>One of the major obstacles to real AI is the belief that knowledge of a natural language is necessary for intelligence.
I agree. And it's IMO nearly impossible for AGI to learn/understand NL when its only info source is NL. We get some extra [meta] data from our senses when learning NL (which NL itself wasn't "designed" to cover) and that extra info is often critical for plugging new concepts to our mental-model-of-the-world with all the important (ATM available) links to other concepts. BTW note that the ancient list of 5 senses (reportedly by Aristotle) is pretty obsolete. We just have a lot more than 5 and all of them help us to really understand NL-labeled and NL-not-covered concepts. So, practically, you IMO either need a bunch of (appropriately processed) human like senses (=LOTS of work for developers) OR (if it's [mostly] text I/O based AI) certain degree of formalization (higher than NL) for the input to get the meta data needed for decent understanding. The first alternative IMO requires resources most of us don't have so I go with the second option. Such systems need to learn a lot using some kind of formalized input = too much system-teaching for the dev team and I don't think a typical user would be eager to learn Lojban-like languages (which I see some issues with when it comes to meaning digging anyway) so I think an extra step is needed to really get "the computer and the user to meet" user-acceptable way (not exactly the "halfway"). As some of the above implies, languages get clumsy when describing certain types concepts. That's why in my "wannabe" AGI (which is still more on paper than in a version control system), I'm trying to design a user-AI interface that has a couple of specialized (but easy to use) editors in addition to its language itself.
BTW a fellow coder just asked me "Can I borrow your eyes?". Obviously, NL is a mess. Sure, AGI should be able to learn it but 1) to learn it well, it requires already having a significant & well structured KB and 2) there is a LOT of very important problem solving that does not require being fluent in any NL.
Matt,
>I guess the AI problem is solved, then. I can already communicate with my computer using formal, unambiguous languages. It already does a lot of things better than most humans, like arithmetic, chess, memorizing long lists and recalling them perfectly...
AI is, AGI isn't. You are talking about domain specific systems that are unable to build "mental models" useful for general problem solving.
Sorry I did not have a chance to read all the related posts so far.. I'll definitely get back to it later. This stuff is IMO really important for AGI.
Sincerely,
Jiri Jelinek
On 10/31/06, John Scanlon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
One of the major obstacles to real AI is the belief that knowledge of a natural language is necessary for intelligence. A human-level intelligent system should be expected to have the ability to learn a natural language, but it is not necessary. It is better to start with a formal language, with unambiguous formal syntax, as the primary interface between human beings and AI systems. This type of language could be called a "para-natural formal language." It eliminates all of the syntactical ambiguity that makes competent use of a natural language so difficult to implement in an AI system. Such a language would also be a member of the class "fifth generation computer language."
This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
