Mental Programs
This article is concerned with the psychology of human thinking.
It sets forth a theory to explain how some humans try to solve some simple formal problems.
The research from which the theory emerged is intimately related to the field of information processing and the construction of intelligent automata, and the theory is expressed in the form of a computer program.
Newell & Simon 1961
Julia and John are talking about the following article:
GPS, A Program that Simulates Human Thought

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Julia
Remember that you mentioned Newell, Shaw, and Simon to me?

John
Yes, did you find out how they would fit in all this?đ

Julia
Absolutely! đ Their research is a great fit for this topic         Â

Julia
They tried to figure out the laws of thought to turn them into an algorithm

John
OK, so from psychology to programming? đ

Julia
Exactly: humans use algorithms too, we just need to figure out which ones.

John
and then translate them into somethings a computer can use.

Julia
Yes. Basically they thought that thinking is just âproblem solvingâ

Julia
and that there are some general rules that we use all the time, whether playing chess or doing math

John
I think Manuel mentioned this to me at some point: itâs all information processing

Julia
That is indeed the kind of approach: humans and computers use algorithms to solve problems, to process information

John
So the laws of thought that we discover through psychological research can be turned into a program

Julia
Thereâs just one problem …. it doesnât really work all that well.

John
How do you mean?

Julia
The idea was: humans are intelligent, we make computers do what humans do, and then we have intelligent computers, AI.

Julia
However, thereâs quite a difference between a computer algorithm and how humans solve problems.

Julia
The analogy works really well for chess and math, and is terrible for, like, more mundane problems: grocery shopping, navigating traffic, etc.

John
So the whole âlaws of thoughtâ stuff didnât work out in the end?

Julia
Not really, and the link to logic was lost too: programmers simply went with what works, the most pragmatic option

John
So rules of thumb and heuristics and not deduction and statistics

Julia
Indeed, and then of course the way a computer solves a problem becomes very different from how a human does.

John
OK, so I guess we should include some of the setbacks and critics of AI as well

Julia
I think that would be a good idea, so we can make it clear how things are different now. đ
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