On 4/1/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 4/1/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Sorry to say, but in this case it's Hofstadter, not us, who is wrong. His book _Goedel, Escher, Bach_ in particular *has* inspired many students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence, whether to not he likes that fact.
I started to wonder about that after my first post in this thread. Is it possible that the AI inspiration thing is a phenomenon that Hofstadter was unaware of.
Frankly, no. It's such a hugely influential book among geeks that had he slipped into a coma shortly after mailing the manuscript and only just awakened before the NY Times interview, he still couldn't have escaped noticing, as people would have built a shrine around his hospital bed.
And more prosaically, he also said so himself:
What the book did do was excite a lot of young people. Hundreds of people have written to me saying it launched them on a path of studying computer science or cognitive science or philosophy.From Kevin Kelly interviewing him in Wired, November 1995. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.11/kelly.html?pg=2&topic=
Personally, I'd guess he didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
I think you're right. Here's what the relevant two paragraphs now read:
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Hofstadter has said that he feels "uncomfortable with the nerd culture that centers on computers". [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=3] He admits that "a large fraction [of his audience] seems to be those who are fascinated by technology" [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=3], but when it was suggested that his work "has inspired many students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence" he replied that he has "no interest in computers". [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01wwlnQ4.t.html?_r=1&oref=slo...]
In that interview he pointed to a seminar, [http://www.indiana.edu/~deanfac/blspr99/cogs/cogs_q700_1003.html AI: Hope and Hype], where he took a "skeptical look at a number of highly-touted AI projects and overall approaches". Hofstadter has long predicted that computers will never be able to do many of the things which humans can do. In ''Godel, Escher, Bach'', Hofstadter made a prediction "that a computer chess program could never beat a human being at chess". [http://www.nyu.edu/classes/neimark/maker.html] Upon the defeat of [[Kasparov]] by [[Deep Blue]], he commented that "It was a watershed event, but it doesn't have to do with computers becoming intelligent." [http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/472_html/Intro/NYT_Intro/ChessMatch/MeanChes...]
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Also from the Wired article, a comment I didn't manage to work in: "I always hope my writings will resonate with people who love literature, art, and music. But instead, a large fraction of my audience seems to be those who are fascinated by technology and who assume that I am, too."