Ben,
> One question
is whether it's enough to create general
> pattern-recognition
functionality, and let it deal with "seeking
> meaning for symbols"
as a subcase of its general behavior. Or does
> one need to create
special heuristics/algorithms/structures just for
> guiding this
particular process?
Bit of both I think. Its a bit
like there's a search for 'meaning' and a search
for 'Meaning'.
I think all AGIs need to search for
meaning behind patterns to be able to
work out useful cause/effect webs. And when AGIs work with symbols this
general 'seeking the meaning of patterns' process can be applied as the first
level of contemplation.
But in the ethical context I think
we are after 'Meaning' where this relates to
to some notion of the importance of
the pattern or symbol for some
significant entity - for the AGI, the AGIs mentors, other sentient beings and
other life.
At the moment you have truth and attention
values attached to nodes and
links. I'm wondering whether you need to have a third numerical value type
relating to 'importance'. Attention has a temporal implication - it's intended
to focus significant mental resources on a key issue in the here and now.
And truth values indicate the reliability of the data. Neither of these
concepts capture the notion of importance.
I guess the next question is, what
would an AGI do with data on importance.
I'm just thinking off the top of my head, but my guess is that if the nodes
and links had high importance values but low truth values that this should
set up an 'itch' in the system driving the AGI to engage in learning and
contemplation that would lift the truth values. Maybe the higher the
dissonance between the importance values and the truth values, the more
this would stimulate high attention values for the related nodes and links.
Then there's the question of what
would generate the importance values. I
think these values would ultimately be derived from the perceived
importance values conveyed by 'significant others' for the AGI and by the
AGIs own ethical goal structure.
> I don't think
that preloading symbols and behavior models for
> something as
complex as *ethical issues* is really going to be
> possible. I think
ethical issues and associated behavior models are
> full of nuances
that really need to be learned.
Of course "ethical issues and
associated behavior models are full of
nuances that really need to be learned" to make much deep sense. Even
NGIs like us, with presumably loads of hardwired predisposition to ethical
behaviour, can spend their whole life in ethical learning and contemplation!
:)
So I guess the issues are (a) whether
it's worth preload ethical concepts and
(b) whether it's possible to do it.
I'll start with (b) first and then
cosider (a) (since lots of people have a
pragmatic tendency not to bother about issues till the means for acting on
them are available).
(Please bear in mind that I'm not
experienced or expert in any of the
domains I'm riding rough shod over.........everything I say will be intuitive
generalist ideas.......)
Let's take the hardest case first.
Let's take the most arcane abstract
concept that you can think of or the one that has the most intricate and
complex implications/shades of meaning for living.
Lets label the concept B31-58-DFT.
We create a register in the AGI
machinery to store important ethical concepts. We load in the label B31-
58-DFT and we give it a high importance value. We also load in a set of
words in quite a few major languages into two other registers - one set of
words are considered to have meaning very close to the concept that we
have prelabelled as B31-58-DFT. We also load in words that are not the
descriptive *meaning* of the B31-58-DFT concept but are often associated
with it. We then set the truth value of B31-58-DFT to, say, zero. We also
create a GoalNode associated to B31-58-DFT that indicates whether the
AGI should link B31-58-DFT to its positive goal structure or to its negative
goal structure ie. is B31-58-DFT more of an attractor or a repeller concept?
(BTW, most likely there would need
to be some system for ensuring that the
urge to contemplate concept B31-58-DFT didn't get so strong that the AGI
was incapable of doing anything else.)
We could also load in some body-language
patterns often observed in
association with the concept if there are such things in this case eg. smiles
on human faces, wagging tails on dogs, purring in cats, etc. (or some other
pattern, eg. (1) bared teeth, growling hissing, frowns, red faces; (2) pricked
ears, lifted eye brows, quite alterness; and so on).
We make sure that the words we load
in to the language registers include
words that the AGI in the infantile stages of development might most likely
associate with concept B31-58-DFT - so that the assocation between the
prebuilt info about B31-58-DFT and what the AGI learns early in its life can
be linked early and easily.
With this structure in place the itch
to understand and elaborate B31-58-
DFT should be pretty strong and the AGI would probably get a real kick
about thinking about B31-58-DFT.
In the earliest of stages the AGI
will scan its register of preloaded ethically
important concepts and find that it has no learned information to understand
or link the words and body language patterns to B31-58-DFT because it has
not learned to recognise these words and body language patterns in the real
world. ie. there is no bridge yet between what it truly has learned for itself
and the preloaded linked words/body language patterns. So the itch will still
be strong to learn more (from experience and taught learning) until the
bridge can be created. Once one or bridges are created then the AGI
should engage in accellerated self-directed learning to create more bridges
to concept B31-58-DFT. From there on the AGI will probably work on
several fronts - filling out the concept, working out what it means for action,
improving the truth value of the concept and retuning the importance value.
How would this system work if B31-58-DFT
was the code for "compassion
for all life".
Do you think the system could work
(give or take a bit of tweaking
/reworking to make it practical in any particular AGI architecture)?
Now to question (a).... is this worth
doing? This could be answered at two
levels. If it happended to work well and didn't stuff up the psyche of the
AGI is it worth it? My guess is that an AGI with a built in commitment to the
highest order (most general/most inclusive/most important) ethical goals
that humans can articulate is an AGI that will be the safest AGI we can let
loose - provided the AGI is not made neurotic or psychotic by virtue of
having a poorly designed ethical system.
The next question would be: would
the "head start"
provided to learning by
encoding symbols and
models be valuable? (as opposed to just letting
the system learn ethically-oriented
symbols and models from scratch).
I think that provided the ethical
system is well designed and the ethical
concepts seeded into the AGI are high order and well structured then I think
this preloading would actually make the learning progress faster and more
easily, and learning would be more motivating for the AGI and more stable.
I have to think a bit more about the
degree of freedom that the AGI should
be given to change the importance values of preloaded ethical concepts or
whether the AGIs should be allowed to delete them altogther. Presumably
a high importance value for an ethical concept should trigger a strong
inhibition against deletion and against revising the importance value down.
That is, the AGI should be free to
modify itself but should move
conservatively (in the best sense of the word).
Cheers, Philip
