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What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason
When it was first published in 1972, Hubert Dreyfus's manifesto on the inherent inability of disembodied machines to mimic higher mental functions caused an uproar in the artificial intelligence community. The world has changed since then. Today it is clear that "good old-fashioned AI," based on the idea of using symbolic representations to produce general intelligence, is
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Paperback, 408 pages
Published
October 30th 1992
by Mit Press
(first published 1972)
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Using philosophical arguments from Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, Dreyfus convincingly demonstrates that there are things people can do, sometimes even without great effort, but which computers are simply incapable of ever being able to achieve. He ends with a list of 20 such items. Thirty-odd years after initial publication, computers still can't do 18 of them - it turns out that Dreyfus wasn't quite right about Grandmaster-level chess and large-vocabulary continuous speech recognition. Maybe the ...more
If one earns one's bread in the world of Internet People too long, one will encounter a large number of people who seem inherently suspicious of the concept of humanity and go into long diatribes disparaging the weakness of the human mind without technological augmentation. Turns out that not only are they assholes who ruin your lunch break, they are also on very epistemologically shaky ground.
Dreyfus' argument, along with John Searle's critique, are both devastating attacks on the concept of ar ...more
Dreyfus' argument, along with John Searle's critique, are both devastating attacks on the concept of ar ...more
What Computers Still Can’t Do (1992) is an evolution of Hubert Dreyfus’s original work, What Computers Can’t Do (1972). Today, the ideas coming out of GOFAI research (Good Old Fashion Artificial Intelligence), which is based on the notion of using symbolic representations to replicate intelligence, are being replaced by more complex models of the brain/mind. In the revised edition, Dreyfus has added an introduction presenting an overview of the developments that have occurred in the field of Art
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The book is a bit dated, and it really shows when Dreyfus talks about the conteporary limitations of computers. He disparages chess playing computers in a time before Deep Blue, and so it is important to keep in mind that there are large portions of the critique that seem to have overstepped the appropriate boundaries, and that some of those criticisms have been scaled back in the wake of contemporary successes in certain forms of artificial intelligence.
For those interested in the take that man ...more
For those interested in the take that man ...more
I'm probably biased towards Dreyfus' perspective in this book because I've grown fond of him from listening to his recorded Heidegger lectures at UC Berkeley. Despite his harsh and occasionally smug tone in this book, I've always found him a joy to listen to. He's clearly an expert on both AI technology and on continental European thought--not an easy mix to find!) What surprises me about this book is that it isn't more widely read, given that I believe it to be the most destructive critique on
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Bought this a while back and keep meaning to get to it, but I a bit ignorant in Cognitive Science and computers, so it's been too intimidating so far. This is primarily a critique of AI research back 30-40 years ago, from what I hear, though it has been updated for this edition (though this edition is old by now as well, considering the speed with which research advances in the sciences compared to philosophy).
Nobody should even talk about Artificial Intelligence without having read thi book!
Furthermore, I found very strong and original the way he uses both phylosophical arguments and historical facts to make his points across.
Furthermore, I found very strong and original the way he uses both phylosophical arguments and historical facts to make his points across.
Clever
Best philosophy of cognitive science book I've read. Dreyfus is harsh, but his words proved prophetic.
Dreyfus I think is correct, and he is the most endearing person in interviews.
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Hubert Lederer Dreyfus was professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where his interests include phenomenology, existentialism, the philosophy of psychology and literature, and the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence.
More about Hubert L. Dreyfus...
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