How to build a person a prolegomenon

Pollock describes an exciting theory of rationality and its partial implementation in OSCAR, a computer system whose descendants will literally be persons.Building a person has been an elusive goal in artificial intelligence. This failure, John Pollock argues, is because the problems involved are es...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pollock, John L.
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press 1989
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: MIT Press eBook Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:Pollock describes an exciting theory of rationality and its partial implementation in OSCAR, a computer system whose descendants will literally be persons.Building a person has been an elusive goal in artificial intelligence. This failure, John Pollock argues, is because the problems involved are essentially philosophical; what is needed for the construction of a person is a physical system that mimics human rationality. Pollock describes an exciting theory of rationality and its partial implementation in OSCAR, a computer system whose descendants will literally be persons. In developing the philosophical superstructure for this bold undertaking, Pollock defends the conception of man as an intelligent machine and argues that mental states are physical states and persons are physical objects as described in the fable of Oscar, the self conscious machine. Pollock brings a unique blend of philosophy and artificial intelligence to bear on the vexing problem of how to construct a physical system that thinks, is self conscious, has desires, fears, intentions, and a full range of mental states. He brings together an impressive array of technical work in philosophy to drive theory construction in AI. The result is described in his final chapter on "cognitive carpentry."A Bradford Book
Item Description:"A Bradford book."
Physical Description:xi, 189 pages illustrations
ISBN:0585336997
0262281767
9780585336992
9780262281768