Towards a common philosophy of explanation for artificial and biological intelligence

Abstract

Much of the confusion that occurs when working at the intersection of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience stems from disagreement about what it means to explain intelligence. I claim that to integrate these fields, we must reconcile their different theories of explanation. I briefly review theories of scientific explanation in neuroscience and recontextualize the stated views of several prominent cognitive computational neuroscientists in terms of the theories of explanation they espouse. Finally, I describe some of the challenges of forging a new theory of explanation that would apply equally to artificial and biological intelligence. As a first step towards an integration of research on biological and artificial intelligence, my goal in writing this paper is to equip scientists of intelligence to interrogate and justify the theories of explanation that underlie their definitions of scientific progress.