During the past few years, I have often made critical
remarks about AI theories that suggested that some basic method, and especially
some rather simple objective method (like reinforcement) could be used to
produce higher intelligence without a further examination and rendering of
ideological complexity. By ideological
complexity, I am referring to the kinds of complications that might be
discovered by examining how actual ideas work and interact.
When someone actively advanced a familiar theory without
adding any original ideas of his own to explain how it could be made more
effective than it had been I would often end up calling the stated theory
"simplistic." Like the idea
that reinforcement could be used to produce higher artificial
intelligence. Of course reinforcement
is part of learning, but I object to the argument that a program that only used
a superficial reinforcement could actually work as a feasible and realizable
AGI project without further advancements in other areas of the problem.
But, although I have frequently criticized the propagation
of simplistic AI paradigms, at the same time I definitely believe that simple
reasoning is the method by which thinking is advanced. On the surface this
might look like a major
contradiction. Of course most wiser
readers understand that there is a difference between my use of the phrases
"simplistic AI paradigms," and "simple reasoning," but even
so there is a odd discordance between these two prongs of my current thesis.
Why would I argue against the efficacy of some simple AI
paradigm and then turn around and state that thinking is advanced by simple
reasoning?
The explanation is that I believe that a general AI must be
able to integrate complicated ideas. This can even be done through the
application of simple reasoning in a
gradual learning process, but it would require extensive programming beyond
that which is usually suggested in reference to methods like reinforcement or
other overly simplistic AI paradigms that have been around for years.
So I believe that we learn gradually through the use of
simple reasoning. But because the mind
is able to apply the benefit of that simple reasoning to a more complex base of
previously learned knowledge and mental processes, we are able at times to make
apparent leaps in comprehension. So
even though the paradigm of reinforcement may look similar to the paradigm of
gradual learning, the real difference in the theories lay in the mysteries of
the ways ideas and concepts interact. And these interactions are complicated.
I believe that these mysteries of conceptual complexity (or
ideological interactions) can be discovered through discussion and experiment
so long as that effort is not thwarted by the expression of immature negative
emotions and abusive anti-intellectual rants. While some of us who are trying
to create constructive dialogues can be
annoying and confrontational at times, those who are characteristically angry
and hostile toward us are unlikely to make significant advancements in the more
subtle studies that are required without first acquiring greater insight into
what is really driving their emotional reactions. And those who are
ideologically opposed to the study of ideas, by
their own ideological biases, are also unlikely to participate constructively
in such discussions.
I believe that an efficacious program can be constructed
with the remains of various AI paradigms of the past and I appreciate those who
worked hard to develop those actual AI programs. I just do not believe that an
effective advancement will be found
by the tedious repetition of shallow arguments that have been tried but failed
to produce advances of some substance. I feel that it is time to examine how
ideas interact using simple
theories but this kind of effort will only make sense by the recognition that
simple theories must be combined and integrated with previously acquired
knowledge through some complicated processes of intelligence which are not yet
widely appreciated.
Jim
Bromer
-------------------------------------------
agi
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