A SOCIOLOGICAL-STUDY OF THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE PERCEPTRONS CONTROVERSY

In this paper, I analyze the controversy within Artificial intelligenc e (Al) which surrounded the 'perceptron' project (and neural nets in g eneral) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I devote particular attenti on to the proofs and arguments of Minsky and Papert, which were interp reted as showing that further progress in neural nets was not possible , and that this approach to Al had to be abandoned. I maintain that th is official interpretation of the debate was a result of the emergence , institutionalization and (importantly) legitimation of the symbolic Al approach (with its resource allocation system and authority structu re). At the 'research-area' level, there was considerable interpretati ve flexibility. This interpretative flexibility was further demonstrat ed by the revival of neural nets in the late 1980s, and subsequent rew riting of the official history of the debate.