[1] : Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)

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.


see also:
holy wars 

[2] : The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)

neats vs. scruffies
     
         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
     
     
see also:
holy wars artificial intelligence algorithm logic 

Neats Vs Scruff >> N Words
Neats Vs Scruff, definition of term: Neats Vs Scruff
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