Mike,
So you feel that my disagreement with your proposal is "sad?" That's quite
an ego you have there, my friend. You asked for input and you got it. The
fact that you didn't like my input doesn't make me or the effort I spent
composing it "sad." I haven't read all of the replies to your post yet,
but judging by the index listing in my e-mail client, it has already
drained a considerable amount of time and intellectual energy from the
members of this list. You want sad? That's sad.
Nice try at ignoring the substance of what I wrote while continuing to
advance you own views. I did NOT say THINKING about your idea, or any idea
for that matter, was a waste of time. Indeed, the second sentence of my
reply contained the following "...(unless [studying human play is] being
done purely for research purposes). I did think about your idea. I
concluded what it proposes (not the idea itself) is, in fact, a waste of
time for people who want to design and build a working AGI before
mid-century. I'm sure some list members will agree with you. I'm also
sure some will agree with me. But, most will have their own views on this
issue. That's the way it works.
The AGI I (and many others) have in mind will be to human intelligence what
an airplane is to a bird. For many of the same reasons airplanes don't
play like birds do, my AGI won't play (or "create") like humans do. And,
just as the airplane flies BETTER THAN the bird (for human purposes), my
AGI will "create" BETTER THAN any human (for human purposes).
You wrote, "[Play] is generally acknowledged by psychologists to be an
essential dimension of creativity - which is the goal of AGI."
Wrong. ONE of the goals (not THE goal) of AGI is *inspired* by human
creativity. Indeed, I am counting on the "creativity" of the first
generation of AGIs to help humans build (or keep humans away from building)
the second generation of AGIs. But... neither generation has to (and,
IMHO, shouldn't) have "human-style" creativity.
In fact, I suggest we not use the word "creativity" when discussing
AGI-type knowledge synthesis because that is a term that has been applied
solely to human-style intelligence. Perhaps, "idea mining" would be a
better way to describe what I think about when I think about AGI-style
creativity. "Knowledge synthesis" also works for me and has a greater
syllable count. Either phrase fits the mechanism I have in mind for an AGI
that works with MASSIVE quantities of data, using well-studied and
established data mining techniques, to discover important (to humans and,
eventually, AGIs themselves) associations. It would have been impossible
to build this type of idea mining capability into an AI before the mid
1990's (before the Internet "went public"). It's possible now. Indeed,
Google is encouraging it by publishing an open source REST (if memory
serves) API to the Googleverse. No human intelligence would be capable of
doing such data mining without the aid of a computer and, even then, it's
not easy for the human intellect (associations between massive amounts of
data are often, themselves, still quite massive - ask the CIA or the NSA or
Google).
Certainly play is "...fundamental to the human mind-and-body...". My point
was simply that this should have little or no interest to those of us
attempting to build a working, non-human-style AGI. We can discuss it all
we like (however, I don't intend to continue doing so after this reply --
I've stated my case). Such discussion may be worthwhile (if only to show
up its inherent wrongness) but spending any time attempting to design or
build an AGI containing a simulation of human-style play (or creativity) is
not. There are only so many minutes in a day and only so many days in a
life. The human-style ("Turing test") approach to AI has been tried. It
failed (not in every respect, of course, but the Loebner Prizes - the $25K
and $100K prizes - established in 1990 remain unclaimed). I don't intend
to spend one more minute or hour of my life trying to win the Loebner Prize.
The enormous amount of intellectual energy spent (largely wasted), from the
mid 1950's to the end of the 1980's, trying to create a human-like AI is a
true tragedy. But, perhaps, even more tragic is that unquestioningly
holding up Turing's imitation game as the "gold standard" of AI created
what we call in the commercial software industry a "reference problem." To
get new clients to buy your software, you need a good reference from
former/current clients. Anyone who has attempted to get funding for an AGI
project since the mid-1990s will attest that the (unintentional but
nevertheless real) damage caused by Turing and his followers continues to
have a very real, negative effect on the field of AI/AGI. I have done, and
will continue to do, my best to see that this same mistake is not repeated
in this century's quest to build a beneficial (to humanity) AGI.
Unfortunately, we are going to have to establish a "good reference" for AGI
from scratch. Efforts like Ben's OpenCog project are just the ticket,
provided it can deliver an impressive "starter AGI." The sooner, the better.
Finally, you also wrote, "This should be a group where people are not too
frightened to play around with ideas." I agree 100%. That's precisely
what I was doing by replying to your post. But, I guess your grand
restatement of the obvious doesn't apply so much to criticism of YOUR
ideas. Anyone who dares disagree with you is just "sad" and
anti-intellectual to boot. Please. I rely on the generally
higher-than-average IQs of the people who frequent this list to see through
that kind of rhetorical trickery.
Cheers,
Brad
Mike Tintner wrote:
Brad,
That's sad. The suggestion is for a mental exercise, not a full-scale
project. And play is fundamental to the human mind-and-body - it
characterizes our more mental as well as more physical activities -
drawing, designing, scripting, humming and singing scat in the bath,
dreaming/daydreaming & much more. It is generally acknowledged by
psychologists to be an essential dimension of creativity - which is the
goal of AGI. It is also an essential dimension of animal behaviour and
animal evolution. Many of the smartest companies have their play areas.
But I'm not aware of any program or computer design for play - as
distinct from elaborating systematically and methodically or
"genetically" on themes - are you? In which case it would be good to
think about one - it'll open your mind & give you new perspectives.
This should be a group where people are not too frightened to play
around with ideas.
Brad:> Mike Tintner wrote: "...how would you design a play machine - a
machine
that can play around as a child does?"
I wouldn't. IMHO that's just another waste of time and effort (unless
it's being done purely for research purposes). It's a diversion of
intellectual and financial resources that those serious about building
an AGI any time in this century cannot afford. I firmly believe if we
had not set ourselves the goal of developing human-style intelligence
(embodied or not) fifty years ago, we would already have a working,
non-embodied AGI.
Turing was wrong (or at least he was wrongly interpreted). Those who
extended his imitation test to humanoid, embodied AI were even more
wrong. We *do not need embodiment* to be able to build a powerful AGI
that can be of immense utility to humanity while also surpassing human
intelligence in many ways. To be sure, we want that AGI to be
empathetic with human intelligence, but we do not need to make it
equivalent (i.e., "just like us").
I don't want to give the impression that a non-Turing intelligence
will be easy to design and build. It will probably require at least
another twenty years of "two steps forward, one step back" effort.
So, if we are going to develop a non-human-like, non-embodied AGI
within the first quarter of this century, we are going to have to
"just say no" to Turing and start to use human intelligence as an
inspiration, not a destination.
Cheers,
Brad
Mike Tintner wrote:
Just a v. rough, first thought. An essential requirement of an AGI
is surely that it must be able to play - so how would you design a
play machine - a machine that can play around as a child does?
You can rewrite the brief as you choose, but my first thoughts are -
it should be able to play with
a) bricks
b)plasticine
c) handkerchiefs/ shawls
d) toys [whose function it doesn't know]
and
e) draw.
Something that should be soon obvious is that a robot will be vastly
more flexible than a computer, but if you want to do it all on
computer, fine.
How will it play - manipulate things every which way?
What will be the criteria of learning - of having done something
interesting?
How do infants, IOW, play?
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