Re: [agi] just a thought

[Valentina Poletti]

Cool,

this idea has already been applied successfully to some areas of AI, such as
ant-colony algorithms and swarm intelligence algorithms. But I was thinking
that it would be interesting to apply it at a high level. For example,
consider that you create the best AGI agent you can come up with and,
instead of running just one, you create several copies of it (perhaps with
slight variations), and you initiate each in a different part of your
reality or environment for such agents, after letting them have the ability
to communicate. In this way whenever one such agents learns anything
meaningful he passes the information to all other agents as well, that is,
it not only modifies its own policy but it also affects the other's to some
extent (determined by some constant or/and by how much the other agent likes
this one, that is how useful learning from it has been in the past and so
on). This way not only each agent would learn much faster, but also the
agents could learn to use this communication ability to their advantage to
ameliorate. I just think it would be interesting to implement this, not that
I am capable of right now.


On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Bob Mottram  wrote:

> 2009/1/14 Valentina Poletti :
> > Anyways my point is, the reason why we have achieved so much technology,
> so
> > much knowledge in this time is precisely the "we", it's the union of
> several
> > individuals together with their ability to communicate with one-other
> that
> > has made us advance so much. In a sense we are a single being with
> millions
> > of eyes, ears, hands, brains, which alltogether can create amazing
> things.
> > But take any human being alone, isolate him/her from any contact with any
> > other human being and rest assured he/she will not achieve a single
> artifact
> > of technology. In fact he/she might not survive long.
>
>
> Yes.  I think Ben made a similar point in The Hidden Pattern.  People
> studying human intelligence - psychologists, psychiatrists, cognitive
> scientists, etc - tend to focus narrowly on the individual brain, but
> human intelligence is more of an emergent networked phenomena
> populated by strange meta-entities such as archetypes and memes.  Even
> the greatest individuals from the world of science or art didn't make
> their achievements in a vacuum, and were influenced by earlier works.
>
> Years ago I was chatting with someone who was about to patent some
> piece of machinery.  He had his name on the patent, but was pointing
> out that it's very difficult to be able to say exactly who made the
> invention - who was the "guiding mind".  In this case many individuals
> within his company had some creative input, and there was really no
> one "inventor" as such.  I think many human-made artifacts are like
> this.
>
>
> ---
> agi
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-- 
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Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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[agi] just a thought

[Valentina Poletti]

Not in reference to any specific current discussion,

I find it interesting that when people talk of human like intelligence in
the realm of AGI, they refer to the ability of a human individual, or human
brain if you like. It just occurred to me that human beings are not that
intelligent. Well, of course we are super intelligent compared to a frog (as
some would say) but then again a frog is super intelligent compared to an
aunt.


Anyways my point is, the reason why we have achieved so much technology, so
much knowledge in this time is precisely the "we", it's the union of several
individuals together with their ability to communicate with one-other that
has made us advance so much. In a sense we are a single being with millions
of eyes, ears, hands, brains, which alltogether can create amazing things.
But take any human being alone, isolate him/her from any contact with any
other human being and rest assured he/she will not achieve a single artifact
of technology. In fact he/she might not survive long.


So that's why I think it is important to put emphasis on this when talking
about super-human intelligence.


That was my 2-in-the-morning thought. I guess I should sleep now.



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[agi] Relevance of SE in AGI

[Valentina Poletti]

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?
Valentina



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[agi] a mathematical explanation of AI algorithms?

[Valentina Poletti]

And here is your first question on AGI.. actually rather on AI. It's not so
trivial though.
Some researchers are telling me that no-one has actually figured out how AI
algorithms, such as ANNs and genetic algorithms work.. in other words there
is no mathematical explanation to prove their behavior. I am simply not
happy with this answer. I always look for mathematical explanations.
Particularly, I am not talking about something as complex as AGI, but
something as simple as a multi-layer perceptron. Anybody knows anything that
contradicts this?

Thanks



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Re: [agi] Free AI Courses at Stanford

[Valentina Poletti]

The lectures are pretty good in quality, compared with other major
university on-line lectures (such as MIT and so forth) I followed a couple
of them and definitely recommend. You learn almost as much as in a real
course.

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 2:19 AM, Kingma, D.P. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Hi List,
>
> Also interesting to some of you may be VideoLectures.net, which offers
> lots of interesting lectures. Although not all are of Stanford
> quality, still I found many interesting lectures by respected
> lecturers. And there are LOTS (625 at the moment) of lectures about
> Machine Learning... :)
>
> http://videolectures.net/Top/Computer_Science/
>
> Algorithmic Information Theory (2)
> Algorithms and Data Structures (4)
> Artificial Intelligence (6)
> Bioinformatics (45)
> Chemoinformatics (1)
> Complexity Science (24)
> Computer Graphics (2)
> Computer Vision (41)
> Cryptography and Security (4)
> Databases (1)
> Data Mining (56)
> Data Visualisation (18)
> Decision Support (3)
> Evolutionary Computation (3)
> Fuzzy Logic (4)
> Grid Computing (1)
> Human Computer Interaction (10)
> Image Analysis (47)
> Information Extraction (30)
> Information Retrieval (40)
> Intelligent Agents (4)
> Interviews (54)
> Machine Learning (625)
> Natural Language Processing  (9)
> Network Analysis (27)
> Robotics (23)
> Search Engines (5)
> Semantic Web (175)
> Software and Tools (12)
> Spatial Data Structures (1)
> Speech Analysis (9)
> Text Mining (37)
> Web Mining (19)
> Web Search (2)
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 8:52 AM, Brad Paulsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > Hey everyone!
> >
> ...
> >
> > Links to all the courses being offered are here:
> > http://www.deviceguru.com/2008/09/17/stanford-frees-cs-robotics-courses/
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Brad
> >
>
>
> ---
> agi
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-- 
A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde

Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] Artificial humor

[Valentina Poletti]

I think it's the surprize that makes you laugh actually, not physical
pain in other people. I find myself laughing at my own mistakes often
- not because they hurt (in fact if they did hurt they wouldn't be
funny) but because I get surprized by them.

Valentina

On 9/10/08, Jiri Jelinek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:39 PM, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>>Without a body, you couldn't understand the joke.
>
> False. Would you also say that without a body, you couldn't understand
> 3D space ?
>
> BTW it's kind of sad that people find it funny when others get hurt. I
> wonder what are the mirror neurons doing at the time. Why so many kids
> like to watch the "Tom & Jerry"-like crap?
>
> Jiri
>
>


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[agi] any advice

[Valentina Poletti]

I am applying for a research program and I have to chose between these two
schools:

Dalle Molle Institute of Artificial Intelligence
University of Verona (Artificial Intelligence dept)



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Re: [agi] draft for comment

[Valentina Poletti]

On 9/4/08, Ben Goertzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
>> However, could you guys be more specific regarding the statistical
>> differences of different types of data? What kind of differences are you
>> talking about specifically (mathematically)? And what about the differences
>> at the various levels of the dual-hierarchy? Has any of your work or
>> research suggested this hypothesis, if so which?
>>
>
>
> Sorry I've been fuzzy on this ... I'm engaging in this email conversation
> in odd moments while at a conference (Virtual Worlds 2008, in Los
> Angeles...)
>
> Specifically I think that patterns interrelating the I/O stream of system S
> with the relation between the system S's embodiment and its environment, are
> important.  It is these patterns that let S build a self-model of its
> physical embodiment, which then leads S to a more abstract self-model (aka
> Metzinger's "phenomenal self")
>
 So in short you are saying that the main difference between I/O data by
a motor embodyed system (such as robot or human) and a laptop is the ability
to interact with the data: make changes in its environment to systematically
change the input?

>  Considering patterns in the above category, it seems critical to have a
> rich variety of patterns at varying levels of complexity... so that the
> patterns at complexity level L are largely approximable as compositions of
> patterns at complexity less than L.  This way a mind can incrementally build
> up its self-model via recognizing slightly complex self-related patterns,
> then acting based on these patterns, then recognizing somewhat more complex
> self-related patterns involving its recent actions, and so forth.
>

Definitely.

  It seems that a human body's sensors and actuators are suited to create
> and recognize patterns of the above sort whereas the sensors and actuators
> of a
>
> laptop w/o network cables or odd peripherals are not...
>

Agree.



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Re: [agi] A NewMetaphor for Intelligence - the Computer/Organiser

[Valentina Poletti]

Programming definitely feels like an art to me - I get the same feelings as
when I am painting. I always wondered why.

On the phylosophical side in general technology is the ability of humans to
adapt the environment to themselves instead of the opposite - adapting to
the environment. The environment acts on us and we act on it - we absorb
information from it and we change it while it changes us.

When we want to step further and create an AGI I think we want to
externalize the very ability to create technology - we want the environment
to start adapting to us by itself, spontaneously by gaining our goals.

Vale



On 9/4/08, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Will:You can't create a program out of thin air. So you have to have some
> sort of program to start with
>
> Not out of thin air.Out of a general instruction and desire[s]/emotion[s].
> "Write me a program that will contradict every statement made to it." "Write
> me a single program that will allow me to write video/multimedia
> articles/journalism fast and simply." That's what you actually DO. You start
> with v. general briefs rather than any detailed list of instructions, and
> fill them  in as you go along, in an ad hoc, improvisational way -
> manifestly *creating* rather than *following* organized structures of
> behaviour in an initially disorganized way.
>
> Do you honestly think that you write programs in a programmed way? That
> it's not an *art* pace Matt, full of hesitation, halts, meandering, twists
> and turns, dead ends, detours etc?  If "you have to have some sort of
> program to start with", how come there is no sign  of that being true, in
> the creative process of programmers actually writing programs?
>
> Do you think that there's a program for improvising on a piano [or other
> form of keyboard]?  That's what AGI's are supposed to do - improvise. So
> create one that can. Like you. And every other living creature.
>
>
>



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Re: [agi] What Time Is It? No. What clock is it?

[Valentina Poletti]

Great articles!

On 9/4/08, Brad Paulsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hey gang...
>
> It's Likely That Times Are Changing
>
> http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/35992/title/It%E2%80%99s_Likely_That_Times_Are_Changing
> A century ago, mathematician Hermann Minkowski famously merged space with
> time, establishing a new foundation for physics;  today physicists are
> rethinking how the two should fit together.
>
> A PDF of a paper presented in March of this year, and upon which the
> article is based, can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.4452.  It's a
> free download.  Lots of equations, graphs, oh my!
>
> Cheers,
> Brad
>



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Re: [agi] draft for comment

[Valentina Poletti]

I agree with Pei in that a robot's experience is not necessarily more real
than that of a, say, web-embedded agent - if anything it is closer to the *
human* experience of the world. But who knows how limited our own sensory
experience is anyhow. Perhaps a better intelligence would comprehend the
world better through a different emboyment.

However, could you guys be more specific regarding the statistical
differences of different types of data? What kind of differences are you
talking about specifically (mathematically)? And what about the differences
at the various levels of the dual-hierarchy? Has any of your work or
research suggested this hypothesis, if so which?



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Re: [agi] What is Friendly AI?

[Valentina Poletti]

On 8/31/08, Steve Richfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


>  "Protective" mechanisms to restrict their thinking and action will only
> make things WORSE.
>


Vlad, this was my point in the control e-mail, I didn't express it quite as
clearly, partly because coming from a different background I use a slightly
different language.

Also, Steve made another good point here: loads of people at any moment do
whatever they can to block the advancement and progress of human beings as
it is now. How will *those* people react to a progress as advanced as AGI?
That's why I keep stressing the social factor in intelligence as very
important part to consider.



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Re: AGI goals (was Re: Information theoretic approaches to AGI (was Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment))

[Valentina Poletti]

That sounds like a useful purpose. Yeh, I don't believe in fast and quick
methods either.. but also humans tend to overestimate their own
capabilities, so it will probably take more time than predicted.

On 9/3/08, William Pearson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> 2008/8/28 Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > Got ya, thanks for the clarification. That brings up another question.
> Why
> > do we want to make an AGI?
> >
> >
>
> To understand ourselves as intelligent agents better? It might enable
> us to have decent education policy, rehabilitation of criminals.
>
> Even if we don't make human like AGIs the principles should help us
> understand ourselves, just as optics of the lens helped us understand
> the eye and aerodynamics of wings helps us understand bird flight.
>
> It could also gives us more leverage, more brain power on the planet
> to help solve the planets problems.
>
> This is all predicated on the idea that fast take off is pretty much
> impossible. It is possible then all bets are off.
>
> Will
>
>
> ---
> agi
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-- 
A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde

Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] draft for comment.. P.S.

[Valentina Poletti]

That's if you aim at getting an AGI that is intelligent in the real world. I
think some people on this list (incl Ben perhaps) might argue that for now -
for safety purposes but also due to costs - it might be better to build an
AGI that is intelligent in a simulated environment.

Ppl like Ben argue that the concept/engineering aspect of intelligence
is *independent
of the type of environment*. That is, given you understand how to make it in
a virtual environment you can then tarnspose that concept into a real
environment more safely.

Some other ppl on the other hand believe intelligence is a property of
humans only. So you have to simulate every detail about humans to get that
intelligence. I'd say that among the two approaches the first one (Ben's) is
safer and more realistic.

I am more concerned with the physics aspect of the whole issue I guess.



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Re: AGI goals (was Re: Information theoretic approaches to AGI (was Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment))

[Valentina Poletti]

So it's about money then.. now THAT makes me feel less worried!! :)

That explains a lot though.

On 8/28/08, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Got ya, thanks for the clarification. That brings up another question.
> Why do we want to make an AGI?
>
> I'm glad somebody is finally asking the right question, instead of skipping
> over the specification to the design phase. It would avoid a lot of
> philosophical discussions that result from people having different ideas of
> what AGI should do.
>
> AGI could replace all human labor, worth about US $2 to $5 quadrillion over
> the next 30 years. We should expect the cost to be of this magnitude, given
> that having it sooner is better than waiting.
>
> I think AGI will be immensely complex, on the order of 10^18 bits,
> decentralized, competitive, with distributed ownership, like today's
> internet but smarter. It will converse with you fluently but know too much
> to pass the Turing test. We will be totally dependent on it.
>
> -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

Define crazy, and I'll define control :)

---
This is crazy. What do you mean by breaking the laws of information
theory? Superintelligence is a completely lawful phenomenon, that can
exist entirely within the laws of physics as we know them and
bootrapped by technology as we know it. It might discover some
surprising things, like a way to compute more efficiently than we
currently think physics allows, but that would be extra and certainly
that won't do impossible-by-definition things like breaking
mathematics.



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Re: Information theoretic approaches to AGI (was Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment)

[Valentina Poletti]

Lol..it's not that impossible actually.


On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 6:32 PM, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:

>  Valentina:In other words I'm looking for a way to mathematically define
> how the AGI will mathematically define its goals.
> Holy Non-Existent Grail? Has  any new branch of logic or mathematics ever
> been logically or mathematically (axiomatically) derivable from any old
> one?  e.g. topology,  Riemannian geometry, complexity theory, fractals,
> free-form deformation  etc etc
>  --
>   *agi* | Archives 
>  | 
> ModifyYour Subscription
> 
>



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

All these points you made are good points, and I agree with you. However,
what I was trying to say - and I realized I did not express myself too well,
is that, from what I understand I see a paradox in what Eliezer is trying to
do. Assuming that we agree on the definition of AGI - a being far more
intelligent than human beings, and we agree on the definition of
intelligence - ability to achieve goals. He would like to build an AGI, but
he would also like to ensure human safety. Although I don't think this will
be a problem for limited forms of AI, this does imply that some control is
necessarily given to its paramenters, specifically to its goal system. We
*are* controlled in that sense, contrary to what you say, by our genetic
code. That is why you will never voluntarily place your hand in the fire, as
long as your pain scheme is genetically embedded correctly. As I mentioned,
exceptions to this control scheme are often imprisoned, sometimes killed -
in order not to endanger the human species. However, just because genetic
limitations are not enforced visibly, that does not exclude them from being
a kind of control on our behavior and actions. Genetic limitations on their
part are 'controlled' by the scope of our species, that to evolve and to
preserve itself. And that in turn is controlled by laws of thermodynamics.
Now the problem is, we often overestimate the amount of control we have on
our environemnt, and *that* is a human bias, embedded in us and necessary
for our success.

If you can break the laws of thermodynamics and information theory (which I
assume is what Eliezer is trying to do), then yes, perhaps you can create a
real AGI that will not try to preserve itself or to ameliorate, and
therefore its only goals will be those of preserving and ameliorating the
human species. But until we can do that, to me, is an illusion.

Let me know if I missed something or am misunderstanding anything.


On 8/25/08, Vladimir Nesov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 6:23 PM, Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> >
> > On 8/25/08, Vladimir Nesov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >> Why would anyone suggest creating a disaster, as you pose the question?
> >>
> >
> > Also agree. As far as you know, has anyone, including Eliezer, suggested
> any
> > method or approach (as theoretical or complicated as it may be) to solve
> > this problem? I'm asking this because the Singularity has confidence in
> > creating a self-improving AGI in the next few decades, and, assuming they
> > have no intention to create the above mentioned disaster.. I figure
> someone
> > must have figured some way to approach this problem.
>
> I see no realistic alternative (as in with high probability of
> occurring in actual future) to creating a Friendly AI. If we don't, we
> are likely doomed one way or another, most thoroughly through
> Unfriendly AI. As I mentioned, one way to see Friendly AI is as a
> second chance substrate, which is a first thing to do to ensure any
> kind of safety from fatal or just vanilla bad mistakes in the future.
> Of course, establishing a dynamics that know a mistake and when to
> recover or prevent or guide is a tricky part.
>
> --
> Vladimir Nesov
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/
>
>
> ---
> agi
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Re: AGI goals (was Re: Information theoretic approaches to AGI (was Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment))

[Valentina Poletti]

Got ya, thanks for the clarification. That brings up another question. Why
do we want to make an AGI?



On 8/27/08, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>  An AGI will not design its goals. It is up to humans to define the goals
> of an AGI, so that it will do what we want it to do.
>
> Unfortunately, this is a problem. We may or may not be successful in
> programming the goals of AGI to satisfy human goals. If we are not
> successful, then AGI will be useless at best and dangerous at worst. If we
> are successful, then we are doomed because human goals evolved in a
> primitive environment to maximize reproductive success and not in an
> environment where advanced technology can give us whatever we want. AGI will
> allow us to connect our brains to simulated worlds with magic genies, or
> worse, allow us to directly reprogram our brains to alter our memories,
> goals, and thought processes. All rational goal-seeking agents must have a
> mental state of maximum utility where any thought or perception would be
> unpleasant because it would result in a different state.
>
> -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

Vlad, Terren and all,

by reading your interesting discussion, this saying popped in my mind..
admittedly it has little to do with AGI but you might get the point anyhow:

An old lady used to walk down a street everyday, and on a tree by that
street a bird sang beautifully, the sound made her happy and cheerful and
she was very thankful for that. One day she decided to catch the bird and
place it into a cage, so she could always have it singing for her.
Unfortunately for her, the bird got sad in the cage and stopped singing...
thus taking away her cheer as well.

Well, the story has a different purpose, but one can see a moral that
connects to this argument. Control is an illusion. It takes away the very
nature of what we are trying to control.

My point is that by following Eliezer's approach we might never get an AGI.
Intelligence, as I defined, is the ability to reach goals and those goals
(as Terren pinted out) must somehow have to do with self-preservation if the
system itself is not at equilibrium.
Not long ago, I was implementing the model for a bio-physics research in New
York based on non-linear systems far from equilibrium and this became pretty
evident to me. If any system is kept far from equilibrium, it has the
tendency to form self-preserving entities, given enough time.

I also have a nice definition of friendliness: firstly note that we have
goals both as individuals and as a species (these goals are inherent in the
species and come from self-preservation -see above). The goals of the
individuals and species must somehow match, i.e. not be in significant
conflict, least the individual be considered a criminal, harmful. By
friendliness is meant creating an AGI which will follow the goals of the
human species rather than its own goals.

Valentina



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Re: Information theoretic approaches to AGI (was Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment)

[Valentina Poletti]

Thanks very much for the info. I found those articles very interesting.
Actually though this is not quite what I had in mind with the term
information-theoretic approach. I wasn't very specific, my bad. What I am
looking for is a a theory behind the actual R itself. These approaches
(correnct me if I'm wrong) give an r-function for granted and work from
that. In real life that is not the case though. What I'm looking for is how
the AGI will create that function. Because the AGI is created by humans,
some sort of direction will be given by the humans creating them. What kind
of direction, in mathematical terms, is my question. In other words I'm
looking for a way to mathematically define how the AGI will mathematically
define its goals.

Valentina


On 8/23/08, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I was wondering why no-one had brought up the information-theoretic
> aspect of this yet.
>
> It has been studied. For example, Hutter proved that the optimal strategy
> of a rational goal seeking agent in an unknown computable environment is
> AIXI: to guess that the environment is simulated by the shortest program
> consistent with observation so far [1]. Legg and Hutter also propose as a
> measure of universal intelligence the expected reward over a Solomonoff
> distribution of environments [2].
>
> These have profound impacts on AGI design. First, AIXI is (provably) not
> computable, which means there is no easy shortcut to AGI. Second, universal
> intelligence is not computable because it requires testing in an infinite
> number of environments. Since there is no other well accepted test of
> intelligence above human level, it casts doubt on the main premise of the
> singularity: that if humans can create agents with greater than human
> intelligence, then so can they.
>
> Prediction is central to intelligence, as I argue in [3]. Legg proved in
> [4] that there is no elegant theory of prediction. Predicting all
> environments up to a given level of Kolmogorov complexity requires a
> predictor with at least the same level of complexity. Furthermore, above a
> small level of complexity, such predictors cannot be proven because of Godel
> incompleteness. Prediction must therefore be an experimental science.
>
> There is currently no software or mathematical model of non-evolutionary
> recursive self improvement, even for very restricted or simple definitions
> of intelligence. Without a model you don't have friendly AI; you have
> accelerated evolution with AIs competing for resources.
>
> References
>
> 1. Hutter, Marcus (2003), "A Gentle Introduction to The Universal
> Algorithmic Agent {AIXI}",
> in Artificial General Intelligence, B. Goertzel and C. Pennachin eds.,
> Springer. http://www.idsia.ch/~marcus/ai/aixigentle.htm
>
> 2. Legg, Shane, and Marcus Hutter (2006),
> A Formal Measure of Machine Intelligence, Proc. Annual machine
> learning conference of Belgium and The Netherlands (Benelearn-2006).
> Ghent, 2006.  http://www.vetta.org/documents/ui_benelearn.pdf
>
> 3. http://cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/compression/rationale.html
>
> 4. Legg, Shane, (2006), Is There an Elegant Universal Theory of
> Prediction?,
> Technical Report IDSIA-12-06, IDSIA / USI-SUPSI,
> Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Galleria 2, 6928 Manno,
> Switzerland.
> http://www.vetta.org/documents/IDSIA-12-06-1.pdf
>
> -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> ---
> agi
> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
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-- 
A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde

Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

On 8/25/08, Vladimir Nesov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > In other words, Vladimir, you are suggesting that an AGI must be at some
> > level controlled from humans, therefore not 'fully-embodied' in order to
> > prevent non-friendly AGI as the outcome.
>
> Controlled in Friendliness sense of the word. (I still have no idea
> what "embodied" refers to, now that you, me and Terren used it in
> different senses, and I recall reading a paper about 6 different
> meanings of this word in academic literature, none of them very
> useful).


Agree

> Therefore humans must somehow be able to control its goals, correct?
> >
> > Now, what if controlling those goals would entail not being able to
> create
> > an AGI, would you suggest we should not create one, in order to avoid the
> > disastrous consequences you mentioned?
> >
>
> Why would anyone suggest creating a disaster, as you pose the question


Also agree. As far as you know, has anyone, including Eliezer, suggested any
method or approach (as theoretical or complicated as it may be) to solve
this problem? I'm asking this because the Singularity has confidence in
creating a self-improving AGI in the next few decades, and, assuming they
have no intention to create the above mentioned disaster.. I figure someone
must have figured some way to approach this problem.



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

In other words, Vladimir, you are suggesting that an AGI must be at some
level controlled from humans, therefore not 'fully-embodied' in order to
prevent non-friendly AGI as the outcome.

Therefore humans must somehow be able to control its goals, correct?

Now, what if controlling those goals would entail not being able to create
an AGI, would you suggest we should not create one, in order to avoid the
disastrous consequences you mentioned?

Valentina



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Re: [agi] Re: I Made a Mistake

[Valentina Poletti]

Chill down Jim, he took it back.

On 8/24/08, Jim Bromer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Intolerance of another person's ideas through intimidation or ridicule
> is intellectual repression.  You won't elevate a discussion by
> promoting a program anti-intellectual repression.  Intolerance of a
> person for his religious beliefs is a form of intellectual
> intolerance



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

Ben,

Being one of those big-headed children myself.. I have just a peculiar
comment. You probably know this but human intelligence is not limited to the
size of the human skull. That is why communication and social skills are
such important keys to intelligence. An individual by himself can do very
little in society or in this world. Even the most brilliant people wouldn't
have achieved what they have achieved without great teachers, great
disciples, followers and loved ones. Groups of people can achieve great
things. That is why talking about intelligence in terms of a single human
brain makes little sense to me.

Valentina


>
> This is one of those misleading half-truths...
>
> Evolution sometimes winds up solving optimization problems effectively, but
> it solves each one given constraints that are posed by its prior solutions
> to other problems ...
>
> For instance, it seems one of the reasons we're not smarter than we are is
> that evolution couldn't figure out how to make our heads bigger without
> having too many of us get stuck coming out the vaginal canal during birth.
> Heads got bigger, hips got wider ... up to a point ... but then the process
> stopped so we're the dipshits that we are.  Evolution was solving an
> optimization problem (balancing maximization of intelligence and
> minimization of infant and mother mortality during birth) but within a
> context set up by its previous choices ... it's not as though it achieved
> the maximum possible intelligence for any humanoid, let alone for any being.
>
> Similarly, it's hard for me to believe that human teeth are optimal in any
> strong sense.  No, no, no.  They may have resulted as the solution to some
> optimization problem based on the materials and energy supply and food
> supply at hand at some period of evolutionary history ... but I refused to
> believe that in any useful sense they are an ideal chewing implement, or
> that they embody some amazingly wise evolutionary insight into the nature of
> chewing.
>
> Is the clitoris optimal?  There is a huge and silly literature on this, but
> (as much of the literature agrees) it seems obvious that it's not.
>
> The human immune system is an intelligent pattern recognition system, but
> if it were a little cleverer, we wouldn't need vaccines and we wouldn't have
> AIDS...
>
> We don't understand every part of the human brain/body, but those parts we
> do understand do NOT convey the message that you suggest.  They reflect a
> reality that the human brain/body is a mess combining loads of elegant
> solutions with loads of semi-random hacks.   Not surprisingly, this is also
> what we see in the problem-solutions produced by evolutionary algorithms in
> computer science simulations.
>
> -- Ben G
>
>
>  
>



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

 Jim,

I was wondering why no-one had brought up the information-theoretic aspect
of this yet. Are you familiar at all with the mathematics behind such a
description of AGI? I think it is key so I'm glad someone else is studying
that as well.



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

Thanks Vlad, I read all that stuff plus other Eliezer papers. They don't
answer my question: I am asking what is the use of a non-embodied AGI, given
it would necessarily have a different goal system from that of humans, I'm
not asking how to make any AGI friendly - that is extremely difficult.


On 8/21/08, Vladimir Nesov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > Sorry if I'm commenting a little late to this: just read the thread. Here
> is
> > a question. I assume we all agree that intelligence can be defined as the
> > ability to achieve goals. My question concerns the establishment of those
> > goals. As human beings we move in a world of limitations (life span,
> ethical
> > laws, etc.) and have inherent goals (pleasure vs pain) given by
> evolution.
> > An AGI in a different embodyment might not have any of that, just a pure
> > meta system of obtaining goals, which I assume, we partly give the AGI
> and
> > partly it establishes. Now, as I understand, the point of Singularity is
> > that of building an AGI more intelligent than humans so it could solve
> > problems for us that we cannot solve. That entails that the goal system
> of
> > the AGI and ours must be interconnected somehow. I find it difficult
> > to understand how that can be achieved with an AGI with a different type
> of
> > embodyment. I.e. planes are great in achieving flights, but are quite
> > useless to birds as their goal system is quite different. Can anyone
> > clarify?
> >
>
> This is the question of Friendly AI: how to construct AGI that are
> good to have around, that are a right thing to launch Singularity
> with, what do we mean by goals, what do we want AGI to do and how to
> communicate this in implementation of AGI. Read CFAI (
> http://www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI/index.html ) and the last arc of
> Eliezer's posts on Overcoming Bias to understand what the problem is
> about. This is a tricky question, not in the least because everyone
> seems to have a deep-down intuitive confidence that they understand
> what the problem is and how to solve it, out of hand, without
> seriously thinking about it. It takes much reading to even get what
> the question is and why it won't be answered "along the way", as AGI
> itself gets understood better, or by piling lots of shallow rules,
> hoping that AGI will construct what we want from these rules by the
> magical power of its superior intelligence.
>
> For example, "inherent goals (pleasure vs pain) given by evolution"
> doesn't even begin cut it, leading the investigation in the wrong
> direction. Hedonistic goal is answered by the universe filled with
> doped humans, and it's certainly not what is right, no more than a
> universe filled with paperclips.
>
> --
> Vladimir Nesov
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/
>
>
> ---
> agi
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-- 
A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde

Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] Question, career related

[Valentina Poletti]

Thanks Rui

On 8/21/08, Rui Costa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Here: http://delicious.com/h0pe/phds
> You can find a list of Doctoral programs related with computational
> neurosciences, cognitive sciences and artificial (general) intelligence that
> I have been saving since some time ago.
>
> Hope that you can find this useful.
>



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[agi] Question, career related

[Valentina Poletti]

Dear AGIers,

I am looking for a research opportunity in AGI or related neurophysiology. I
won prizes in maths, physics, computer science and general science when I
was younger and have a keen interest in those fields. I'm a pretty good
programmer, and have taught myself neurophysiology and some cognitive
science. I have an inclination towards math and logic. I was wondering if
anyone knows of any open such positions, or could give me advice, references
to whom I may speak.

Thanks.



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Re: [agi] The Necessity of Embodiment

[Valentina Poletti]

Sorry if I'm commenting a little late to this: just read the thread. Here is
a question. I assume we all agree that intelligence can be defined as the
ability to achieve goals. My question concerns the establishment of those
goals. As human beings we move in a world of limitations (life span, ethical
laws, etc.) and have inherent goals (pleasure vs pain) given by evolution.
An AGI in a different embodyment might not have any of that, just a pure
meta system of obtaining goals, which I assume, we partly give the AGI and
partly it establishes. Now, as I understand, the point of Singularity is
that of building an AGI more intelligent than humans so it could solve
problems for us that we cannot solve. That entails that the goal system of
the AGI and ours must be interconnected somehow. I find it difficult
to understand how that can be achieved with an AGI with a different type of
embodyment. I.e. planes are great in achieving flights, but are quite
useless to birds as their goal system is quite different. Can anyone
clarify?



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Re: [agi] Groundless reasoning --> Chinese Room

[Valentina Poletti]

On 8/8/08, Mark Waser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>  >> The person believes his decision are now guided by free will, but
> truly they are still guided by the book: if the book gives him the wrong
> meaning of a word, he will make a mistake when answering a Chinese speaker
>
> The translations are guided by the book but his answers certainly are not.
> He can make a mistranslation but that is a mechanical/non-understanding act
> performed on the original act of deciding upon his answer.
>

The person can make mistakes in the first chinese room as well, so that
doesn't change my point.


> >> The main difference in this second context is that the contents of the
> book were transferred to the brain of the person
>
> No.  The main difference is that the person can choose what to answer (as
> opposed to the Chinese Room where responses are dictated by the input and no
> choice is involved).
>

I was assuming that the person has no reason to give the wrong answer
spontaneously, just as in the first room, sorry if I didn't make that clear.



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Re: [agi] How We Look At Faces

[Valentina Poletti]

Don't you think it might be more closely related to education and culture,
rather than morphologic differences? Especially when reading the rest of the
article - the part on how asians focus on background rather than subjects as
westerners, or how they tend to analyze things relative to context rather
than in absolute terms, to me reflects very much the education of such
cultures (more environment and socially centered) compared to the education
of westerners (more individual-centered).

By the way, I'm back from a break - will comment on posts I missed in the
next few days.



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Re: [agi] Groundless reasoning --> Chinese Room

[Valentina Poletti]

Let me ask about a special case of this argument.

Suppose now the book that the guy in the room holds is a chinese-teaching
book for english speakers. The guy can read it for as long as he wishes, and
can consult it in order to give the answers to the chinese speakers
interacting with him.

In this situation, although the setting has not changed much physically
speaking, the guy can be said to use his free will rather than a controlled
approach to answer questions. But is that true? The amount of information
exchanged is the same. The energy used is the same. The person believes his
decision are now guided by free will, but truly they are still guided by the
book: if the book gives him the wrong meaning of a word, he will make a
mistake when answering a chinese speaker. So his free will is just an
illusion.

The main difference in this second context is that the contents of the book
were transferred to the brain of the person, and these contents were
compressed (rather than consulting each case for what to do, he has been
taught general rules on what to do). The person has acquired understanding
of chinese from the book? No, he has acquired *information* from the book.
Information alone is not enough for understanding to exist. There must be
energy processing it.

By this definition a machine *can* understand.



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Re: [agi] Groundless (AND fuzzy) reasoning - in one

[Valentina Poletti]

That goes back to my previous point on the amount and type of information
our brain is able to extract from a visual input. It would be truly
difficult I say, even using advanced types of neural nets, to give a set of
examples of chairs, such as the ones Mike linked to, and let the machine
recognize any subsequent object as chiar, given *only* the visual stimuli.

That's why I think it's amazing what kind of info we extract from visual
input, in fact it is anything but visual. Suppose for example that you
wanted to take pictures of the concept 'force'. When we see a force we can
recognize one, and the concept 'force' is very clearly defined.. i.e.
something is either a force or is not, there is no fuzzyiness in the
concept. But teaching a machine to recognize it visually.. well that's a
different story.

A practical example: before I learned rock-climbing I saw not only rocks,
but the space around me in a different way. Now just by looking at a room or
space I see all sorts of hooks, places to hang on that I would never have
thought of before.. I learned to 'read' the image differently, that is, to
extract different types of information from before.

In the same manner, my mother who is a Sommelier, by smelling wine can
extract all sorts of information about its provenience, the way it was made,
the kind of ingredients, that I could never think of (thus now I am shifting
from visual input to odor input). To me it just smells like wine :)

My point is that our brain *combines* visual or other stimuli with a bank of
*non-*visual data in order to extract relevant information. That's why
talking about AGI from a purely visual perspective (or purely verbal) takes
it out of context from the way we experience the world.

But you could prove me wrong by building a machine that using *only* visual
input can recognize forces :)



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Re: [agi] Groundless reasoning --> Chinese Room

[Valentina Poletti]

yep.. isn't it amazing how long a thread is becoming based on an experiment
that has no significance?

On 8/6/08, Steve Richfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Back to reason,
>
> This entire thread is yet another example that once you accept a bad
> assumption, you can then prove ANY absurd proposition. I see no reason to
> believe that a Chinese Room is possible, and therefore I have no problem
> rejecting all arguments regarding the absurd conclusions that could be
> reached regarding such an apparently impossible room. The absurdity of the
> arguments is just further proof of the impossibility of the room.
>
> Steve Richfield
>
>  --
>   *agi* | Archives 
>  | 
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>



-- 
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Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] Groundless reasoning --> Chinese Room

[Valentina Poletti]

Terren: Substituting an actual human invalidates the experiment, because
then you are bringing something in that can actually do semantics. The point
of the argument is to show how merely manipulating symbols (i.e. the
syntactical domain) is not a demonstration of understanding, no matter what
the global result of the manipulation is (e.g., a chess move).
Got ya! We're on the same line then.



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Re: [agi] Groundless reasoning --> Chinese Room

[Valentina Poletti]

by translator i meant human translator btw. what this experiment does
suggest is that linguistic abilities require energy (the book alone would do
nothing). and that they are independent of humanness (the machine could do
it), whether they involve 'understanding' or not.

On 8/6/08, Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Ok, I really don't see how it proves that then. In my view, the book could
> be replaced with a chinese-english translator and the same exact outcome
> will be given. Both are using their static knowledge for this process, not
> experience.
>
> On 8/6/08, Terren Suydam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi Valentina,
>>
>> I think the distinction you draw between the two kinds of understanding is
>> illusory. Mutual human experience is also an emergent phenomenon. Anyway,
>> that's not the point of the Chinese Room argument, which doesn't say that a
>> computer understands symbols in a different way than humans, it says that a
>> computer has no understanding, period.
>>
>> Terren
>>
>> --- On *Wed, 8/6/08, Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>* wrote:
>>
>>  My view is that the problem with the Chinese Room argument is precisely
>> the manner in which it uses the word 'understanding'. It is implied that in
>> this context this word refers to mutual human experience. Understanding has
>> another meaning, namely the emergent process some of you described, which
>> can happen in a computer in a different way from the way it happens in a
>> human being. In fact notice that the experiment says that the computer will
>> not understand chinese the way humans do. Therefore it implies the first
>> meaning, not the second.
>>
>> Regarding grounding, I think that any intelligence has to collect data
>> from somewhere in order to lear. Where it collects it from will determine
>> the type of intelligence it is. Collecting stories is still a way of
>> collecting information, but such an intelligence will never be able to move
>> in the real world, as it has no clue regarding it. On the other hand an
>> intelligence who learns by moving in the real world, yet has never read
>> anything, will gather no information from a book.
>>  --
>>   *agi* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now>
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>
>
>
> --
> A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde
>
> Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.
>
> For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
> wrong. - H.L. Mencken




-- 
A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde

Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] Groundless reasoning --> Chinese Room

[Valentina Poletti]

Ok, I really don't see how it proves that then. In my view, the book could
be replaced with a chinese-english translator and the same exact outcome
will be given. Both are using their static knowledge for this process, not
experience.

On 8/6/08, Terren Suydam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Valentina,
>
> I think the distinction you draw between the two kinds of understanding is
> illusory. Mutual human experience is also an emergent phenomenon. Anyway,
> that's not the point of the Chinese Room argument, which doesn't say that a
> computer understands symbols in a different way than humans, it says that a
> computer has no understanding, period.
>
> Terren
>
> --- On *Wed, 8/6/08, Valentina Poletti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>* wrote:
>
>  My view is that the problem with the Chinese Room argument is precisely
> the manner in which it uses the word 'understanding'. It is implied that in
> this context this word refers to mutual human experience. Understanding has
> another meaning, namely the emergent process some of you described, which
> can happen in a computer in a different way from the way it happens in a
> human being. In fact notice that the experiment says that the computer will
> not understand chinese the way humans do. Therefore it implies the first
> meaning, not the second.
>
> Regarding grounding, I think that any intelligence has to collect data from
> somewhere in order to lear. Where it collects it from will determine the
> type of intelligence it is. Collecting stories is still a way of collecting
> information, but such an intelligence will never be able to move in the real
> world, as it has no clue regarding it. On the other hand an intelligence who
> learns by moving in the real world, yet has never read anything, will gather
> no information from a book.
>  --
>   *agi* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now>
> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/> | 
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-- 
A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde

Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] Groundless reasoning --> Chinese Room

[Valentina Poletti]

Then again, I was just thinking.. wouldn't it be wonderful if instead of
learning everything from scratch since the day we are born, we were born
with all the knowledge all human beings had acquired until that moment? If
somehow that was inplanted in our DNA? Of course that is not feasable.. but
suppose that AGI could somehow do that.. be born with some sort of
encyclopedia inplanted into them, plus imagine they also had several more
interaction/communication channels such as radiowaves, ultrasounds, etc.
enabling them to learn much faster and using far more information from the
environment..

ok I am letting my imagination run too far right now :)



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Re: [agi] I didn't see the KILLTHREAD

[Valentina Poletti]

Yeh, don't bother writing to him, he stopped reading the AGI posts anyways
:(

On 8/5/08, David Clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I apologize for breaking the killthread on my last 2 posts.
>
> Since I have never seen one before on the AGI list, I didn't skim my emails
> before commenting.
>
> David Clark
>
>
>
>
> ---
> agi
> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
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Re: [agi] Groundless reasoning --> Chinese Room

[Valentina Poletti]

My view is that the problem with the Chinese Room argument is precisely the
manner in which it uses the word 'understanding'. It is implied that in this
context this word refers to mutual human experience. Understanding has
another meaning, namely the emergent process some of you described, which
can happen in a computer in a different way from the way it happens in a
human being. In fact notice that the experiment says that the computer will
not understand chinese the way humans do. Therefore it implies the first
meaning, not the second.

Regarding grounding, I think that any intelligence has to collect data from
somewhere in order to lear. Where it collects it from will determine the
type of intelligence it is. Collecting stories is still a way of collecting
information, but such an intelligence will never be able to move in the real
world, as it has no clue regarding it. On the other hand an intelligence who
learns by moving in the real world, yet has never read anything, will gather
no information from a book.



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Re: [agi] Any further comments from lurkers??? [WAS do we need a stronger "politeness code" on this list?]

[Valentina Poletti]

AGI list,

What I see in most of these e-mail list discussions is people with very
diversified backgrounds, cultures, ideas, failing to understand each other.
What people should remember is that e-mail is not even close to a complete
communication medium. By its definition, you are going to miss out a lot of
information the other person wants to convey. So when something seems
offensive or unclear to you, ask for clarification, rather than starting a
bullfight. Really, you are wasting your time, but also the time of the
people who have to go through your e-mails in order to get to the useful
points. I know it is much easier to call someone names rather than trying to
at least have an idea of what they are saying, but really, I don't need to
sign onto an AGI list to see those sorts of things.

Valentina



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Re: [agi] Search vs "Recall"

[Valentina Poletti]

That's a really interesting point you just made.

Movement works in an inherently different way from concept elaboration, or
recalling.

Most movements, particularly those part of the sympathic system do not even
reach our conscious level of our brain - and are not elaborated by higher
functions. If they are - as when you try to center a basket with a ball, you
will be aware of that - therefore it seems that they are done automatically.
That is partly true, in the sense that the lower parts of the brain
elaborate them.

As for the figurative recall it's interesting that you suggested the brain
works that way, because most of our stimuli are elaborated in terms of
images, and so it is very tempting to think that the brain works on images.
In a way it is true I think. But I prefer to call them maps.. in that sets
of neurons.. maps of neurons.. interpret what we 'see'. There are tons of
different types of stimuli and concepts, and their difference is not as
obvious as one would think.. that is why there are ppl who 'see' sounds or
'hear' images... particularly deaf and blind ppl. Also keep in mind that of
the incredible amount of info that reaches us through our senses, we only
elaborate a small percentage. I bet that if you close your eyes now, you
won't be able to repeat word by word, this email. But you can surely repeat
its 'meaning' because that is what the brain extracts. Same goes for words,
pictures, sounds..

Have I bored anyone enough yet? ;-)




> It strikes me that the prime example of this is movement. The brain
> doesn't, I suggest, go through searches in producing movements. When we want
> to play a "backhand" or a "forehand" or "throw a punch" or "kick", we more
> or less immediately recall a rough, holistic figure of that movement,
> (mainly kinaesthetic, partly visual), which is fluidly adaptable to the
> precise physical situation and relevant objects - "along these lines" so to
> speak. We don't search through lists of alternatives. Motor memories are
> important because they are probably, evolutionarily, (no?) about the first
> form of memory.
>
> Who, if anyone, is arguing for anything like this idea of the brain having
> special powers of figurative recall?
> --
>   *agi* | Archives 
>  | 
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-- 
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Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] How do we know we don't know?

[Valentina Poletti]

>
>
> Hi Valentina,
>
> I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but to be on the safe side, did
> you internalize warnings given in e.g. (
> http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/07/detached-lever.html ), ( Drew
> McDermott's "Artificial Intelligence Meets Natural Stupidity" ), (
> http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/artificial-addi.html )? I tried
> to describe the physical origins of this disconnect between the
> shallowness of properties and tags we use to reason about real-world
> objects and exquisite level of detail in objects themselves in (
> http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/rules-of-thumb/ ), (
> http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/flow-of-reality/ ), (
> http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/precise-answers/ ).


yep yep, i got this stuff.

My argument wasn't about word-matching per se, but about the
> high-level characterization of the process of
> reasoning/perception/recall/problem-solving. You can't paint a word
> "Intelligence" in big letters and expect it to start doing intelligent
> things.


i know lol, that's what i was talking about as well.



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Re: [agi] How do we know we don't know?

[Valentina Poletti]

Mike:

 I wrote my last email in a rush. Basically what I was trying to explain is
precisely the basis of what you call creative process in understanding
words. I simplified the whole thing a lot because I did not even consider
the various layers of mappings - mappings of mappings and so on.

What you say is correct, the word art-cop will invoke various ideas, amongst
which art - which in turn will evoke art-exhibit, painting, art-criticism,
and whatever else you want to add. The word cop in analogy will evoke a
series of concepts, and those concepts themselves will evoke more concepts
and so on.

Now obviously if there were no 'measuring' system to how much concepts
are evoked among each other, this process would go no-where. But fortunately
there is such a measuring process and simplifying things a lot, it consists
of excitatory and inhibitory synapses, as well as overall disturbance or
'noise' which after so and so many transitions will make the signal lose its
significance (i.e. become random for practical purposes).

Hope this is not too confusing. I'm not that great at explaining my ideas
with words :)

Jim & Vlad:

that is a difficult question because it depends a lot on your
database. Actually Marko Rodriguez has attempted this in a program that
uses a database of related words from the University of South Florida. This
program is able to understand very simple analogies such as
Which word of the second list best fits in the first list?
bear, cow, dog, tiger: turtle, carp, parrot, lion

Obviously this program is very limited. If you just need to just search
words correspondence, I'd go with Vlad's suggestion. Otherwise there is a
lot to be implemented, in terms of layers, inhibitory vs excitatory
connections, concept from stimuli and so on..What strikes me in AGI is that
so many researchers try to build an AGI with the presupposition that
everything should be built in already, the machine should be able to resolve
tasks from day 1 - just like in AI. That's like expecting a new born baby to
talk about political issues! It's easy to forget that the database we have
in our brains, upon which we make decisions, selections, creations, and so
on.. is incredibly large.. in fact it took a life-time to assembe.



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Re: [agi] How do we know we don't know?

[Valentina Poletti]

This is how I explain it: when we perceive a stimulus, word in this case, it
doesn't reach our brain as a single neuron firing or synapse, but as a set
of already processed neuronal groups or sets of synapses, that each recall
various other memories, concepts and neuronal group. Let me clarify this. In
the example you give, the wod artcop might reach us as a set of stimuli:
art, cop, mediu-sized word, word that begins with a, and so on. All these
connect activate various maps in our memory, and if something substantial is
monitored at some point (going with Richard's theory of the monitor, I don't
have other references of this actually), we form a response.

This is more obvious in the case of sight - where an image is first broken
into various compontents that are separately elaborated: colours, motion,
edges, shapes, etc. - and then further sent to the upper parts of the memory
where they can be associated to higher level concepts.

If any of this is not clear let me know, instead of adding me to your
kill-lists ;-P

Valentina



On 7/31/08, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Vlad:
>
>> I think Hofstadter's exploration of jumbles (
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumble ) covers this ground. You don't
>> just recognize the word, you work on trying to connect it to what you
>> know, and if set of letters didn't correspond to any word, you give
>> up.
>>
>
> There's still more to word recognition though than this. How do we decide
> what is and isn't, may or may not be a word?  A neologism? What may or may
> not be words from:
>
> cogrough
> dirksilt
> thangthing
> artcop
> coggourd
> cowstock
>
> or "fomlepaung" or whatever?
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
> agi
> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
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-- 
A true friend stabs you in the front. - O. Wilde

Einstein once thought he was wrong; then he discovered he was wrong.

For every complex problem, there is an answer which is short, simple and
wrong. - H.L. Mencken



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Re: [agi] How do we know we don't know?

[Valentina Poletti]

lol.. well said richard.
the stimuli simply invokes no signiticant response and thus our brain
concludes that we 'don't know'. that's why it takes no effort to realize it.
agi algorithms should be built in a similar way, rather than searching.


> Isn't this a bit of a no-brainer?  Why would the human brain need to keep
> lists of things it did not know, when it can simply break the word down into
> components, then have mechanisms that watch for the rate at which candidate
> lexical items become activated  when  this mechanism notices that the
> rate of activation is well below the usual threshold, it is a fairly simple
> thing for it to announce that the item is not known.
>
> Keeping lists of "things not known" is wildly, outrageously impossible, for
> any system!  Would we really expect that the word
> "ikrwfheuigjsjboweonwjebgowinwkjbcewijcniwecwoicmuwbpiwjdncwjkdncowk-
> owejwenowuycgxnjwiiweudnpwieudnwheudxiweidhuxehwuixwefgyjsdhxeiowudx-
> hwieuhyxweipudxhnweduiweodiuweydnxiweudhcnhweduweiducyenwhuwiepixuwe-
> dpiuwezpiweudnzpwieumzweuipweiuzmwepoidumw" is represented somewhere as a
> "word that I do not know"? :-)
>
> I note that even in the simplest word-recognition neural nets that I built
> and studied in the 1990s, activation of a nonword proceeded in a very
> different way than activation of a word:  it would have been easy to build
> something to trigger a "this is a nonword" neuron.
>
> Is there some type of AI formalism where nonword recognition would be
> problematic?
>
>
>
> Richard Loosemore
>
>



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Re: [agi] Re: Can We Start P.S.

[Valentina Poletti]

>
>
>
>
> This has been carefully studied and is now believed to be well understood.
> Then resulted in the "invention" of "contrarian investment" strategies,
> about where there are now a number of good books. In a nutshell, by the time
> that an industry-wide "opinion" develops, all of the "smart money" has
> already taken advantage of the opportunity (or lack thereof), so things can
> only go the opposite way.
>

I see what you mean.


>  If you DEEPLY examine the positions by drilling WAY down into the
> collective thought process, you find "flaws" in each sufficient to drive a
> common solution through. I have written longer posts on this in the past. To
> illustrate:
>

True. I guess no-one really bothers to go that deep into the matter because
well.. arguing and fighting wars is the easiest solution in the short term.

 In short, if either side actually respected the religions that they claim,
> then the other side should be able to live therein without problems. The
> problem is a population that attends mosques/synagogues but has never
> actually READ the entirety of their respective religious documents, as I
> have.
>
> Note that we have the same problems here in America, where our
> representatives are only too eager to set our Constitution aside as
> convenient. Christians believe as much or more in their Doctors as they do
> in Jesus, etc.
>

Yep, totally agree.

>
> This has two levels of response:
> 1.  I (and my family) seem to be the only ones working on new systems of
> logic. This field has been nearly dormant for the last half-century, since
> the introduction of Game Theory. A notable exception has been in the field
> of economics, where new methods are being regularly developed, some with
> potential application outside of economics.
> 2.  Perhaps you have read the book Smart Drugs co-authored by my good
> friend (and another past-president of The Smart Life Forum) Stephen Fowkes?
> This book (and Fowkes' research) addresses various pharmacological
> approaches to enhancing brain function. Of course, these drugs only make
> temporary metabolic changes, so I engineered a related approach to make
> similar changes permanent. I was forced into this to cure some medical
> problems that I was having. The result has been nothing short of
> spectacular. Since then, I seem to have an ability to move up another
> meta-level than other people when working in complex domains. Most people
> consider my methods to be astronomically risky, and so no one considers them
> except as a last "parting shot" before giving up on life (as they have known
> it), which was my situation. Having now helped several others through this,
> using successively improving methods, I have learned to control the risks to
> health to a reasonably acceptable level.
>

Wow, so your brain is more efficient than that of a 'normal' person? I
thought that all drugs did was change the state of perception of the person,
not make its functioning more efficient. Would you mind giving me some
insight into this, as I am quite ignorant in the drug subject.



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agi
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Re: [agi] Re: Can We Start P.S.

[Valentina Poletti]

Hey Steve,

thanks for the clarifications!


>  My point was that the operation of most interesting phenomena is NOT
> fully understood, but consists of various parts, many of which ARE
> understood, or are at least easily understandable. Given the typical figure
> 6 shape of most problematical cause-and-effect chains, many MAJOR problems
> can be solved WITHOUT being fully understood, by simply interrupting the
> process at two points, one in the lead-in from the root cause, and one in
> the self-sustaining loop at the end. This usually provides considerable
> choice in designing a cure. Of course this can't cure everything, but it
> WOULD cure ~90% of the illnesses that now kill people, fix most (though
> certainly not all) social and political conflicts, etc.
>

Yep, totally agree. But according to what you state below, there exist some
methods that would produce exact resulsts - given you understand the system
completely. That is what I was arguing against. In many fields there are
problems that are understood completely and yet are still unsolvable. We
know exactly the formula for say, the Lorenz curves. Yet it is impossible to
determine with any certainly a point a million iterations from now. That is
because even a variation at the atomic level would change the result
considerably. And if we observe such variation, we change it. It seems to be
nature's nature that we can never know it with exacness. Unless we are
talking mathematics of course.. but as someone already pointed out on this
list, mathematics has little to do with the real world.


>  As I explained above, many/most complex problems and conflicts can be
> fixed WITHOUT a full understanding of them, so your argument above is really
> irrelevant to my assertion.
>

Yeh.. but i wasn't talking about such problems here. I was talking about
problems you do have a full understanding of. For example see your
statement: Random investment beats nearly all other methods.

Not at all! There is some broadly-applicable logical principles that NEVER
EVER fail, like Reductio ad Absurdum. Some of these are advanced and not
generally known, even to people here on this forum, like Reverse Reductio ad
Absurdum. Some conflicts require this advanced level of understanding for
the participants to participate in a process that leads to a mutually
satisfactory conclusion.

 Why do you assume most people on this forum would not know/understand them?
And how would you relate this to culture anyways?

Yes, and THIS TOO is also one of those advanced concepts. If you ask a
Palestinian about what the problem is in the Middle East, he will say that
it is the Israelis. If you ask an Israeli, he will say that it is the
Palestinians. If you ask a Kanamet (from the Twilight Zone show "To Serve
Man", the title of a cook book), he will say that the problem is that they
are wasting good food. However, Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum methods can
point the way to a solution that satisfies all parties.

Hmm.. I guess I just don't see how. Could you be a lil more specific? :)

>
> In short, you appear to be laboring under the most dangerous assumption of
> all - that man's efforts to improve his lot and address his problems is at
> all logical. It is rarely so, as advanced methods often suggest radically
> different and better approaches. Throwing AGIs into the present social mess
> would be an unmitigated disaster, of the very sorts that you suggest.
>

When you say 'man' do you include yourself as well? ;) I hope not.. I don't
assume that: Yet you seem to assume that the methods you have are better
than anybody else's for any field.



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Re: [agi] The Advance of Neuroscience

[Valentina Poletti]

Could you specify what do you mean by synaptic response curve? If it is what
I think it is it is far from linear, at least from the textbooks I read, so
I am probably not following you.

On 7/9/08, Steve Richfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Mike, et al,
>
> When you look at the actual experiments upon which what we think we know is
> based, the information is SO thin that it is hard to come to any other
> rational conclusion. I could describe some of these, where for example a
> group of people spent a year putting electrodes into every one of the
> neurons in a lobster's stomatogastric ganglion so that they could
> electrically quiet all but two of them. This so that they could plot the
> synaptic response curve between those two cells. Why did it take a year?
> Because the neurons would die before they could make a recording. It took a
> year or trying and failing before blind luck finally worked in their favor.
>
> OK, so what does a synaptic response curve look like in our brain? Is it
> linear like many people presume? NO ONE KNOWS. Everything written on this
> subject is pure speculation.
>
> I see only one possibly viable way through this problem. It will take two
> parallel research efforts:
> 1.  One effort is purely theoretical, where the optimal solutions to
> various processing problems is first exhibited, then the best solutions that
> can be achieved in a cellular architecture are exhibited, then potentially
> identifiable features are documented to guide wet-science efforts to
> confirm/deny these theories.
> 2.  The other effort is a wet science effort armed with a scanning UV
> fluorescence microscope (or something better if something better comes
> along) that is charged with both confirming/denying identifiable details
> predicted by various theories, and with producing physical diagrams of
> brains to guide theoretical efforts.
>
> At present, there is not one dollar of funding for either of these efforts,
> so I expect to stay at the 2 micron point for the foreseeable future.
>
> Steve Richfield
> 
>



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