Fall 2001

Dr. Sal Restivo, Professor of Sociology & Science Studies,
Department of Science and Technology Studies, &
Professor of Information Technology, Information Technology Program
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY 12180-3590

Office: Sage 5204 (tel: 518 276-8504; Email: restis@rpi.edu; Fax: 518 276-2659)
Office Hours: Monday and Thursday, 12.30-1.45pm, other hours by appointment
Course number: 51.4963.01 Room: Sage 5510 Time: Monday and Thursday, 10-11.50am
[NOTE: This course carries social science credit only].

INTRODUCTION with objectives.
This course is an introduction to artificial intelligence and robots from a sociological perspective. The major limitations in achieving the loftiest goals of AI researchers and robot designers have been the assumptions that (1) human mentality is a freestanding, individual, brain based phenomenon; and (2) that human mentality is best understood in logical, linguistic, and rational terms. The latter assumption carries the same individualist, freestanding bias as the former assumption. That is, logical and linguistic statements are considered to be free standing independent forms that transcend history and culture. Researchers, designers, and engineers who accept the preceding assumptions also tend to assume that rationality transcends history and culture. This is at least characteristic of traditional research and practice in these areas. Increasingly, social and cultural assumptions are making their way into the worldviews guiding work in AI and robotics. But there is still a tendency for this work to be guided by the idea that physical and environmental factors are the only factors that can affect, control, or cause mentality.

The idea that social and cultural factors are not only important but primary is not yet a widely appreciated or understood possibility. This is, in fact, the major point I will try to demonstrate in this course. Mind, consciousness, thinking, and all other aspects of mentality are social and cultural constructions. One of the objectives of this course is to offer some insights into the nature and implications of the sociocultural constructionist theory of AI and robotics. We will begin the course by jumping right into the sociocultural perspective on AI and robotics. We will read the last chapter of Randall Collins' Sociological Insight: An Introduction to Non-Obvious Sociology, 2nd ed., on "Can Sociology Create an Artificial Intelligence?" This chapter will introduce SOCIO, the social computer, and help us develop a shared background in how sociologists think about the world in general and mentality in particular. We will then read Leslie Brothers' Friday's Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind. This will take us to the heart of the sociocultural perspective on mentality. Against that background, we will read Rodney Brooks, Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI. This new AI is embodied in two major robotics projects at MIT's AI Lab (Brooks is the lab's director): Cog, and Kismet. These robots represent two key projects in social robotics. Kismet in particular is the prototype for a socially intelligent robot. We will see that in spite of a new emphasis on principles of social interaction, the engineers and scientists involved in these and related efforts are still working from cognitive and psychologisitc models and theories. Following Collins, we will consider how social robotics might profit from importing sociological models and theories.

In addition to the required readings, we will watch several videos on AI and robotics. There may also be opportunities for class members to work on projects related to my current research on AI and robotics (and more generally, information and information technology). Details will be provided in class.

REQUIRED READINGS
Randall Collins, Sociological Insight, 2nd ed. (Oxford: 1992).
Leslie Brothers, Friday's Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind (Oxford: 1997).
Rodney Brooks, Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI (MIT, 1999)

We will watch one or more of the following videos:
Human Consciousness and Computers; The Brain Machine; Koko; AI on trial; Computer Intelligence; Smart Robots, Smart People. Plus additional videos off the Internet

My bias revealed:
Occasionally I believed I had thoughts of my own - who does not now and then become a victim of such delusions? - …"

Philosopher Paul Feyerabend

A man originates nothing in his head, he merely observes exterior things, and combines them in his head….His mind is merely a machine, that is all - an automatic one.

Mark Twain

POINT The fourth robot generation, and its successors, will have human perceptual and motor abilities and superior reasoning powers. They could replace us in every essential task and, in principle, operate our society increasingly well without us. They would run the companies and do the research as well as performing the productive work. HANS MORAVEC

COUNTERPOINT I believe that computers and robots are irremediably inferior to the human mind….My confidence stems from my own research, which shows that processing speed is irrelevant to what's most impressive in human cognition. To sit down with a pen before a blank piece of paper and produce a play like Hamlet involves doing something that no computer, however fast, can pull off. SELMER BRINGSJORD

AN INTRODUCTION TO YOUR INSTRUCTOR

DR. SAL RESTIVO is Professor of Sociology and Science Studies in the Department of Science and Technology Studies, and Professor of Information Technology in the Information Technology Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He also holds the position of Special Professor at Nottingham University in England. In 2002-03, he will be the Hixon-Riggs Visiting Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. He is a founding member (1975) of and a former President (1994-95) of the Society for Social Studies of Science. He is also the founding editor of the State University of New York Press series on Science, Technology, and Society, and was the first director of Rensselaer's PhD program in Science and Technology Studies. Dr. Restivo is an honor graduate in electrical engineering of Brooklyn Technical High School (New York City), and was one of the eleven inaugural inductees in the school's Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame (1998).

Dr. Restivo is the author of The Social Relations of Physics, Mysticism, and Mathematics (1983), The Sociological Worldview (1991), Mathematics in Society and History (1992), and Science, Society, and Values: Toward a Sociology of Objectivity (1994). He is also co-editor (with C.K. Vanderpool) of Comparative Studies in Science and Society (1974), co-editor (with J.P. Van Bendegem and Roland Fischer) of Math Worlds: Philosophical and Social Studies of Mathematics and Mathematics Education (1993), and co-editor (with Jennifer Croissant) of Degrees of Compromise: Industrial Interests and Academic Values, (2001). And he is the Editor-in Chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society, a project scheduled for completion in 2003. During the course of his career, Dr. Restivo has carried out ethnographic studies of laboratories, done research on the historical sociology of science and mathematics, studied and been a consultant on problems of science policy for government agencies in the U.S., South America, and Europe, and worked on problems in the education of scientists and engineers. His newest work involves research on social robotics. He is currently developing a sociological theory of mind and thinking, doing research on the theory of socially intelligent robots, and working on a book titled The Rejection of Transcendence: The End of God, Mind, and Science. He has also written a novel that he is seeking a publisher for, Bring Me the Brain of Nikola Tesla.

Dr. Restivo's research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other agencies. During 1985-1986, he was a Visiting National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow doing research on the historical sociology of mathematics at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at Victoria College, University of Toronto. During the 1994-95 academic year, he spent the Fall semester lecturing in Great Britain. In the Spring, he was Belgian National Research Foundation Professor at the Free University in Brussels, and Nordic Research Academy Professor at the universities of Gothenburg (Sweden) and Roskilde (Denmark). Dr. Restivo was appointed Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Education at Birmingham University (UK) for 1998-99. In May 1999 he was Visiting Lecturer in mathematics and mathematics education at Copenhagen University. In April 2000, RPI awarded him the Jerome Fischbach Travel Grant in recognition of his educational contributions to the Institute.

Dr. Restivo, a collegiate weightlifter, became the Physical Director of the former Shelton Towers Hotel in New York City in the early 1960s while working as an instructor in the Vic Tanny gym chain. He was president and a coach of the City College of New York Weightlifting Team and Club during the same period. He has also served as a weightlifting and powerlifting official and judge for the American Athletic Union and the American Drug Free Powerlifting Association.

Please email STSS4961-L@lists.rpi.edu if you have any questions or email Professor Restivo.