Presupposing no familiarity with the technical concepts of either
philosophy or computing, this clear introduction reviews the
progress made in AI since the inception of the field in 1956.
Copeland goes on to analyze what those working in AI must achieve
before they can claim to have built a thinking machine and
appraises their prospects of succeeding.
There are clear introductions to connectionism and to the
language of thought hypothesis which weave together material from
philosophy, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. John Searle's
attacks on AI and cognitive science are countered and close
attention is given to foundational issues, including the nature of
computation, Turing Machines, the Church-Turing Thesis and the
difference between classical symbol processing and parallel
distributed processing. The book also explores the possibility of
machines having free will and consciousness and concludes with a
discussion of in what sense the human brain may be a computer.
Autorentext
Jack Copeland is Senior Lecturer in philosophy and logic at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He has published widely on logic, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, and is editor of Logic and Reality (1993).
Klappentext
Presupposing no familiarity with the technical concepts of eitherphilosophy or computing, this clear introduction reviews theprogress made in AI since the inception of the field in 1956.Copeland goes on to analyze what those working in AI must achievebefore they can claim to have built a thinking machine andappraises their prospects of succeeding. There are clear introductions to connectionism and to thelanguage of thought hypothesis which weave together material fromphilosophy, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. John Searle'sattacks on AI and cognitive science are countered and closeattention is given to foundational issues, including the nature ofcomputation, Turing Machines, the Church-Turing Thesis and thedifference between classical symbol processing and paralleldistributed processing. The book also explores the possibility ofmachines having free will and consciousness and concludes with adiscussion of in what sense the human brain may be a computer.