Pamela McCorduck on the Mythic Origins, Early Pioneers, and Enduring Dreams of Artificial Intelligence

The conversation with Pamela McCorduck, author of "Machines Who Think," delves into the historical and philosophical underpinnings of Artificial Intelligence, challenging the notion that AI solely emerged from math and computer science. McCorduck argues that AI's roots are deeply intertwined with ancient myths, legends, and a primal human impulse to create intelligent beings, exemplified by her famous quote: "artificial intelligence began with the ancient wish to forged the gods." She recounts her unique journey in writing the first historical account of AI by interviewing its living founders, highlighting their self-awareness of their groundbreaking work at the 1956 Dartmouth summer workshop.

McCorduck distinguishes between the "Hellenic point of view," which embraces robots as helpful creations, and the "Bragg view," rooted in religious prohibitions against imitating humans, leading to fear and blasphemy accusations. She notes the differing motivations of AI's founding fathers: Newell and Simon as cognitive psychologists aiming to simulate human intelligence, while Minsky and McCarthy pursued it as a "cool thing to do" or a mathematical challenge. The discussion also touches on the evolution of the definition of intelligence, expanding beyond human cognition to include biological and even cephalopod intelligence, and the shift from symbolic AI to algorithmic approaches.

The podcast offers insights into the challenges of interdisciplinary work, as McCorduck, an English major, navigated a highly technical field, and how her "crackpot idea" of a historical account was initially dismissed by funding bodies. It underscores the importance of stepping back from algorithmic details to grasp the "big picture" and the broader human impulses driving scientific endeavors. The conversation also implicitly suggests the value of documenting nascent fields through direct interviews with pioneers, as their perspectives can evolve over time, as seen in Ed Feigenbaum's changing appreciation for the historical context of AI.

The discussion explores the psychological roots of fear surrounding AI, linking it to the "Frankenstein idea" and concerns about machines out-thinking or replacing humans, as well as the more practical issues of algorithmic bias and control. McCorduck challenges the concept of an "AI winter," asserting that scientific progress, driven by love for science, continues regardless of commercial monetization cycles, which are often fueled by over-promising. The conversation highlights the enduring tension between scientific curiosity and commercial pressures, and the profound impact of literary narratives on public perception of AI, often casting machines as villains.

artificial intelligence began with the ancient wish to forged the gods

I am NOT a woman in search of a project I'm this is what I want to do I hope you'll cooperate

the founders of the field are alive and kicking and able to talk about what they're doing

I didn't know if they were gonna succeed I in fact the final chapter is very wishy-washy frankly I'll succeed the fieldid yeah yes

AI taught us the questions to ask

hey you're only a writer you're not at historian of science

this is somehow wicked this is somehow blasphemous we shouldn't be going there now you can say yeah but there gonna be some downsides and I say yes there are but blasphemy is not one of them

if we produce a machine that can think it will out thank us and therefore replace us

it's very hard when you're down at the algorithmic level and you're just trying to make something work which is hard enough just step back and think of the big picture

everything in literature there are conventions in literature one of the conventions is that you have a villain and a hero and the hero in most literature is human and the villain in most literature is a machine

this whole thing about AI winter is to me a crock snow winters because I look at the basic research that was being done in the 80s which is supposed to be my god it was really important it was laying down things that nobody had thought about before but it was basic research you couldn't monetize it hence the winter yeah

science has a much longer view than Commerce and continues almost regardless not it can't continue totally regardless but it almost regardless of what saleable and what's not what's monetizable and what's not