Re: <nettime> Review of Hubertus L. Dreyfus - On the Internet

[geert lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

[fwd. from the triumpf of content list with permission of the author]

From: "Miles Fidelman" <mfidelman@civicnet.org>
To: "Triumph of Content List" <triumph-of-content-l@usc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2002 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: Review of Hubert L. Dreyfus - On the Internet

> The Network Society and its Reality Romantics
> Review of Hubert L. Dreyfus - On the Internet
> By Geert Lovink
>
> What happens when an old philosophy professor goes online? The result could
> be invaluable, but chances are considerable that he or she misses the point.

I didn't realize Dreyfus was still around.

Back in my MIT days, Dreyfus made a short-lived name for himself writing
papers that debunked Artificial Intelligence (AI) research.  And while
there was (and is) a lot there to debunk, Dreyfus was never very good at
it.

At the time, Dreyfus was a Philosophy Professor at MIT, and aimed many of
his barbs at MIT's AI Lab - where a number of folks took things a bit
personally.

In response to some of Dreyfus's writings, Seymour Papert, co-director of
MIT's AI Lab, wrote a paper titled "The Artificial Intelligence of Hubert
L. Dreyfus, A Budget of Fallacies" - published as an internal white paper
in 1968 - that thoroughly skewered every arguement Dreyfus had written on
the subject, paper-by-paper and point-by-point.

One of my favorite passages was in a subsection of a discussion of
Dreyfus's claim that "computers can't play chess."  The subsection was
titled "nor can Drefus," and includes the following:

"In 'Alchemy' and 'Phenomenology' Drefus discusses the weakness of
chess-playing programs.  He plainly gives the impression that they can
typically be defeated by human novices.  His twice recounted story of how
a ten-year old child defeated a program constructed by Newell, Shaw and
Simon was gleefully quoted by the 'New Yorker' and other popular magazines
as demonstrating the futility of Artifical Intelligence.  While
'Phenomenology' was in press I had the pleasure of arranging for Dreyfus
to play against Richard Greenblatt's chess program at MIT and seeing him
very roundly trounced.  The newsletter SIGART reprinted the game with no
comment beyond one phrase from 'Alchemy:' '... no chess program can play
even amateur chess.' "

It makes a very amusing read, and thanks to the wonders of the Internet,
it can be found online at:
ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-154.pdf

The paper is dated 1968.  It amazes me to see that Dreyfus is still at it.

Cheers,

Miles

**************************************************************************
The Center for Civic Networking     PO Box 600618
Miles R. Fidelman, President &     Newtonville, MA 02460-0006
Director, Municipal Telecommunications
Strategies Program     617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946
mfidelman@civicnet.org     http://civic.net/ccn.html

Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century
Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere
Say It Often, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!"
**************************************************************************

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net