Russell,
This is a definite start and I'm just trying to put together a reasoned
thesis on this area. You're absolutely right that this is essential to
understanding AGI - General Intelligence - and literally no one does have
other than tiny fragments of understanding here, either in AI/AGI or our
culture at large and that's simply intolerable. We have just entered the age
of multimedia - a major new stage of civilisation - and we have to get to
understand these things fast.
What you're in effect calling for is a PSYCHOSEMIOTIC understanding of both
the different sensory modalities AND the different external sensory media
and sign systems that we use to perceive and think about the world. (The
field of psychosemiotics was only started last year).
And, when talking about these matters, I don't think you can SEPARATE the
pure senses from the external sensory media - both our vision and thinking
are shaped by them to a great extent. I don't think any AGI-er is aware of
this.
Here, I think, is a more detailed start to what you're talking about: our
different ways of perceiving and thinking about the world.
Abstract - Symbolic - Word, Numbers, Logical/Algebraic Variables
Visual Schematic, Still/Dynamic Image, Rough - Cartoon, Rough Sketches,
Cartoon Movie, Medieval Painting
Visual Schematic, Still/Dynamic Image, Regular - Geometric Figures
Visual Schematic, Still/Dynamic Image, Isomorphic - Maps
Visual Detailed Image - Still - Photographic, Realistic Painting
Visual Detailed Image - Dynamic - Movie [Silent] - Movie [plus Sound]
Auditory Image - Dynamic - Sound Recordings
Auditory Image - Dynamic/Rhythmic - Music
Visual/Tactile Solid Model - Still - Statues; Architectural Models etc
Visual Solid Model - Dynamic - Holographic, ???? [still to come]
[n.b. everything not Abstract is by definition "spatial" - so
Deliberative/spatial isn't the right distinction - I guess it's just
Abstract/ Concrete!]
Of course, as McLuhan would point out, this analysis is itself highly
selective in that our perception and thinking about the world are always
basically COMMON SENSE - using all senses - even though we tend
intellectually to heighten one or two. So he argued that the more schematic
visual media like cartoon and Medieval iconic stuff were highly tactile .
I'm not sure about all that. But we have to aware of it.
Whichever medium and sign system we use to perceive and think about the
world, massively shapes the way we see things and the problems we are aware
of. Literally, if you think only in certain media, you can't even see many
kinds of problems.
The person who argues like some AGI-ers - that we only need one sign system
or medium for general intelligence and/or to think about anything in the
world - e.g. we only need maths and/or language - might have been considered
reasonably intelligent in the outgoing literate stage of civilisation, but
will be considered a buffoon in the modern, multimedia age. Completely
"immediate" - the equivalent of "illiterate."
Yes all this is absolutely central to solving AGI. What have I left out?
Russell:> There's been a lot of argument (some of it from me, indeed) about
what
type of intelligence is necessary for AGI. Let me take a shot at
resolving it.
Suppose we say there are two types of intelligence (not in any
rigorous sense, just in broad classification):
Deliberative. Able to prove theorems, solve the Busy Beaver problem
for small N, write and prove properties of small functions, construct
cellular automata computers for small functions, derive small
functions from specifications, notice what it's doing, accept symbolic
heuristics to improve its efficiency, think about said heuristics etc.
Symbolic intelligence that can, in some crude sense, copy some of the
things humans can symbolically do.
Spatial. Able to perceive patterns in two or three dimensions. Can be
used, with mods, for a robot visual cortex; image recognition; given a
series of photographs of a landmark from varying viewpoints, can
derive a 3d model and backtrack that to the 2d image visible from any
other viewpoint; can pathfind units around a map in a video game; can
make much better than random guesses as to likely folds of a new
protein chain; can animate a cartoon from the description "cat sits on
mat".
I think we should be able to agree on this: AGI should ultimately have
both Deliberative and Spatial faculties; after all, humans have both,
and there are jobs needing both, that are currently done by humans,
and many of those jobs are boring, so that humans would rather be
freed to do something more creative; so there is certainly room for AI
work in both D and S.
So we may then disagree on which should come first.
In biological evolution, S came first, of course. It was hard - likely
a hard step in the Great Filter - to make D on top of S. It was done,
still, and he who thinks we should try S first, then D, is not
necessarily irrational, even though I disagree with him.
I have some outline ideas on how to make S, but not scalably, not that
would easily generalize. So I think D should come first; and I think I
now know how to make D, in a way that would hopefully then scale to S.
I do not, of course, expect anyone except me to believe those personal
claims; but they are my reasons for believing the right path is D then
S.
Is there a consensus at least that AGI paths fall into the two
categories of D-then-S or S-then-D?
-------------------------------------------
agi
Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription:
http://www.listbox.com/member/?&;
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.6/1403 - Release Date: 4/29/2008
7:26 AM
-------------------------------------------
agi
Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription:
http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=101455710-f059c4
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
