Mark Waser wrote:
What is "meaning" to a computer? Some people would say that no
machine can
know the meaning of text because only humans can understand language.
Nope. I am *NOT* willing to do the Searle thing. Machines will know
the meaning of text (i.e. understand it) when they have a coherent
world model that they ground their usage of text in.
...
But note that in this case "world model" is not a model of the same
world that you have a model of. The will definitely have different
sensors and different goals. E.g., they might be directly sensitive to
system "signals" and totally insensitive to kinesthetic. I.e., they
might be able to directly sense a mouse position, or an i/o port state,
but lack any intrinsic binding of those to a kinesthetic model. An
optional binding would be something else, of course, but imagine such a
machine with access to a midi-card and a mic. Is there any particular
reason to presume that it would find harmonious the same sounds that you
do? (Well, yes. Harmony is a mathematical property. Whether it would
desire harmony is less clear. See Stockhausen and John Cage.)
Now an early stage AI of this variety would not have a world model that
corresponded closely to that of a person. E.g., it's "physical world"
wouldn't really exist. The "real world" would be limited to
"non-removable senses", so nothing that was connected, say, via a USB
port would count (unless it was always both connected and on). This
included video cameras...which it could have, but wouldn't be
"built-in", and would be subject to being replaced and ending up on
different "ports". And if there were a pair of them, the direction that
they were pointing would probably be independently variable, as would
the distance between them. At a later stage it might well be given
control of them, on movable arms that it could also control, rather like
a Pierson's Puppeteer. Touch is less obvious about how to handle, but
it's being worked on.
But note that these sensory devices are just that, sensory devices that
it can use, and which can be added or removed. This yields a very
different world model than that with which people develop. One in which
"reality" adheres to the internal states and not to the externalities.
The external world will forever be a "calculation device", and
consciously known to be so. (This is unlike people where it's also a
calculation device, but where it is generally only intellectually known
that the state of the world as reported by the sensors is largely an
artifact of the sensors. [And if you doubt that, consider a visit to
the dentist. With and without anesthetic.])
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