
Making AI Philosophical Again: On Philip E. Agre’s Legacy (2014) - nkurz
http://continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/article/view/177
======
nkurz
Since there is no other discussion, I'll try to start.

I posted this today because someone else has posted one of Phil's 2002 essays:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808425).
Phil was a professor at UCLA, and wrote early and presciently about the social
aspects of the internet, and how it was going to change society.

Then eventually he went silent, and in 2009 he was reported by a relative as
"missing". He was reported as "found" a few months later, but in a way that
left a lot of mystery as to what had actually happened. I have no personal
knowledge, but my impression from the outside is that his work made him so
depressed that he gave up on society and just dropped out. I'm sure there were
other psychological factors involved, but also at least some elements of a
cautionary tale.

I learned about Phil from his Red Rock Eater News Service
([https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/rre.html](https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/rre.html))
which I subscribed to in the mid to late 90's. RRE was a curated collection of
links, with commentary and occasionally essays. While I don't know of any
direct link, I think of RRE as being one of the philosophical ancestors of
Hacker News. Thus since you are reading this on HN, whether you've heard of
him or not, you might in some small way owe a small thanks to Phil.

~~~
lisper
I met Phil when I was a grad student around 1990. (Holy shit, that was thirty
years ago!) His work on Pengi [1] was a strong influence on me in no small
measure because it just seemed so _obviously_ the Right Thing compared to
everything else that was going on at the time. I was mystified that no one had
proposed indexical representations sooner, and that the idea wasn't better
received.

The thing I remember most about Phil was how he introduced himself when we
met: "Hi, I'm Phil Agre. Who are you?" Direct, to the point, and to a fellow
aspergery person like me, just obviously the Right Thing.

Since then I've learned a lot about the world, and at times had my own
struggles with existential despair. It makes me very sad to think that Phil
dropped out because wasn't able to figure out a better way to navigate
reality.

[1]
[https://www.aaai.org/Papers/AAAI/1987/AAAI87-048.pdf](https://www.aaai.org/Papers/AAAI/1987/AAAI87-048.pdf)

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jonjacky
Phil Agre was a prolific writer with many high-quality contributions on a
variety of topics. Here are some samples:

How to help someone use a computer:
[https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/how-to-
help.html](https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/how-to-help.html)

Rationalizations for bad design, a posting to RISKS digest:
[http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/7.09.html#subj1](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/7.09.html#subj1)

Layering, from a course on Information Systems and Design:
[https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/240/week5.html](https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/240/week5.html)

Toward a Critical Technical Practice: Lessons Learned in Trying to Reform AI:
[https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/critical.html](https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/critical.html)

Notes and Recommendations (from RRE Digest):
[https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/notes.html](https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/notes.html)

Red Rock Eater Digest, 1994 -- 2004:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20040602193512/commons.somewhere....](http://web.archive.org/web/20040602193512/commons.somewhere.com/rre/)

The Network Observer, 1994 -- 1996:
[https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/tno.html](https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/tno.html)

He wrote a book, _Computation and Human Experience_ , here are some extracts
and a chapter summary:

[https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/che-
intro.html](https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/che-intro.html)

I miss him.

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Aaronstotle
Not directly related, but as a philosophy undergrad at Berkeley, I was
disappointed with the lack of classes/studies dedicated to the field I call:
Philosophy of Technology.

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rootbear
I knew Phil slightly when I was at the University of Maryland. I think we had
a physics class together. I remember him as being quite smart. I hope he is
well and happy.

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gumby
He came to visit my wife and me in Paris a few years before he left the grid.
He was already sort of drifting away. Still we had a really fun visit.

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tus88
We will know AI when a machine blurts out "I think, therefor I am" without any
prior input.

~~~
a-priori
Would you expect a human to say that 'without any prior input'?

~~~
tus88
Eventually, yes. Although that is an interesting philosophical question in
itself.

~~~
thundergolfer
Eventually being when? Billions of humans lived and died without ever saying
it, and they had plenty of related “prior input”.

~~~
tus88
Maybe they had too much junk input to have deep philosophical thoughts :D

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NelsonMinar
I miss Phil.

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nathias
I can relate. Has anyone read his works and has an idea on where to start?

