Artificial Minds - Hardcover

Franklin, Stan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262061783 ISBN 13: 9780262061780

Publisher: Bradford Books, 1995

Synopsis

Recent decades have produced a blossoming of research in artificial systems thatexhibit important properties of mind. But what exactly is this dramatic new work and how does itchange the way we think about the mind, or even about who or what has mind?Stan Franklin is theperfect tour guide through the contemporary interdisciplinary matrix of artificial intelligence,cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, artificial neural networks, artificial life, and roboticsthat is producing a new paradigm of mind. Leisurely and informal, but always informed, his tourtouches on all of the major facets of mechanisms of mind.Along the way, Franklin makes the case fora perspective that rejects a rigid distinction between mind and non-mind in favor of a continuumfrom less to more mind, and for the role of mind as a control structure with the essential task ofchoosing the next action. Selected stops include the best of the work in these different fields,with the key concepts and results explained in just enough detail to allow readers to decide forthemselves why the work is significant.Major attractions include animal minds, Allan Newell's SOAR,the three Artificial Intelligence debates, John Holland's genetic algorithms, Wilson's Animat,Brooks' subsumption architecture, Jackson's pandemonium theory, Ornstein's multimind, MarvinMinsky's society of mind, Pattie Maes's behavior networks, Gerald Edelman's neural Darwinism,Drescher's schema mechanisms, Pentti Kanerva's sparse distributed memory, Douglas Hofstadter andMelanie Mitchell's Copycat, and Agre and Chapman's deictic representations.A Bradford Book

About this title

About the Author

Stan Franklin is Professor of Mathematical Sciences and Co-director of the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis.

Reviews

Franklin's tour of contemporary thought on human, animal, and artificial minds introduces creative theories, models, and prototypes of artificial intelligence. After citing the scoffers' arguments regarding the improbability of fashioning artificial minds, Franklin examines some systems that do, in fact, exhibit aspects of intelligence. Next is a debate on the potential usefulness of symbolic AI computer models of cognition versus the connectionism brain model of intelligence. Examples of both models are presented; for instance, SOAR, a symbolic AI program, is claimed to be an architecture for general intelligence. Franklin also explores the multiplicity views of mind, including the pandemonium model, behavior networks, subsumption architecture, and autonomous agents, and he introduces Animat, an artificial life model of simple animals. The final debate is an airing of the views of those workers who dispute the importance of internal representation. Franklin is an entertaining writer and is uncommonly adept at elucidating scientific concepts. Brenda Grazis

Edition details

• Publisher: Bradford Books
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262061783
• ISBN 13: 9780262061780
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464