[From Rick Marken (maybe)]
Avery Andrews
The report on the conference was a hoot. Obviously, these people know
all the right things to say. Oof da.
Best
Rick
[From Oded Maler 930308-ET]
* [From Rick Marken (maybe)]
ยทยทยท
*
* Avery Andrews
*
* The report on the conference was a hoot. Obviously, these people know
* all the right things to say. Oof da.
I wonder how this has escaped Gary's censoreship - maybe you should
augment your mailer with some time lags..
One of the main reasons for me to go to Paris last week was to
here Agre's talk about the very same topics. My overall initial
impression was positive. He said a lot of things with which I
agree, especially about embedding computation within geometry.
His analysis of the transition functions of the three basic elements
in the kitchen (tools, materials and containers) and their
interacations was also interesting. When he talked about other
people's work it was clear that there things he undersatnds better
than others, but it is understandable when you want to make
a synthesis.
What I didn't like was some of the repeating cliches (probably from
the jargon of anthropologists/sociologists/phenomenologists):
"establish a vocabulary", "leave this topic here and take it as we
go along", "unpack" etc. But this is a personal taste - I can see
how it can have a positive effect on groupies.
From the local (PCT) point of view, I would not classify him as good
or bad but rather as an "orthogonal" guy, working on higher levels of the
hierarchy (symbols, plans) and having interesting observations which
were not self-evident (at least in the AI community at the time).
About one of the works he mentions (Shoham & Tenenholtz) - I know this
work, and I think it is a very good and important work. It shows
(mathematically and by simulation) how "social" laws that all the
agents obey locally (e.g., "take the right lane"), allows each of them
to achieve its own goals, with a moderate degradation of performance
(compared to the situation where he would be alone with no possible
conflicts). There are some similarities with the "crowd" program, but
the emphasis is different.
--Oded