Hi Robert, I'm waiting for unit tests to pass, and it's like watching paint dry. So I write spurious emails as I wait. Spurious response follows.
On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 11:45 PM Nanograte Knowledge Technologies < [email protected]> wrote: > Linas, Mike and Jim > > I find this to be a most-interesting conversation. Primarily, because it > suggests that the development of AGI may not only be challenged by the > development of competent theory, but also by programming capabilities to > put the theory into practice. > Yes. The people who know some of the theory usually don't know how to program, and v.v. and getting both to meet up is hard. That, plus the fact that there are 1001 theories, and there is very little (almost no) consensus about the right approach. > > Evolving such an architecture then, should desired outcomes be for an AGI > entity to achieve self-theory and self-programming? > Uh, yes? This question seems to be phrased awkwardly. AGI isn't some thing that is just like a self-driving car, but only a tiny bit smarter.... As a human, I have a self-theory. Parts of it are excellent: I really do know where my hands are, and what they are doing. Parts of it are terrible: I really don't know much about the vascularization of my lower legs, or how a black-and-blue spot appeared there. But hey, self-driving cars have a very good idea of what is on the road in front of them, and have no idea at all about the chemistry of rubber. Self-driving cars have a self-model. Which is maybe less than a self-theory? As a human, do I engage in self-programming? Sure. I make new-years resolutions every day. I even keep some of them. Self-driving cars don't, for obvious liability reasons. Do I expect an AGI to be equally self-aware, and equally in self-control? Yes. > In its most-simplistic from, a symbol is but a suitable abstraction of a > greater reality, similarly to how a symbol of a red-heart might be an > abstraction of a sentient being. Concept? Context? Meaning? Transaction. > > Who, or what decides what the symbolic world should look like and its > meaningfulness? > Is this a rhetorical question? In the human sphere, the poets, painters, dancers and mathematicians decide what the symbolic world should look like, and work very hard to capture its meaning in poetry, paintings, movements and equations. I expect AGI to struggle with the same issues. But if you mean "who decides whether symbol #4589342472934 should even exist, or what it means?" ... heck I dunno. Some algorithm, the same algorithm that decided that symbol #11316372398 is meaningful. In between the symbols generated by algorithms and the symbols generated by poets are the symbols generated by insurance companies, zoning commissions, safety regulators and lawyers. These symbols have names like "penal code #234241;para.4.b-addendum 62" and are almost as boring to read as reading software. Do I expect the middle layers of AGI to look like something an insurance company or zoning commission might write? Sure, why not? I expect a Chinese Room hard at work, in the middle layers of the AGI. > The global state of social evolution may cause terrible confusion in any > learning entity. The learning objectives should be specific, not > generalized. Isn't learning incorrectly worse than not learning at all? > That is certainly a hotly debated question in Brexit and Trump discussions. More accurately, the problem is one of not having an accurate understanding of the world, and being unable to get one. its not so much a case of "learning badly", but one of hallucinating: hallucinating that things will be better, or worse, if England leaves the EU, etc. The combined sensory-system+political-brains seem to be incapable of figuring this out. I expect AGI to hallucinate, too. Just not like us. Actually, I expect AGI to be schizophrenic, psychopathic, and a zilllion other rather negative things that are existentially dangerous to humans. That's the tricky part, the part that is unpleasant to face. > > I think, there should be a general agi-architecture, replete with the > capacity to develop and function within a generic world view. Furthermore, > I think the real value would be derived from specialized AGI. Maybe beyond > that, an AGI architecture would - in future - morph via its own social > networking and inherent capabilities to become more than the sum of its > parts. > Well, you used lower-case-agi and Upper-Case-AGI there. There's no such thing as an Upper-Case-AGI architecture -- claiming to have one is like claiming to have the blueprints for a rocket-ship to another galaxy. However, lower-case-agi-- well, that is more like mountain climbing: you try to go one way, until you find that you can't so you try another way, until you can. You explore, looking for routes to get from here to there. So, if Upper-Case-AGI is a mountain peak, then we are at the foothills of the Himilayas, fumbling and tripping and getting exhausted. Explorer X says that the deep-learning route is promising; explorer Y disagrees. Everybody's got a base-camp, and some are busier and livelier than others. > To do so, would take a lot more than intersections. I agree with the > statements made about binary/vector theory, but it seems obvious to me that > this would not be sufficient for this task. You implied fractals. > Heh. Careful with the analogies, there. Fractals are manifestations of shift-spaces. Which are infinite-dimensional vector spaces. The last three decades have exposed a deep and abstract mathematical theory for "fractals". That theory is ... interesting, but has rather very little to do with AGI. Like pretty much nothing at all -- linas. > To my mind, that would be the only way to proceed. As such, I think the > primary issue remains a design issue. > > Robert Benjamin > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Linas Vepstas <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Monday, 18 February 2019 10:36 PM > *To:* AGI > *Subject:* Re: [agi] Some thoughts about Symbols and Symbol Nets > > > > On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 1:17 PM Mike Archbold <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm not sure I completely follow your point, but I sort of get it. > > I tend to think of symbols as one type of the "AI stuff" a computer > uses to think with -- the other main type of "AI stuff" being neural > networks. These have analogies to the "mind stuff" we use to think > with. > > > Symbol systems and neural-net systems can be seen to be variants of the > same thing; two sides of the same coin. I posted an earlier thread on this. > There's a 50-page long PDF with math, here: > https://github.com/opencog/opencog/raw/master/opencog/nlp/learn/learn-lang-diary/skippy.pdf > > roughly: both form networks. They differ primarily in how they represent > the networks, and how they assign weights to network connections (and how > they update weights on network connections). > > > On their own, symbols don't mean anything, of course, and inherently > don't contain "understanding" in any definition of understanding. > > Is there a broad theory of symbols? We kind of proceed with loose > definitions. I remember reading the Newell and Simon works, and they > say AI strictly in terms of symbols and LISP (as I recall anyway). > > > Yes. The "broad theory of symbols" is called "model theory" by > mathematicians. It's highly technical and arcane. It's most prominent > distinguishing feature as that everything is binary: it is or it ain't. > Something is true, or false. A formula takes values, or there is no such > formula. A relation binds two things together, or there is no relation. > There's no blurry middle-ground. > > So, conventionally, networks of symbols, and the relations between them, > and the formulas transforming them -- these form a network, a graph, and > everything on that network/graph is a zero or a one -- an edge exists > between two nodes, or it doesn't. > > The obvious generalization is to make these fractional, to assign weights. > Neural nets do this. But neural nets do something else, that they probably > should not: they jam everything into vectors (or tensors) This is kind-of > OK, because the algebra of a graph is a lot like the algebra of a vector > space, and the confusion between the two is an excusable mistake: it takes > some sophistication to realize that they are only similar, but not the same. > > I claim: fix both these things, and you've got a winner. Use symbolic > systems, but use fractional values, not 0/1 relations. Find a good way of > updating the weights. So, deep-learning is a very effective weight-update > algorithm. But there are other ways of updating weights too (that are > probably just as good or better. Next, clarify the > vector-space-vs-graph-algebra issue, and then you can clearly articulate > how to update weights on symbolic systems, as well. > > (Quickly explained: probabilities are not rotationally-symmetric under the > rotation group SO(N) whereas most neural-net vectors are: this is the spot > where deep-learning "gets it wrong": it incorrectly mixes gibbs training > functions with rotational symmetry.) > > So Jim is right: discarding symbolic systems in favor of neural nets is a > mistake; the path forward is at the intersection of the two: a net of > symbols, a net with weights, a net with gradient-descent properties, a net > with probabilities and probability update formulas. > > -- Linas > > > On 2/18/19, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: > > Since I realized that the discrete vs weighted arguments are passe I > > decided that thinking about symbol nets might be a better direction for > me, > > > > 1. A symbol may be an abstracted 'image' of a (relatively) lower level > > object or system. > > An image may consist of a feature of the referent, it may be an icon of > > the referent or it may be a compressed form of the referent. > > 2. A symbol may be more like a 'label' for some object or system. > > 3. A generalization may be represented as an image of what is being > > generalized but it also may be more of a label. > > 4. An 'image', as I am using the term, may be derived from a part or > > feature of an object or from a part of a system but it may be used to > refer > > to the object or system. > > 5. An image or label may be used to represent a greater system. A system > > may take on different appearances from different vantage points, and > > analogously, some features of interest may be relevant in one context but > > not from another context. A symbol may be correlated with some other > > 'object' and may stand as a referent to it in some contexts. > > > > So, while some symbols may be applied to or projected onto a 'lower' > corpus > > of data, others would need to use an image to project onto the data > field. > > I use the term, 'lower' somewhat ambiguously, because I think it is > useful > > to symbolize a system of symbols so a 'higher' abstraction of a system > > might also be used at the same level. And it seems that a label would > have > > to be associated with some images if it was to be projected against the > > data. > > > > One other thing. This idea of projecting a symbol image onto some data, > in > > order to compare the image with some features of the data, seems like it > > has fallen out of favor with the advancements of dlnns and other kinds of > > neural nets. Projection seems like such a fundamental process that I > cannot > > see why it should be discarded just because it would be relatively slow > > when used with symbol nets. And, there are exceptions, GPUs, for example, > > love projecting one image onto another. > > Jim Bromer > > > -- > cassette tapes - analog TV - film cameras - you > *Artificial General Intelligence List <https://agi.topicbox.com/latest>* > / AGI / see discussions <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi> + > participants <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/members> + delivery > options <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription> Permalink > <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/Tcc0e554e7141c02f-Mdda735b78b07613578c222a6> -- cassette tapes - analog TV - film cameras - you ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/Tcc0e554e7141c02f-M94a2745199b6ca0b1a6a8f0e Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
