Re: SUO: Re: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
Mike Pool wrote:
>At 11:01 PM 6/5/2003 -0400, John F. Sowa wrote:
><snip>
>
>
>
>>Pierre Grenon said a lot of things that I agree with to
>>a large extent. I would just add a few qualifications:
>>
>>
>>
>>>To me anything which attempts to make me believe that OpenCyc
>>>is better than anything else based on whatever heroic history
>>>it has is marketing and bullshit. Cyc has been more shaped by
>>>idiomatic intuitions and implementation constraints than
>>>anything else. Maybe this didn't prevent it from being
>>>successful, not sure it is a good piece of UO.
>>>
>>>
>>The only point I disagree with is the implication that Cyc has
>>been "successful". For 19 years, it has succeeded in getting
>>research contracts. Nobody is buying it and using it to make
>>money or to save money on mission-critical applications.
>>
>>
>
>John,
>
>I think this is a bit unfair or at least I disagree with your basic assumptions. Very few pieces of AI have been successful in the marketplace. Whether or not Cyc is a high quality knowledge base has very little to do with whether or not it has been successful in the marketplace. Being a good knowledge base/ontology is neither necessary nor sufficient for marketplace success. The marketplace is largely made up of people producing and consuming inefficient cars and appliances, sundry weapons, low quality music, bad food and alcohol and pornography. Small credit to anything if it succeeds in this environment.
>
So by that logic, small credit to a human being, because it secceeds in
this environment. Hey man, I'll choose a paradigm of survival in a
environment every time as the best judge of success over any other
principaled measure whatsoever. Not to do so is pure bubris on the
part of the author of the principaled measure. Now certainly Cyc is
a momentous achievement ... but who uses it to do anything at all
practical. Who? Can you provide a URL to some information produced
by Cyc that was used for anything in the real world .... anything useful
at all ? Im thinking that if this registry is half what people are
talking about, it will be used for ontology research, to compose new
ontologies, and to translate from ontology to ontology. Why are you
really fighting it?
And just an aside ... I think the reason "few pieces of AI have been
successful" is just talking about the kinds of AI that are based on
logic (which imho doesnt work in the practical world) and not those
kinds of AI that are based upon survival.
>(Good grief, how can you get away with writing this kind of stuff and then rewriting Cyc's SUO motions for them? ;>) )
>
Good grief, how can you write that stuff above and live in today's world ?
Seth Russell
Logic is great! Survival is better :)