Jozef Kelemen Poradie kníh

Products of modern artificial intelligence (AI) have mostly been formed by the views, opinions and goals of the “insiders”, i.e. people usually with engineering background who are driven by the force that can be metaphorically described as the pursuit of the craft of Hephaestus. However, since the present-day technology allows for tighter and tighter mergence of the “natural” everyday human life with machines of immense complexity, the responsible reaction of the scientific community should be based on cautious reflection of what really lies beyond AI, i.e. on the frontiers where the tumultuous ever-growing and ever-changing cloud of AI touches the rest of the world. The chapters of this boo are based on the selected subset of the presentations that were delivered by their respective authors at the conference “Beyond AI: Interdisciplinary Aspects of Artificial Intelligence” held in Pilsen in December 2011. From its very definition, the reflection of the phenomena that lie beyond AI must be inherently interdisciplinary. And so is this book: all the authors took part in a mutual transdisciplinary dialogue after explaining their views on AI not only to a narrow selection of their usual close peers with the same specialisation, but to a much broader audience of various experts from AI engineering, natural sciences, humanities and philosophy. The chapters of this book thus reflect results of such a dialogue.

Gheorghe Păun has played an important role within a wide range of disciplines, from the foundations of traditional computation theory and formal language theory to research gaining its inspiration from living nature. He has significantly contributed to the development of these diverse fields, initiating and pioneering some of them with remarkable imaginativeness and enthusiasm. Gheorghe Păun’s research focusses on systems inspired by structures and processes found in living systems, with the field of membrane computing or P systems being the most important of his initiatives. This Festschrift volume, published to honor Gheorghe Păun on the occasion of his 60 th birthday, includes 16 contributions by his students and collaborators. The research presented aims to gain a better understanding of what computation is, to find better models of computation, and to look for new computing devices inspired by the structure and/or functioning of natural or societal systems. The papers are preceded by an introduction by Solomon Marcus, Gheorghe Păun’s lifelong teacher and mentor, and are organized in topical sections on general computing, grammar systems, membrane systems, and inspirations from natural computing.

Ako myslenie ovplyvňovalo a ovplyvňuje našu predstavu o strojoch? Ako naša predstava o strojoch a stroje samy ovplyvňovali a ovplyvňujú naše premýšľanie a našu predstavu o sebe a o svete okolo nás? Kniha predstavuje fragmenty vedeckého a technického, intelektuálneho a kultúrneho kontextu, ktoré vytvárajú užitočný rámec na chápanie zmyslu dvoch zásadných otázok súčasnej euroatlantickej civilizácie. V tomto ohraničení sa na tieto otázky načrtávajú aj určité odpovede. Hoci je spomenutý kontext veľmi široký, bohatý a mnohotvárny, odpovede sú formulované tak, že nič nebude brániť kultúrne bežne rozhľadenému a vnímavému čitateľovi chápať postoje autora vyjadrené v kapitolách knihy a vytvárať si na naznačené témy a problémy aj svoje vlastné názory.