From: John Stick (johnstick@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue May 22 2001 - 19:22:38 MDT
Hello the list:
I recently retired early from Tulane University where I was a professor of
Law and Philosophy. My research interests scattered within legal and
political philosophy, and included modelling the structure of legal and
moral reasoning. In particular, I was trying to develop an approach that
combined the standard deontic logic models with explications of goal based
reasoning using micro-economic models, reasoning with principles and
analogies using voting models, and statutory construction\ interpretation
using Grice's account of conversational meaning. In other words, the
standard accounts in philosophy (rationality as deduction) leave out much of
how lawyers argue about law and people argue about practical decisions, yet
most criticism of deductive theories attempt to avoid computational theories
altogether. I think computational theories of rationality that go well
beyond deduction are possible, and necessary to AI. The AI literature
devoted to legal reasoning that I read years ago was not helpful. But the
descriptions of AI projects such as Webmind, and SIAI, are vastly more
promising. I joined this list to find out more about these attempts to
create AI.
My interests and expertise come from analytic philosophy, and not
programming. My knowledge of the singularity and the other streams that
feed it (nano and genetics) come from reading popularized science, SF, and
philosophy of science. I love having enough time to finally explore areas I
had to slight while I was teaching. I suspect I will lurk more than post at
first, but I am excited about this list, and these issues and look forward
to learning from all of you.
John Stick
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