CW2001 Program - Computers and Writing

Friday
2:15 — 3:30 Session C.1
Artificial Intelligence:
Cultural Perceptions, History, Theory, and Practice
RB 105
Cynthia Jeney, moderator
Cynthia Jeney
Back When the Future Was Easy
Can we really build a machine capable of human language Can
we learn to work with machines that seem to mimic our language and
thought patterns Or is AI a blind alley, just another bundle of misconceptions
and wrong assumptions along the way to computational Utopia
Kate Coffield
The Wine is Good, But the Meat is Rotten
I explore the history of Artificial Intelligence research in natural language
processing (post-WWII through 1984) and observe how what was thought
to be one of the simplest problems of AI quickly turned into one of the
most challenging and problematic. Conclusions focus on the limitations
of analytical formal systems in performance models, observing that
today, computer grammar checkers still don’t “work,” and natural language
instruction still tends to emphasize form over content, context,
and common sense.
Andrew Lee
How Artificial is Artificial Intelligence
I question whether AI systems can really be described as intelligent,
based on an analysis of how some of these systems work. Two issues
arise from this exploration: Is the mimicry of intelligence sufficiently
acceptable as intelligence And could a framework in which the
disparate AI solutions can be combined produce the Holy Grail of
Artificial Intelligence — the sentient machine
Robert Royar
The Artifice of AI in Writing Instruction
I focus on implications of AI in the teaching of writing. Artificial Intelligence
has largely failed to live up to the potential ascribed to it in the 1970s and
1980s. This presentation focuses on the idea that, at least as far as writing
instruction is concerned, some of that potential may be recovered by our
rethinking our initial concepts regarding AI.
42 Computers & Writing 2001