account of a common set of philosophical objections to AI in general, and GOFAI in particular.
(ed.) (1988). The Artificial Intelligence Debate: False Starts, Real Foundations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. This collection of papers (including one by the Dreyfus brothers) is an attack on GOFAI, in favor of connectionism. It underestimates the former while overestimating the latter, but is a good example of a common view outside the field.
and (2010). Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd edn.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. An up-to-date and comprehensive textbook of technical work in AI. The book includes both connectionism and GOFAI, but is weighted more heavily towards GOFAI.
(1969). The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. A classic account of the fundamental assumptions and methodology of GOFAI, which also includes the core idea of situated robotics (in the now-famous example of Simon’s ant).Google Scholar
(1978). The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science, and Models of Mind. Brighton: Harvester Press. Out of print, but available – and continually updated – online at . This text, and the papers accompanying it on Sloman’s CogAff website, is a rich and insightful account of how GOFAI and other types of AI relate to the mind, whether animal or human. Sloman is an accomplished philosopher, as well as an AI leader. Among other things, he offers a stimulating view (and mini-programs for simulation) of the role of emotions in mental architecture.Google Scholar
(1990). Intelligence as Adaptive Behavior: An Experiment in Computational Neuroethology. Boston: Academic Press.Google Scholar
(1977/87). Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man. New York: Basic Books. (2nd edn. 1987, London: MIT Press.)Google Scholar
(2006). Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, 2 vols. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(1991). Intelligence without representation, Artificial Intelligence 47: 139–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1989). Microcognition: Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and Parallel Distributed Processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
, , , and (1996). Towards a systematic methodology for cognitive modelling, Artificial Intelligence 85: 3–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1984). Cognitive wheels: The frame problem of AI, in (ed.), Minds, Machines and Evolution: Philosophical Studies (pp. 129–52). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1965). Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, Research Report P-3244, December.Google Scholar
and (1988). Making a mind versus modelling the brain: Artificial Intelligence back at a branch point, in (ed.), The Artificial Intelligence Debate: False Starts, Real Foundations (pp. 15–43). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
and (1983). The Fifth Generation: Artificial Intelligence and Japan’s Computer Challenge to the World. London: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
(1968). Psychological Explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Psychology. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
, , and (1994). Seeing the light: Artificial evolution, real vision, in , , , and (eds.), From Animals to Animats 3: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (pp. 392–401). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
(1979). The naive physics manifesto, in (ed.), Expert Systems in the Micro-Electronic Age (pp. 242–70). Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
. (1985). The second naive physics manifesto, in and (eds.), Formal Theories of the Commonsense World (pp. 1–36). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
(1975). Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
, , and (1995). Circle in the round: State space attractors for evolved sighted robots, Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems 15: 83–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1969). Some philosophical problems from the standpoint of Artificial Intelligence, in and (eds.), Machine Intelligence 4 (pp. 463–502). Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
and (1943). A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 5 (4): 115–33. Reprinted in (ed.) (1965), Embodiments of Mind (pp. 19–39). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
and (1980). Learning by being told and learning from examples: An experimental comparison of the two methods of knowledge acquisition in the context of developing an expert system for soybean disease diagnosis, International Journal of Policy Analysis and Information Systems 4: 125–61.Google Scholar
(ed.) (1979). Expert Systems in the Micro-Electronic Age. Edinburgh University Press.
(1984). Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
, , and (1958a). Chess-playing programs and the problem of complexity, IBM Journal of Research and Development, 2: 320–35. Reprinted (1963) in E. A. Feigenbaum and J. A. Feldman (eds.), Computers and Thought (pp. 39–70). New York: McGraw-Hill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and . (1958b). Elements of a theory of human problem-solving, Psychological Review 65: 151–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and . (1959). Report on a general problem-solving program, Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Processing, Paris (pp. 256–64. Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
, and (1963). GPS, a program that simulates human thought, in and (eds.), Computers and Thought (pp. 279–293). New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
and (1986). Attention to action: Willed and automatic control of behavior, in , , and (eds.), Consciousness and Self Regulation: Advances in Research and Theory, vol. 4 (pp. 1–18). New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
(1943). Formal reductions of the general combinatorial decision problem, American Journal of Mathematics 65: 197–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1960). Minds and machines, in (ed.), Dimensions of Mind: A Symposium (pp. 148–179). New York University Press.Google Scholar
. (1997). Functionalism: Cognitive science or science fiction?, in and (eds.), The Future of the Cognitive Revolution (pp. 32–44). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. (1999). The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
(1992). An approach to the synthesis of life, in , , , and (eds.), Artificial Life II (pp. 371–408). Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
(1968). The generalized resolution principle, in (ed.), Machine Intelligence 3 (pp. 77–93). Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
, , and (1943). Behavior, purpose, and teleology, Philosophy of Science 10: 18–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2003). Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd edn.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
and (1994). Can situated robots play soccer?, Proceedings of the Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence (pp. 249–54). Banff, AB: Morgan Kaufmann.Google Scholar
(1959). Some studies in machine learning using the game of checkers, IBM Journal of Research and Development 3: 210–29. Reprinted in Feigenbaum E. A. and Feldman J. A. (eds.) (1963), Computers and Thought (pp. 71–108). New York: McGraw-Hill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1978). The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science, and Models of Mind. Brighton: Harvester Press. Out of print, but available – and continually updated – online at .Google Scholar
. (2002). The irrelevance of Turing Machines to artificial intelligence, in (ed.), Computationalism: New Directions (pp. 87–127). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
, , and (1991). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
and (1993). Situated action: A symbolic interpretation, Cognitive Science 17: 7–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 15
- Cited by