Thank you for sharing this story, Steve!

A vote from me for the interpreters (virtual machines) and
(self-)modification/improvement.
Hard-coded compiled software is too limited and fragile. It should always
be a part of a hybrid system, with part of the system compiled (maximally
optimized), and part - flexible and capable to adjust to the needs (such as
your Huffman-coded opcodes or different programing
languages/domain-specific ones), to self-repair and to improve.

Also congratulations for pushing the limits of the tiny hardware!


*Steve* >These were CAREFULLY designed so that NO add-on extensions would
ever be needed

*Todor: *Indeed! Regarding one of the popular definitions about AGI, that
it should solve problems which the designers "haven't conceived" or for
which the system wasn't "designed". If  the sense of "design" is "what the
designer understood, wrote down on paper, specifically marked etc." - OK.

However, if the system is really and consistently GENERAL - globally or for
its domain, - then all possible problems would be conceived.... :-)  That's
the criterion for true generality.

The specific *INSTANCES* of the problems might not be predefined "on paper"
with full details - but that's one of the purposes of the AGI, the
versatile limitless self-improver - to fill-in and execute all the
instances, combinations, details, versions etc. automatically and much
faster and deeper than a human would do.

The "problem" are the methods for quick and efficient improvement,
accumulation, generalization and then specialization (application) etc.,
and it should be possible to develop the basis that start to develop quick
enough with minimum resources...

...

*Sequences of coordinate adjustments and applications of forces*

For example a superficial analyst may say that "humans learn ever novel and
novel motions/behaviors of the hands - never ending new gestures, which
weren't performed in the past - grasping an apple, a bolt, a pencil, a
soccer ball, a tennis ball, a tennis racket, a pebble, a knife; headphones;
a car's tire... etc. etc.

However it's "novel" only to the analyst/evaluator who doesn't realize that
it doesn't matter WHAT is grasped, but HOW it's grasped. When "HOW" is
generalized, it's all the same  - just sequences of adjustments of
coordinates' and forces' applied from/by the hand.

That's all, and it was ALL conceived by the design - hands/body are
universal actuators, because they allow  free manipulation and application
of forces in 3D. The possible sequences are many, but it's all
CONFIGURABLE, and each of the vectors/coordinates within the sequence are
simple. There's NOTHING "radically new".

When one grasps an integrated circuit, it's not true to say that "human
body wasn't conceived to pick integrated circuits - such didn't exist etc.,
so it learns new behaviors".

It's "new" only if you compare WHAT's captured, while the essential about
the behavior/motion is HOW the hand perform it.

Actually hand WAS designed to pick and operate with anything with so and so
boundary dimensions (calculable by any particular person's hands/body
dimensions and biomechanics - allowing some variations achievable by
practice, or reducible by lack of practice and aging), boundary weight,
sharpness etc. etc. etc.

There's nothing new for the body.

Here some would say - well, maybe you're right, but for example the robotic
hand is "radically new". That would be wrong again, because in the above POV,
the essential part is the same - any physical actuator or any mechanical
part or engine or system is about applying given forces at given
coordinates in given sequences in time. Sorry inventors: it's already
invented...

The "new" is that the analysts don't get the real (essential, generalized)
purpose of the actuators, but pick inessential details which can be vastly
generalized and compressed.

*Steve>*these were CAREFULLY designed so that NO add-on extensions would
ever be needed, though we did add-in some additional capabilities before we
finished. With each interpreter able to do everything that was needed in
its domain AND NO MORE, there could be NO system-crashing bugs, malware,
etc.

*Todor: *Another good point, the final one (I'd rather allow extensions,
though, my system does and I think it should).

However the system should never crash beyond self-repair, it should be
designed to ever "live". It could be allowed to crash non-"fatally" or to
"respawn" - some of its experiments may cause some of its subordinate
systems to stop working, it may even halt, but it should be capable to
switch to alternative subsystem while restarting the malfunction
subsystems, use backup subsystems, watchdogs, backup copies of its mind
etc.

*Steve>*I suspect that if programmed intelligence is ever developed, it
will start with something REALLY SIMPLE that is then successively modified
and enhanced to be what we call intelligent. With this approach, each step
is tractably doable. With a "design intelligence from scratch" approach, it
appears to be obviously beyond human ability.

*Todor:  *IMO there's a bit of confusion above. The newborn babies *ARE *AGIs.
 Designing an AGI's "baby's body" (and its appropriate environment and
teachers), seed-AI, fetus of intelligence, Self-Improving General
Intelligence, Versatile Limitless Self Improver - which is capable to
self-improve step-by-step *IS* design of intelligence "from scratch".

It's true (but in *different sense*), though, that the typical AI-ers
(old-school) believe that "intelligence" is their own 30-40-50 years-old
developed brain and more precisely, some specific reasoning abilities
(which they can't trace back, they can't trace back even 1 hour of
operation back).

They try to design a system that behaves like this brain - which in fact
CAN"T learn a lot of elementary things, such as arts - *without *having
(and without understanding) the appropriate developmental history, which
would otherwise explain everything, and is in fact easier to do.

This AI-ers case may calso be called design "from scratch" in the sense
that it lacks history/background, but it's also not from scratch - it's an
attempt to design fully developed system - one that's having required
subsystems present in "final" stage as early as the beginning.


*=== Todor "Tosh" Arnaudov ===*

.... Twenkid Research:  http://research.twenkid.com

.... Author of the world's first University courses in AGI  (2010, 2011):
http://artificial-mind.blogspot.com/2010/04/universal-artificial-intelligence.html

.... Todor Arnaudov's Researches Blog: http://artificial-mind.blogspot.com



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