Book Reviews - Roberto Cordeschi, The Discovery of the Artificial: Behaviour, Mind and Machines Before and Beyond Cybernetics, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002, xx + 312, ISBN 1-4020-0606-3 (original) (raw)
Related papers
AI & Society, 2003
During the second half of the twentieth century, researchers in cybernetics and artificial intelligence, neural nets and connectionism, artificial life and new robotics have endeavoured to build different machines that could simulate functions of living organisms, such as adaptation and development, intelligence and learning. In this book these research programs are discussed, and their philosophical significance is stressed. One of the actual novelties in this book consists of the fact that certain projects involving the building of simulative machines before the advent of cybernetics are investigated for the first time, on the basis of little-known, and sometimes completely forgotten or unpublished, texts. These precybernetic projects can be considered as steps towards the discovery of a simulative methodology that has been fully developed by those research programs, and that shares some of their central goals and key methodological proposals. Actually, these precybernetic projects are considered in the book to be what Marvin Minsky called the ''intellectual ancestors'' of cybernetics, when he dated the latterÕs public emergence to the nearly simultaneous appearance, in 1943, of A. Rosenblueth, N. Wiener and J. BigelowÕs paper on the teleological features of feedback machines, of W. McCulloch and W. PittsÕ paper on neural nets, and of K. CraikÕs modelling approach in The Nature of Explanation. In the first chapter, the reader is introduced to the overall theme of the book through the description of the debate between J. Loeb and H. Jennings on animal behaviour, setting the stage for the issues addressed in the following chapters, i.e., reductionism and the notion of biological mechanism, the alleged opposition between automatic (''machine-like'') and learned (''plastic'') behaviour, the ''stance'' from which one is justified in using mental
The Discovery of the Artificial: Behavior, Mind and Machines Before and Beyond Cybernetics
2002
Since the second half of the XXth century, researchers in cybernetics and AI, neural nets and connectionism, Artificial Life and new robotics have endeavoured to build different machines that could simulate functions of living organisms, such as adaptation and development, problem solving and learning. In this book these research programs are discussed, particularly as regard the epistemological issues of the behaviour modelling. One of the main novelty of this book consists of the fact that certain projects involving the building of simulative machine models before the advent of cybernetics are been investigated for the first time, on the basis of little known, and sometimes completely forgotten or unpublished, texts and figures. These pre-cybernetics projects can be considered as steps toward the “discovery” of a modelling methodology that has been fully developed by those more recent research programs, and that shares some of their central goals and key methodological proposals. More info in Springer link: http://www.springer.com/new+%26+forthcoming+titles+%28default%29/book/978-1-4020-0606-7 This book is the English translation of La scoperta dell'artificiale, Dunod/Masson, Milan, 1998.
The discovery of the artificial: some protocybernetic developments 1930-1940
1991
In this paper I start from a definition of “culture of the artificial” which might be stated by referring to the background of philosophical, methodological, pragmatical assumptions which characterizes the development of the information processing analysis of mental processes and of some trends in contemporary cognitive science: in a word, the development of AI as a candidate science of mind. The aim of this paper is to show how (with which plausibility and limitations) the discovery of the mentioned background might be dated back to a period preceding the cybernetic era, the decade 1930–1940 at least. Therefore a somewhat detailed analysis of Hull's “robot approach” is given, as well as of some of its independent and future developments.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THROUGH ASIMOV'S EYES OR THE WORK OF A LIFETIME
TIEES 2023 Trends and Innovations in E-business, Education, and Security Eleventh Intemational Scientific Web-conference of Scientists and PhD students or candidates, 2024
This paper explores the origins and diverse irnplications of the terms "artificial intelligence" and "robot," highlighting their evolution and the rnisconceptions surrounding their use. The term "artificial intelligence" was officially coined by John McCarthy in 1956, although the concept had been explored earlier by Alan Turing and others in the field. This term encornpasses a broad spectrurn of technologies and applications, often rnisrepresented in the rnedia as a singular entity, leading to widespread rnisunderstanding. Sirnilarly, the term "robot" was popularised by Karel Capek and initially described hurnan-shaped rnachines, evolving in its application frorn its Slavic root rneaning "labour" to signify various autornated devices. The paper also delves into Isaac Asirnov's significant contribution to the discourse through his literary works, rnainly focusing on his portrayal of robots with "positronic brains" and the ethical and philosophical dilernrnas they present. Asirnov's fictional laws of robotics are discussed about real-world applications and regulatory challenges in artificial intelligence and robotics. The study underscores the disparity between Asirnov's idealistic visions and the pragrnatic issues of integrating AI systerns into society, advocating for a nuanced understanding and responsible developrnent of AI technologies.
A Short History of the Perception of Robots and Automata from Antiquity to Modern Times
Human–Computer Interaction Series, 2019
Robots and automata are key elements of every vision and forecast of life in the near and distant future. However, robots and automata also have a long history, which reaches back into antiquity. Today most historians think that one of the key roles of robots and automata was to amaze or even terrify the audience: They were designed to express something mythical, magical, and not explainable. Moreover, the visions of robots and their envisioned fields of application reflect the different societies. Therefore, this short history of robotics and (especially) anthropomorphic automata aims to give an overview of several historical periods and their perspective on the topic. In a second step, this work aims to encourage readers to reflect on the recent discussion about fields of application as well as the role of robotics today and in the future.
The history and science of the artificial
Design Studies, 1979
This Is the concluding chapter from a new book, The Evolution of Designs, B,ological Analogy in Arch,tecture and the Applied Arts, recently pubhshed by Cambridge Umverszty Press © The book revzews the hzstory of analogzes made between the design of artefacts and the 'deszgn' o£ orgamsms, since the beginnings o£ bzology as a
A biosemiotic note on organisms, animals, machines, cyborgs, and the quasi-autonomy of robots
Pragmatics &# 38; Cognition, 2007
Abstract: It is argued that robots are just quasi-autonomous beings, which must be understood, within an emergent systems view, as intrinsically linked to and presupposing human beings as societal creatures within a technologically mediated world. Biosemiotics is introduced as a perspective on living systems that is based upon contemporary biology but reinterpreted through a qualitative organicist tradition in biology. This allows for emphasizing the differences between (1) an organism as a general semiotic system with vegetative and self-reproductive capacities, (2) an animal body also with sentience and phenomenal states, and (3) higher forms of anthroposemiotic systems such as humans, machines and robots. On all three levels, representations (or sign action) are crucial processes. The “representationalism” invoked by critiques of cognitive science and robotics tends to focus only on simplistic notions of representations, and must be distinguished from a Peircean or biosemiotic notion of representation. Implications for theorizing about the physical, biological, animate, phenomenal and social body and their forms of autonomy is discussed. Key Words: biosemiotics, autonomy, organicism, representationalism, robots, levels of reality.