2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

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P HILOSOPHY, NON-PHILOSOPHY, AND SCIENCE
that the analysis cannot lead anywhere, that it cannot certainly bring about any truth, and
that it is not worth bothering with. John McCarthy, for example, dismisses the three most
famous critiques of Artificial Intelligence provided by Hubert Dreyfus, Joseph Weizen-
baum, and John Searle as “ideological” oppositions, by noting:
AI has some ideological opponents. Some think it impossible in principle,
although none of them has attempted an actual mathematical argument. 11
Similar arguments are employed by Marvin Minsky, although in a different setting. He
goes through several “common sense” objections to the impossibility of truly intelligent
machine (“Humans are creative—computers can only repeat instructions,” or “Computers
can apply pre-given problem solving strategies—humans find new ones,” etc.) and every
time explains that the supposed “critique” is just an expression of ignorance that has been
reified into a presumptive superiority of human beings. For example, on the issue of cre-
ativity, he says:
I do not blame anyone for not being able to explain [creativity]. I do object
to the idea that, just because we can’t explain it now, then no one ever
could imagine how creativity works.
Perhaps our superstitions about creativity serve some other needs, such as
supplying us with heroes with such special qualities that, somehow, our deficiencies
seem more excusable. 12
AI’s complaint about being treated “unfairly” because of ideological presupposition is not
totally ungrounded. A few comments are necessary, though, in order to understand better
what is at stake.
First of all, it should remembered that Artificial Intelligence itself has employed, and
all too successfully, the same strategy in the past. In the early 1960s a major funding war
erupted between two competing paradigms striving to assert themselves as the correct ap-
proach to the computational study of higher cognitive faculties: the older discipline of cy-
11. John McCarthy, “AI Needs a Basic Research Document”, available at URL://sail.stanford.edu/pub/airesearch/basic.html.
See also John McCarthy, “AI Needs more Emphasis on Basic Research,” AI Magazine,
1983.
12. Marvin Minsky, “Why People Think Computers Can’t,” AI Magazine, 3, 4, Fall 1982.