Running Head: FORMALIZING GOFAIS ONTOLOGICAL ASSUMPTION

Clarifying Dreyfus Critique of GOFAIs Ontological Assumption: a Formalization

Aaron Prosser 996234338 PHL342H1 Dr. Ronald De Sousa April 12th, 2011

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

Introduction Hubert L. Dreyfus (1965, 1972, 1979, 1992, 2007) is credited with the first, sustained and most scathing criticism of Good Old Fashioned Artificial Intelligence (GOFAI). GOFAIs project was to design and build physical systems that could manipulate symbolic representations according to formal rulesotherwise known as computationin order to solve problems (Newell & Simon 1976). This is because problem-solving was considered to constitute the essence of intelligence (Newell & Simon 1972; 1976). Of all his criticisms, Dreyfus deepest critique is of GOFAIs so-called ontological assumption. Dreyfus formulated this assumption differently through his work, but it is essentially this: GOFAI assumes that the world in which intelligent systems are situated consists in the total set of discrete entities. Entities are discrete because they are specified in advanced by symbolic descriptions which unambiguously define what they are. Dreyfus work has been to demonstrate how this assumption is false and how its falsity prevented GOFAI from producing machines with intelligence comparable to the intelligence of human beings, or strong AI (artificial intelligence). The purpose of this paper is to formalize the ontological assumption in order to clarify Dreyfus critique. I argue that GOFAI had the conceptual resources at the time to formalize its assumption and demonstrate why it was false in a way more precise than Dreyfus argument. This formalization not only clarifies Dreyfus critique but also the alternative view of ontology he argued for. This paper is divided into two sections. The first reviews Dreyfus critique of the ontological assumption through GOFAIs use of micro-worlds during the 1970s. The second reviews the conceptual framework behind GOFAIs first attempt at strong AI in order to formalize the assumption. I end by clarifying Dreyfus critique and alternative view of ontology.

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

The ontological assumption Dreyfus (1972, 1992) argues that GOFAIs ontological assumption is rooted in its preceding philosophical tradition. Arguably, this tradition culminated in Wittgenstein (1922/1999) when he began his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with the famous claim that The world is everything that is the case (p. 29). He would claim in the Tractatus that what is the case is the totality of atomic facts which are expressed in discrete primitive propositions. Therefore, under this view, it is possible to have a complete description of reality once an edifice of propositions which pick out true states of affairs has been built-up from these primitives. GOFAI inherited this vision of the world and turned it into a well-funded research project. This is because the world in which intelligent systems are situated in was assumed to be much like the vision sketched out in the Tractatus. An exemplary example of this comes from GOFAIs use of micro-worlds during the 1970s. A micro-world is an artificial and highly restricted domain in which a computer program operates (Haugeland 1985). Micro-worlds are artificial and restricted because the objects, properties, events and relations contained inside them are explicitly specified in advanced by the programmer using descriptions built-up from primitive symbols. These descriptions specify the necessary and sufficient conditions of the micro-world by providing a complete description of it. Once this comprehensive description of the micro-world has been completed, the computer program can function inside of it. The micro-world strategy was employed to simulate a variety of cognitive functions such as natural-language understanding (Winograd 1972), visual scene parsing (Guzman 1968; Waltz 1972) and learning and categorization (Winston 1975). AI researchers employed the micro-world strategy because they believed it would allow them to discover the basic principles of

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

intelligence. They believed this was possible because micro-worlds abstract away the distracting complexities of the real-world, simplifying it into well-defined, isolated domains (Boden 1977; Dreyfus 1972; Minsky & Papert 1972). The idea was that the basic principles of intelligence would be discovered once these distractions were removed. They predicted that they could then implement these principles into another machine which could be scaled up from the micro-world to the real-world and possess human intelligence. Micro-worlds exhibit the ontological assumption for two reasons. First, it continues the tradition found in the Tractatus that you can provide a complete specification of the world using primitive symbols or propositions. The exception is that this is manifested in a highly simplified world; which leads to the second reason for attributing this assumption to micro-worlds. The fact that GOFAI researchers predicted that micro-worlds could eventually scale up to the real-world assumes a relevant similarity between them. The assumed relevant similarity is that the realworld is likewise constituted by a set of discrete entities which are fully specified in advanced. Therefore, the fact that micro-worlds are comprehensively described in advanced implies that GOFAI researchers believed the same about the real-world Dreyfus (1972, 1979, 1992) takes issue with the ontological assumption because it treats the world like any other object. If the world consists solely in the total set of discrete entities which exist fully specified in advanced, then it follows that the world forms a set of discrete entities that we can (1) have knowledge of and (2) interact with in same way we do with tables and chairs. Dreyfus argues that this is false because the world in which intelligent systems are situated forms an implicit background which is presupposed by all our knowledge of and interactions with particular objects in the world. This entails that we can never explicitly represent or describe the world because every representation or description will presuppose it

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

(Thompson 2007). Dreyfus views GOFAIs persistent frustrated attempts to produce strong AI as evidence against this assumption and thus in favour of his alternative view of ontology. The problem with Dreyfus critique is that he is not clear what his alternative view to the ontological assumption is. If the world in which intelligent systems are situated is not the way GOFAI believed (viz. like any other object), what is it? I believe that Dreyfus criticism is unclear until this question is answered because he misses half the story. I argue that we can clarify not just Dreyfus critique and GOFAIs ontological assumption, but also the alternative view of ontology once the assumption is formalized using the very framework Dreyfus criticizes. Formalizing the Ontological Assumption GOFAI proper began in the autumn of 1955 when Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw and Herbert Simon launched their vision of intelligence as being essentially the ability to solve problems. Problem solving was viewed as a search through a problem space in order to find a pathway that leads to a goal state. This developed into a project to design and build a machine with a set of broad problem solving procedures which would allow it to solve a wide variety of problems in wide variety of contexts. This machine was called the General Problem Solver (GPS; Newell, Shaw & Simon 1958; Newell & Simon 1972). The GPS was undoubtedly GOFAIs first and most ambitious attempt at strong AI (for a review, see Newell & Simon 1976). The project was abandoned after continuous failures to produce a genuinely general problem solving machine. In Dreyfus (1972, 1992) eyes, this is because the project operated on the false ontological assumption. What concerns us is that these researchers developed a framework which provides the conceptual resources to formalize the ontological assumption and demonstrates why it is false in a way more precise than Dreyfus argued.

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

The cornerstone of this framework was Newell and Simons (1972) formalization of the problem space. They argued that all problems can be analyzed into four elements. The first is the representation of the initial/current state (IS). The second is the representation of the goal state (GS). The third are the set of operations that alter the current state of the problem-solver, moving them through the various intermediate states. The fourth are the path constraints that are imposed on the problem solving procedures besides finding the solution (e.g., solving the problem in the fewest steps). Therefore, the problem space is the set of all possible states that can be reached by applying all the available operations while obeying the path constraints. A solution is a path through the problem space from the IS to the GS. A problem solving method is a procedure for searching through the problem space in order to find this path. This formalization allowed Newell and Simon to quantify the size of all problem spaces in terms of FD. F is the number of operators that can be applied at any given state, while D is the total number of states in the problem space. They learned that most problem spaces are incomprehensibly vast. For example, in an average chess game there are approximately thirty legal moves per player at every turn and sixty turns in a game. Given this, we can quantify the size of the search space through the space of alternative moves in an average chess game in terms of 3060. This number is preposterous. It is larger than the estimated number of electrons in the universe (Haugeland 1985). And that is just a game of chess! The vastness of problem spaces has been aptly termed combinatorial explosion (Newell & Simon 1972; Holyoak 1995). The problem of managing exponentially explosive problem spaces is a central issue in AI, which is why problem solving was reconceptualised as a heuristically guided search (Newell & Simon 1976). Specifically, the search through the

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

problem space must be selectively guided by heuristics, rather than exhaustively searching the entire set of possibilities to find a solution. Problems were further categorized into well- and ill-structured problems (Newell 1969; Newell & Simon 1972; Pretz, Naples & Sternberg, 2003; Reitman 1964, 1965; Simon 1973; Voss & Post 1988). Well-structured problems are those in which the IS, GS, operations and constraints are all clearly defined and represented in the problem space. This is because (1) the parameters that specify the boundaries of the problem, (2) the description of all possible states and (3) the operators/constraints that specify the permissible operations are determined a priori and are clearly displayed. This entails that well-structured problems contain no vagueness or ambiguity in their structure. For example, consider the following well-structured problem: . . . The IS are the premises and the GS is . The operators are the derivation rules in first-order predicate calculus, and the constraints are the forms of derivation and sub-derivation. Ill-structured problems are those in which the IS, GS, operations and/or constraints are not clearly defined and represented in the problem space. This is because (1) the parameters that specify the boundaries of the problem, (2) the description of all possible states and (3) the operators/constraints that specify the permissible operations are not determined a priori and are not clearly displayed. This means that ill-structured problems are vague and thus ambiguous because they allow for multiple possible interpretations of the problem. For example, consider instructing a student to write a good, one-page paper. This is an ill-structured problem. The ISa blank pageis completely uninformative as to what they should do. A blank page could serve as the IS of a painting or a love letter. More seriously, there are no non-arbitrary standards

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

to determine between these interpretations. The student will demand more information concerning the content of the paper and what is the criterion of good. There is a qualitative difference between these two kinds of problems. In the former, the problems are completely formulated in advanced, whereas in the latter they are formulated very minimally or not at all. Given this, it is natural to see why ill-structured problems contain vagueness and ambiguity in their structure. This is why the defining characteristic of solving illstructured problems is to first formulate the problem in order to clarify what is vague and resolve any ambiguities (De Young, Peterson & Flanders 2008). Problem formulation commits the problem-solver to one interpretation of the problem by framing the problem space a particular way. Once formulated, a problem-solver can effectively apply their procedures to the problem to find a solution (Vervaeke 1997). In fact, Einstein argued that [t]he mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution (Einstein & Infeld, 1938, p. 83). Haugeland (1985) argues that the reason why the GPS project failed to be a genuinely general problem solver is because it could not formulate problems and thus could only solve well-structured problems. The reason for this is simple: the problems it was given were always formulated in advanced. Even Herbert Simon (1973) admits to this limitation when he writes that before the GPS can begin working on a solution to a problem, it must be given: 1. A description of the solution state, or a test to determine if that state has been reached; 2. A set of terms for describing and characterizing the initial state, goal state and intermediate states; 3. A set of operators to change one state into another, together with conditions for the applicability of these operators; 4. A set of differences, and tests to detect the presence of these differences between pairs of states; 5. A table of connections associating with each difference one or more operators that is relevant to reducing or removing that difference. (p. 183-184).

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

Two paragraphs following this he writes, Thus, it would appear at first blush that all problems that can be put in proper form for GPS can be regarded as WSPs [well-structured problems] (p. 184). This is problematic for the GPS because real-world problems are illstructured (De Young et al. 2008; Peterson & Flanders 2002; Voss & Post 1988). If the GPS could never formulate problems, then it could never solve ill-structured problems and thus could not solve real-world problems. This is tantamount to saying that it failed to be a genuinely general problem solving machine. Newell and Simons formalization of problem-solving is important for two reasons. First, it reveals that the GPS also made the ontological assumption. Well-structured problems are like micro-worlds because they are fully specified in advanced using symbolic descriptions. The GPS researchers assumed that all problems in the world are well-structured, which is why they neglected endowing their machines with the capacity to formulate problems (Haugeland 1985; Vervaeke 1997). This implies that they assumed that all real-world problems are well-structured problems because they felt no need to give machines this vital capacity. Second, if real-world problems are ill-structured, this suggests a close relationship between the concept of an illstructured problem and the real-world. The work of Jordan Peterson and Joseph Flanders identifies the source of this relationship in what they call environmental complexity (Peterson 1999; Peterson & Flanders 2002). They describe environmental complexity likeness an ill-structured problem. They argue that real-world environments are (1) exponentially explosive in the amount of information that is potentially available at any given moment and (2) are vague and ambiguous. They are vague because (i) the parameters that specify the boundaries of an environment and (ii) the descriptions of the

Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

environment are either impoverished or lacking altogether. The presence of vagueness makes complex environments ambiguous because it implies that they can be framed in multiple ways. Given the connection to the concept of an ill-structured problem, environmental complexity can be defined by saying that real-world environments are ill-structured domains. This is in contrast to well-structured domains like chess games. Well-structured domains lack vagueness/ambiguity because they come formulated and specified in advanced. If Peterson and Flanders arguments are correct, GOFAI can formalize its ontological assumption. In short, GOFAI assumes is that the world is a well-structured domain. This is because they assume that it lacks vagueness and is unambiguous because the world and the various entities within it come formulated and specified in advanced. If that is the case, then the whole of reality can be fully represented and described in precisely the way Wittgenstein argued in the Tractatus. This formalization is theoretically useful because it clarifies Dreyfus critique of the ontological assumption. His argument is clarified in terms of the following: The ontological assumption is false because intelligent systems situated in illstructured domains, not well-structured domains. This also clarifies Dreyfus critique as to why we cannot explicitly represent or describe the world and thus why the world cannot be treated like any other object. First, the ambiguity of an ill-structured domain means that there are always alternative ways to represent or describe the world. This implies that is impossible to provide a comprehensive description of the world which unambiguously defines it and the various entities contained within it. Second, the vagueness of the boundaries of ill-structured domains clarifies what Dreyfus means by the implicit background. This is because vagueness implies that we cannot non-arbitrarily draw a boundary around the domain we are in. That is, there are no a priori boundaries to ill-structured domains
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Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

which allow us to isolate them from each other. If that is the case, then ill-structured domains open out into the rest of human activities (Dreyfus 1979, p. 147) because their boundaries blend into the myriad other domains we find in the real-world. These other domains constitute what Dreyfus calls the implicit background. In light of these considerations, we can describe Dreyfus alternative view of ontology as the opposite of GOFAIs. Dreyfus ontology views the world as an ill-structured domain. This formalization explains why GOFAI failed to produce strong AI because it has yet to design and build a machine that can formulate the ill-structured domains found in the real-world (for a similar argument, see Vervaeke 1997; Vervaeke et al. 2009). The great irony of this is that GOFAI could more precisely state this fact than Dreyfus, yet failed to see this implication which derives from its own conceptual framework. Conclusion This brief paper is certainly not the last word on these issues. However I believe that the formalization of GOFAIs ontological assumption translates Dreyfus often philosophically obtuse criticisms into concepts AI researchers can understand. It is my hope that this will establish new lines of research in light of these clarified criticisms. In doing so, perhaps will help fulfill the promise that was at the beginning of GOFAI: to produce strong AI.

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Formalizing GOFAIs Ontological Assumption

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