On the surface, this thought experiment is interesting because it asks if artificial intelligence is intrinsically hyped.
That is, is the word alone enough to get us in trouble?
Complex information processing, as an alternative to artificial intelligence, seems to be viewed through this prism.
Perhaps it is true that Newell and Simon understood how tricky intelligence would be to define or solve.
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To Simon, solving intelligence was not merely an intellectual challenge but a spiritual pursuit.
Newell and Simon were computationalists and true believers at that.
They believed that intelligence is information processing.
Newell and Simon accepted technical descriptions of a computer as philosophical arguments.
Simon also explained how computers have properties of the mind and thoughts.
However, thoughts are what computers do not have.
This view expresses a falsehood: mainly that any differences between humans and machines are small and temporary.
One thing is sure; the Dartmouth Workshop produced copious amounts of hype that still permeates today.
Perhaps the reason for the hype is that funding was required.
Perhaps unlocking the mystery of human intelligence is inherently hyped.
Perhaps AI hype is both a bug and a feature.
What makes thought experiments like this one banal is that such a counterfactual does not matter.
What makes history uniquely historic is that it does not occur differently.
In other words, a different name in the past will not produce different results in the present.
The most we can hope for are better results in the future with the names we already have.
This thought experiment highlights something else, which is the power insiders believe names contain.
Perhaps such a thought experiment should include the counterfactual that encourages us to stop naming solutions.
After all, arguing about names is not helpful for solving problems.
Our solutions do not require names to impact the lives of others.
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