Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
You make the statement below as if it were a fact and I don't believe it to be fact at all. If a disembodied AGI has models suggested by an embodied person, then that concept can have meaning in a real world setting without the AGI actually having a body at all. If a disembodied AGI has a hypothesis about the real world and doesn't have a direct way to test if it is true, then it could just ask a human to do so on it's behalf. Disabled persons are not stupid or useless just because some/most of their ability to interact with the world is impaired. If a climate model has algorithms and data from the real world, do you argue that the result will be nothing but semantic free gibberish? I know that some systems (specifically systems without models or a lot of human interaction) have had grounding problems but your statement below seems to be stating something that is far from proven fact. Your conclusions about concept of self and unemboodied agent means ungrounded symbols are also not shared by me and not explained or proven by you. Your saying something is doesn't necessarily make it true. -- David Clark - Original Message - From: Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 9:18 AM Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? To an unembodied agent, the concept of self is indistinguishable from any other concept it works with. I use concept in quotes because to the unembodied agent, it is not a concept at all, but merely a symbol with no semantic context attached. All such an agent can do is perform operations on ungrounded symbols - at best, the result of which can appear to be intelligent within some domain (e.g., a chess program). --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
David: I know that some systems (specifically systems without models or a lot of human interaction) have had grounding problems but your statement below seems to be stating something that is far from proven fact. Your conclusions about concept of self and unemboodied agent means ungrounded symbols are also not shared by me and not explained or proven by you. Your saying something is doesn't necessarily make it true. Terren: To an unembodied agent, the concept of self is indistinguishable from any other concept it works with. I use concept in quotes because to the unembodied agent, it is not a concept at all, but merely a symbol with no semantic context attached. All such an agent can do is perform operations on ungrounded symbols - at best, the result of which can appear to be intelligent within some domain (e.g., a chess program). David, MAN: But enough of talking about me, darling. Let's talk about you... What do you think about me? And how is the computer going to get the joke, without having a self, that's been in a conversation, and had physical emotional urges to talk about themself, and had to wait impatiently while others talked about themselves, and having a gut that can laugh? MAN: You're not a human being, David. You're just a machine. You talk robotically, you walk robotically, you think robotically. You don't have any feelings. And how's it going to understand any of that? How's it going to know that the man is exaggerating? MAN: I have terrible problems of self-control whenever I see a doughnut. And that, esp self-control? Or: Suppose Bob's goal is to create a human-level AI; and he thinks he knows how to do it, but the completion of his approach is likely to take him an indeterminate number of years of work, during which he will have trouble feeding himself. Consider two options Bob has: A) Spend 10 years hacking in his basement, based on his AI ideas B) Spend those 10 years working as a financial trader, and donate 50% of his profits to others creating AI How's a computer going to understand the pressures on Bob, and why they reflect pressures on Ben? One can go on in this vein covering all of human and animal affairs and life. That doesn't leave a lot. --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
--- On Fri, 8/29/08, Jiri Jelinek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't see why an un-embodied system couldn't successfully use the concept of self in its models. It's just another concept, except that it's linked to real features of the system. To an unembodied agent, the concept of self is indistinguishable from any other concept it works with. I use concept in quotes because to the unembodied agent, it is not a concept at all, but merely a symbol with no semantic context attached. All such an agent can do is perform operations on ungrounded symbols - at best, the result of which can appear to be intelligent within some domain (e.g., a chess program). Even though this particular AGI never heard about any of those other tools being used for cutting bread (and is not self-aware in any sense), it still can (when asked for advice) make a reasonable suggestion to try the T2 (because of the similarity) = coming up with a novel idea demonstrating general intelligence. Sounds like magic to me. You're taking something that we humans can do and sticking it in as a black box into a hugely simplified agent in a way that imparts no understanding about how we do it. Maybe you left that part out for brevity - care to elaborate? Terren --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Terren, to the unembodied agent, it is not a concept at all, but merely a symbol with no semantic context attached It's an issue when trying to learn from NL only, but you can injects semantics (critical for grounding) when teaching through a formal_language[-based interface], get the thinking algorithms working and possibly focus on NL-to-formal_language conversions later. To an unembodied agent, the concept of self is indistinguishable from any other concept it works with. An AGI should be able to use tools (external/internal applications) and it can learn to view itself (or just some of its modules) as its tool(s). You can design an interface [possibly just for advanced users] for mapping learned concepts/actions to the interface of available tools. Just like it can learn how to use a command line calculator, it can learn how to use self as a tool. Then it can learn that an alias to use for that tool is I/Me. By design, it can also clearly distinguish between using a particular tool in theory and in practice. All such an agent can do is perform operations on ungrounded symbols - at best, the result of which can appear to be intelligent within some domain (e.g., a chess program). You can ground when using semantic-supporting input formats. I don't see why would it have to be specific to a single domain. You can use very general data representation structures and fill it with data with many domains. You just have to get the KR right (unlike CYC). Easy to say, I know, but I don't see a good reason why it couldn't (in principle) work and I'm working on figuring that out. Even though this particular AGI never heard about any of those other tools being used for cutting bread (and is not self-aware in any sense), it still can (when asked for advice) make a reasonable suggestion to try the T2 (because of the similarity) = coming up with a novel idea demonstrating general intelligence. Sounds like magic to me. You're taking something that we humans can do and sticking it in as a black box into a hugely simplified agent in a way that imparts no understanding about how we do it. Maybe you left that part out for brevity - care to elaborate? It must sound like magic when assuming the no semantic context attached, but that doesn't have to be the case. With right teaching methods, the system gets semantics, can make models and can apply knowledge learned from scenario1 to scenario2 in unique ways. What does the right teaching methods mean? For example, when learning an action concept (e.g. buy), it needs to grasp [at least some] roles involved (e.g. seller, buyer, goods, price, ..) and how relationships between the role-players changes in relevant stages. You can design user friendly interface for teaching systems in meaningful ways so it can later think using queriable models and understand relationships [changes] between concepts etc... Sorry about the brevity (busy schedule). Regards, Jiri Jelinek PS: we might be slightly off-topic in this thread.. (?) --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
2008/8/27 Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: You on your side insist that you don't have to have such precisely defined goals - your intuitive (and by definition, ill-defined) sense of intelligence will do. As a child I don't believe that I set out with the goal of becoming a software developer. Indeed, such jobs barely even existed at the time. However, through play and experience I may have noticed that I had certain skills, and later noticed that these might be useful in particular kinds of situations. This doesn't seem to be a situation in which there was a well defined goal tree in advance, which I was simply moving incrementally towards - although many people might like to give such a whiggish impression in biographies or CVs. Rather there were various ideas and technologies developing at the time, some of which were transmitted to me and were able to use me as a P2P host for further propogation. --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Just in case there is any confusion, ill-defined is in this particular context is in no way pejorative. The crux of a General Intelligence for me is that it is necessarily a machine that works with more or less ill-defined goals to solve ill-structured problems. Bob's self-description is to a greater or lesser extent true of how most of us conduct most of our activities and lives. The test of a GI, artificial or natural, is how well it *creates* goal definitions and structures for solving problems, and the actual solutions ad hoc. (I still think of course that current AGI should have a not-so-ill structured definition of its problem-solving goals). Bob: You on your side insist that you don't have to have such precisely defined goals - your intuitive (and by definition, ill-defined) sense of intelligence will do. As a child I don't believe that I set out with the goal of becoming a software developer. Indeed, such jobs barely even existed at the time. However, through play and experience I may have noticed that I had certain skills, and later noticed that these might be useful in particular kinds of situations. This doesn't seem to be a situation in which there was a well defined goal tree in advance, which I was simply moving incrementally towards - although many people might like to give such a whiggish impression in biographies or CVs. Rather there were various ideas and technologies developing at the time, some of which were transmitted to me and were able to use me as a P2P host for further propogation. --- 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
2008/8/28 Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: (I still think of course that current AGI should have a not-so-ill structured definition of its problem-solving goals). It's certainly true that an AGI could be endowed with well defined goals. Some people also begin from an early age with well defined goals. However, you then need to look more carefully at where these goals originated. Children who have well defined goals about what they wish to do with their lives are often simply downloading these from parents. Similarly in the AGI case you could have high level goals artificially inserted by a human programmer. In both natural and artificial cases you could then ask whether these systems are truly intelligent, or merely acting as clever executors. --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Hi Jiri, Comments below... --- On Thu, 8/28/08, Jiri Jelinek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's difficult to reconcile if you don't believe embodiment is all that important. Not really. We might be qualia-driven, but for our AGIs it's perfectly ok (and only natural) to be driven by given goals. I've argued elsewhere that goals that are not grounded in an AGI's experience impart no meaning. Either an agent has some kind of embodied experience, in which case the specified goal is not grounded in anything the agent can relate to, or it is not embodied at all, in which case it is a mindless automaton. question I would pose to you non-embodied advocates is: how in the world will you motivate your creation? I suppose that you won't. You'll just tell it what to do (specify its goals) and it will do it.. Correct. AGIs driven by human-like-qualia would be less safe harder to control. Human-like-qualia are too high-level to be safe. When implementing qualia (not that we know hot to do it ;-)) increasing granularity for safety, you would IMO end up with basically giving the goals - which is of course easier without messing with qualia implementation. Forget qualia as a motivation for our AGIs. Our AGIs are supposed to work for us, not for themselves. So much talk about Friendliness implies that the AGI will have no ability to choose its own goals. It seems that AGI researchers are usually looking to create clever slaves. That may fit your notion of general intelligence, but not mine. Terren --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Eric, It was a real-life near-death experience (auto accident). I'm aware of the tryptamine compound and its presence in hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD. According to Wikipedia, it is not related to the NDE drug of choice which is Ketamine (Ketalar or ketamine HCL -- street name back in the day was Special K). Ketamine is a chemical secreted into the brain when your body detects an over-generation of Glutamate. Glutamate (i.e., the food flavor enhancer, MSG) is a neurotransmitter released in massive quantities when your senses lead your brain to believe it is in mortal danger. It's your brain's way of, literally, trying to think its (your) way out of danger - fast. Trouble is, too much Glutamate can irreparably damage the brain, hence the Ketamine push and the NDE experience. Ketamine is a Schedule 3 drug. Today, it is primarily used as an anesthetic in surgery performed on geriatric adults, children and animals (by vets). It takes a much higher dose than that used for anesthetic purposes to achieve the NDE experience. Back in the day, it was used as an adjunct to psychotherapy. The Russians claimed it worked wonders for all sorts of addiction, especially alcoholism. I do not recommend use of Ketamine unsupervised by a qualified medical practitioner. Just like LSD, people have been known to react badly (bad trip). But, then, I don't recommend near-fatal auto accidents either. ;-) Cheers, Brad Eric Burton wrote: Hi, Err ... I don't have to mention that I didn't stay dead, do I? Good. Was this the archetypal death/rebirth experience found in for instance tryptamine ecstacy or a real-life near-death experience? Eric B --- 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Terren, is not embodied at all, in which case it is a mindless automaton Researchers and philosophers define mind and intelligence in many different ways = their classifications of particular AI systems differ. What really counts though are problem solving abilities of the system. Not how it's labeled according to a particular definition of mind. So much talk about Friendliness implies that the AGI will have no ability to choose its own goals. Developer's choice.. My approach: Main goals - definitely not; Sub goals - sure, with restrictions though. It seems that AGI researchers are usually looking to create clever slaves. We are talking about our machines. What else are they supposed to be? clever slaves. That may fit your notion of general intelligence, but not mine. To me, general intelligence is a cross-domain ability to gain knowledge in one context and correctly apply it in another [in terms of problem solving]. The source of the primary goal(s) (/problem(s) to solve) doesn't (from my perspective) have anything to do with the level of system's intelligence. It doesn't make it more or less intelligent. It's just a separate thing. The system gets the initial goal [from whatever source] and *then* it's time to apply its intelligence. Regards, Jiri Jelinek --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Jiri, I think where you're coming from is a perspective that doesn't consider or doesn't care about the prospect of a conscious intelligence, an awake being capable of self reflection and free will (or at least the illusion of it). I don't think any kind of algorithmic approach, which is to say, un-embodied, will ever result in conscious intelligence. But an embodied agent that is able to construct ever-deepening models of its experience such that it eventually includes itself in its models, well, that is another story. I think btw that is a valid description of humans. We may argue about whether consciousness (mindfulness) is necessary for general intelligence. I think it is, and that informs much of my perspective. When I say something like mindless automaton, I'm implicitly suggesting that it won't be intelligent in a general sense, although it could be in a narrow sense (like a chess program). Terren --- On Thu, 8/28/08, Jiri Jelinek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Jiri Jelinek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? To: agi@v2.listbox.com Date: Thursday, August 28, 2008, 10:39 PM Terren, is not embodied at all, in which case it is a mindless automaton Researchers and philosophers define mind and intelligence in many different ways = their classifications of particular AI systems differ. What really counts though are problem solving abilities of the system. Not how it's labeled according to a particular definition of mind. So much talk about Friendliness implies that the AGI will have no ability to choose its own goals. Developer's choice.. My approach: Main goals - definitely not; Sub goals - sure, with restrictions though. It seems that AGI researchers are usually looking to create clever slaves. We are talking about our machines. What else are they supposed to be? clever slaves. That may fit your notion of general intelligence, but not mine. To me, general intelligence is a cross-domain ability to gain knowledge in one context and correctly apply it in another [in terms of problem solving]. The source of the primary goal(s) (/problem(s) to solve) doesn't (from my perspective) have anything to do with the level of system's intelligence. It doesn't make it more or less intelligent. It's just a separate thing. The system gets the initial goal [from whatever source] and *then* it's time to apply its intelligence. Regards, Jiri Jelinek --- 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Terren, I don't think any kind of algorithmic approach, which is to say, un-embodied, will ever result in conscious intelligence. But an embodied agent that is able to construct ever-deepening models of its experience such that it eventually includes itself in its models, well, that is another story. I don't see why an un-embodied system couldn't successfully use the concept of self in its models. It's just another concept, except that it's linked to real features of the system. We may argue about whether consciousness (mindfulness) is necessary for general intelligence. I think it is, and that informs much of my perspective. General intelligence can IMO be demonstrated even when the system under evaluation doesn't [ATM] understand particular concepts like self and even if it doesn't [ATM] have the ability to perceive a relationship between self and its actual environment (=stuff often associated with consciousness). In fact, it can know relatively little. Let's say I need to cut a bread, but don't have a knife. I only have a few other tools, one of which (let's call it T2) has similar parameters to a knife. Even though this particular AGI never heard about any of those other tools being used for cutting bread (and is not self-aware in any sense), it still can (when asked for advice) make a reasonable suggestion to try the T2 (because of the similarity) = coming up with a novel idea demonstrating general intelligence. Regards, Jiri Jelinek --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Brad, scary stuff. Dissociatives/NMDA inhibitors were secret option number three! ;D On 8/29/08, Jiri Jelinek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Terren, I don't think any kind of algorithmic approach, which is to say, un-embodied, will ever result in conscious intelligence. But an embodied agent that is able to construct ever-deepening models of its experience such that it eventually includes itself in its models, well, that is another story. I don't see why an un-embodied system couldn't successfully use the concept of self in its models. It's just another concept, except that it's linked to real features of the system. We may argue about whether consciousness (mindfulness) is necessary for general intelligence. I think it is, and that informs much of my perspective. General intelligence can IMO be demonstrated even when the system under evaluation doesn't [ATM] understand particular concepts like self and even if it doesn't [ATM] have the ability to perceive a relationship between self and its actual environment (=stuff often associated with consciousness). In fact, it can know relatively little. Let's say I need to cut a bread, but don't have a knife. I only have a few other tools, one of which (let's call it T2) has similar parameters to a knife. Even though this particular AGI never heard about any of those other tools being used for cutting bread (and is not self-aware in any sense), it still can (when asked for advice) make a reasonable suggestion to try the T2 (because of the similarity) = coming up with a novel idea demonstrating general intelligence. Regards, Jiri Jelinek --- 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Terren, OK, you hooked me. A virgin is something I haven't been called (or even been associated with) in about forty-five years. So, I feel compelled to defend my non-virginity at all costs. I'm 58 now. You do the math (don't forget to subtract for the 30 years I was married). ;-) My widowed girlfriend of the last eight years is a mother of two 30-something-year-olds (a boy and a girl) and four grandchildren, ages 11 (going on 16) down to 2. All girls! The woman is post-menopausal and insatiable! A little Astroglide (thank you, NASA!) and we're ready to rumble. No birth control required! Sex under 50? OK. Sex after 50? To the moon!! The Bradster is one lucky puppy. So there! I thought orgasms were cool, too. Until I died. Now THAT was cool. So, for orgasms, it's sort of a quantity vs. quality thing for me these days. I'll eventually get to do that dying thing again (probably just once, though). But between now and then, I hope to have lots and lots of orgasms! Not as cool as dying, but a bit easier to come by. (I won't say it if you don't think it!) ;-) Err ... I don't have to mention that I didn't stay dead, do I? Good. I don't recall whether or not I said one could describe an orgasm to a virgin in lieu of experiencing the real thing. But, the AGI I have in mind is of the non-Turing/Loebner, non-orgasmic type, so the description will just have to do. In my design, this is required only so the AGI can empathize with human experience. It may need to know what a happy ending is, but it doesn't have to have one. Who knows, though? Maybe we've finally discovered that it's not Microsoft's fault we have to re-boot Windows at least twice a day. Maybe a re-boot is sort of like an orgasm for Windows? Explains that little happy chiming sound it makes during boot-up, right? Maybe, just maybe, Windows was, to quote Steely Dan, programmed by fellows with compassion and vision. Anyhow, that example fits with views I've expressed in the context of explaining how my AGI design requires empathy on the part of the AGI so it can empathize with human experiences without having to actually have them. So, maybe I did say that. Since I have no intention of developing a Turing/Loebner AGI, the ability to empathize is all my design really needs. And, it may not even need that. Benign indifference may be enough. My design is still evolving even as I work on the implementation (it's a big job and I'm only one man). If I do my job right, my AGI will have no sense of self. I achieve that, mostly, by building a non-embodied AGI. Embodiment leads directly to a sense of self which leads inexorably to an I am me and you're not world view. I don't know about you, but an AGI with a sense of self gives me the willies. Turns out, by NOT bestowing a sense of self on a non-Turing/Loebner AGI, one does away with a great many rather sticky problems in the area of morality and ethics. How do I know what it's like to not have a sense of self? A... That's where the dying but not really dying part fits the puzzle. Talk about experiences that are hard to explain! But, that's another topic for another thread. Now, to the meaty stuff... You wrote: ... the really interesting question I would pose to you non-embodied advocates is: how in the world will you motivate your creation? Some animals and all humans are motivated to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. This requires the existence of a brain and a nervous system, preferably both peripheral and central. In animals other than humans and some higher-order primates and mammals, motivation is more typically called instinct. The difference? Motivations are usually conscious and somewhat malleable. Instincts are usually not. To be sure, there is some gray area here, but not enough, I think, to alone derail my argument. While human motivations may appear more complex, this is almost always because they are more abstract. They can usually be boiled down to fit the pleasure/pain model (e.g., reward/punishment). There has been some interesting recent work on altruism reported in the cog sci literature. When I can lay hands on some URIs, I'll post them here. With that conceptual background established, my reply is that your question contains the implicit assumption we non-embodied advocates are planning to build Turing/Loebner AGIs. Some of us may be. I am not. Since my AGI model is not of the T/L variety, motivation does NOT apply. But, I'm prepared to meet you halfway and cop to instinct. My AGI WILL have at least one overriding instinct. I've discussed it here recently (but it seemed most people who commented on my post didn't fully get it). Here it is: My AGI will be equipped with an instinctual drive to resolve cognitive dissonance (simulated, of course) engendered by its own inability to understand or answer queries posed by humans (or other AGIs). I hasten
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Actually, exploring this further - human thinking is v. fundamentally different from the computational kind or most AGI conceptions - because it is massively and structurally metacognitive, self-examining (which comes under being a machine that works by self-control). Interestingly, Minsky's model of mind in The Emotion Machine includes this with three levels above Deliberative Thinking: Reflective Thinking Self-Reflective Thinking Self-Conscious Reflection We don't just think about a problem, we simultaneously think about how we think about it, and consciously manage and take decisions about that thinking. We ask ourselves questions like: -How long should we think about it? -Should we follow our intuitions -do we need examples? -should we visualise -should we follow our feelings of confusion? -should we articulate our thoughts clearly and slowly or just let them whizz along, half-articulated? -how would so-and-so handle it -should we examine that part of the problem, or will it take too long? -should we check the evidence? -should we give up, or compromise? -should we read a book for ideas? or consult a dictionary/thesaurus? Such questions are all parts of our inner thinking dialogue. As Minsky says, we have many ways to think, we consciously choose from among them - as a result different people devote very different amounts of time and resources to thinking at different times. But Minsky wants to make all this into an automatic process - and it can't be - how you think about problematic problems is fundamentally problematic in itself - which is why thinking is such a hesitant business. David Hart:/ MT : Is anyone trying to design a self-exploring robot or computer? Does this principle have a name? Interestingly, some views on AI advocate specifically prohibiting self-awareness and self-exploration as a precaution against the development of unfriendly AI. In my opinion, these views erroneously transfer familiar human motives onto 'alien' AGI cognitive architectures - there's a history of discussing this topic on SL4 and other places. I believe however that most approaches to designing AGI (those that do not specifically prohibit self-aware and self-explortative behaviors) take for granted, and indeed intentionally promote, self-awareness and self-exploration at most stages of AGI development. In other words, efficient and effective recursive self-improvement (RSI) requires self-awareness and self-exploration. If any term exists to describe a 'self-exploring robot or computer', that term is RSI. Coining a lesser term for 'self-exploring AI' may be useful in some proto-AGI contexts, but I suspect that 'RSI' is ultimately a more useful and meaningful term. -dave -- agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
If I do my job right, my AGI will have no sense of self. I have doubts that is possible, though I'm sure you can make an AGI with a very different sense of self than any human has. My reasoning: 1) To get to a high level of intelligence likely requires some serious self-analysis and self-modification (whether conscious or unconscious ... in a young human child it's likely largely unconscious) 2) In order to do self-analysis and self-modification, having and maintaining a model of oneself seems the most effective strategy An AGI however could clearly be more effective at self-model management than humans are... It will be interesting, one day, to discover which properties of the human mind are generic across limited-resources minds and which are more particular to human minds... -- Ben G --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
An interesting thing to keep in mind when discussing play, though, is **subgoal alienation** When G1 arises as a subgoal of G, nevertheless, it may happen that G1 survives as a goal even if G disappears; or that G1 remains important even if G loses importance. One may wish to design AGI systems to minimize this phenomenon, but it certainly occurs strongly in humans. Play may be an example of this. We may retain the desire to play games that originated as practice for G, even though we have no interest in G anymore. And, subgoal alienation may occur on the evolutionary as well as the individual level. ben g On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 9:49 AM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Examples of the kind of similarity I'm thinking of: -- The analogy btw chess or go and military strategy -- The analogy btw roughhousing and actual fighting In logical terms, these are intensional rather than extensional similarities ben On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 9:38 AM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Ben:If an intelligent system has a goal G which is time-consuming or difficult to achieve ... it may then synthesize another goal G1 which is easier to achieve We then have the uncertain syllogism Achieving G implies reward G1 is similar to G Ben, The be-all and end-all here though, I presume is similarity. Is it a logic-al concept? Finding similarities - rough likenesses as opposed to rational, precise, logicomathematical commonalities - is actually, I would argue, a process of imagination and (though I can't find a ready term) physical/embodied improvisation. Hence rational, logical, computing approaches have failed to produce any new (in the normal sense of surprising) metaphors or analogies or be creative. Maybe you could give an example of what you mean by similarity -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [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 RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
I wrote a blog post enlarging a little on the ideas I developed in my response to the playful AGI thread... See http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2008/08/logic-of-play.html Some of the new content I put there: Still, I have to come back to the tendency of play to give rise to goal drift ... this is an interesting twist that apparently relates to the wildness and spontaneity that exists in much playing. Yes, most particular forms of play do seem to arise via the syllogism I've given above. Yet, because it involves activities that originate as simulacra of goals that go BEYOND what the mind can currently do, play also seems to have an innate capability to drive the mind BEYOND its accustomed limits ... in a way that often transcends the goal G that the play-goal G1 was designed to emulate This brings up the topic of meta-goals: goals that have to do explicitly with goal-system maintenance and evolution. It seems that playing is in fact a meta-goal, quite separately from the fact of each instance of playing generally involving an imitation of some other specific real-life goal. Playing is a meta-goal that should be valued by organisms that value growth and spontaneity ... including growth of their goal systems in unpredictable, adaptive ways -- Ben G On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: About play... I would argue that it emerges in any sufficiently generally-intelligent system that is faced with goals that are difficult for it ... as a consequence of other general cognitive processes... If an intelligent system has a goal G which is time-consuming or difficult to achieve ... it may then synthesize another goal G1 which is easier to achieve We then have the uncertain syllogism Achieving G implies reward G1 is similar to G |- Achieving G1 implies reward As links between goal-achievement and reward are to some extent modified by uncertain inference (or analogous process, implemented e.g. in neural nets), we thus have the emergence of play ... in cases where G1 is much easier to achieve than G ... Of course, if working toward G1 is actually good practice for working toward G, this may give the intelligent system (if it's smart and mature enough to strategize) or evolution impetus to create additional bias toward the pursuit of G1 In this view, play is a quite general structural phenomenon ... and the play that human kids do with blocks and sticks and so forth is a special case, oriented toward ultimate goals G involving physical manipulation And the knack in gaining anything from play is in appropriate similarity-assessment ... i.e. in measuring similarity between G and G1 in such a way that achieving G1 actually teaches things useful for achieving G So for any goal-achieving system that has long-term goals which it can't currently effectively work directly toward, play may be an effective strategy... In this view, we don't really need to design an AI system with play in mind. Rather, if it can explicitly or implicitly carry out the above inference, concept-creation and subgoaling processes, play should emerge from its interaction w/ the world... ben g On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 8:20 AM, David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/26/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is anyone trying to design a self-exploring robot or computer? Does this principle have a name? Interestingly, some views on AI advocate specifically prohibiting self-awareness and self-exploration as a precaution against the development of unfriendly AI. In my opinion, these views erroneously transfer familiar human motives onto 'alien' AGI cognitive architectures - there's a history of discussing this topic on SL4 and other places. I believe however that most approaches to designing AGI (those that do not specifically prohibit self-aware and self-explortative behaviors) take for granted, and indeed intentionally promote, self-awareness and self-exploration at most stages of AGI development. In other words, efficient and effective recursive self-improvement (RSI) requires self-awareness and self-exploration. If any term exists to describe a 'self-exploring robot or computer', that term is RSI. Coining a lesser term for 'self-exploring AI' may be useful in some proto-AGI contexts, but I suspect that 'RSI' is ultimately a more useful and meaningful term. -dave -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Ben, Again, this provokes some playful developments. As I think you may have more or less noted, the goals of the whole thread and of most people responding are somewhat ill-defined, (which in this context is fine). (And the following relates to the adjacent thread too). The human mind doesn't start with - isn't started by - goals; (nor should any AGI), it starts with *drives.* You have drives to food, warmth, activity, (as you note - to mental exercise/activity) and more... Which are extremely general and can each be satisfied in an infinity of ways. You then have to *specify* goals for your drives, which are still v. general, albeit a level more specific, - but do point to some kind of action - and then have to be more and more precisely specified. I'm hungry... right, I want Chinese... right, I'll go to Chang's.. and then you specify strategies, tactics and moves. But humans again and again, plunge into many activities with mixed, conflicting drives, and ill- or *unspecified goals*. Like what exactly were you or I doing in formulating our different posts? Goals were often being redefined ad hoc or formulated for the first time down the line, after we'd started. And this is a characteristic - and sometimes failing/ sometimes adaptive advantage - of much, if not most human activity. We enter many activities with confused goals, and often fail to satisfactorily define them at all. I criticise current AGI, as you know, (and remember it consists of highly developed, highly advanced projects), for having no v. practical definition ( therefore goal) of intelligence or the problems it wants to solve;. You on your side insist that you don't have to have such precisely defined goals - your intuitive (and by definition, ill-defined) sense of intelligence will do. The specific argument doesn't matter here - the point is it illustrates how the goals of a general intelligence are, and have to be continually played with - a) sometimes not defined at all b) sometimes half- or ill-defined c) usually mixed and d) continuously provisional, and in *creative development* - with the frequent disadvantage, evidenced by a trillion undergrad essays, that goals may be way too ill-defined. Ben:I wrote a blog post enlarging a little on the ideas I developed in my response to the playful AGI thread... See http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2008/08/logic-of-play.html Some of the new content I put there: Still, I have to come back to the tendency of play to give rise to goal drift ... this is an interesting twist that apparently relates to the wildness and spontaneity that exists in much playing. Yes, most particular forms of play do seem to arise via the syllogism I've given above. Yet, because it involves activities that originate as simulacra of goals that go BEYOND what the mind can currently do, play also seems to have an innate capability to drive the mind BEYOND its accustomed limits ... in a way that often transcends the goal G that the play-goal G1 was designed to emulate This brings up the topic of meta-goals: goals that have to do explicitly with goal-system maintenance and evolution. It seems that playing is in fact a meta-goal, quite separately from the fact of each instance of playing generally involving an imitation of some other specific real-life goal. Playing is a meta-goal that should be valued by organisms that value growth and spontaneity ... including growth of their goal systems in unpredictable, adaptive ways -- Ben G On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: About play... I would argue that it emerges in any sufficiently generally-intelligent system that is faced with goals that are difficult for it ... as a consequence of other general cognitive processes... If an intelligent system has a goal G which is time-consuming or difficult to achieve ... it may then synthesize another goal G1 which is easier to achieve We then have the uncertain syllogism Achieving G implies reward G1 is similar to G |- Achieving G1 implies reward As links between goal-achievement and reward are to some extent modified by uncertain inference (or analogous process, implemented e.g. in neural nets), we thus have the emergence of play ... in cases where G1 is much easier to achieve than G ... Of course, if working toward G1 is actually good practice for working toward G, this may give the intelligent system (if it's smart and mature enough to strategize) or evolution impetus to create additional bias toward the pursuit of G1 In this view, play is a quite general structural phenomenon ... and the play that human kids do with blocks and sticks and so forth is a special case, oriented toward ultimate goals G involving physical manipulation And the knack in gaining anything from play is in appropriate
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Hi, Err ... I don't have to mention that I didn't stay dead, do I? Good. Was this the archetypal death/rebirth experience found in for instance tryptamine ecstacy or a real-life near-death experience? Eric B --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Admittedly I don't have any proof, but I don't see any reason to doubt my assertions. There's nothing in them that appears to be to be specific to any particular implementation of an (almost) AGI. OTOH, you didn't define play, so I'm still presuming that you accept the definition that I proffered. But then you also didn't explicitly accept it, so I'm not certain. To quote myself: Play is a form a strategy testing in an environment that doesn't severely penalize failures. There's nothing about that statement that appears to me to be specific to any particular implementation. It seems *to me*, and again I acknowledge that I have no proof of this, that any (approaching) AGI of any construction would necessarily engage in this activity. P.S.: I'm being specific about (approaching) AGI as I doubt the possibility, and especially the feasibility, of constructing an actual AGI, rather than something which merely approaches being an AGI at the limit. I'm less certain about an actual AGI, but I suspect that it, also, would need to play for the same reasons. Brad Paulsen wrote: Charles, By now you've probably read my reply to Tintner's reply. I think that probably says it all (and them some!). What you say holds IFF you are planing on building an airplane that flies just like a bird. In other words, if you are planning on building a human-like AGI (that could, say, pass the Turing test). My position is, and has been for decades, that attempting to pass the Turing test (or win either of the two, one-time-only, Loebner Prizes) is a waste of precious time and intellectual resources. Thought experiments? No problem. Discussing ideas? No problem. Human-like AGI? Big problem. Cheers, Brad Charles Hixson wrote: Play is a form a strategy testing in an environment that doesn't severely penalize failures. As such, every AGI will necessarily spend a lot of time playing. If you have some other particular definition, then perhaps I could understand your response if you were to define the term. OTOH, if this is interpreted as being a machine that doesn't do anything BUT play (using my supplied definition), then your response has some merit, but even that can be very useful. Almost all of mathematics, e.g., is derived out of such play. I have a strong suspicion that machines that don't have a play mode can never proceed past the reptilian level of mentation. (Here I'm talking about thought processes that are mediated via the reptile brain in entities like mammals. Actual reptiles may have some more advanced faculties of which I'm unaware. (Note that, e.g., shrews don't have much play capability, but they have SOME.) Brad Paulsen wrote: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. How will it play - manipulate things every which way? What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something interesting? How do infants, IOW, play? --- agi
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Pleasure and pain are peculiar aspects of embodied experience - strictly speaking they are motivators and de-motivators, but what actually motivates us humans is the subjective feel ... That's difficult to reconcile if you don't believe embodiment is all that important. Not really. We might be qualia-driven, but for our AGIs it's perfectly ok (and only natural) to be driven by given goals. question I would pose to you non-embodied advocates is: how in the world will you motivate your creation? I suppose that you won't. You'll just tell it what to do (specify its goals) and it will do it.. Correct. AGIs driven by human-like-qualia would be less safe harder to control. Human-like-qualia are too high-level to be safe. When implementing qualia (not that we know hot to do it ;-)) increasing granularity for safety, you would IMO end up with basically giving the goals - which is of course easier without messing with qualia implementation. Forget qualia as a motivation for our AGIs. Our AGIs are supposed to work for us, not for themselves. Regards, Jiri Jelinek --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
2008/8/24 Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? Play may be about characterising the state space. As an embodied entity you need to know which areas of the space are relatively predictable and which are not. Armed with this knowledge when planning an action in future you can make a reasonable estimate of the possible range of outcomes or affordances, which may be very useful in practical situations. You'll notice that play tends to be directed towards activities with high novelty. With enough experience through play an unfamiliar or novel situation can be decomposed into a set of more predictable outcomes. Eventually the novelty wears off because prediction matches observation, and so the system moves on. Finding new novel situations to explore may involve the deliberate introduction of random or risky (seemingly mal-adaptive) behavior. --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I know we've gotten a little off-track here from play, but the really interesting question I would pose to you non-embodied advocates is: how in the world will you motivate your creation? I suppose that you won't. You'll just tell it what to do (specify its goals) and it will do it, because it has no autonomy at all. Am I guilty of anthropomorphizing if I say autonomy is important to intelligence? This is fuzzy, mysterious and frustrating. Unless you *functionally* explain what you mean by autonomy and embodiment, the conversation degrades to a kind of meaningless philosophy that occupied some smart people for thousands of years without any results. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Bob M: Play may be about characterising the state space. As an embodied entity you need to know which areas of the space are relatively predictable and which are not. Armed with this knowledge when planning an action in future you can make a reasonable estimate of the possible range of outcomes or affordances, which may be very useful in practical situations. You'll notice that play tends to be directed towards activities with high novelty. With enough experience through play an unfamiliar or novel situation can be decomposed into a set of more predictable outcomes. What I was particularly interested in asking you is the following: part of the condition of being human is that you have to not just explore the outside world, but your own body and brain. And in fact it's potentially endless, because the degrees of freedom and range of possibilities for both are vast. So there is room to never stop exploring and developing your golf swing, say, or working out new ways to dredge out well-buried memories, and integrate them into new structures - for example, we can all develop a memory for dialogue, say, or for physical structures, (incl. from the past). Clearly, play along with development generally are a part of self-(one-s-own-system)-exploration. Now robots too have similarly vast if not quite so vast possibilities of movement and thought. So in principle it sounds like a good, if not long-term essential idea to have them play and explore themselves as humans do. In principle, it would be a good idea for a pure AGI computer to explore its own vast possibilities/ways-of-thinking. Is anyone trying to design a self-exploring robot or computer? Does this principle have a name? --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On 8/26/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is anyone trying to design a self-exploring robot or computer? Does this principle have a name? Interestingly, some views on AI advocate specifically prohibiting self-awareness and self-exploration as a precaution against the development of unfriendly AI. In my opinion, these views erroneously transfer familiar human motives onto 'alien' AGI cognitive architectures - there's a history of discussing this topic on SL4 and other places. I believe however that most approaches to designing AGI (those that do not specifically prohibit self-aware and self-explortative behaviors) take for granted, and indeed intentionally promote, self-awareness and self-exploration at most stages of AGI development. In other words, efficient and effective recursive self-improvement (RSI) requires self-awareness and self-exploration. If any term exists to describe a 'self-exploring robot or computer', that term is RSI. Coining a lesser term for 'self-exploring AI' may be useful in some proto-AGI contexts, but I suspect that 'RSI' is ultimately a more useful and meaningful term. -dave --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Terren:I know we've gotten a little off-track here from play, but the really interesting question I would pose to you non-embodied advocates is: how in the world will you motivate your creation? Again, I think you're missing out the most important aspect of having a body , ( is there a good definition of this? I think roboticists make some kind of deal of it). A body IS play, in a broad sense. It's first of all continuously *roving.* -continuously moving, continuously thinking, *whether something is called for or not* (unlike machines which only act to order). Frankly, the idea that a human or animal body and brain are programmed in an *extended* way - for a minute of continuous action, say, as opposed to short routines/habits tossed together, can't be taken seriously - we have a major problem concentrating, following a train of thought or sticking to a train of movement, for that long. Our mind is continuously going off at tangents. The plus side of that is that we are highly adaptable and flexible - very ready to get a new handle on things. The second, still more important advantage of a body, (the part, I think, that roboticists stress) is that it incorporates a vast range of possibilities which surely *do not have to be laboriously pre-specified* - vast ranges of possible movement and thought that can be playfully explored as required, rather than explicitly coded for beforehand. Start moving your hand around, twiddling your fingers independently together, and twisting the whole unit, every which way.It's never-ending. And a good deal of it will be novel. So the basic general principle of learning any new movement, presumably,is have a stab at it - stick your hand out at the object in a loosely appropriate shape, and then play around with your grip/handling - explore your body's range of possibilities. There's no beforehand. Ditto the brain has a vast capacity for ranges of free *non-pre-specified* association - start thinking of - visualising - your screwdriver. Now think of similar *shapes*. You should find you can keep going for a good while - a stream of new, divergent, not convergently, algorithmically pre-arranged associations, (as Kauffman insists).The brain is designed for free, unprogrammed association in a way that computers clearly haven't been - or haven't been to date. It can freely handle and play with ideas as the hand can objects. God/Evolution clearly looked at Matt's bill for an army of programmers to develop an AGI, and decided He couldn't afford it - he'd try something simpler and more ingenious. Play around first, program routines second, develop culture and AI third. P.S. The whole concept of an unembodied intelligence is a nonsense. There is *no such thing*. The real distinction, presumably, is between embodied intelligences that can control their bodies, like humans, and those, like computers to date, that can't (or barely). Unembodied intelligences don't and *can't* exist. *Self-control* - being able to control your body - is perhaps the most vital dimension of having a body in the sense of the standard debate. Without that, you can't understand the distinction between inert matter and life - one of the most fundamental early distinctions in understanding the world. Without that, I doubt that you can really understand anything. --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Note that in this view play has nothing to do with having a body. An AGi concerned solely with mathematical theorem proving would also be able to play... On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: About play... I would argue that it emerges in any sufficiently generally-intelligent system that is faced with goals that are difficult for it ... as a consequence of other general cognitive processes... If an intelligent system has a goal G which is time-consuming or difficult to achieve ... it may then synthesize another goal G1 which is easier to achieve We then have the uncertain syllogism Achieving G implies reward G1 is similar to G |- Achieving G1 implies reward As links between goal-achievement and reward are to some extent modified by uncertain inference (or analogous process, implemented e.g. in neural nets), we thus have the emergence of play ... in cases where G1 is much easier to achieve than G ... Of course, if working toward G1 is actually good practice for working toward G, this may give the intelligent system (if it's smart and mature enough to strategize) or evolution impetus to create additional bias toward the pursuit of G1 In this view, play is a quite general structural phenomenon ... and the play that human kids do with blocks and sticks and so forth is a special case, oriented toward ultimate goals G involving physical manipulation And the knack in gaining anything from play is in appropriate similarity-assessment ... i.e. in measuring similarity between G and G1 in such a way that achieving G1 actually teaches things useful for achieving G So for any goal-achieving system that has long-term goals which it can't currently effectively work directly toward, play may be an effective strategy... In this view, we don't really need to design an AI system with play in mind. Rather, if it can explicitly or implicitly carry out the above inference, concept-creation and subgoaling processes, play should emerge from its interaction w/ the world... ben g On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 8:20 AM, David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/26/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is anyone trying to design a self-exploring robot or computer? Does this principle have a name? Interestingly, some views on AI advocate specifically prohibiting self-awareness and self-exploration as a precaution against the development of unfriendly AI. In my opinion, these views erroneously transfer familiar human motives onto 'alien' AGI cognitive architectures - there's a history of discussing this topic on SL4 and other places. I believe however that most approaches to designing AGI (those that do not specifically prohibit self-aware and self-explortative behaviors) take for granted, and indeed intentionally promote, self-awareness and self-exploration at most stages of AGI development. In other words, efficient and effective recursive self-improvement (RSI) requires self-awareness and self-exploration. If any term exists to describe a 'self-exploring robot or computer', that term is RSI. Coining a lesser term for 'self-exploring AI' may be useful in some proto-AGI contexts, but I suspect that 'RSI' is ultimately a more useful and meaningful term. -dave -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [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 RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
About play... I would argue that it emerges in any sufficiently generally-intelligent system that is faced with goals that are difficult for it ... as a consequence of other general cognitive processes... If an intelligent system has a goal G which is time-consuming or difficult to achieve ... it may then synthesize another goal G1 which is easier to achieve We then have the uncertain syllogism Achieving G implies reward G1 is similar to G |- Achieving G1 implies reward As links between goal-achievement and reward are to some extent modified by uncertain inference (or analogous process, implemented e.g. in neural nets), we thus have the emergence of play ... in cases where G1 is much easier to achieve than G ... Of course, if working toward G1 is actually good practice for working toward G, this may give the intelligent system (if it's smart and mature enough to strategize) or evolution impetus to create additional bias toward the pursuit of G1 In this view, play is a quite general structural phenomenon ... and the play that human kids do with blocks and sticks and so forth is a special case, oriented toward ultimate goals G involving physical manipulation And the knack in gaining anything from play is in appropriate similarity-assessment ... i.e. in measuring similarity between G and G1 in such a way that achieving G1 actually teaches things useful for achieving G So for any goal-achieving system that has long-term goals which it can't currently effectively work directly toward, play may be an effective strategy... In this view, we don't really need to design an AI system with play in mind. Rather, if it can explicitly or implicitly carry out the above inference, concept-creation and subgoaling processes, play should emerge from its interaction w/ the world... ben g On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 8:20 AM, David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/26/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is anyone trying to design a self-exploring robot or computer? Does this principle have a name? Interestingly, some views on AI advocate specifically prohibiting self-awareness and self-exploration as a precaution against the development of unfriendly AI. In my opinion, these views erroneously transfer familiar human motives onto 'alien' AGI cognitive architectures - there's a history of discussing this topic on SL4 and other places. I believe however that most approaches to designing AGI (those that do not specifically prohibit self-aware and self-explortative behaviors) take for granted, and indeed intentionally promote, self-awareness and self-exploration at most stages of AGI development. In other words, efficient and effective recursive self-improvement (RSI) requires self-awareness and self-exploration. If any term exists to describe a 'self-exploring robot or computer', that term is RSI. Coining a lesser term for 'self-exploring AI' may be useful in some proto-AGI contexts, but I suspect that 'RSI' is ultimately a more useful and meaningful term. -dave -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [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 RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Examples of the kind of similarity I'm thinking of: -- The analogy btw chess or go and military strategy -- The analogy btw roughhousing and actual fighting In logical terms, these are intensional rather than extensional similarities ben On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 9:38 AM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Ben:If an intelligent system has a goal G which is time-consuming or difficult to achieve ... it may then synthesize another goal G1 which is easier to achieve We then have the uncertain syllogism Achieving G implies reward G1 is similar to G Ben, The be-all and end-all here though, I presume is similarity. Is it a logic-al concept? Finding similarities - rough likenesses as opposed to rational, precise, logicomathematical commonalities - is actually, I would argue, a process of imagination and (though I can't find a ready term) physical/embodied improvisation. Hence rational, logical, computing approaches have failed to produce any new (in the normal sense of surprising) metaphors or analogies or be creative. Maybe you could give an example of what you mean by similarity -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [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 RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 2:38 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The be-all and end-all here though, I presume is similarity. Is it a logic-al concept? Finding similarities - rough likenesses as opposed to rational, precise, logicomathematical commonalities - is actually, I would argue, a process of imagination and (though I can't find a ready term) physical/embodied improvisation. Hence rational, logical, computing approaches have failed to produce any new (in the normal sense of surprising) metaphors or analogies or be creative. Maybe you could give an example of what you mean by similarity See AM, Eurisko, Copycat. --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
That's a fair criticism. I did explain what I mean by embodiment in a previous post, and what I mean by autonomy in the article of mine I referenced. But I do recognize that in both cases there is still some ambiguity, so I will withdraw the question until I can formulate it in more concise terms. Terren --- On Tue, 8/26/08, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is fuzzy, mysterious and frustrating. Unless you *functionally* explain what you mean by autonomy and embodiment, the conversation degrades to a kind of meaningless philosophy that occupied some smart people for thousands of years without any results. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
I don't think it's necessary to be self-aware to do self-modifications. Self-awareness implies that the entity has a model of the world that separates self from other, but this kind of distinction is not necessary to do self-modifications. It could act on itself without the awareness that it was acting on itself. (Goedelian machines would qualify, imo). The reverse is true, as well. Humans are self aware but we cannot improve ourselves in the dangerous ways we talk about with the hard-takeoff scenarios of the Singularity. We ought to be worried about self-modifying agents, yes, but self-aware agents that can't modify themselves are much less worrying. They're all around us. --- On Tue, 8/26/08, David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? To: agi@v2.listbox.com Date: Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 8:20 AM On 8/26/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is anyone trying to design a self-exploring robot or computer? Does this principle have a name? Interestingly, some views on AI advocate specifically prohibiting self-awareness and self-exploration as a precaution against the development of unfriendly AI. In my opinion, these views erroneously transfer familiar human motives onto 'alien' AGI cognitive architectures - there's a history of discussing this topic on SL4 and other places. I believe however that most approaches to designing AGI (those that do not specifically prohibit self-aware and self-explortative behaviors) take for granted, and indeed intentionally promote, self-awareness and self-exploration at most stages of AGI development. In other words, efficient and effective recursive self-improvement (RSI) requires self-awareness and self-exploration. If any term exists to describe a 'self-exploring robot or computer', that term is RSI. Coining a lesser term for 'self-exploring AI' may be useful in some proto-AGI contexts, but I suspect that 'RSI' is ultimately a more useful and meaningful term. -dave agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
- Original Message - From: Ben Goertzel To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 6:49 AM Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? Examples of the kind of similarity I'm thinking of: -- The analogy btw chess or go and military strategy -- The analogy btw roughhousing and actual fighting In logical terms, these are intensional rather than extensional similarities ben ### *** Ben You have rightfully nailed this issue down as one is serious and the other is not to be taken this way a meta-order perspective)... The same goes for humor and comedy -- the meta-message being don't take me seriously That is why I segregated analogical humor seperately (from routine seriousness) in my 2nd patent 7236963 www.emotionchip.net This specialized meta-order-type of disqualification is built directly into the schematics ... You are correct -- it all hinges on intentions... John LaMuth www.ethicalvalues.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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
- Original Message - From: Ben Goertzel To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 6:49 AM Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? Examples of the kind of similarity I'm thinking of: -- The analogy btw chess or go and military strategy -- The analogy btw roughhousing and actual fighting In logical terms, these are intensional rather than extensional similarities ben ### *** Ben You have rightfully nailed this issue down as one is serious and the other is not to be taken this way a meta-order perspective)... The same goes for humor and comedy -- the meta-message being don't take me seriously That is why I segregated analogical humor seperately (from routine seriousness) in my 2nd patent 7236963 www.emotionchip.net This specialized meta-order-type of disqualification is built directly into the schematics ... You are correct -- it all hinges on intentions... John LaMuth www.ethicalvalues.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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Mike, So you feel that my disagreement with your proposal is sad? That's quite an ego you have there, my friend. You asked for input and you got it. The fact that you didn't like my input doesn't make me or the effort I spent composing it sad. I haven't read all of the replies to your post yet, but judging by the index listing in my e-mail client, it has already drained a considerable amount of time and intellectual energy from the members of this list. You want sad? That's sad. Nice try at ignoring the substance of what I wrote while continuing to advance you own views. I did NOT say THINKING about your idea, or any idea for that matter, was a waste of time. Indeed, the second sentence of my reply contained the following ...(unless [studying human play is] being done purely for research purposes). I did think about your idea. I concluded what it proposes (not the idea itself) is, in fact, a waste of time for people who want to design and build a working AGI before mid-century. I'm sure some list members will agree with you. I'm also sure some will agree with me. But, most will have their own views on this issue. That's the way it works. The AGI I (and many others) have in mind will be to human intelligence what an airplane is to a bird. For many of the same reasons airplanes don't play like birds do, my AGI won't play (or create) like humans do. And, just as the airplane flies BETTER THAN the bird (for human purposes), my AGI will create BETTER THAN any human (for human purposes). You wrote, [Play] is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI. Wrong. ONE of the goals (not THE goal) of AGI is *inspired* by human creativity. Indeed, I am counting on the creativity of the first generation of AGIs to help humans build (or keep humans away from building) the second generation of AGIs. But... neither generation has to (and, IMHO, shouldn't) have human-style creativity. In fact, I suggest we not use the word creativity when discussing AGI-type knowledge synthesis because that is a term that has been applied solely to human-style intelligence. Perhaps, idea mining would be a better way to describe what I think about when I think about AGI-style creativity. Knowledge synthesis also works for me and has a greater syllable count. Either phrase fits the mechanism I have in mind for an AGI that works with MASSIVE quantities of data, using well-studied and established data mining techniques, to discover important (to humans and, eventually, AGIs themselves) associations. It would have been impossible to build this type of idea mining capability into an AI before the mid 1990's (before the Internet went public). It's possible now. Indeed, Google is encouraging it by publishing an open source REST (if memory serves) API to the Googleverse. No human intelligence would be capable of doing such data mining without the aid of a computer and, even then, it's not easy for the human intellect (associations between massive amounts of data are often, themselves, still quite massive - ask the CIA or the NSA or Google). Certainly play is ...fundamental to the human mind-and-body My point was simply that this should have little or no interest to those of us attempting to build a working, non-human-style AGI. We can discuss it all we like (however, I don't intend to continue doing so after this reply -- I've stated my case). Such discussion may be worthwhile (if only to show up its inherent wrongness) but spending any time attempting to design or build an AGI containing a simulation of human-style play (or creativity) is not. There are only so many minutes in a day and only so many days in a life. The human-style (Turing test) approach to AI has been tried. It failed (not in every respect, of course, but the Loebner Prizes - the $25K and $100K prizes - established in 1990 remain unclaimed). I don't intend to spend one more minute or hour of my life trying to win the Loebner Prize. The enormous amount of intellectual energy spent (largely wasted), from the mid 1950's to the end of the 1980's, trying to create a human-like AI is a true tragedy. But, perhaps, even more tragic is that unquestioningly holding up Turing's imitation game as the gold standard of AI created what we call in the commercial software industry a reference problem. To get new clients to buy your software, you need a good reference from former/current clients. Anyone who has attempted to get funding for an AGI project since the mid-1990s will attest that the (unintentional but nevertheless real) damage caused by Turing and his followers continues to have a very real, negative effect on the field of AI/AGI. I have done, and will continue to do, my best to see that this same mistake is not repeated in this century's quest to build a beneficial (to humanity) AGI. Unfortunately, we
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Charles, By now you've probably read my reply to Tintner's reply. I think that probably says it all (and them some!). What you say holds IFF you are planing on building an airplane that flies just like a bird. In other words, if you are planning on building a human-like AGI (that could, say, pass the Turing test). My position is, and has been for decades, that attempting to pass the Turing test (or win either of the two, one-time-only, Loebner Prizes) is a waste of precious time and intellectual resources. Thought experiments? No problem. Discussing ideas? No problem. Human-like AGI? Big problem. Cheers, Brad Charles Hixson wrote: Play is a form a strategy testing in an environment that doesn't severely penalize failures. As such, every AGI will necessarily spend a lot of time playing. If you have some other particular definition, then perhaps I could understand your response if you were to define the term. OTOH, if this is interpreted as being a machine that doesn't do anything BUT play (using my supplied definition), then your response has some merit, but even that can be very useful. Almost all of mathematics, e.g., is derived out of such play. I have a strong suspicion that machines that don't have a play mode can never proceed past the reptilian level of mentation. (Here I'm talking about thought processes that are mediated via the reptile brain in entities like mammals. Actual reptiles may have some more advanced faculties of which I'm unaware. (Note that, e.g., shrews don't have much play capability, but they have SOME.) Brad Paulsen wrote: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. How will it play - manipulate things every which way? What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something interesting? How do infants, IOW, play? --- 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. How will it play - manipulate things every which way? What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something interesting? How do infants, IOW, play? --- 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Brad, That's sad. The suggestion is for a mental exercise, not a full-scale project. And play is fundamental to the human mind-and-body - it characterises our more mental as well as more physical activities - drawing, designing, scripting, humming and singing scat in the bath, dreaming/daydreaming much more. It is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI. It is also an essential dimension of animal behaviour and animal evolution. Many of the smartest companies have their play areas. But I'm not aware of any program or computer design for play - as distinct from elaborating systematically and methodically or genetically on themes - are you? In which case it would be good to think about one - it'll open your mind give you new perspectives. This should be a group where people are not too frightened to play around with ideas. Brad: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. How will it play - manipulate things every which way? What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something interesting? How do infants, IOW, play? --- 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/?; 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Kittens play with small moving objects because it teaches them to be better hunters. Play is not a goal in itself, but a subgoal that may or may not be a useful part of a successful AGI design. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message From: Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 8:59:06 AM Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? Brad, That's sad. The suggestion is for a mental exercise, not a full-scale project. And play is fundamental to the human mind-and-body - it characterises our more mental as well as more physical activities - drawing, designing, scripting, humming and singing scat in the bath, dreaming/daydreaming much more. It is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI. It is also an essential dimension of animal behaviour and animal evolution. Many of the smartest companies have their play areas. But I'm not aware of any program or computer design for play - as distinct from elaborating systematically and methodically or genetically on themes - are you? In which case it would be good to think about one - it'll open your mind give you new perspectives. This should be a group where people are not too frightened to play around with ideas. Brad: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. How will it play - manipulate things every which way? What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something interesting? How do infants, IOW, play? --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Matt: Kittens play with small moving objects because it teaches them to be better hunters. Play is not a goal in itself, but a subgoal that may or may not be a useful part of a successful AGI design. Certainly, crude imitation of, and preparation for, adult activities is one aspect of play. But pure exploration - experimentation -and embroidery also are important. An infant dropping throwing things handling things every which way. Doodling - creating lines that go off and twist and turn in every direction. Babbling - playing around with sounds. Sputtering - playing around with silly noises - kids love that, no? (Even some of us adults too). Playing with stories and events - and alternative endings, beginnings and middles. Make believe. Playing around with the rules of invented games. Human development allots a great deal of time for such play. --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Actually, kittens play because it's fun. Evolution has equipped them with the rewarding sense of fun because it optimizes their fitness as hunters. But kittens are adaptation executors, evolution is the fitness optimizer. It's a subtle but important distinction. See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/adaptation-exec.html Terren They're adaptation executors, not fitness optimizers. --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kittens play with small moving objects because it teaches them to be better hunters. Play is not a goal in itself, but a subgoal that may or may not be a useful part of a successful AGI design. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message From: Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 8:59:06 AM Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? Brad, That's sad. The suggestion is for a mental exercise, not a full-scale project. And play is fundamental to the human mind-and-body - it characterises our more mental as well as more physical activities - drawing, designing, scripting, humming and singing scat in the bath, dreaming/daydreaming much more. It is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI. It is also an essential dimension of animal behaviour and animal evolution. Many of the smartest companies have their play areas. But I'm not aware of any program or computer design for play - as distinct from elaborating systematically and methodically or genetically on themes - are you? In which case it would be good to think about one - it'll open your mind give you new perspectives. This should be a group where people are not too frightened to play around with ideas. Brad: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. How will it play - manipulate things every which way? What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something interesting? How do infants, IOW, play? --- 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 9:22 PM, Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Actually, kittens play because it's fun. Evolution has equipped them with the rewarding sense of fun because it optimizes their fitness as hunters. But kittens are adaptation executors, evolution is the fitness optimizer. It's a subtle but important distinction. See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/adaptation-exec.html Saying that play is not adaptive requires some backing (I expect it plays some role, so you need to be more convincing). -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Mike, I agree with Brad somewhat, because I do not think copying human (or animal) intellect is the goal. It is a means to the end of general intelligence. However, that certainly doesn't stop me from participating in a thought experiment. I think the big thing with artificial play is figuring out a good goal-creation scheme. My definition of play directly follows from this intuition: play is activity that results from a system that is rapidly changing its goals. In other words, play is behavior that is goal-oriented, but barely. The definition should probably be somewhat more specific-- when playing, people and animals don't just adopt totally arbitrary goals; we seem to prefer interesting goals. This is because there is a hidden biological agenda-- learning. But, learning is not *our* goal. Out goal is whatever arbitrary goal we have adopted for the purpose of play. One system I know of does something like this-- the PURR-PUSS system. Its rule is simple: if an unexpected event happens once, then the system will adopt the goal of trying to get it to happen again, by recreating the circumstances that led to it the first time. In carrying out the attempt, it should be able to greatly refine its concept of the circumstances that led to it-- because many of its attempts to recreate the event will probably fail. Many of these curiosity-based goals may be active at once. Since this is the system's only motivational factor, it could be called an artificial playing system (at least by my definition). -Abram On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 8:59 AM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brad, That's sad. The suggestion is for a mental exercise, not a full-scale project. And play is fundamental to the human mind-and-body - it characterises our more mental as well as more physical activities - drawing, designing, scripting, humming and singing scat in the bath, dreaming/daydreaming much more. It is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI. It is also an essential dimension of animal behaviour and animal evolution. Many of the smartest companies have their play areas. But I'm not aware of any program or computer design for play - as distinct from elaborating systematically and methodically or genetically on themes - are you? In which case it would be good to think about one - it'll open your mind give you new perspectives. This should be a group where people are not too frightened to play around with ideas. Brad: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. How will it play - manipulate things every which way? What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something interesting? How do infants, IOW, play? --- 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/?; Powered by
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Play is a form a strategy testing in an environment that doesn't severely penalize failures. As such, every AGI will necessarily spend a lot of time playing. If you have some other particular definition, then perhaps I could understand your response if you were to define the term. OTOH, if this is interpreted as being a machine that doesn't do anything BUT play (using my supplied definition), then your response has some merit, but even that can be very useful. Almost all of mathematics, e.g., is derived out of such play. I have a strong suspicion that machines that don't have a play mode can never proceed past the reptilian level of mentation. (Here I'm talking about thought processes that are mediated via the reptile brain in entities like mammals. Actual reptiles may have some more advanced faculties of which I'm unaware. (Note that, e.g., shrews don't have much play capability, but they have SOME.) Brad Paulsen wrote: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. How will it play - manipulate things every which way? What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something interesting? How do infants, IOW, play? --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
I'm not saying play isn't adaptive. I'm saying that kittens play not because they're optimizing their fitness, but because they're intrinsically motivated to (it feels good). The reason it feels good has nothing to do with the kitten, but with the evolutionary process that designed that adaption. It may seem like a minor distinction, but it helps to understand why, for example, people have sex with birth control. We don't have sex to maximize our genetic fitness, but because it feels good (or a thousand other reasons). We are adaption executers, not fitness optimizers. --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Actually, kittens play because it's fun. Evolution has equipped them with the rewarding sense of fun because it optimizes their fitness as hunters. But kittens are adaptation executors, evolution is the fitness optimizer. It's a subtle but important distinction. See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/adaptation-exec.html Saying that play is not adaptive requires some backing (I expect it plays some role, so you need to be more convincing). -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Terren, Your broad distinctions are fine, but I feel you are not emphasizing the area of most interest for AGI, which is *how* we adapt rather than why. Interestingly, your blog uses the example of a screwdriver - Kauffman uses the same in Chap 12 of Reinventing the Sacred as an example of human creativity/divergence - i.e. our capacity to find infinite uses for a screwdriver. Do we think we could write an algorithm, an effective procedure, to generate a possibly infinite list of all possible uses of screwdrivers in all possible circumstances, some of which do not yet exist? I don't think we could get started. What emerges here, v. usefully, is that the capacity for play overlaps with classically-defined, and a shade more rigorous and targeted, divergent thinking, e.g. find as many uses as you can for a screwdriver, rubber teat, needle etc. ...How would you design a divergent (as well as play) machine that can deal with the above open-ended problems? (Again surely essential for an AGI) With full general intelligence, the problem more typically starts with the function-to-be-fulfilled - e.g. how do you open this paint can? - and only then do you search for a novel tool, like a screwdriver or another can lid. Terren: Actually, kittens play because it's fun. Evolution has equipped them with the rewarding sense of fun because it optimizes their fitness as hunters. But kittens are adaptation executors, evolution is the fitness optimizer. It's a subtle but important distinction. See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/adaptation-exec.html Terren They're adaptation executors, not fitness optimizers. --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kittens play with small moving objects because it teaches them to be better hunters. Play is not a goal in itself, but a subgoal that may or may not be a useful part of a successful AGI design. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message From: Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 8:59:06 AM Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? Brad, That's sad. The suggestion is for a mental exercise, not a full-scale project. And play is fundamental to the human mind-and-body - it characterises our more mental as well as more physical activities - drawing, designing, scripting, humming and singing scat in the bath, dreaming/daydreaming much more. It is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI. It is also an essential dimension of animal behaviour and animal evolution. Many of the smartest companies have their play areas. But I'm not aware of any program or computer design for play - as distinct from elaborating systematically and methodically or genetically on themes - are you? In which case it would be good to think about one - it'll open your mind give you new perspectives. This should be a group where people are not too frightened to play around with ideas. Brad: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another twenty years of two steps forward, one step back effort. So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to just say no to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. Cheers, Brad Mike Tintner wrote: Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it should be able to play with a) bricks b)plasticine c) handkerchiefs/ shawls d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] and e) draw. Something that should be soon obvious
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 11:17 PM, Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not saying play isn't adaptive. I'm saying that kittens play not because they're optimizing their fitness, but because they're intrinsically motivated to (it feels good). The reason it feels good has nothing to do with the kitten, but with the evolutionary process that designed that adaption. It may seem like a minor distinction, but it helps to understand why, for example, people have sex with birth control. We don't have sex to maximize our genetic fitness, but because it feels good (or a thousand other reasons). We are adaption executers, not fitness optimizers. The word because was misplaced. Cats hunt mice because they were designed to, and they were designed to, because it's adaptive. Saying that a particular cat instance hunts because it feels good is not very explanatory, like saying that it hunts because such is its nature or because the laws of physics drive the cat physical configuration through the hunting dynamics. Evolutionary design, on the other hand, is the point of explanation for the complex adaptation, the simple regularity in the Nature that causally produced the phenomenon we are explaining. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Hi Mike, As may be obvious by now, I'm not that interested in designing cognition. I'm interested in designing simulations in which intelligent behavior emerges. But the way you're using the word 'adapt', in a cognitive sense of playing with goals, is different from the way I was using 'adaptation', which is the result of an evolutionary process. Terren --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? To: agi@v2.listbox.com Date: Monday, August 25, 2008, 3:41 PM Terren, Your broad distinctions are fine, but I feel you are not emphasizing the area of most interest for AGI, which is *how* we adapt rather than why. Interestingly, your blog uses the example of a screwdriver - Kauffman uses the same in Chap 12 of Reinventing the Sacred as an example of human creativity/divergence - i.e. our capacity to find infinite uses for a screwdriver. Do we think we could write an algorithm, an effective procedure, to generate a possibly infinite list of all possible uses of screwdrivers in all possible circumstances, some of which do not yet exist? I don't think we could get started. What emerges here, v. usefully, is that the capacity for play overlaps with classically-defined, and a shade more rigorous and targeted, divergent thinking, e.g. find as many uses as you can for a screwdriver, rubber teat, needle etc. ...How would you design a divergent (as well as play) machine that can deal with the above open-ended problems? (Again surely essential for an AGI) With full general intelligence, the problem more typically starts with the function-to-be-fulfilled - e.g. how do you open this paint can? - and only then do you search for a novel tool, like a screwdriver or another can lid. Terren: Actually, kittens play because it's fun. Evolution has equipped them with the rewarding sense of fun because it optimizes their fitness as hunters. But kittens are adaptation executors, evolution is the fitness optimizer. It's a subtle but important distinction. See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/adaptation-exec.html Terren They're adaptation executors, not fitness optimizers. --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kittens play with small moving objects because it teaches them to be better hunters. Play is not a goal in itself, but a subgoal that may or may not be a useful part of a successful AGI design. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message From: Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 8:59:06 AM Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? Brad, That's sad. The suggestion is for a mental exercise, not a full-scale project. And play is fundamental to the human mind-and-body - it characterises our more mental as well as more physical activities - drawing, designing, scripting, humming and singing scat in the bath, dreaming/daydreaming much more. It is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI. It is also an essential dimension of animal behaviour and animal evolution. Many of the smartest companies have their play areas. But I'm not aware of any program or computer design for play - as distinct from elaborating systematically and methodically or genetically on themes - are you? In which case it would be good to think about one - it'll open your mind give you new perspectives. This should be a group where people are not too frightened to play around with ideas. Brad: Mike Tintner wrote: ...how would you design a play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, non-embodied AGI. Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., just like us). I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be easy to design and build
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Saying that a particular cat instance hunts because it feels good is not very explanatory Even if I granted that, saying that a particular cat plays to increase its hunting skills is incorrect. It's an important distinction because by analogy we must talk about particular AGI instances. When we talk about, for instance, whether an AGI will play, will it play because it's trying to optimize its fitness, or because it is motivated in some other way? We have to be that precise if we're talking about design. Terren --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The word because was misplaced. Cats hunt mice because they were designed to, and they were designed to, because it's adaptive. Saying that a particular cat instance hunts because it feels good is not very explanatory, like saying that it hunts because such is its nature or because the laws of physics drive the cat physical configuration through the hunting dynamics. Evolutionary design, on the other hand, is the point of explanation for the complex adaptation, the simple regularity in the Nature that causally produced the phenomenon we are explaining. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The word because was misplaced. Cats hunt mice because they were designed to, and they were designed to, because it's adaptive. And the adaption they have evolved in to, uses a pleasure process as a motivator. Saying that a particular cat instance hunts because it feels good is not very explanatory, like saying that it hunts because such is its nature or because the laws of physics drive the cat physical configuration through the hunting dynamics. Not at all. It defines the process by drives a cat to hunt, and also to practice - ie - play hunting. This is opposed to hunting due to reflex, like, say, a venus flytrap. I am reminded of a possibly apocryphal story about picasso: -- A woman asks Picasso to draw something for her on a napkin. He puts down a few lines, and says That will be $10,000. What! says the woman, That only took you five seconds to draw. No, that took me 40 years to draw. - Cats has evolved to see the process as a goal or reward in itself, over and above the requirements for food: If cats just hunted because they were hungry, they would never spend their downtime during kittenhood practicing and watching other cats hunt, and wouldn't be any good at hunting. And the result has many more advantages than simply optimising it's hunting strategies: it has evolved a cat that bonds with it's fellow kittens, learns to cooperate, and ultimately, becomes a better hunter because it sees the process of hunting as a game. Jonathan El-Bizri --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 12:19 AM, Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Saying that a particular cat instance hunts because it feels good is not very explanatory Even if I granted that, saying that a particular cat plays to increase its hunting skills is incorrect. It's an important distinction because by analogy we must talk about particular AGI instances. When we talk about, for instance, whether an AGI will play, will it play because it's trying to optimize its fitness, or because it is motivated in some other way? We have to be that precise if we're talking about design. Of course. Different optimization processes at work, different causes. Let's say (ignoring if it's actually so for the sake of illustration) that cat plays because it provides it with developmental advantage through training its nervous system, giving it better hunting skills, and so an adaptation that drives cat to play was chosen *by evolution*. Cat doesn't play because *it* reasons that it would give it superior hunting skills, cat plays because of the emotional drive installed by evolution (or a more general drive inherent in its cognitive dynamics). When AGI plays to get better at some skill, it may be either a result of programmer's advice, in which case play happens because *programmer* says so, or as a result of its own conclusion that play helps with skills, and if skills are desirable, play inherits the desirability. In the last case, play happens because AGI decides so, which in turn happens because there is a causal link from play to a desirable state of having superior skills. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Terren:As may be obvious by now, I'm not that interested in designing cognition. I'm interested in designing simulations in which intelligent behavior emerges.But the way you're using the word 'adapt', in a cognitive sense of playing with goals, is different from the way I was using 'adaptation', which is the result of an evolutionary process. Two questions: 1) how do you propose that your simulations will avoid the kind of criticisms you've been making of other systems of being too guided by programmers' intentions? How can you set up a simulation without making massive, possibly false assumptions about the nature of evolution? 2) Have you thought about the evolution of play in animals? (We play BTW with just about every dimension of activities - goals, rules, tools, actions, movements.. ). --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
If an AGI played because it recognized that it would improve its skills in some domain, then I wouldn't call that play, I'd call it practice. Those are overlapping but distinct concepts. Play, as distinct from pactice, is its own reward - the reward felt by a kitten. The spirit of Mike's question, I think, was about identifying the essential goalless-ness of play, the sense in which playing fosters adaptivity of goals. If you really want to interpret goal-satisfaction in play, it must be a meta-goal of mastering one's environment - and that is such a broadly defined goal that I don't see how one could specify it to a seed AI. I believe that's why evolution used the trick of making it fun. Terren --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course. Different optimization processes at work, different causes. Let's say (ignoring if it's actually so for the sake of illustration) that cat plays because it provides it with developmental advantage through training its nervous system, giving it better hunting skills, and so an adaptation that drives cat to play was chosen *by evolution*. Cat doesn't play because *it* reasons that it would give it superior hunting skills, cat plays because of the emotional drive installed by evolution (or a more general drive inherent in its cognitive dynamics). When AGI plays to get better at some skill, it may be either a result of programmer's advice, in which case play happens because *programmer* says so, or as a result of its own conclusion that play helps with skills, and if skills are desirable, play inherits the desirability. In the last case, play happens because AGI decides so, which in turn happens because there is a causal link from play to a desirable state of having superior skills. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Hi Mike, Comments below... --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Two questions: 1) how do you propose that your simulations will avoid the kind of criticisms you've been making of other systems of being too guided by programmers' intentions? How can you set up a simulation without making massive, possibly false assumptions about the nature of evolution? Because I don't care about individual agents. Agents that fail to meet the requirements the environment demands, die. There's going to be a lot of death in my simulations. The risk I take is that nothing ever survives and I fail to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach. 2) Have you thought about the evolution of play in animals? (We play BTW with just about every dimension of activities - goals, rules, tools, actions, movements.. ). Not much. Play is such an advanced concept in intelligence, and my aims are far lower than that. I don't realistically expect to survive to see the evolution of human intelligence using the evolutionary approach I'm talking about. Terren --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 1:26 AM, Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If an AGI played because it recognized that it would improve its skills in some domain, then I wouldn't call that play, I'd call it practice. Those are overlapping but distinct concepts. Play, as distinct from pactice, is its own reward - the reward felt by a kitten. The spirit of Mike's question, I think, was about identifying the essential goalless-ness of play, the sense in which playing fosters adaptivity of goals. If you really want to interpret goal-satisfaction in play, it must be a meta-goal of mastering one's environment - and that is such a broadly defined goal that I don't see how one could specify it to a seed AI. I believe that's why evolution used the trick of making it fun. What do you mean by trick? Fun of playing is evolutionary encoded, no tricks. You can try to encode it into a seed AI by adding a reference to an actual kitten in a right way, saying fun is that thing over there! without saying what it is explicitly, and providing this AI with a kitten. How to do it technically is of course a Friendly AI-complete problem, but its solution doesn't need to include all the fine points of the fun concept itself. On this subject, see: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/08/mirrors-and-pai.html -- in what sense AI can be as a mirror for complex concept instead of a pencil sketch explicitly hacked together by programmers; http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/08/unnatural-categ.html -- why morality concept needs to be transferred in all details, and can't be learned from few examples; http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/08/computations.html -- what a real-life concept may look like. -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://causalityrelay.wordpress.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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 2:26 PM, Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If an AGI played because it recognized that it would improve its skills in some domain, then I wouldn't call that play, I'd call it practice. Those are overlapping but distinct concepts. The evolution of play is how nature has convinced us to practice skills of a general but un-predefinable type. Would it make sense to think of practice as the narrow AI version of play? Part of play is the specification of arbitrary goals and limitations within the overlying process. Games without rules aren't 'fun' to people or kittens. Play, as distinct from pactice, is its own reward - the reward felt by a kitten. The spirit of Mike's question, I think, was about identifying the essential goalless-ness of play, the sense in which playing fosters adaptivity of goals. If you really want to interpret goal-satisfaction in play, it must be a meta-goal of mastering one's environment - and that is such a broadly defined goal that I don't see how one could specify it to a seed AI. I believe that's why evolution used the trick of making it fun. But making it 'fun' doesn't answer the question of what the implicit goals are. Piaget's theories of assimilation can bring us closer to this, I am of the mind that they encompass at least part of the intellectual drive toward play and investigation. Jonathan El-Bizri --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Where is the hard dividing line between designed cognition and designed simulation (where intelligent behavior is intended to be emergent in both cases)? Even if an approach is taken where everything possible is done allow a 'natural' type evolution of behavior, the simulation design and parameters will still influence the outcome, sometimes in unknown and unknowable ways. Any amount of guidance in such a simulation (e.g. to help avoid so many of the useless eddies in a fully open-ended simulation) amounts to designed cognition. That being said, I'm particularly interested in the OCF being used as a platform for 'pure simulation' (Alife and more sophisticated game theoretical simulations), and finding ways to work the resulting experience and methods into the OCP design, which is itself a hybrid approach (designed cognition + designed simulation) intended to take advantage of the benefits of both. -dave On 8/26/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Terren:As may be obvious by now, I'm not that interested in designing cognition. I'm interested in designing simulations in which intelligent behavior emerges.But the way you're using the word 'adapt', in a cognitive sense of playing with goals, is different from the way I was using 'adaptation', which is the result of an evolutionary process. Two questions: 1) how do you propose that your simulations will avoid the kind of criticisms you've been making of other systems of being too guided by programmers' intentions? How can you set up a simulation without making massive, possibly false assumptions about the nature of evolution? 2) Have you thought about the evolution of play in animals? (We play BTW with just about every dimension of activities - goals, rules, tools, actions, movements.. ). --- 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/?; 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Terren: The spirit of Mike's question, I think, was about identifying the
essential goalless-ness of play..
Well, the key thing for me (although it was, technically, a play-ful
question :) ) is the distinction between programmed/planned exploration of
a basically known environment and ad hoc exploration of a deeply unknown
environment. In many ways, it follows on from my previous thread on
Philosophy of Learning in AGI, which asked - how do you learn an unfamiliar
subject/skill/ activity - could any definite set of principles guide you?
(This, I presume, is what Ben is somehow dealing with).
If you're an infant, or even often an adult, you don't know what this
strange object is for or how to manipulate it - so how do you go about
moving it and testing its properties? How do you go about moving your hand,
(or manipulator if you're a robot)? {I'd be interested in Bob M's input
here] - exploring its properties and capacities for movement too? What are
the principles if any that should constrain you?
Equally, if you're exploring an environment - a new kind of room, or a new
kind of territory like a garden, wood, forest, how do you go about moving
through it, deciding on paths, orienting yourself, mapping etc.? Remember
that these are initially alien environments, so the adult or AGI equivalent
is exploring a strange planet, or videogame world with alien kinds of laws.
Play - divergent thinking - exploration - these are all overlapping
dimensions of a general intelligence developing its intelligence, and
central to AGI.
And for the more abstractly inclined, I should point out that these
questions easily translate into the most abstract forms - like how do you
explore a new area of, or for, logic, or maths? How do you go about
exploring, or developing, a maths of, say, abstract art?
---
agi
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Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Jonathan El-Bizri wrote: On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 2:26 PM, Terren Suydam [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If an AGI played because it recognized that it would improve its skills in some domain, then I wouldn't call that play, I'd call it practice. Those are overlapping but distinct concepts. The evolution of play is how nature has convinced us to practice skills of a general but un-predefinable type. Would it make sense to think of practice as the narrow AI version of play? No. Because in practice one is honing skills with a definite chosen purpose (and usually no instinctive guide), whereas in play one is honing skills without the knowledge that one is doing so. It's very different, e.g., to play a game of chess, and to practice playing chess. Part ... Jonathan El-Bizri --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Hi Johnathon, I disagree, play without rules can certainly be fun. Running just to run, jumping just to jump. Play doesn't have to be a game, per se. It's simply a purposeless expression of the joy of being alive. It turns out of course that play is helpful for achieving certain goals that we interpret as being installed by evolution. But we don't play to achieve goals, we do it because it's fun. As Mike said, this very discussion is a kind of play, and while we can certainly identify goals that we try to accomplish in the course of hashing these things out, there's an element in it, for me anyway, of just doing it because I love doing it. I suspect that's true for others here. I hope so, anyway. Of course, those that are dogmatically functionalist will view such language as 'fun' as totally irrelevant. That's ok. The cool thing about AI is that eventually, it will shed light on whether subjective experience (to functionalists, an inconvenience to be done away with) is critical to intelligence. To address your second question, the implicit goal is always reproduction. If there is one basic reductionist element to all of life, it is that. Making play fun is a way of getting us to play at all, so that we are more likely to reproduce. There's a limit however to the usefulness and accuracy of reducing everything to reproduction. Terren --- On Mon, 8/25/08, Jonathan El-Bizri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Part of play is the specification of arbitrary goals and limitations within the overlying process. Games without rules aren't 'fun' to people or kittens. Play, as distinct from pactice, is its own reward - the reward felt by a kitten. The spirit of Mike's question, I think, was about identifying the essential goalless-ness of play, the sense in which playing fosters adaptivity of goals. If you really want to interpret goal-satisfaction in play, it must be a meta-goal of mastering one's environment - and that is such a broadly defined goal that I don't see how one could specify it to a seed AI. I believe that's why evolution used the trick of making it fun. But making it 'fun' doesn't answer the question of what the implicit goals are. Piaget's theories of assimilation can bring us closer to this, I am of the mind that they encompass at least part of the intellectual drive toward play and investigation. Jonathan El-Bizri agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine?
Hi David, Any amount of guidance in such a simulation (e.g. to help avoid so many of the useless eddies in a fully open-ended simulation) amounts to designed cognition. No, it amounts to guided evolution. The difference between a designed simulation and a designed cognition is the focus on the agent itself. In the latter, you design the agent and turn it loose, testing it to see if it does what you want it to. In the former (the simulation), you turn a bunch of candidate agents loose and let them compete to do what you want them to. The ones that don't, die. You're specifying the environment, not the agent. If you do it right, you don't even have to specify the goals. With designed cognition, you must specify the goals, either directly (un-embodied), or in some meta-fashion (embodied). Terren --- On Mon, 8/25/08, David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? To: agi@v2.listbox.com Date: Monday, August 25, 2008, 6:04 PM Where is the hard dividing line between designed cognition and designed simulation (where intelligent behavior is intended to be emergent in both cases)? Even if an approach is taken where everything possible is done allow a 'natural' type evolution of behavior, the simulation design and parameters will still influence the outcome, sometimes in unknown and unknowable ways. Any amount of guidance in such a simulation (e.g. to help avoid so many of the useless eddies in a fully open-ended simulation) amounts to designed cognition. That being said, I'm particularly interested in the OCF being used as a platform for 'pure simulation' (Alife and more sophisticated game theoretical simulations), and finding ways to work the resulting experience and methods into the OCP design, which is itself a hybrid approach (designed cognition + designed simulation) intended to take advantage of the benefits of both. -dave On 8/26/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Terren:As may be obvious by now, I'm not that interested in designing cognition. I'm interested in designing simulations in which intelligent behavior emerges.But the way you're using the word 'adapt', in a cognitive sense of playing with goals, is different from the way I was using 'adaptation', which is the result of an evolutionary process. Two questions: 1) how do you propose that your simulations will avoid the kind of criticisms you've been making of other systems of being too guided by programmers' intentions? How can you set up a simulation without making massive, possibly false assumptions about the nature of evolution? 2) Have you thought about the evolution of play in animals? (We play BTW with just about every dimension of activities - goals, rules, tools, actions, movements.. ). --- 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/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription --- 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=8660244id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
