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C00002 00002	As you may know, we are arranging a group project at the Center for 1979-80
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As you may know, we are arranging a group project at the Center for 1979-80
on the general topic of artificial intelligence and philosophy.  The
interdisciplinary group begins with the premise that both artificial
intelligence and philosophy are concerned with intelligent behavior in
physical and biological systems.  Both face conceptual problems in characterizing
behavior.  On the philosophical side, Daniel Dennett, among others, has 
characterized intentional systems which are physical systems to which can be
ascribed intentional qualities such as beliefs and wants.  On the artificial
intelligence side, John McCarthy has indentified conditions when mental qualities
can be ascribed to machines.

Artificial intelligence helps the philosopher, because intelligent programs
provide a domain where behavior is precisely defined but to which one must
ascribe some intellectual qualities if one is to describe what one knows about
its behavior.  For example, what a particular person knows about the state
of a particular computer operating system may be expressed as ascribing to
the program an incorrect belief that a certain user of the system does not
want to run his program.  From the artificial intelligence point of view, a
program that plans travel must know that travel agents know airline schedules
and must know that the gate at which a flight will leave an intermediate stop
is not knowable initially, but can easily be discovered by an English-speaking
traveller in the United States at the time the information will be required.

While no one expects to solve all the philosophical puzzles concerning knowledge
and wants in the near future, joint work by philosophers and artificial intelligence
people can identify and solve some of the easier problems.  Sorting out the 
problems into easy and hard will benefit both philosophy and artificial
intelligence and facilitate bridging the gap between the abstract world
of philosophy and artificial intelligence and practical real world problems of
education and industry.  Cognitive psychology has already benefitted from the
concreteness of artificial intelligence systems and will also benefit from
the identification and solution of the more straightforward problems of
knowledge, wanting and obligation.

The scientists who are currently scheduled to participate in this group include:
Professor John McCarthy (Chairman), Computer Science, Stanford University;
Daniel Dennett, Philosophy, Tufts University; John Haugeland, Philosophy,
University of Pittsburgh; Patrick Hayes, Computer Sciences, University of
Essex; Marvin Minsky, Computer Science-Electrical Engineering, M.I.T.;
Robert Moore, Computer Science-Engineering, SRI International; and Zenon
W. Pylyshyn, Psychology, University of Western Ontario.

Both Patrick Suppes, Philosophy, Stanford University and Joshua Lederberg,
President, Rockefeller University, who are members of our Board of Trustees
have been actively involved in the planning and assembling of this group.  The
total cost of the project, direct and indirect, will be approximately
$350,000.  We would be delighted to secure an award of $140,000 with the
understanding that the remaining $210,000 will be provided from other sources.