Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 224.
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        Date: 2019-08-31 11:00:10+00:00
        From: Robert Delius Royar 
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.222: more on ethnography of AI systems

We should probably adjust our terminology as Rahwan does not (in the Nature
article) refer to the ethnography of AI but to the ethology of AI which
implies the study of AI behavior and operational context from a
physical-science perspective:

This field overlaps with, but is distinct from, computer science and
robotics. It treats machine behaviour empirically. This is akin to how
*ethology and behavioural ecology* study animal behaviour by integrating 
physiology and biochemistry's intrinsic properties with the study of ecology and
evolution's properties shaped by the environment. Animal and human behaviours
cannot be fully understood without the study of the contexts in which
behaviours occur. Machine behaviour similarly cannot be fully understood
without the integrated study of algorithms and the social environments in
which algorithms operate [fn 2, p. 477, 
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1138-y].

--
 Robert Delius Royar
 Caught in the net since 1985



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