Lecture March 24, 2003

Testing our Assumptions about AI: Whose knowledge is represented in expert / knowledge systems?
CYC and its critics- March 24, 2003


Overview of lecture:
1. What is CYC?
CYC is "a special kind of expert system" (page 3 kit) because it will involve depth as well as breadth.


2. Problems faced by Lenat's team developing CYC?
--> how program in common sense?
--> how program in capabilities for inconsistencies?


3. Adam's Critique of CYC


*******
1. What is CYC?


What knowledge should be represented?
" Although we expected encyclopedias to play an important role, we soon realized that what they contain is almost the complement of common sense. Assuming that readers already have common sense, can read, and so , they provide the next level of detail for reference purposes.. . ."
--> heir first example from an encyclopedia was
" Napoleon died on St. Helena. Wellington was greatly saddened."


Moved from a bottom-up analysis of background knowledge you need when moving from one sentence to another to a top-down approach, "treating entire topics one at a time and in moderate detail. By 1996, we had told CYC about hundreds of topics."


This allows for inconsistent facts and rules in the database; -- example of Dracula...


As he says "we know that there are no vampires and that Dracula was a vampire."


Applications of CYC:
- checking databases for inconsistent facts
- sophisticated matching across databases;
example of matching "a strong and adventurous person" to a caption of "a man climbing a rock face." To do that, it used a few rules of the sort:


IF people do something for recreation that puts them at risk of bodily harm, THEN they are adventurous."


3. So what problems does Adams have with CYC and what approach does she take to critique his "common sense" expert system?


3.1. Why is Adam's feminist epistemological critique of AI "more radical than, and qualitatively different from traditional philosophies of AI"?
because 1) traditionalists are, by and large, concerned with whether AI can even be achieved, about the possibilities of AI
- that is pass the Turing Test (or some other criteria), and,


2) they don't take into account gender issues...


3.2. What is epistemology?
--> theories of what knowledge is, and who "knowers" are, and a consideration of how we know what we know.
--> If you're going to build an AI "knowledge" system you are in the realm of
epistemology ....


3. 3. What is feminist epistemology?
-> an examination of knowledge that considers whether women's ways of knowing are different from men's ways of knowing and if so, whether women's ways are given due consideration.


3.4. Why is Adam's concerned with AI knowledge systems-specifically CYC?

-> because we need to ask how the knowledge inside the system is used and what knowledge it uses. (If it's "male-centered" knowledge than women are the
losers.


3.5. Is she unilaterally against the use of knowledge systems?
-> no, she gives the example of the expert system that would help women find their way through sex discrimination legislation to determine if they have a case. In this instance, the application is for women's use and incorporates a "view from feminist legal
theory which challenges the views of traditional jurisprudence in excluding
women's experiences from the development of legal knowledge." (kit page 2))
-> see last line of article: she wants to "become involved in the newer areas of AI which are consciously addressing the need to involve the body in the representation of knowledge."


6. How does Adam make use of feminist epistemology to make her points?


1. problems with the idea of the (male) knowing subject in 'S-knows-that-p'


2. problems with the emphasis on propositional knowledge in knowledge systems (for example CYC) --the "knowing that" over the knowing how" (skills) which privileges male knowledge over female knowledge, and


3. acknowledgement that the role of the body is crucial to the creation of knowledge.


1. `S-knows-that-p' means that S is the knowing subject who is taken to be
universal, and p is a piece of propositional knowledge that the S knows.

-> the Subject is not a specific individual, rather the subject is the ideal subject not situated anywhere...
-> start with observational claims about everyday objects -- S knows that when
you drop a ball it falls to the ground, but once you start building up the p's
(the facts) they may not be quite as "neutral" and may indeed represent a gendered belief rather than "knowledge."


->some people may think they know something, but it may just be a belief
rather than real knowledge.


real issue: who is doing the distinguishing between knowledge and belief?" e.g.,


If doctors deliver babies,
THEN we will have healthy babies.


if this is coded as knowledge by TheWorldAsTheBuildersofCycBelieveItToBe and another S claims that


If midwifes deliver babies,


THEN we will have healthy babies,


And this is coded as a "belief"


-> it's not part of the building up of CYC's database of knowledge.
In short, what if the knowing subject in CYC has a male bias?


2. Two types of knowledge: knowing that ('p) and knowing how


Knowledge in CYC is represented in logical rules that you can state as IF....THEN rules


yet there are a vast array of things that we know because we have done them--


skills develop that may be tacit knowledge (as I described Kasparov's chess
skills)...much of it can't be written down.so because it isn't in the database,
much of women's work knowledge will be ignored and not valued.


3. Role of the body in making knowledge


earlier philosophers (such as Descartes) saw a split between the mind and the body-elevating the mind over the body


women's work has to do with the body (reproduction itself, caring for the body (housewife), nurse, etc. are stereotypic women's work.


So if you want to break this sexist dichotomy, wouldn't it be o.k. to have AI expert systems that just focus on the "mind"? (this argument is made by other feminists)


NO, because for Adam the body is so important to concepts of intelligence :


For her, "cognitive skills can [NOT] be treated as disembodied from perceptual-motor skills. [This is] becoming one of the most important issues for debate in AI."

(refer to first lecture on AI in which motor skills is seen as auxiliary skills)

This page last revised 03/26/03