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John L. Pollock

John L. Pollock is Regents Professor of Philosophy and Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona.

Titles by This Author

Technology and Society

Building our Sociotechnical Future
By Langdon Winner, George Ritzer, Richard Dyer, Rachel Weber, Daniel Sarewitz, Jameson M. Wetmore, W. Patrick McCray, Dominique Vinck, Harold Collins, M. Carme Alemany Gomez, John L. Pollock, Gary Chapman, Judy Wajcman, Fabio Salamanca-Buentello, Noela Invernizzi, Roopali Phadke, Bruce Schneier, Torin Monahan, David Elliott, Kristin S. Shrader-Frechette and Michael Bess
Edited by Deborah G. Johnson and Jameson M. Wetmore

Technological change does not happen in a vacuum; decisions about which technologies to develop, fund, market, and use engage ideas about values as well as calculations of costs and benefits. This anthology focuses on the interconnections of technology, society, and values.

How to Build a Person

A Prolegomenon
By John L. Pollock

Building a person has been an elusive goal in artificial intelligence. This failure, John Pollock argues, is because the problems involved are essentially philosophical; what is needed for the construction of a person is a physical system that mimics human rationality. Pollock describes an exciting theory of rationality and its partial implementation in OSCAR, a computer system whose descendants will literally be persons.

Cognitive Carpentry

A Blueprint for How to Build a Person
By John L. Pollock

In his groundbreaking new book, John Pollock establishes an outpost at the crossroads where artificial intelligence meets philosophy. Specifically, he proposes a general theory of rationality and then describes its implementation in OSCAR, an architecture for an autonomous rational agent he claims is the "first AI system capable of performing reasoning that philosophers would regard as epistemically sophisticated."

Titles by This Editor

Philosophy and AI

Essays at the Interface
Edited by Robert Cummins and John L. Pollock

Philosophers have found that the concepts and technology of artificial intelligence provide useful ways to test theories of knowledge and reason. Conversely, researchers in artificial intelligence, noting that the production of information processing systems requires a prior theory of rationality, have begun writing philosophy. Philosophy and AI presents invited contributions that focus on the different perspectives and techniques that philosophy and AI bring to the theory of rationality.