Margaret Boden, Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence, Dies At 88 27
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Margaret Boden, a British philosopher and cognitive scientist who used the language of computers to explore the nature of thought and creativity, leading her to prescient insights about the possibilities and limitations of artificial intelligence, died on July 18 in Brighton, England. She was 88. Her death, in a care home, was announced by the University of Sussex, where in the early 1970s she helped establish what is now known as the Center for Cognitive Science, bringing together psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists and philosophers to collaborate on studying the mind.
Polymathic, erudite and a trailblazer in a field dominated by men, Professor Boden produced a number of books -- most notably "The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms" (1990) and "Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science" (2006) -- that helped shape the philosophical conversation about human and artificial intelligence for decades. "What's unique about Maggie is that she's a philosopher who has informed, inspired and shaped science," Blay Whitby, a philosopher and ethicist, said on the BBC radio show "The Life Scientific" in 2014. "It's important I emphasize that, because many modern scientists say that philosophers have got nothing to tell them, and they'd be advised to look at the work and life of Maggie Boden."
Professor Boden was not adept at using computers. "I can't cope with the damn things," she once said. "I have a Mac on my desk, and if anything goes wrong, it's an absolute nightmare." Nevertheless, she viewed computing as a way to help explain the mechanisms of human thought. To her, creativity wasn't divine or a result of eureka-like magic, but rather a process that could be modeled and even simulated by computers. "It's the computational concepts that help us to understand how it's possible for someone to come up with a new idea," Professor Boden said on "The Life Scientific." "Because, at first sight, it just seems completely impossible. God must have done it." Computer science, she went on, helps us "to understand what a generative system is, how it's possible to have a set of rules -- which may be a very, very short, briefly statable set of rules -- but which has the potential to generate infinitely many different structures." She identified three types of creativity -- combinational, exploratory and transformational -- by analyzing human and artificial intelligence.
Polymathic, erudite and a trailblazer in a field dominated by men, Professor Boden produced a number of books -- most notably "The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms" (1990) and "Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science" (2006) -- that helped shape the philosophical conversation about human and artificial intelligence for decades. "What's unique about Maggie is that she's a philosopher who has informed, inspired and shaped science," Blay Whitby, a philosopher and ethicist, said on the BBC radio show "The Life Scientific" in 2014. "It's important I emphasize that, because many modern scientists say that philosophers have got nothing to tell them, and they'd be advised to look at the work and life of Maggie Boden."
Professor Boden was not adept at using computers. "I can't cope with the damn things," she once said. "I have a Mac on my desk, and if anything goes wrong, it's an absolute nightmare." Nevertheless, she viewed computing as a way to help explain the mechanisms of human thought. To her, creativity wasn't divine or a result of eureka-like magic, but rather a process that could be modeled and even simulated by computers. "It's the computational concepts that help us to understand how it's possible for someone to come up with a new idea," Professor Boden said on "The Life Scientific." "Because, at first sight, it just seems completely impossible. God must have done it." Computer science, she went on, helps us "to understand what a generative system is, how it's possible to have a set of rules -- which may be a very, very short, briefly statable set of rules -- but which has the potential to generate infinitely many different structures." She identified three types of creativity -- combinational, exploratory and transformational -- by analyzing human and artificial intelligence.
Too bad she didn't study (Score:2, Offtopic)
Life extension and anti-aging. Oh well, let's face the future with the couple of decades of useful life as our ancestors. Let's change everything except our life span, because that would be playing god...
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Re:Too bad she didn't study [aging] (Score:2)
So why didn't you include the substantive word in your Subject? Then again... While I sort of disagree with the "Offtopic" moderation, I also reject the "Interesting". So Slashdot needs a "Well intentioned but..." mod point?
The story did get me to look into her books. She actually did a short summary of AI book a few years ago, so I'm going to take a look at it. See what her long-term perspective is. She also wrote The Creative Mind around 1991 and I read it when it was still fresh. One of the local libra
Honor your parents? (Score:2)
I wonder if she ever addressed the Subject philosophic question from the perspective of the AI?
I'm reacting to The Coming Wave by Suleyman and Bhaskar. I'm still early in the book, but I got to wondering why an AI would want to continue obeying human beings. At first I was thinking about "parents" as a specific reference to the people (including Suleyman) who created an AI, but now I'm wondering about the future when an AI might be older than any of the human beings it is still being asked to obey and ser
"Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence" (Score:1, Interesting)
...leading her to prescient insights about the possibilities and limitations of artificial intelligence...
One person's "prescient insights" is another's mental masturbation.
In any case, citation required.
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But I am not disparaging that which I am ignorant of, you dumb lazy worthless fuck.
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Posting anonymously to point out something you don't like is demonstrating you have no life. Wait..
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You're trying to do the exact opposite - make a big deal out of something you're ignorant of.
But the only thing you're succeeding at is just insulting other people while still being ignorant yourself.
Congratulations, I guess.
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Go read one of her books
I have limited bandwidth. Reading a book takes up time, so I only read books that contain information I need to know or are recommended by people I respect.
I worked on AI in the 1980s, did other stuff for a few decades, but kept up on AI progress, and am now working on AI projects again.
I've never heard of her before.
I just checked with a few of my co-workers. They've never heard of her either.
No one here in these comments is saying that she influenced them. Several are saying they never heard of her.
TFA's
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Boasting about your ignorance? If Slashdot had MEPR I'd ping your comment on some negative dimension... I'm guessing a LOT of people are going to be equally "kind and considerate" when they hear of your passing in the international news. /s
Having said that, I don't remember anything specific from her 1991 book that I read in 1994. From that timing, I must have obtained the book in Japan? I also see a reference to something I read in a computer magazine later on. Most likely Computer from the IEEE Computer S
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Oh the irony.
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Mod parent funny, but I had to look at the context to get the joke.
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Mental Spooge Quality
How Do We Really Know That AI Didn't Kill Her? (Score:2)
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Where's the third? (Score:2)
It says she identified three types, but only two are listed. Where's the third?
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Avoiding ambiguity is why we should always use an Oxford comma [wikipedia.org].