John: There is absolutely nothing new here. ?? Nothing.
Ben: I wrote software to improvise music in 1994, using genetic programming
& fractals
I see the confusion here. It does indeed arise as I suggested from the
misuse/ambiguity of words .
The kind of commonplace AI "improvisation" Ben is talking about here is not
true improvisation. It is where you take a la GA, predefined chords/phrases
etc and combine them in predetermined ways. There is nothing creative about
this - nothing AGI. And John presumably is thinking in similar terms.
I am saying the difference between narrow AI and AGI is :
the execution of a ROUTINE, basically OLD course of action vs the
creation/[true] IMPROVISATION of a NEW course of action
a narrow AI robot is programmed to perform a routine - such as a routine
journey in a routine environment like a factory or warehouse -
it does this by following an algorithm which dictates every step and every
path it must take
this method only works in an artificial specially created/structured and
totally familiar environment. The slightest new, unfamiliar alteration to
the environment throws the robot completely. Hence such robots cannot deal
with the real, unstructured world.
[a "conversational robot" like Siri is no different - it is following
conversational prewritten routines - it has routine answers to routine
questions.
The so-called "improvisational" music program is the same. It has routine
ways of combining routine musical elements. Its "new" tunes are only
trivially new combinations of the same old elements. It is not *generically*
new].
An AGI robot will be programmed to create a NEW course of action - to take a
NEW journey in a NEW unfamiliar environment that is fundamentally different
from any environment it has ever been in.
Narrow AI is journeying with a route map. A narrow AI warehouse robot knows
exactly where and how to go to find a given box of diamonds - it's in row G,
and you go there via this and that aisle. It has a route map and an
itinerary.
AGI is journeying WITHOUT a route map. An AGI robot will have to find a box
of diamonds in a warehouse that is radically NEW to it. Let's say, it's the
same warehouse, but in a totally disordered, higgledy-piggledy mess - an
earthquake has thrown everything all over the place. "*Now* find the box."
The box could be anywhere - and crumpled up/ deformed
So an AGI robot can have no algorithm, no itinerary. Just a vague idea of
where to go. Our AGI robot will know something about travelling through
warehouses and finding and lifting boxes, and some of the steps it may have
to take, but it won't know this warehouse.
AN AGI therefore will have to work by true, adventurous improvisation -.
You choose a possible goal where the box might be, take a step or two
towards it, then see where that gets you. If the way is blocked - can you
move the obstacles out of the way? -That may well require *innovation* -
trying new grips and holds to remove objects. If you can't, try reorienting.
and following another direction to the goal... etc. etc.
Note: the robot cannot consult some predetermined set of options. THERE ARE
NO ORDERED SETS OF OPTIONS IN AGI. it has to look around and find out what
the options are in each new situation. It doesn't know what paths are
available until it has got some way into the messy tangle of boxes, frames
and rubbish. It won't know either what moves are available until it finds
itself in a given position and can see how the obstacles all around restrict
its lines of movement.
I won't go into more detail here because it would take a good chapter.
But the basic principles should be obvious - and i have already linked to
one paper outlining an initial, limited move towards real robotic
improvisation.
***Improvisation is the complete opposite of Turing** - of executing a
predetermined formulaic plan. You don't follow a script, you write the
script as you go along. You don't follow an itinerary, you forge one as you
go along.
No one is doing this, John, and no one is saying this. No one is producing
true improvising, exploratory robots. I don't mind you swearing at me, but
if you're going to, bloody well produce some examples of your assertion.
*Where* is this being said? And if you can't produce them, then have the
courtesy to admit it.
You guys have just demonstrated that you completely misunderstand the whole
concept of improvisation - precisely because AI is such a lying, cheating,
word-misusing field and confuses everybody. It's not altogether your fault -
but it's happening over and over here, because you're not really listening
and just automatically trying to bat away every new idea.
AGI is what a NASA rover should *ideally* be - as distinct from the narrow
AI, telecontrolled reality - a robot that you can tell to explore a NEW
territory WITHOUT an army of programmers preprogramming or teledirecting
its every step. Just give it an idea of what it must do, and then let it
improvise its journey. That is the new revolutionary kind of robot we need.
The equivalent in a conversational AGI robot would be one who couldn't just
tell you that you have to go to aisle 8 to find a box, but -could deal with
NEW situations that may arise, just as human conversationalists can -.could
make suggestions when you tell it there's a crowd in the way
A true improvisational musical robot wouldn't just combine predefined chords
etc, it would adventurously play around with notes and create new,
surprising phrasings and chords and combinations thereof - and might try to
invent and incorporate new instruments and sounds, just as pop music does.
[Neither of these last two examples are practical AGI propositions in the
conceivable future. Physical, exploratory robots, on the other hand, *are*
practical propositions.]
True improvisation demands innovation and invention - introducing new
elements - new moves, for example, new grips, new steps and treads in the
course of a journey.
But it is not at all mechanically or computationally mysterious.
No, what I am saying is still new - and it is the secret of generality. If
you can improvise a solution to one kind of problem, you can improvise a
solution to any kind.
-------------------------------------------
AGI
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