This paper investigates the prospects of Rodney Brooks’ proposal for AI without representation. It turns out that the supposedly
characteristic features of “new AI” (embodiment, situatedness, absence of reasoning, and absence of representation) are all
present in conventional systems: “New AI” is just like old AI. Brooks proposal boils down to the architectural rejection of
central control in intelligent agents—Which, however, turns out to be crucial. Some of more recent cognitive science suggests
that we might do well to dispose of the image of intelligent agents as central representation processors. If this paradigm
shift is achieved, Brooks’ proposal for cognition without representation appears promising for full-blown intelligent agents—Though
not for conscious agents.
Keywords AI - Artificial intelligence - Brooks - Central control - Computationalism - Function - Embodiment - Grounding - Representation - Representationalism - Subsumption architecture