A Popperian Falsification of Artificial Intelligence -- Lighthill
  Defended
  The area of computation called artificial intelligence (AI) is falsified by
describing a previous 1972 falsification of AI by British mathematical
physicist James Lighthill. How Lighthill's arguments continue to apply to
current AI is explained. It is argued that AI should use the Popperian
scientific method in which it is the duty of scientists to attempt to falsify
theories and if theories are falsified to replace or modify them. The paper
describes the Popperian method and discusses Paul Nurse's application of the
method to cell biology that also involves questions of mechanism and behavior.
It is shown how Lighthill's falsifying arguments especially combinatorial
explosion continue to apply to modern AI. Various skeptical arguments against
the assumptions of AI mostly by physicists especially against Hilbert's
philosophical programme that defined knowledge and truth as provable formal
sentences. John von Neumann's arguments from natural complexity against neural
networks and evolutionary algorithms are discussed. Next the game of chess is
discussed to show how modern chess experts have reacted to computer chess
programs. It is shown that currently chess masters can defeat any chess program
using Kasperov's arguments from his 1997 Deep Blue match and aftermath. The
game of 'go' and climate models are discussed to show computer applications
where combinatorial explosion may not apply. The paper concludes by advocating
studying computation as Peter Naur's Dataology.
