Curiosity is a goal-driven behavior. The goal is to acquire more information about the environment. It's actually an evolutionarily hardwired subgoal of our other goals, since more information is usually pretty handy for a big brain to use when it comes time to seek other goals.
On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 9:35 AM, Boris Kazachenko <[email protected]> wrote: > ** > Aaron, > > > Intelligence is necessary to implement complex behavior, but it is not > sufficient. There must be goal-directedness built into the system, either > through explicit goals in the form of goal states and search heuristics, > implicit goals in the form of chained reward signals, or some hybrid or > alternative. Otherwise, your super-intelligent robot is just going to sit > there, potentially observing and understanding everything but doing nothing > whatsoever about it. > > > Not true, behavior can by driven by pure curiosity: search for additively > predictive patterns, which is what intelligence all about. Think of > Einstein's "holy curiosity". > Human motivation consists of three incrementally advanced subsystems: > instincts, conditioning / RL, & pure curiosity: unsupervised > learning. Shifting balance of power between these subsystems determines our > "identity". Instincts is biological crap, conditioning is relatively very > crude / obsolete, only pure curiosity will have any meaning once we outgrow > our bodies: > > > http://cognitive-focus.blogspot.com/2012/06/motivation-evolution-of-value.html > > > Motivation is mental mechanisms that drive our behavior, including > cognitive behavior: introspection, analysis, & planning for somatic > behavior. Values/ motives in humans & higher animals can be divided into > three broad categories, according to the mechanism that formed or selected > them: > > Evolution selects instincts fit for their own propagation, innate but > subsequently modulated by usage, Conditioning value-charges stimuli > coincident with previously value-loaded stimuli in time or space, Cognitive > curiosity searches / selects for predictive patterns, even if they > consist of value-free stimuli. > > Higher mechanisms accelerate adaptive value acquisition by acting on > increasingly mediated responses: from immediate behavioral reactions to > longer-term attention, prediction, & planning. > Brain areas that implement these value-acquisition mechanisms likely > evolved in the same sequence: > > Instincts, largely physiological & traceable to 4Fs, are encoded mainly > in > > *brainstem* <http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3300679325320839673>& > *hypothalamus*<http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3300679325320839673>. > Conditioning is initiated by *basal > ganglia*<http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3300679325320839673>& > *limbic system*<http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3300679325320839673>, > then extended & generalized by neocortex. Predictive curiosity is an innate > driver of neocortex, which is also heavily modulated by lower motives. > > This scheme is vaguely similar to *triune brain > model*<http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3300679325320839673>, > but in my interpretation these substrates differ mainly in the mechanism by > which they acquire values, rather than in resulting & relatively transient > motives themselves. These value acquisition mechanisms are innate, but > their relative strength varies. > > Our instincts are pretty basic & similar to those of other mammals. An > excellent account of that level of motivation is Jaak Panksepp‘s *“Archaeology > of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human > Emotions“*<http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3300679325320839673>. > The discussion below is mostly on conditioning & cognition: increasingly > adaptive mechanisms which seem to strengthen with our personal growth... > until it hits harsh constraints of biological life cycle... > > > > *http://www.cognitivealgorithm.info/2012/01/cognitive-algorithm.html*<http://www.cognitivealgorithm.info/2012/01/cognitive-algorithm.html> > *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/23050605-2da819ff> | > Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>Your Subscription > <http://www.listbox.com> > ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
