Ben,
Well, I guess you told me! I'll just be taking my loosely-coupled
"...bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets..." right on out of here. No need to
worry about me venturing an opinion here ever again. I have neither the
energy nor, apparently, the intellectual ability to respond to a broadside
like that from the "top dog."
It's too bad. I was just starting to fell "at home" here. Sigh.
Cheers (and goodbye),
Brad
Ben Goertzel wrote:
A few points...
1)
Closely associating embodiment with GOFAI is just flat-out historically
wrong. GOFAI refers to a specific class of approaches to AI that wer
pursued a few decades ago, which were not centered on embodiment as a
key concept or aspect.
2)
Embodiment based approaches to AGI certainly have not been extensively
tried and failed in any serious way, simply because of the primitive
nature of real and virtual robotic technology. Even right now, the real
and virtual robotics tech are not *quite* there to enable us to pursue
embodiment-based AGI in a really tractable way. For instance, humanoid
robots like the Nao cost $20K and have all sorts of serious actuator
problems ... and virtual world tech is not built to allow fine-grained
AI control of agent skeletons ... etc. It would be more accurate to
say that we're 5-15 years away from a condition where embodiment-based
AGI can be tried-out without immense time-wastage on making
not-quite-ready supporting technologies work....
3)
I do not think that humanlike NL understanding nor humanlike embodiment
are in any way necessary for AGI. I just think that they seem to
represent the shortest path to getting there, because they represent a
path that **we understand reasonably well** ... and because AGIs
following this path will be able to **learn from us** reasonably easily,
as opposed to AGIs built on fundamentally nonhuman principles
To put it simply, once an AGI can understand human language we can teach
it stuff. This will be very helpful to it. We have a lot of experience
in teaching agents with humanlike bodies, communicating using human
language. Then it can teach us stuff too. And human language is just
riddled through and through with metaphors to embodiment, suggesting
that solving the disambiguation problems in linguistics will be much
easier for a system with vaguely humanlike embodied experience.
4)
I have articulated a detailed proposal for how to make an AGI using the
OCP design together with linguistic communication and virtual
embodiment. Rather than just a promising-looking assemblage of
in-development technologies, the proposal is grounded in a coherent
holistic theory of how minds work.
What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of
your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that
loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is
going to lead to an AGI capable of adapting to fundamentally new
situations not envisioned by any of its programmers? I'm not
completely ruling out the possiblity that this kind of strategy could
work, but where's the beef? I'm not asking for a proof, I'm asking for
a coherent, detailed argument as to why this kind of approach could lead
to a generally-intelligent mind.
5)
It sometimes feels to me like the reason so little progress is made
toward AGI is that the 2000 people on the planet who are passionate
about it, are moving in 4000 different directions ;-) ...
OpenCog is an attempt to get a substantial number of AGI enthusiasts all
moving in the same direction, without claiming this is the **only**
possible workable direction.
Eventually, supporting technologies will advance enough that some smart
guy can build an AGI on his own in a year of hacking. I don't think
we're at that stage yet -- but I think we're at the stage where a team
of a couple dozen could do it in 5-10 years. However, if that level of
effort can't be systematically summoned (thru gov't grants, industry
funding, open-source volunteerism or wherever) then maybe AGI won't come
about till the supporting technologies develop further. My hope is that
we can overcome the existing collective-psychology and
practical-economic obstacles that hold us back from creating AGI
together, and build a beneficial AGI ASAP ...
-- Ben G
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 2:34 AM, David Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Brad Paulsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
So, it has, in fact, been tried before. It has, in fact, always
failed. Your comments about the quality of Ben's approach are
noted. Maybe you're right. But, it's not germane to my
argument which is that those parts of Ben G.'s approach that
call for human-level NLU, and that propose embodiment (or
virtual embodiment) as a way to achieve human-level NLU, have
been tried before, many times, and have always failed. If Ben
G. knows something he's not telling us then, when he does, I'll
consider modifying my views. But, remember, my comments were
never directed at the OpenCog project or Ben G. personally.
They were directed at an AGI *strategy* not invented by Ben G.
or OpenCog.
The OCP approach/strategy, both in crucial specifics of its parts
and particularly in its total synthesis, *IS* novel; I recommend a
closer re-examination!
The mere resemblance of some of its parts to past [failed] AI
undertakings is not enough reason to dismiss those parts, IMHO,
dislike of embodiment or NLU or any other aspect that has a GOFAI
past lurking in the wings not withstanding.
OTOH, I will happily agree to disagree on these points to save the
AGI list from going down in flames! ;-)
-dave
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*agi* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now>
<https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/> | Modify
<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Your Subscription [Powered by
Listbox] <http://www.listbox.com>
--
Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
Director of Research, SIAI
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first
overcome " - Dr Samuel Johnson
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*agi* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now>
<https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/> | Modify
<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>
Your Subscription [Powered by Listbox] <http://www.listbox.com>
-------------------------------------------
agi
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription:
https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=114414975-3c8e69
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
