Contents

 1. Calculating machines: “something extraordinary” 1
 2. The Analytical Engine: “an out-of-pocket machine” 4
 3. The first computers: “electronic brains” 9
 4. Cybernetics: “practically infinite modes of existence” 14
 5. The Turing machine: “an effective procedure” 16
 6. The stored program concept: “stored in the memory” 19
 7. Programs: “nothing must be left unstated” 21
 8. Programming: “an aesthetic experience” 28
 9. Computer games: “chess is not such a difficult game” 31
 10. Symbols: “comfort and inspiration” 35
 11. Structures: “a mighty sense of accomplishment” 39
 12. Search: “a core area of AI” 44
 13. Problem solving: “weak and shallow” 48
 14. Representation: “grounded in the physical world” 52
 15. Plans: “gang aft agley” 55
 16. Intelligence: “the wellspring of life” 59
 17. The Turing test: “a fundamental misunderstanding” 63
 18. Language: “the index of his understanding” 66
 19. Pattern matching: “danger lurks there” 69
 20. Procedural semantics: “a superficial and misleading way” 73
 21. Reasoning: “nothing but ‘reckoning’” 78
 22. Resolution: “sicklied o’er” 83
 23. Predicate logic: “only one language suitable” 88
 24. Reasoning in practice: “you cannot come to any conclusion” 91
 25. Reasoning in theory: “a deep epistemological problem” 96
 26. Reasoning in principle: “I know it by my heart” 99
 27. Common sense: “a wild thing” 102
 28. Plausible reasoning: “controversial and provisional” 104
 29. Probabilistic reasoning: “a revolutionary impact” 109
 30. Logic programming: “conveniently expressible” 113
 31. Knowledge: “is power” 116
 32. Expertise: “very special and narrow” 121
 33. Rule-based systems: “logical basis is obscure” 125
 34. Knowledge engineering: “increaseth sorrow” 128
 35. Learning: “a prerequisite” 132
 36. Symbolic learning: “largely explanation driven” 135
 37. Connectionism: “to escape the brittleness” 143
 38. Creativity: “the envy of other people” 149
 39. Discovery: “an irrational element” 152
 40. Emotion: “easier than thought” 159
 41. Agents: “wrong and evil” 166
 42. Collaboration: “no man is an island” 171
 43. Animation: “human-like characteristics” 173
 44. Perception: “a more searching vision” 176
 45. Computational psychology: “a vacuous theory” 181
 46. Behaviourism: “objective natural science” 186
 47. Cognitive science: “one of the great revelations” 189
 48. Neural models: “a new embodied view” 194
 49. Analytical philosophy: “uniformly negative” 198
 50. Epistemology: “like woof and warp” 203
 51. The mind-body problem: “as digestion is to the stomach” 208
 52. Determinism: “we have no choice” 211
 53. Consciousness: “the last bastion” 214
 54. Applications of AI: “interesting but irrelevant” 221
 55. Expert systems: “may help” 225
 56. Robots: “must obey the orders given” 229
 57. Artificial life: “more alien” 232
 58. Cyberocracy: “a state of political Nirvana” 234
 59. The future of AI: “rather appalling” 237
 60. Past predictions: “far from realization” 239
 61. Ultra intelligence: “an intelligence explosion” 246
 62. The AI industry: “a serious marketplace” 248
 63. AI as a science: “another scientific revolution” 252
 64. Future AI machines: “unimaginable” 257
 65. Impact on the psyche: “men may become robots” 261
 66. The future of humanity: “All is Machine” 264

Name Index 271

Subject Index 277

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