This paper argues that AI follows classical versions of epistemology in assuming that the identity of the knowing subject is not important. In other words this serves to `delete the subject''. This disguises an implicit hierarchy of knowers involved in the representation of knowledge in AI which privileges the perspective of those who design and build the systems over alternative perspectives. The privileged position reflects Western, professional masculinity. Alternative perspectives, denied a voice, belong to less powerful groups including women. Feminist (...) epistemology can be used to approach this from new directions, in particular, to show how women''s knowledge may be left out of consideration by AI''s focus on masculine subjects. The paper uncovers the tacitly assumed Western professional male subjects in two flagship AI systems, Cyc and Soar. (shrink)

The objective of this essay is to provide the beginning of a principled classification of some of the ways space is intelligently used. Studies of planning have typically focused on the temporal ordering of action, leaving as unaddressed questions of where to lay down instruments, ingredients, work-in-progress, and the like. But, in having a body, we are spatially located creatures: we must always be facing some direction, have only certain objects in view, be within reach of certain others. How we (...) manage the spatial arrangement of items around us is not an afterthought: it is an integral part of the way we think, plan, and behave. The proposed classification has three main categories: spatial arrangements that simplify choice; spatial arrangements that simplify perception; and spatial dynamics that simplify internal computation. The data for such a classification is drawn from videos of cooking, assembly and packing, everyday observations in supermarkets, workshops and playrooms, and experimental studies of subjects playing Tetris, the computer game. This study, therefore, focuses on interactive processes in the medium and short term: on how agents set up their workplace for particular tasks, and how they continuously manage that workplace. (shrink)

Pioneer approaches to Artificial Intelligence have traditionally neglected, in a chronological sequence, the agent body, the world where the agent is situated, and the other agents. With the advent of Collective Robotics approaches, important progresses were made toward embodying and situating the agents, together with the introduction of collective intelligence. However, the currently used models of social environments are still rather poor, jeopardizing the attempts of developing truly intelligent robot teams. In this paper, we propose a roadmap for a new (...) approach to the design of multi-robot systems, mainly inspired by concepts from Institutional Economics, an alternative to mainstream neoclassical economic theory. Our approach intends to sophisticate the design of robot collectives by adding, to the currently popular emergentist view, the concepts of physically and socially bounded autonomy of cognitive agents, uncoupled interaction among them and deliberately set up coordination devices. (shrink)