Artificial Intelligence and Large Scale Computation: A Physics Perspective

@ARTICLE        (,
        AUTHOR = "T. Hogg and B. A. Huberman",
        TITLE = "Artificial Intelligence and Large Scale Computation: A Physics Perspective",
        JOURNAL = "Physics Reports",
        VOLUME = "156",
        PAGES = "227-310",
        YEAR = 1987)

Abstract

We study the macroscopic behavior of computation and examine both emergent collective phenomena and dynamical aspects with an emphasis on software issues, which are at the core of large scale distributed computation and artificial intelligence systems. By considering large systems, we exhibit novel phenomena which cannot be foreseen from examination of their smaller counterparts. We review both the symbolic and connectionist views of artificial intelligence, provide a number of examples which display these phenomena, and resort to statistical mechanics, dynamical systems theory and the theory of random graphs to elicit the range of possible behaviors.