'...To create a machine that could pass the Turing test has become the holy grail for the generations since 1950 of those committed to the pursuit of what they call, modestly enough, artificial intelligence. But how to go about it? From the beginning, there were two contrasting approaches, which we may characterize, crudely, as reductionist and holistic. Looking back over the period with the benefit of hindsight, one of the pioneers and prophets of the holistic approach offered this fairy-tale account:

    "Once upon a time two daughter sciences were born to the new science of cybernetics. One sister was natural, with features inherited from the study of the brain, from the way nature does things. The other was artificial, related from the beginning to the use of computers. Each of the sister sciences tried to build models of intelligence, but from very different materials. The natural sister built models (called neural networks) out of mathematically purified neurones. The artificial sister built her models out of computer programs.

    In the first bloom of their youth the two were equally successful and equally pursued by suitors from other fields of knowledge. They got on very well together. Their relationship changed in the early sixties when a new monarch appeared, one with the largest coffers ever seen in the kingdom of the sciences: Lord DARPA ... The artificial sister grew jealous and was determined to keep for herself the access to Lord DARPA's research funds. The natural sister would have to be slain.

    The bloody work was attempted by two staunch followers of the artificial sister, Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert, cast in the role of the huntsmen sent to slay Snow White and bring back her heart as proof of the deed. Their weapon was not the dagger but the mightier pen, from which came a book, Perceptrons -purporting to prove that neural nets could never fill their promise of building models of mind: only computer programs could do this. Victory seemed assured ..."

Seymour Papert's fairy tale, of course, ends with the holists triumphant, not a view that is very widely shared in the 'Al community' at present. As will become clear, my own view is that Papert's fairy-tale metaphor is as flawed as his memory/ intelligence metaphors. Neither fairy-tale sister is Cinderella - nor even Prince Charming; both modeling approaches are flawed if their intention is to provide structural metaphors for the way real brains work and real memories are stored. But it is worth looking a little more closely at the pretensions of both protagonists....

(Excerpt from "Metaphors of Memory" by STeven ROse.)