FYI, Cyc has a natural language front end and a lot of folks have been working on it for the last 5+ years...
-- Ben G On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 5:12 PM, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > IMHO the reason Cyc failed is that it lacks a natural language model. Thus, > there was no alternative to using formal language to entering and extracting > data. Even after building a huge knowledge base, Cyc is mostly useless in > applications because it cannot adapt to its environment and cannot > communicate with users who don't speak Cycl. > > The approach was understandable in the 1980's because we lacked then (and > maybe still lack) the computing power to implement natural language. An > adult human model consists of a sparse matrix of around 10^8 associations > between 10^5 concepts, and an eidetic (short term) memory of about 7 > concepts. Language learning consists of learning associations between active > concepts in eidetic memory and learning new concepts by clustering in > context space. This structure allows learning concepts of arbitrary > complexity in a hierarchical fashion. Concepts consist of phonemes, phoneme > groups, words, phrases, parts of speech constrained by grammar and semantics > (nouns, animals, etc), and grammatical structures. A neural implementation > [1] would require on the order of tens of gigabytes of memory and hundreds > of gigaflops. This is without grounding in sensory or motor I/O. So far, we > have not discovered a more efficient implementation in spite of decades of > research. > > A natural language model should be capable of learning any formal language > that a human can learn, such as mathematics, first order logic, C++, or > Cycl. Learning is by induction, by giving lots of examples. For example, to > teach the commutative law of addition: > > "5 + 3" -> "3 + 5" > "a + b" -> "b + a" > "sin 3x^2 + 1" -> "1 + sin 3x^2" > etc. > > Likewise, translation between natural and formal language is taught by > example. For example, to teach applications of subtraction: > > "There are 20 cookies. I take 2. How many are left?" -> "20 - 2 = ?" > "I pay $10 for a $3.79 item. What is my change?" -> "10.00 - 3.79 = ?" > etc. > > I believe that formal models of common sense (probabilistic or not) would > be a mistake. This type of knowledge is best left to the language model. > Rather than probabilistic rules like: > > "if it is cloudy, then it will rain (p = 0.6)" > "if it rains, then I will get wet (p = 0.8)" > > such knowledge can be represented by associations between concepts in the > language model, e.g. two entries in our huge matrix: > > (clouds ~ rain, 0.6) > (rain ~ wet, 0.8) > > People invented mathematics and formal languages to solve problems that > require long sequences of exact steps. Before computers, we had to execute > these steps using grammar rules, sometimes with the help of pencil and > paper. However, this process is error prone and slow. Now we only have to > convert the problem to a formal language and input it into a calculator or > computer. AI should replicate this process. > > 1. Rumelhart, David E., James L. McClelland, and the PDP Research Group, > Parallel Distributed Processing, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1986. The authors > described plausible, hierarchical connectionist models, although they lacked > the computing power to implement them. > > -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > ------------------------------------------- > 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/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome " - Dr Samuel Johnson ------------------------------------------- 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=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
