Artificial Intelligence and Scientific Method - Softcover

Gillies, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198751591 ISBN 13: 9780198751595

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Artificial Intelligence and Scientific Method examines the remarkable advances made in the field of AI over the past twenty years, discussing their profound implications for philosophy. Taking a clear, non-technical approach, Donald Gillies focuses on two key topics within AI: machine learning in the Turing tradition and the development of logic programming and its connection with non-monotonic logic. Demonstrating how current views on scientific method are challenged by this recent research, he goes on to suggest a new framework for the study of logic. He draws on work by such seminal thinkers as Bacon, Gödel, Popper, Penrose, and Lucas to address the hotly contested question of whether computers might become intellectually superior to human beings. These topics will attract a wide readership from followers of advances in artificial intelligence, to students and scholars of the history and philosophy of science.

About this title

About the Author

Donald Gillies is Professor of the Philosophy of Science and Mathematics at King's College, London. His books include An Objective Theory of Probability (1973), Revolutions in Mathematics (1992), and Philosophy of Science in the Twentieth Century (1993). He was the editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science from 1982 to 1985.

Review

"Although a machine can perform deduction based on available knowledge, the real question is whether a machine can genuinely perform induction based on observations alone. The author presents a number of practical developments in nontechnical terms to illustrate the arguments for and against the induction approach. . . A very easy-to-read book for those more inclined toward philosophical perspectives." --Choice

"In this book Donald Gillies, a practitioner of the philosophy of science who in recent years has become interested in the field of artificial intelligence, discusses some of the implications each of these two disciplines holds for the other. . . . The work is best regarded as an extended essay, touching on a number of topics of particular interest to its author, arguing in a nondogmatic fashion for a particular point of view. Thus conceived it is quite successful. Informative, clearly written, carefully organized, and free of jargon, it could well serve as the basis for an undergraduate or graduate seminar supplemented by papers from the original journal literature."--ISIS

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0198751591
• ISBN 13: 9780198751595
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192