Are AI and mechanics empirical disciplines?
Leslie Burkholder · Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence · 1999
Some think that AI is a purely a priori discipline, like mathematics, rather than an empirical and experimental discipline like mechanics or biochemistry. One line of reasoning for this conclusion is mistaken. It commits the ‘identification fallacy’, confusing empirical statements and experimental discoveries about objects (for example, physical computing devices) with a priori statements about abstract theoretical models of those objects.