GEB is a textbook on AI that's just trying to come at it sideways.
The problem when you're trying to attack any problem like AI where we know practically nothing about what the actual solution is, is that anything you write about what you think the solution is is going to predispose people to not just work down that avenue but to think about the problem in abstractions that will ultimately turn out to be wrong.
GEB is an incredibly good book in that it picks out problems that are absolutely at the heart of solving AI (ambiguity in natural language is a huge one) and elucidates them incredibly well _without_ predisposing the reader as to what the solution might be.
> GEB is a textbook on AI that's just trying to come at it sideways.
That's because it's not a book on AI at all [0]. It talks about it a lot. And sets up a lot of fundamental ideas for it. But it's as much a book about AI as Moby Dick is a book about whaling.
It's great reading if you're interested in AI (edit: If you're on HN, you'll probably love the book /edit), but if you pick it up expecting an AI textbook, or a book about AI, you may be disappointed. Or at the very least, won't get the full message.
Another book I'd recommend is "The Minds I" by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. It's a collection of essays about AI and philosophy, relating to the idea of the "self", with several pages of reflection after each essay by Hofstadter and Dennett. I'm about halfway through so far, but it was worth it alone just for chapter 5, "The Turing Test: A Coffeehouse Conversation". Also the Ant Fugue from GEB is one of the featured essays.
[0] Though you can't really fault anyone for believing that. Hofstadter complains in the intro of the 20th anniversary edition (and several interviews) that everyone thinks the point of GEB is something different. And it's never what he intended the point of GEB to be.
Specifically, he says "GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle?"
I'm aware. I've written most of what Hofstadter has written - I also didn't say that it was only a textbook on AI or even that it was explicitly intended that way.
But I do maintain that the book is about precisely the topics that you need a deep understanding of if you want to think productively about AI. In that sense, it's a damn good textbook on AI, whether it was intended that way or not.
From what I've heard, Hofstadter wrote "I am a Strange Loop" because too many people were describing GEB as a "collection of essays" or musings on unrelated topics, when he wanted it to be a single exploration of the concept of intelligence. "Strange Loop" covers pretty much the exact same ground, just from a much more direct angle; they're both worth reading, depending on your mood.
I agree. When I read GEB, it was clear to me after awhile that it wasn't about G, E, or B, it was really about how intelligence emerges out of self-reference. One of the best books I've read (though challenging). Not often that books in this genre win the Pulitzer.
The problem when you're trying to attack any problem like AI where we know practically nothing about what the actual solution is, is that anything you write about what you think the solution is is going to predispose people to not just work down that avenue but to think about the problem in abstractions that will ultimately turn out to be wrong.
GEB is an incredibly good book in that it picks out problems that are absolutely at the heart of solving AI (ambiguity in natural language is a huge one) and elucidates them incredibly well _without_ predisposing the reader as to what the solution might be.