Indeed, you will at some point be able to (or can already) describe
different AI architectures almost as engines - but it's bringing all
those
problems together - which is a mixture of a psychological and
philosophical
problem.
Background here: the fact that psychologists are still arguing about
whether
g exists - general intelligence - is a reflection of the difficulties
here -
the unsolved problems of defining problems. However those difficulties
are
not that great or insuperable.
Not much point in arguing further here - all I can say now is TRY it -
try
focussing your work the other way round - I'm confident you'll find it
makes
life vastly easier and more productive. Defining what it does is just as
essential for the designer as for the consumer.
----- Original Message -----
From: Benjamin Goertzel
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] The role of incertainty
>
>
>
>
> P.S. This is a truly weird conversation. It's like you're saying.."Hell
it's a box, why should I have to tell you what my box does?" Only
insiders
care what's inside the box. The rest of the world wants to know what it
does
- and that's the only way they'll buy it and pay attention to it - and
the
only reason they should. Life's short.
Well, I am not trying to sell the Novamente Cognition Engine to the
average
Joe as ANYTHING, because it is not finished.
When it is finished, I will still not try to sell it to the average Joe
(or
Mike ;-) as a purpose-specific product, because it is not one.
What I will try to sell to people are purpose-specific products, such as
virtual pets that they can train, or software systems they can use (if
they're biologists) to find patterns in their data, etc. I understand
that
what people want to pay for, are purpose-specific products. However,
what
will enable the construction of a wide variety of purpose-specific
products,
is a general-purpose AGI engine...
To use a rough analogy, suppose it was a long time ago and I was
developing
the world's first internal combustion engine. Then we could argue...
Mike: What are you working on, Ben?
Ben: I'm building an internal combustion engine
Mike: What does it do?
Ben: Well, it's a device in which rapid oxidation, of gas and air occurs
in
a confined space called a combustion chamber. This exothermic reaction of
a
fuel with an oxidizer creates gases of high temperature and pressure,
which
are permitted to expand. The defining feature of an internal combustion
engine is that useful work is performed by the expanding hot gases acting
directly to cause pressure, further causing movement of the piston inside
the cylinder.
Mike: What?
Ben: Well, you burn stuff in a closed chamber and it makes pistons move
up
and down
Mike: Oh. Well who the hell would want to buy something that does that?
No
one wants to watch pistons move up and down, at least not in my neck of
the
woods.
Ben: Well you can use it for all sorts of different things
Mike: Like what?
Ben: Well, to power a car, or a locomotive, or an electrical generator
...
or even a backpack helicopter. Maybe a robot. A lawnmower.
Mike: Ok, so if you want to get your engine built, you need to set a
specific goal. For instance, your goal could be to build a lawnmower.
Ben: Well, that could be a good incremental goal -- to make a small
version
of my engine to power a lawnmower. But no particular goal is going to
encapsulate all the applications of the engine. The main point is that
I'm
building an engine that lets you burn fuel and thus create mechanical
work
-- and this can be used for all sorts of different things.
Mike: But, if you want people to buy it, you have to tell them what it
will
do for them. No one wants to buy a machine that sits in their livingroom
and makes pistons bob up and down.
Ben: Ok, look. This conversation is getting frustrating. I'm going to
close the email window and get back to work.
Mike: Darn, this conversation is getting frustrating. I don't want to
buy a
bunch of exothermic reactions, I want to buy something that does
something
specific for me.
***
-- Ben
You could ask them for the specific purpose of the generator, and they
would
say: "Well, it can be used to power light bulbs, or computers, or cars,
or
refrigerators, or etc. etc. etc. .... But yet, none of these particular
applications summarizes what it does. What it does is to generate
electricity, which then can be used in a lot of applications.
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