Jim:Only one good question stands out in my mind. Even if the text program knew something about cats would it be able to infer that cat's pounce if the necessary information was not in the program. The trouble with this as a criticism is that the issue is valid for all cases of mentation. Does anyone who participates in this group know if a mountain lion purrs? Does a mountain lion meow? Does a kangaroo make some kind of vocalization? Most of you do not know the answer to the questions off hand.
This is, whatever the intention, specious. We can successfully infer a vast amount about objects – as the tests of divergent thinking demonstrate – new inferences that clearly do not derive from some frame or net of words. We can infer that cats and mountain lions jump, snarl, stare, roll over, lie, stroke with their whiskers, rub with their heads, nudge with their paws, put one foot on, put two feet on, put three feet on, rub with their hind quarters, rub with their noses, shake their heads up and down/round and round, whip with their tails ... etc. etc. on and on. The fact that we may well make the odd false new inference , is neither here nor there. The wonder is that we can make any. We are more or less infinitely generative about the possible actions of any given object. All AI programs, all algos, all text based progs, OTOH have zero generativity. That is the unsolved problem of AGI You and others here - [possibly everyone because I’m beginning to wonder whether there is anyone here who isn’t basically a diehard GOFAI-er] – are claiming that it is possible from a frame of words – let’s say: CATS - EAT - JUMP – BITE - etc to make new inferences as humans do. Inferences that are not simply logical and transcend those that current progs. make. There’s not a chance in hell. All the above inferences were a) visually/imaginatively and b) bodily derived (as you might understand, if you were not appallingly ignorant about embodied cog sci]. Try it for yourself – infer some more about cats in your head – and see how it’s done. The challenge for everyone here – not just you but Aaron, Ben et al – is to show how a verbal/symbol network can generate new kinds of inference. And, there is no excuse for evasiveness – all you need do is take something simple like CAT and BALL – or even just BOX and BALL – produce a small network of words for them – maybe twenty or so - and give us just an idea of how that set of words has even the slightest chance of generating new inferences. It isn’t just you – it is the whole of AGI that has been evasive here. Ben and others could have saved themselves years of life by attempting some modest proof of concept here. You, Jim, haven’t been listening to what people have been telling you – they simply don’t understand what you’re saying – because it’s non-specific. No one can get a handle on it. Here is your chance to be specific. Before you make more excuses, as you will – I should make it clear, that I know you *can’t* be specific about your ideas. You’re “specific-example-challenged*. But maybe s.o. else would like to take up the challenge. This is a v. good example of the central challenge of AGI. ------------------------------------------- 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
