neats vs. scruffies

2 definitions found

neats vs. scruffies - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  neats vs. scruffies
  scruffies
  
     <artificial intelligence, jargon> The label used to refer to
     one of the continuing holy wars in artificial intelligence
     research.  This conflict tangles together two separate issues.
     One is the relationship between human reasoning and AI;
     "neats" tend to try to build systems that "reason" in some way
     identifiably similar to the way humans report themselves as
     doing, while "scruffies" profess not to care whether an
     algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as long as
     it works.  More importantly, neats tend to believe that
     logic is king, while scruffies favour looser, more ad-hoc
     methods driven by empirical knowledge.  To a neat, scruffy
     methods appear promiscuous, successful only by accident and
     not productive of insights about how intelligence actually
     works; to a scruffy, neat methods appear to be hung up on
     formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture "common sense"
     of living intelligences.
  
     (1994-11-29)
  

neats vs. scruffies - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  neats vs. scruffies
   n.
  
     The label used to refer to one of the continuing holy wars in AI
     research. This conflict tangles together two separate issues. One is
     the relationship between human reasoning and AI; `neats' tend to try
     to build systems that `reason' in some way identifiably similar to
  the
     way humans report themselves as doing, while `scruffies' profess not
     to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least
  as
     long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe that logic
     is king, while scruffies favor looser, more ad-hoc methods driven by
     empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods appear promiscuous,
     successful only by accident, and not productive of insights about how
     intelligence actually works; to a scruffy, neat methods appear to be
     hung up on formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture `common
     sense' of living intelligences.