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6 - Artificial Intelligence as a New Metaphysical Project

from Part II - Complexity and System Theory

By
Aziz F. Zambak
Edited by
Ruth Hagengruber  and
Uwe V. Riss
Aziz F. Zambak
Affiliation:
Middle East Technical University
Ruth Hagengruber
Affiliation:
University of Paderborn
Uwe V. Riss
Affiliation:
SAP
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Summary

Introduction

It has been a long-standing philosophical issue whether machines can think or not. In the history of philosophy, this issue is discussed using different types of questions such as ‘Is it possible to design intelligent artefacts?’, ‘Can a mechanistic performance of a machine imitate human intelligence?’ or ‘Can reasoning be reduced to some kind of calculation?’. The philosophy of artificial intelligence can be considered a modern aspect of these discussions. Artificial intelligence (hereafter AI) is a field of interdisciplinary study that lies at the intersection of cognitive science, linguistics, logic, neuroscience, computer science and psychology.

The definition and the goal of AI were specified in the middle of the twentieth century, and the study of AI has developed quickly in a very short period of time. These developments can be observed in certain branches of industry, medicine, education, the military, communication, game playing and translating. Such fields of application of AI comprise its technological aspect. AI also has a scientific aspect that deals with theoretical, methodological and conceptual questions, and the philosophy of AI deals with the latter.

The Definition and Aim of AI

What is AI? This is not an easy question, and it is not possible to find an exact definition accepted by all AI researchers. AI has various definitions. This variety is caused by divergent views with regard to the aim and scope of AI.

Type
Chapter
Information
Philosophy, Computing and Information Science , pp. 67 - 74
Publisher: Pickering & Chatto
First published in: 2014

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