Articles

14 AI MAGAZINE

word and some rules whereby sentences con-

taining it imply and are implied by others. This

idea has never been very precisely formulated

nor have examples been worked out.

3. Neuron Nets

How can a set of (hypothetical) neurons be

arranged so as to form concepts. Considerable

theoretical and experimental work has been

done on this problem by Uttley , Rashevsky and

his group, Farley and Clark, Pitts and McCul-

loch, Minsky , Rochester and Holland, and oth-

ers. Partial results have been obtained but the

problem needs more theoretical work.

4. Theory of the Size of a Calculation

If we are given a well-deﬁned problem (one for

which it is possible to test mechanically

whether or not a proposed answer is a valid

answer) one way of solving it is to try all possi-

ble answers in order . This method is inefﬁcient,

and to exclude it one must have some criterion

for efﬁciency of calculation. Some considera-

tion will show that to get a measure of the efﬁ-

ciency of a calculation it is necessary to have

on hand a method of measuring the complex-

ity of calculating devices which in turn can be

done if one has a theory of the complexity of

functions. Some partial results on this problem

have been obtained by Shannon, and also by

McCarthy .

5. Self-lmprovement

Probably a truly intelligent machine will carry

out activities which may best be described as

self-improvement. Some schemes for doing

this have been proposed and are worth further

study . It seems likely that this question can be

studied abstractly as well.

6. Abstractions

A number of types of “abstraction” can be dis-

tinctly deﬁned and several others less distinct-

ly . A direct attempt to classify these and to

describe machine methods of forming abstrac-

tions from sensory and other data would seem

worthwhile.

7. Randomness and Creativity

A fairly attractive and yet clearly incomplete

conjecture is that the difference between cre-

ative thinking and unimaginative competent

thinking lies in the injection of a some random-

ness. The randomness must be guided by intu-

ition to be efﬁcient. In other words, the educat-

ed guess or the hunch include controlled

randomness in otherwise orderly thinking.

The Proposers

Claude E. Shannon

Claude E. Shannon, Mathematician, Bell T ele-

phone Laboratories. Shannon de veloped the

statistical theory of information, the applica-

tion of propositional calculus to switching cir-

cuits, and has results on the efﬁcient synthesis

of switching circuits, the design of machines

that learn, cryptography , and the theory of T ur-

ing machines. He and J. McCarthy are coedit-

ing an Annals of Mathematics study on “The

Theory of Automata”.

Marvin L. Minsky

Marvin L. Minsky , Harvard Junior Fellow in

Mathematics and Neurology . Minsky has built

a machine for simulating learning by nerve

nets and has written a Princeton Ph.D thesis in

mathematics entitled, “Neural Nets and the

Brain Model Problem” which includes results

in learning theory and the theory of random

neural nets.

Nathaniel Rochester

Nathaniel Rochester , Manager of Information

Research, IBM Corporation, Poughkeepsie,

New Y ork. Rochester was concerned with the

development of radar for seven years and com-

puting machinery for seven years. He and

another engineer were jointly responsible for

the design of the IBM T ype 701 which is a large

scale automatic computer in wide use today .

He worked out some of the automatic program-

ming techniques which are in wide use today

and has been concerned with problems of how

to get machines to do tasks which previously

could be done only by people. He has also

worked on simulation of nerve nets with par-

ticular emphasis on using computers to test

theories in neurophysiology .

John McCarthy

John McCarthy , Assistant Professor of Mathe-

matics, Dartmouth College. McCarthy has

worked on a number of questions connected

with the mathematical nature of the thought

process including the theory of T uring ma -

chines, the speed of computers, the relation of

a brain model to its environment, and the use

of languages by machines. Some results of this

work are included in the forthcoming “Annals

Study” edited by Shannon and McCarthy .

McCarthy’ s other work has been in the ﬁeld of

differential equations.