Artificial Intelligence at CPW
I can't quite put my finger on the reasons but I found this excerpt quite inspiring and uplifting...
Drosophila of AI
Donald Michie
Quote from I remember Donald Michie by Maarten van Emden [7] :
| In the 1970s DM was fond of proclaiming “Chess, the Drosophila Melanogaster of Artificial Intelligence”. A public pronouncement of his point of view can be found in an interview with H.J. van den Herik held in 1981 (“Computerschaak, schaakwereld en kunstmatige intelligentie” by H.J. van den Herik, Academic Service, 1983) [8] . It is a long interview, from which I quote DM’s answer to the question: “What do you think about the applicability of the research done in computer chess?” | |||
| The applicability is I think enormous and quite critical. Scientific study of computer chess, which includes the technological work, but goes far beyond that, is the most important scientific study that is going in the world at present. In the same sense, if I were asked what was the most important study in process during the first world war, I would say the genetic breeding experiments on the drosophila fruit fly by Morgan and his colleagues. The analogy is very good. The final impact of the early work in laying down the basic theoretical framework for the subject was just enormous, unimaginable. We see now the industrial take-off of genetic engineering which is the delayed final outcome for human society of the fly-breeding work. The use of chess now as a preliminary to the knowledge engineering and cognitive engineering of the future is exactly similar, in my opinion, to the work on drosophila. It should be encouraged in a very intense way, for these reasons. | |||
