Contemplating minds

de William J. Clancey, Stephen W. Smoliar, Mark Stefik

Is the brain basically a computer? Is the mind a program for symbol processing? What is consciousness, and how could it work? Could we build an artificial mind in a robot, and would it be a good idea? Could an artificial mind have emotions? Is a mind made from smaller and smaller minds, until the pieces become so small that they are no longer mindlike? Questions like these arise for people curious about themselves, the nature of mind, and our thinking place in the universe. They are also at the core of research in artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology. However, the scholarly debate on these questions has resided in research papers, inaccessible to most people. One place where the scientific debate has been written for a broad audience is in the book review column of the international journal Artificial Intelligence, which has evolved from simple reviews to a multidisciplinary forum where reviewers and authors debate the latest, often competing, theories of human and artificial intelligence. Contemplating Minds brings together a selection of these reviews in a form suitable for the general scientific reader, seminar organizer, or student wanting a critical introduction that synthesizes and compares some of the most important and influential books and ideas to have emerged in AI over the past decade.