away beyond many a far meridian
These are some notes on deciding to do a PhD, notes I wrote some years ago after completing my own PhD.
Choosing a PhD program is one of the hardest decisions we can make. For a start, most of us only make this decision once in our lives, and so we have no prior personal experience to go on.
Second, the success or otherwise of a PhD depends a great deal on factors about which we have little advanced knowledge or control, including, for example:
Seymour Papert, one of the pioneers of Artificial Intelligence, once wrote (1988, p. 3), “Artificial Intelligence should become the methodology for thinking about ways of knowing.” I would add “and ways of acting”.
Some time back, I wrote about the painting of spirit-dreamtime maps by Australian aboriginal communities as proof of their relationship to specific places: Only people with traditional rights to the specific place would have the necessary dreamtime knowledge needed to make the painting, an argument whose compelling force has been recognized by Australian courts. These paintings are a form of map, showing (some of) the spirit relationships of the specific place. The argument they make is a very interesting one, along the lines of:
What I am saying is true, by virtue of the mere fact that I am saying it, since only someone having the truth would be able to make such an utterance (ie, the painting).
Another example of this type of argument is given by Rory Stewart, in his account of his walk across Afghanistan. Stewart does not carry a paper map of the country he is walking through, lest he be thought a foreign spy (p. 211). Instead, he learns and memorizes a list of the villages and their headmen, in the order he plans to walk through them. Like the aboriginal dreamtime paintings, mere knowledge of this list provides proof of his right to be in the area. Like the paintings, the list is a type of map of the territory, a different way of knowing. And also like the paintings, possession of this knowledge leads others, when they learn of the possession, to act differently towards the possessor. Here’s Stewart on his map (p. 213):
It was less accurate the further you were from the speaker’s home . . . But I was able to add details from villages along the way, till I could chant the stages from memory.
Day one: Commandant Maududi in Badgah. Day two: Abdul Rauf Ghafuri in Daulatyar. Day three: Bushire Khan in Sang-izard. Day four: Mir Ali Hussein Beg of Katlish. Day five: Haji Nasir-i-Yazdani Beg of Qala-eNau. Day six: Seyyed Kerbalahi of Siar Chisme . . .
I recited and followed this song-of-the-places-in-between as a map. I chanted it even after I had left the villages, using the list as credentials. Almost everyone recognized the names, even from a hundred kilometres away. Being able to chant it made me half belong: it reassured hosts who were not sure whether to take me in and it suggested to anyone who thought of attacking me that I was linked to powerful names. (page 213)
Because AI is (or should be) about ways of knowing and doing in the world, it therefore has close links to the social sciences, particularly anthropology, and to the humanities.
References:
Seymour Papert [1988]: One AI or Many? Daedalus, 117 (1) (Winter 1988): 1-14.
Rory Stewart [2004]: The Places in Between. London, UK: Picador, pp. 211-214.
I think it is now well-known that the creation of Internet was sponsored by the US Government, through its military research funding agencies, ARPA (later DARPA). It is perhaps less well-known that Google arose from a $4.5 million research project sponsored also by the US Government, through the National Science Foundation. Let no one say that the USA has an economic system involving “free” enterprise.
In the primordial ooze of Internet content several hundred million seconds ago (1993), fewer than 100 Web sites inhabited the planet. Early clans of information seekers hunted for data among the far larger populations of text-only Gopher sites and FTP file-sharing servers. This was the world in the years before Google.
Academic publishers Springer have just released a new book on Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence. From the blurb:
This volume is a systematic, expansive presentation of the major achievements in the intersection between two fields of inquiry: Argumentation Theory and Artificial Intelligence. Contributions from international researchers who have helped shape this dynamic area offer a progressive development of intuitions, ideas and techniques, from philosophical backgrounds, to abstract argument systems, to computing arguments, to the appearance of applications producing innovative results. Each chapter features extensive examples to ensure that readers develop the right intuitions before they move from one topic to another.
In particular, the book exhibits an overview of key concepts in Argumentation Theory and of formal models of Argumentation in AI. After laying a strong foundation by covering the fundamentals of argumentation and formal argument modeling, the book expands its focus to more specialized topics, such as algorithmic issues, argumentation in multi-agent systems, and strategic aspects of argumentation. Finally, as a coda, the book explores some practical applications of argumentation in AI and applications of AI in argumentation.”
References:
Previous posts on argumentation can be found here.
Iyad Rahwan and Guillermo R. Simari (Editors) [2009]: Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence. Berlin, Germa ny Springer.
A robot Gamelan orchestra, thanks to Aaron Taylor Kuffner, Eric Singer and Lemur.
(Photo: Gisella Somentino).