Ben Goertzel wrote:
Well, we have attempted to use sound software engineering principles to
architect the OpenCog framework, with a view toward making it usable for
prototyping speculative AI ideas and ultimately building scalable,
robust, mature AGI systems as well
But, we are fairly confident of our overall architecture with this
system because there have been a number of predecessor systems based on
similar principles, which we implemented and learned a lot from ...
If one has a new AGI idea and wants to start experimenting with it, SE
is basically a secondary matter ... the point is to explore the
algorithms and ideas by whatever means is less time-wasting and
frustrating...
OTOH, if one has an AGI idea that's already been fleshed out a fair bit
and one is ready to try to use it as the basis for a scalable,
extensible system, SE is more worth paying attention to...
Premature attention to engineering when one should be focusing on
science is a risk, but so is ignoring engineering when one wants to
build a scalable, extensible system...
I think you missed my point, but no matter.
My point was that "premature attention to engineering" is absolutely
vital in a field such as the cognitive science approach to AGI.
Cognitive scientists simply do not have the time to be experts in
cognitive science, AND software engineers at the same time. Fort that
reason, their models, and the way they think about theoretical models,
are severely constrained by their weak ability to build software systems.
In this case, the science is being crippled by the lack of tools, so
there is no such thing as "premature attention to engineering".
Richard Loosemore
ben g
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:03 AM, Richard Loosemore <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Valentina Poletti wrote:
I have a question for you AGIers.. from your experience as well
as from your background, how relevant do you think software
engineering is in developing AI software and, in particular AGI
software? Just wondering.. does software verification as well as
correctness proving serve any use in this field? Or is this
something used just for Nasa and critical applications?
1) Software engineering (if we take that to mean the conventional
repertoire of techniques taught as "SE") is relevant to any project
that gets up above a certain size, but it is less important when the
project is much smaller, serves a more exploratory function, or
where the design is constantly changing. To this extent I agree
with Pei's comments.
2) If you are looking beyond the idea of simply grabbing some SE
techniques off the shelf, and are instead asking if SE can have an
impact on AGI, then the answer is a dramatic "Yes!". Why? Because
tools determine the way that we *can* think about things. Tools
shape our thoughts. They can sometimes enable us to think in new
ways that were simply not possible before the tools were invented.
I decided a long time ago that if cognitive scientists had
easy-to-use use tools that enabled them to construct realistic
components of thinking systems, their entire style of explanation
would be revolutionized. Right now, cog sci people cannot afford
the time to be both cog sci experts *and* sophisticated software
developers, so they have to make do with programming that is, by and
large, trivially simple. This determines the kinds of models and
explanations they can come up with. (Ditto in spades for the
neuroscientists, by the way).
So, the more global answer to your question is that nothing could be
more important for AGI than software engineering.
The problem is, that the kind of software engineering we are talking
about is not a matter of grabbing SE components off the shelf, but
asking what the needs of cognitive scientists and AGIers might be,
and then inventing new techniques and tools that will give these
people the ability to think about intelligent systems in new ways.
That is why I am working on Safaire.
Richard Loosemore
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--
Ben Goertzel, PhD
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC
Director of Research, SIAI
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
"I intend to live forever, or die trying."
-- Groucho Marx
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