Vlad:Good philosophy is necessary for AI...We need to work more on the
foundations, to understand whether we are
going in the right direction
More or less perfectly said. While I can see that a majority of people here
don't want it, actually philosophy, (which should be scientifically based),
is essential for AGI, precisely as Vlad says - to decide what are the proper
directions and targets for AGI. What is creativity? Intelligence? What are
the kinds of problems an AGI should be dealing with? What kind(s) of
knowledge representation are necessary? Is language necessary? What forms
should concepts take? What kinds of information structures, eg networks,
should underlie them? What kind(s) of search are necessary? How do analogy
and metaphor work? Is embodiment necessary? etc etc. These are all matters
for what is actually philosophical as well as scientific as well as
technological/engineering discussion. They tend to be often more
philosophical in practice because these areas are so vast that they can't be
neatly covered - or not at present - by any scientific.
experimentally-backed theory.
If your philosophy is all wrong, then the chances are v. high that your
engineering work will be a complete waste of time. So it's worth considering
whether your personal AGI philosophy and direction are viable.
And that is essentially what the philosophical discussions here have all
been about - the proper *direction* for AGI efforts to take. Ben has
mischaracterised these discussions. No one - certainly not me - is objecting
to the *feasibility* of AGI. Everyone agrees that AGI in one form or other
is indeed feasible, though some (and increasingly though by no means fully,
Ben himself) incline to robotic AGI. The arguments are mainly about
direction, not feasibility.
(There is a separate, philosophical discussion, about feasibility in a
different sense - the lack of a culture of feasibility, which is perhaps,
subconsciously what Ben was also referring to - no one, but no one, in
AGI, including Ben, seems willing to expose their AGI ideas and proposals
to any kind of feasibility discussion at all - i.e. how can this or that
method solve any of the problem of general intelligence? This is what Steve
R has pointed to recently, albeit IMO in a rather confusing way. )
So while I recognize that a lot of people have an antipathy to my personal
philosoophising, one way or another, you can't really avoid philosophising,
unless you are, say, totally committed to just one approach, like Opencog.
And even then...
P.S. Philosophy is always a matter of (conflicting) opinion. (Especially,
given last night's exchange, philosophy of science itself).
-------------------------------------------
agi
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