On Effort in AI Research: A Description Along Two Dimensions

Contents

In this paper we describe Artificial Intelligence as research that moves along two different axes: humancompatible knowledge and machine-compatible proceasing. An analysis of computer chess research along these dimensions shows that AI more and more diverges into an engineering branch and a cognitive branch. As an explanation, we offer a hypothesis about the dependency of research effort on these dimensions. It becomes obvious that the most rewarding projects are the hardest.