Kittens play with small moving objects because it teaches them to be better hunters. Play is not a goal in itself, but a subgoal that may or may not be a useful part of a successful AGI design.
-- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ---- From: Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 8:59:06 AM Subject: Re: [agi] How Would You Design a Play Machine? Brad, That's sad. The suggestion is for a mental exercise, not a full-scale project. And play is fundamental to the human mind-and-body - it characterises our more mental as well as more physical activities - drawing, designing, scripting, humming and singing scat in the bath, dreaming/daydreaming & much more. It is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI. It is also an essential dimension of animal behaviour and animal evolution. Many of the smartest companies have their play areas. But I'm not aware of any program or computer design for play - as distinct from elaborating systematically and methodically or "genetically" on themes - are you? In which case it would be good to think about one - it'll open your mind & give you new perspectives. This should be a group where people are not too frightened to play around with ideas. Brad:> Mike Tintner wrote: "...how would you design a play machine - a machine > that can play around as a child does?" > > I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless > it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of > intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building an > AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we had > not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence > (embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working, > non-embodied AGI. > > Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who > extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more wrong. > We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI that can be > of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human intelligence in > many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be empathetic with human > intelligence, but we do not need to make it equivalent (i.e., "just like > us"). > > I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence will be > easy to design and build. It will probably require at least another > twenty years of "two steps forward, one step back" effort. So, if we are > going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI within the first > quarter of this century, we are going to have to "just say no" to Turing > and start to use human intelligence as an inspiration, not a destination. > > Cheers, > > Brad > > > > Mike Tintner wrote: >> Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI is >> surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a play >> machine - a machine that can play around as a child does? >> >> You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are - it >> should be able to play with >> a) bricks >> b)plasticine >> c) handkerchiefs/ shawls >> d) toys [whose function it doesn't know] >> and >> e) draw. >> >> Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly more >> flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on computer, fine. >> >> How will it play - manipulate things every which way? >> What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something >> interesting? >> How do infants, IOW, play? >> ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=111637683-c8fa51 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
