Hubert Dreyfus and his Heideggerian atttack on Artificial Intelligence!

Turing Test!

I must confess. My first encounter with artificial intelligence (A.I) was not through an academic discourse or documentary but rather by watching 'Blade Runner'. At that time it didn't occur to me what was actually implied in the theme of the movie. All I know is that I enjoyed watching it ; not caring what repercussions A.I can bring for human beings.

Years after watching the movie I ask myself a deceptively simple question, Can machines think or behave like humans? This is not a new question. Alan Turing propagated it in his seminal work Computer Machinery and Intelligence. He came up with the Idea of 'Turing Test', a kind of thought experiment which elucidates his view on the subject. For those who have not heard of Turing test I will explain it briefly.

Imagine a scenario involving three players namely A,B, and C. Player C as interrogator is given the task to find out which of the two players from A and B is a machine and which one is human. The correspondence between them is limited to writing. If the interrogator finds it impossible to distinguish the machine from human beings then the machine is said to have passed the Turing Test. It was this simple idea that revolutionized the World of A.I. People and enthusiasts started making prophesies about the domination of A.I over human intelligence and intellect.

To be honest I was never comfortable with the idea of A.I as indistinguishable from human intelligence. Despite being interested in science fiction, I find the whole idea disconcerting. Time after time I discussed this problem with my friends working in field of I.T and asked for their insights on the subject. However, it was my own ambition that lead me to read some stuff on this issue. It was here that I first discovered Professor Hubert Dreyfus. This man has added a new dimension to the whole debate of Artificial intelligence through his penetrating critique of the whole Idea of A.I.


It is important to mention here that Professor Dreyfus in my view is the greatest living authority on the work of Martin Heidegger. It was through his relentless work that the ideas of this great continental thinker gained acceptance and accessibility in the Anglo-American world which had initially dismissed him as an obscurantist and a Nazi sympathizer. It is also a well known fact that Martin Heidegger despised technological advancement and scientific progress and saw in it the seeds of futuristic nihilism. Therefore, I won't shy away from calling him a Luddite. People from the field of computer sciences have also accused Dreyfus for being a Neo-Luddite. This is the reason that initially his work was not taken. seriously. However, with the passage of time his critique seems to have served a very strong dent to the whole argument of A.I.

Critique of A.I:

Here I will summarize the main attack of Professor Hubert Dreyfus on A.I. According to Professor Dreyfus, the whole argument of artificial intelligence thrives on certain misguided or partially true assumptions. Firstly, Dreyfus argues, A.I seems to draw an analogy between a Humans and a machines (or computers). The assumption is to treat brain as a hardware and mind as a kind of software or programme. Secondly, Artificial Intelligence seems to suggest that human mind functions by performing discrete computations on discrete representation via rule-following. Thirdly, this psychological assumption rests on two other presumptions.
Firstly, it assumes that all intelligent human activity is rules governed or law governed. Therefore, intelligence can be treated in a mathematical fashion. Secondly, for A.I reality consists of independent atomic facts. Intelligence therefore means nothing but the internal representation of these facts via rule-following. In conclusion, the argument for A.I revolves around one question. Does intelligence follows rules?

Dreyfus contends that to argue that intelligence is a rule governed activity presupposes the objective knowledge of human psychology. If intelligence is rule-governed then contextuality is immaterial. However, the subject of 'objective psychology' is  self-contradictory for Dreyfus. Taking a cue from Heidegger and Wittgenstein, he vehemently argues that Intelligence does not depend on following rules. Most of our intelligent human activity is not dependent on conscious choice making but rather on unconscious/sub-conscious 'everyday everydayness'. The cognitive aspect of A.I seems to suggest that cognition is nothing but the manipulation of symbols and representation in mind via rules. Therefore, we can study the phenomena of mind exactly the way we can study the workings of the universe. For instance, a physicists can talk about the universal physical laws. Similarly, an objective psychology of human mind is also possible. It is this thesis that Dreyfus aggressively dismisses. For, Dreyfus it is impossible to come up with an 'objective psychology' or 'scientific psychology'. Heidegger saw human beings as historical beings always bound in some sort of 'context' or situation. He famously called us 'coping beings'. Always finding ourselves in a situation or a context. It is on the basis of these insights that Dreyfus denies the existence of context free scientific psychology. However, remaining a true Heideggerian he suggests that we can obviously chose to see the intelligence as a rule-governed activity. But the fact that we can chose to see intelligence as a rule-governed activity gives us no rational ground to justify that all intelligent activity is necessarily rule governed.

Personally, I see it as a very strong critique of the idea of A.I but the technological advancement may prove me wrong in my belief. However, I strongly share Dreyfus' thesis that objective psychology is impossible. If we cannot objectively talk about the basis of our human intelligence; it is utterly useless to talk about A.I. Finally, I must confess I am a Neo-Luddite too ;-)


P.S
For those interested in the critique of A.I, I would recommend reading Professor John Searle and his Chinese room argument.