Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Ben: To publish your ideas in academic journals, you need to ground them in the existing research literature, not in your own personal introspective observations. Big mistake. Think what would have happened if Freud had omitted the 40-odd examples of slips in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (if I've got the right book!) The scientific heavyweights are the people who are heavily grounded. The big difference between Darwin and Wallace is all those examples/research, and not the creative idea. And what I didn't explain in my simple, but I believe important, two-stage theory of creative development is that there's an immense psychological resistance to moving onto the second stage. You have enough psychoanalytical understanding, I think, to realise that the unusual length of your reply to me may possibly be a reflection of that resistance and an inner conflict. The resistance occurs inpart because you have to privilege a normally underderprivileged level of the mind - the level that provides and seeks actual, historical examples of generalisations, as opposed to the normally more privileged level that provides hypothetical, made-up examples . Look at philosophers and you will see virtually an entire profession/field that has not moved beyond providing hypothetical examples. It's much harder to deal in actual examples/ evidence - things that have actually happened - because they take longer to locate in memory. You have to be patient while your brain drags them out. But you can normally make up examples almost immediately. (If only Richard's massive parallel, cerebral computation were true!) But BTW an interesting misunderstanding on your part is that evidence here means *introspective* observations. Freud's evidence for the unconscious consisted entirely of publicly observable events - the slips. You must do similarly for your multiple selves - not tell me, say, how fragmented you feel! Try and produce such evidence I think you'll find you will rapidly lose enthusiasm for your idea. Stick to the same single, but divided self described with extraordinary psychological consistency by every great religion over 1000's of years and a whole string of humanist psychologists including Freud, - and make sure your AGI has something similar. P.S. Just recalling a further difference between the original and the creative thinker - the creative one has greater *complexes* of ideas - it usually doesn't take just one idea to produce major creative work, as people often think, but a whole interdependent network of them. That, too, is v. hard. - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73122427-f045c6
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
JVPB:You seem to have missed what many A(G)I people (Ben, Richard, etc.) mean by 'complexity' (as opposed to the common usage of complex meaning difficult). Well, I as an ignoramus, was wondering about this - so thankyou. And it wasn't clear at all to me from Richard's paper what he meant. What I'm taking out from your account is that it involves random inputs...? Is there a fuller account of it? Is it the random dimension that he/others hope will produce emergent/human-like behaviour? (..because if so, I'd disagree - I'd argue the complications of human behaviour flow from conflict/ conflicting goals - which happens to be signally missing from his (and cognitive science's) ideas about emotions). - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73135416-76c456
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
ATM: http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/mind4th.html -- an AGI prototype -- has just gone through a major bug-solving update, and is now much better at maintaining chains of continuous thought -- after the user has entered sufficient knowledge for the AI to think about. It doesn't have - you didn't try to give it - independent curiosity (like an infant)? - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73137353-3f3449
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
On Dec 5, 2007 6:23 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Ben: To publish your ideas
in academic journals, you need to ground them in the existing research
literature,
not in your own personal introspective observations.
Big mistake. Think what would have happened if Freud had omitted the 40-odd
examples of slips in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (if I've got the
right book!)
Obviously, Freud's reliance on introspection and qualitative experience had
plusses and minuses. He generated a lot of nonsense as well as some
brilliant ideas.
But anyway, I was talking about style of exposition, not methodology of
doing work. If Freud were a professor today, he would write in a different
style in order to get journal publications; though he might still write some
books in a more expository style as well.
I was pointing out that, due to the style of exposition required in contemporary
academic culture, one can easily get a false impression that no one in academia
is doing original thinking -- but the truth is that, even if you DO
original thinking,
you are required in writing your ideas up for publication to give them
the appearance
of minimal originality via grounding them exorbitantly in the prior
literature (even if in fact
their conception had nothing, or very little, to do with the prior
literature). I'm not
saying I like this -- I'm just describing the reality. Also, in the
psych literature, grounding
an idea in your own personal observations is not acceptable and is not
going to get
you published -- unless of course you're a clinical psychologist,
which I am not.
The scientific heavyweights are the people who are heavily
grounded. The big difference between Darwin and Wallace is all those
examples/research, and not the creative idea.
That is an unwarranted overgeneralization.
Anyway YOU were the one who was harping on the lack of creativity in AGI.
Now you've changed your tune and are harping on the lack of {creativity coupled
with a lot of empirical research}
Ever consider that this research is going on RIGHT NOW? I don't know why you
think it should be instantaneous. A number of us are doing concrete
research work
aimed at investigating our creative ideas about AGI. Research is
hard. It takes
time. Darwin's research took time. The Manhattan Project took time. etc.
And what I didn't explain in my simple, but I believe important, two-stage
theory of creative development is that there's an immense psychological
resistance to moving onto the second stage. You have enough psychoanalytical
understanding, I think, to realise that the unusual length of your reply to
me may possibly be a reflection of that resistance and an inner conflict.
What is bizarre to me, in this psychoanalysis of Ben Goertzel that you present,
is that you overlook
the fact that I am spending most of my time on concrete software projects, not
on abstract psychological/philosophical theory
Including the Novamente Cognition Engine
project which is aimed precisely at taking some of my creative ideas about AGI
and realizing them in useful software
As it happens, my own taste IS more for theory, math and creative arts than
software development -- but, I decided some time ago that the most IMPORTANT
thing I could do would be to focus a lot of attention on
implementation and detailed
design rather than just generating more and more funky ideas. It is
always tempting to me to
consider my role as being purely that of a thinker, and leave all
practical issues to others
who like that sort of thing better -- but I consider the creation of
AGI *so* important
that I've been willing to devote the bulk of my time to activities
that run against my
personal taste and inclination, for some years now And
fortunately I have found
some great software engineers as collaborators.
P.S. Just recalling a further difference between the original and the
creative thinker - the creative one has greater *complexes* of ideas - it
usually doesn't take just one idea to produce major creative work, as people
often think, but a whole interdependent network of them. That, too, is v.
hard.
Mike, you can make a lot of valid criticisms against me, but I don't
think you can
claim I have not originated an interdependent network of creative ideas.
I certainly have done so. You may not like or believe my various ideas, but
for sure they form an interdependent network. Read The Hidden Pattern
for evidence.
-- Ben Goertzel
-
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Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
THE KEY POINT I WAS TRYING TO GET ACROSS WAS ABOUT NOT HAVING TO EXPLICITLY DEAL WITH 500K TUPLES And I asked -- Do you believe that this is some sort of huge conceptual breakthrough? - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73155533-eaf7a5
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
On Dec 6, 2007 8:23 AM, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Dec 5, 2007 6:23 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: resistance to moving onto the second stage. You have enough psychoanalytical understanding, I think, to realise that the unusual length of your reply to me may possibly be a reflection of that resistance and an inner conflict. What is bizarre to me, in this psychoanalysis of Ben Goertzel that you present, is that you overlook [snip] Mike, you can make a lot of valid criticisms against me, but I don't think you can claim I have not originated an interdependent network of creative ideas. I certainly have done so. You may not like or believe my various ideas, but for sure they form an interdependent network. Read The Hidden Pattern for evidence. I just wanted to comment on how well Ben accepted Mike's 'analysis.' Personally, I was offended by Mike's inconsiderate use of language. Apparently we have different ideas of etiquette, so that's all I'll say about it. (rather than be drawn into a completely off-topic pissing contest over who is right to say what, etc.) - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73157985-48127a
RE: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Jean-Paul, Although complexity is one of the areas associated with AI where I have less knowledge than many on the list, I was aware of the general distinction you are making. What I was pointing out in my email to Richard Loosemore what that the definitions in his paper Complex Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Theoretical Psychology, for irreducible computability and global-local interconnect themselves are not totally clear about this distinction, and as a result, when Richard says that those two issues are an unavoidable part of AGI design that must be much more deeply understood before AGI can advance, by the more loose definitions which would cover the types of complexity involved in large matrix calculations and the design of a massive supercomputer, of course those issues would arise in AGI design, but its no big deal because we have a long history of dealing with them. But in my email to Richard I said I was assuming he was not using this more loose definitions of these words, because if he were, they would not present the unexpected difficulties of the type he has been predicting. I said I though he was dealing with more the potentially unruly type of complexity, I assume you were talking about. I am aware of that type of complexity being a potential problem, but I have designed my system to hopefully control it. A modern-day well functioning economy is complex (people at the Santa Fe Institute often cite economies as examples of complex systems), but it is often amazingly unchaotic considering how loosely it is organized and how many individual entities it has in it, and how many transitions it is constantly undergoing. Unsually, unless something bangs on it hard (such as having the price of a major commodity all of a sudden triple), it has a fair amount of stability, while constantly creating new winners and losers (which is a productive form of mini-chaos). Of course in the absence of regulation it is naturally prone to boom and bust cycles. So the system would need regulation. Most of my system operates on a message passing system with little concern for synchronization, it does not require low latencies, most of its units, operate under fairly similar code. But hopefully when you get it all working together it will be fairly dynamic, but that dynamism with be under multiple controls. I think we are going to have to get such systems up and running to find you just how hard or easy they will be to control, which I acknowledged in my email to Richard. I think that once we do we will be in a much better position to think about what is needed to control them. I believe such control will be one of the major intellectual challenges to getting AGI to function at a human-level. This issue is not only preventing runaway conditions, it is optimizing the intelligence of the inferencing, which I think will be even more import and diffiducle. (There are all sorts of damping mechanisms and selective biasing mechanism that should be able to prevent many types of chaotic behaviors.) But I am quite confident with multiple teams working on it, these control problems could be largely overcome in several years, with the systems themselves doing most of the learning. Even a little OpenCog AGI on a PC, could be interesting first indication of the extent to which complexity will present control problems. As I said if you had 3G of ram for representation, that should allow about 50 million atoms. Over time you would probably end up with at least hundreds of thousand of complex patterns, and it would be interesting to see how easy it would be to properly control them, and get them to work together as a properly functioning thought economy in what ever small interactive world they developed their self-organizing pattern base. Of course on such a PC based system you would only, on average, be able to do about 10million pattern to pattern activations a second, so you would be talking about a fairly trivial system, but with say 100K patterns, it would be a good first indication of how easy or hard agi systems will be to control. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Jean-Paul Van Belle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 1:34 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: [agi] None of you seem to be able ... Hi Ed You seem to have missed what many A(G)I people (Ben, Richard, etc.) mean by 'complexity' (as opposed to the common usage of complex meaning difficult). It is not the *number* of calculations or interconnects that gives rise to complexity or chaos, but their nature. E.g. calculating the eigen-values of a n=10^1 matrix is *very* difficult but not complex. So the large matrix calculations, map-reduces or BleuGene configuration are very simple. A map-reduce or matrix calculation is typically one line of code (at least in Python - which is where Google probably gets the idea from :) To make them complex, you need to go beyond. E.g. a 500K-node 3 layer
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
There is no doubt that complexity, in the sense typically used in dynamical-systems-theory, presents a major issue for AGI systems. Any AGI system with real potential is bound to have a lot of parameters with complex interdependencies between them, and tuning these parameters is going to be a major problem. The question is whether one has an adequate theory of one's system to allow one to do this without an intractable amount of trial and error. Loosemore -- if I interpret him correctly -- seems to be suggesting that for powerful AGI systems no such theory can exist, on principle. I doubt very much this is correct. -- Ben G On Dec 6, 2007 9:40 AM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jean-Paul, Although complexity is one of the areas associated with AI where I have less knowledge than many on the list, I was aware of the general distinction you are making. What I was pointing out in my email to Richard Loosemore what that the definitions in his paper Complex Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Theoretical Psychology, for irreducible computability and global-local interconnect themselves are not totally clear about this distinction, and as a result, when Richard says that those two issues are an unavoidable part of AGI design that must be much more deeply understood before AGI can advance, by the more loose definitions which would cover the types of complexity involved in large matrix calculations and the design of a massive supercomputer, of course those issues would arise in AGI design, but its no big deal because we have a long history of dealing with them. But in my email to Richard I said I was assuming he was not using this more loose definitions of these words, because if he were, they would not present the unexpected difficulties of the type he has been predicting. I said I though he was dealing with more the potentially unruly type of complexity, I assume you were talking about. I am aware of that type of complexity being a potential problem, but I have designed my system to hopefully control it. A modern-day well functioning economy is complex (people at the Santa Fe Institute often cite economies as examples of complex systems), but it is often amazingly unchaotic considering how loosely it is organized and how many individual entities it has in it, and how many transitions it is constantly undergoing. Unsually, unless something bangs on it hard (such as having the price of a major commodity all of a sudden triple), it has a fair amount of stability, while constantly creating new winners and losers (which is a productive form of mini-chaos). Of course in the absence of regulation it is naturally prone to boom and bust cycles. So the system would need regulation. Most of my system operates on a message passing system with little concern for synchronization, it does not require low latencies, most of its units, operate under fairly similar code. But hopefully when you get it all working together it will be fairly dynamic, but that dynamism with be under multiple controls. I think we are going to have to get such systems up and running to find you just how hard or easy they will be to control, which I acknowledged in my email to Richard. I think that once we do we will be in a much better position to think about what is needed to control them. I believe such control will be one of the major intellectual challenges to getting AGI to function at a human-level. This issue is not only preventing runaway conditions, it is optimizing the intelligence of the inferencing, which I think will be even more import and diffiducle. (There are all sorts of damping mechanisms and selective biasing mechanism that should be able to prevent many types of chaotic behaviors.) But I am quite confident with multiple teams working on it, these control problems could be largely overcome in several years, with the systems themselves doing most of the learning. Even a little OpenCog AGI on a PC, could be interesting first indication of the extent to which complexity will present control problems. As I said if you had 3G of ram for representation, that should allow about 50 million atoms. Over time you would probably end up with at least hundreds of thousand of complex patterns, and it would be interesting to see how easy it would be to properly control them, and get them to work together as a properly functioning thought economy in what ever small interactive world they developed their self-organizing pattern base. Of course on such a PC based system you would only, on average, be able to do about 10million pattern to pattern activations a second, so you would be talking about a fairly trivial system, but with say 100K patterns, it would be a good first indication of how easy or hard agi systems will be to control. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Jean-Paul Van Belle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06,
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Mike Tintner wrote: Richard: Now, interpreting that result is not easy, Richard, I get the feeling you're getting understandably tired with all your correspondence today. Interpreting *any* of the examples of *hard* cog sci that you give is not easy. They're all useful, stimulating stuff, but they don't add up to a hard pic. of the brain's cognitive architecture. Perhaps Ben will back me up on this - it's a rather important point - our overall *integrated* picture of the brain's cognitive functioning is really v. poor, although certainly we have a wealth of details about, say, which part of the brain is somehow connected to a given operation. You make an important point, but in your haste to make it you may have overlooked the fact that I really agree with you ... and have gone on to say that I am trying to fix that problem. What I mean by that: if you look at cog psy/cog sci in a superficial way you might come awy with the strong impression that they don't add up to a hard pic. of the brain's cognitive architecture. Sure. But that is what I meant when I said that cog sci has a huge amount of information stashed away, but it is in a format that makes it very hard for someone trying to build an intelligent system to actually use. I believe I can see deeper into this problem, and I think that cog sci can be made to add up to a consistent picture, but it requires an extra organizational ingredient that I am in the process of adding right now. The root of the problem is that the cog sci and AI communities both have extremely rigid protocols about how to do research, which are incompatible with each other. In cog sci you are expected to produce a micro-theory for every experimental result, and efforts to work on larger theories or frameworks without introducing new experimental results that are directly explained are frowned upon. The result is a style of work that produces local patch theories that do not have any generality. The net result of all this is that when you say that our overall *integrated* picture of the brain's cognitive functioning is really v. poor I would point out that this is only true if you replace the our with the AI community's. Richard:I admit that I am confused right now: in the above paragraphs you say that your position is that the human mind is 'rational' and then later that it is 'irrational' - was the first one of those a typo? Richard, No typo whatsoever if you just reread. V. clear. I say and said: *scientific pychology* and *cog sci* treat the mind as rational. I am the weirdo who is saying this is nonsense - the mind is irrational/crazy/creative - rationality is a major *achievement* not something that comes naturally. Mike Tintner= crazy/irrational- somehow, I don't think you'll find that hard to remember. The problem here is that I am not sure in what sense you are using the word rational. There are many usages. One of those usages is very common in cog sci, and if I go with *that* usage your claim is completely wrong: you can pick up an elementary cog psy textbook and find at least two chapters dedicated to a discussion about the many ways that humans are (according to the textbook) irrational. I suspect what is happening is that you are using the term in a different way, and that this is the cause of the confusion. Since you are making the claim, I think the ball is in your court: please try to explain why this discrepency arises so I can understand you claim. Take a look at e.g. Eysenck and Keane (Cognitive Psychology) and try to reconcile what you say with what they say. Richard Loosemore - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73173298-c0f919
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Ed Porter wrote: Richard, I quickly reviewed your paper, and you will be happy to note that I had underlined and highlighted it so such skimming was more valuable that it otherwise would have been. With regard to COMPUTATIONAL IRREDUCIBILITY, I guess a lot depends on definition. Yes, my vision of a human AGI would be a very complex machine. Yes, a lot of its outputs could only be made with human level reasonableness after a very large amount of computation. I know of no shortcuts around the need to do such complex computation. So it arguably falls in to what you say Wolfram calls computational irreducibility. But the same could be said for any of many types of computations, such as large matrix equations or Google's map-reduces, which are routinely performed on supercomputers. So if that is how you define irreducibility, its not that big a deal. It just means you have to do a lot of computing to get an answer, which I have assumed all along for AGI (Remember I am the one pushing for breaking the small hardware mindset.) But it doesn't mean we don't know how to do such computing or that we have to do a lot more complexity research, of the type suggested in your paper, before we can successfully designing AGIs. With regard to GLOBAL-LOCAL DISCONNECT, again it depends what you mean. You define it as The GLD merely signifies that it might be difficult or impossible to derive analytic explanations of global regularities that we observe in the system, given only a knowledge of the local rules that drive the system. I don't know what this means. Even the game of Life referred to in your paper can be analytically explained. It is just that some of the things that happen are rather complex and would take a lot of computing to analyze. So does the global-local disconnect apply to anything where an explanation requires a lot of analysis? If that is the case than any large computation, of the type which mankind does and designs every day, would have a global-local disconnect. If that is the case, the global-local disconnect is no big deal. We deal with it every day. Forgive, but I am going to have to interrupt at this point. Ed, what is going on here is that my paper is about complex systems but you are taking that phrase to mean something like complicated systems rather than the real meaning -- the real meaning is very much not complicated systems, it has to do with a particular class of systems that are labelled complex BECAUSE they show overall behavior that appears to be disconnected from the mechanisms out of which the systems are made up. The problem is that complex systems has a specific technical meaning. If you look at the footnote in my paper (I think it is on page one), you will find that the very first time I use the word complex I make sure that my audience does not take it the wrong way by explaining that it does not refer to complicated system. Everything you are saying here in this post is missing the point, so could I request that you do some digging around to figure out what complex systems are, and then make a second attempt? I am sorry: I do not have the time to write a long introductory essay on complex systems right now. Without this understanding, the whole of my paper will seem like gobbledegook. I am afraid this is the result of skimming through the paper. I am sure you would have noticed the problem if you had gone more slowly. Richard Loosemore. I don't know exactly what you mean by regularities in the above definition, but I think you mean something equivalent to patterns or meaningful generalizations. In many types of computing commonly done, you don't know what the regularizes will be without tremendous computing. For example in principal component analysis, you often don't know what the major dimensions of a distribution will be until you do a tremendous amount of computation. Does that mean there is a GLD in that problem? If so, it doesn't seem to be a big deal. PCA is done all the time, as are all sorts of other complex matrix computations. But you have implied multiple times that you think the global-local disconnect is a big, big deal. You have implied multiple times it presents a major problem to developing AGI. If I interpret your prior statements taken in conjunction with your paper correctly, I am guessing your major thrust is that it will be very difficult to design AGI's where the desired behavior is to be the result of many casual relations between a vast number of active elements, because in such system the causality is so non-linear and complex that we cannot currently properly think and design in terms of them. Although this proposition is not obviously true on its face, it is arguably also not obviously false on its face. Although it is easy to design system where the
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Mike Tintner wrote: JVPB:You seem to have missed what many A(G)I people (Ben, Richard, etc.) mean by 'complexity' (as opposed to the common usage of complex meaning difficult). Well, I as an ignoramus, was wondering about this - so thankyou. And it wasn't clear at all to me from Richard's paper what he meant. Well, to be fair to me, I pointed out in a footnote at the very beginning of the paper that the term complex system was being sued in the technical sense, and then shortly afterwards I gave some references to anyone who needed to figure out what that technical sense actually was... Could I have done more? Look up the Waldrop book that I gave as a reference: at least that is a nice non-technical read. Richard Loosemore What I'm taking out from your account is that it involves random inputs...? Is there a fuller account of it? Is it the random dimension that he/others hope will produce emergent/human-like behaviour? (..because if so, I'd disagree - I'd argue the complications of human behaviour flow from conflict/ conflicting goals - which happens to be signally missing from his (and cognitive science's) ideas about emotions). - 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/?; - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73179225-6ab0e8
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Mike Tintner wrote on Thu, 6 Dec 2007: ATM: http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/mind4th.html -- an AGI prototype -- has just gone through a major bug-solving update, and is now much better at maintaining chains of continuous thought -- after the user has entered sufficient knowledge for the AI to think about. It doesn't have - you didn't try to give it - independent curiosity (like an infant)? No, sorry, but the Forthmind does have an Ask module at http://mentifex.virtualenty.com/ask.html for asking questions -- which, come to think of it, may be a form of innate curiosity. Meanwhile a year and a half after receiving a bug report, the current bug-solving update has been posted at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/win32forth/message/13048 as follows FYI: OK, the audRecog subroutine is not totally bugfree when it comes to distinguishing certain sequences of ASCII characters. It may be necessary to not use MACHINES or SERVE if these words confuse the AI. In past years I have spent dozens of painful hours fiddling with the audRecog subroutine, and usually the slightest change breaks it worse than it was before. It works properly probably eighty percent of the time, if not more. Even though the audRecog module became suspect to me over time, I pressed on for True AI. On 14 June 2006 I responded above to a post by FJR. Yesterday -- a year and a half later -- I finally tracked down and eliminated the bug in question. http://mind.sourceforge.net/audrecog.html -- the auditory recognition audRecog module -- was sometimes malfunctioning by misrecognizing one word of input as the word of a different concept, usually if both words ended the same. The solution was to base the selection of an auditory recognition upon finding the candidate word-match with the highest incremental activation, rather than merely taking the most recent match. By what is known as serendipity or sheer luck, the present solution to the old audRecog problem opens up a major new possibility for a far more advanced version of the audRecog module -- one that can recognize the concept of, say, book as input of either the word book or books. Since audRecog now recognizes a word by using incremental activation, it should not be too hard to switch the previous pattern-recognition algorithm into one that no longer insists upon dealing only with entire words, but can instead recognize less than an entire word because so much incremental activation has built up. The above message may not be very crystal clear, and so it is posted here mainly as a show of hope and as a forecasting of what may yet come. http://mind.sourceforge.net/mind4th.html is the original Mind.Forth with the new audRecog. http://AIMind-I.com is FJR's AI Mind in Forth. (Sorry I can't help in the matter of timers.) ATM -- http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/mind4th.html - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73193379-092711
RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
Mark, First you attack me for making a statement which you falsely claimed indicated I did not understand the math in the Collins' article (and potentially discreted everything I said on this list). Once it was show that that attack was unfair, rather than apologizing sufficiently for the unfair attack, now you seem to be coming back with another swing. Now you are implicitly attacking me for implying it is new to think you could deal with vectors in some sort of compressed representation. I was aware that there were previous methods for dealing with vectors in high dimensional spaces using various compression schemes, although I had only heard of a few examples. I personally had been planning for years prior to reading Collin's paper to score matches based mainly on the number of similar features, and not all the dissimilar features(except in certain cases) to avoid the curse of high dimensionalities. But I was also aware of many discussions, such as one in a current best selling AI textbook, which implies that a certain problem becomes intractable easily because it assumes one is saddled with dealing with the full possible dimensionality of the problem space being represented, when it is clear you can accomplish a high percent of the same thing with a GNG type approach by only placing represention where there are significant probabilities. So, all though it may not be new to you, it seems to be new to some that the curse of high dimensionality can often be avoided in many classes of problems. I was citing the Collins paper as one example for showing that AI systems have been able to deal well with high dimensionality. I attended a lecture at MIT that a few years after the Collin's paper came out where the major thrust of the speech was that recently great headway was being made in many field of AI because people were beginning to realize all sorts of efficient hacks that avoid many of the problems of combinatorial explosion of high dimensionality that had previously thwarted their efforts. The Collins paper is an example of that movement. When it was relatively new, the Collins paper was treated by several people I talked to as quite a breakthrough, because in conjunction of the work of people like Haussler it showed a relatively simple way to apply the Kernel trick to graph mapping. As you may be aware the Kernel trick not only allows one to score matches, but also allows many of the analytical tools of linear algebra to be applied through the kernel, greatly reducing the complexity of applying such tools in the much higher dimensional space represented by the kernel mapping. I am not a historian of this field of math, but in its day the Kernel trick was getting a lot of buzz from many people in the field. I attended an NL conference at CMU in the early '90s. The use of support vector classifiers using the kernel trick was all the rage at the conference, and the kernels they were use seemed much less appropriate than that Collin's paper discloses. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Mark Waser [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 9:09 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research] THE KEY POINT I WAS TRYING TO GET ACROSS WAS ABOUT NOT HAVING TO EXPLICITLY DEAL WITH 500K TUPLES And I asked -- Do you believe that this is some sort of huge conceptual breakthrough? - 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/?; - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73199664-8396eaattachment: winmail.dat
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Ed Porter wrote: Jean-Paul, Although complexity is one of the areas associated with AI where I have less knowledge than many on the list, I was aware of the general distinction you are making. What I was pointing out in my email to Richard Loosemore what that the definitions in his paper Complex Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Theoretical Psychology, for irreducible computability and global-local interconnect themselves are not totally clear about this distinction, and as a result, when Richard says that those two issues are an unavoidable part of AGI design that must be much more deeply understood before AGI can advance, by the more loose definitions which would cover the types of complexity involved in large matrix calculations and the design of a massive supercomputer, of course those issues would arise in AGI design, but its no big deal because we have a long history of dealing with them. But in my email to Richard I said I was assuming he was not using this more loose definitions of these words, because if he were, they would not present the unexpected difficulties of the type he has been predicting. I said I though he was dealing with more the potentially unruly type of complexity, I assume you were talking about. I am aware of that type of complexity being a potential problem, but I have designed my system to hopefully control it. A modern-day well functioning economy is complex (people at the Santa Fe Institute often cite economies as examples of complex systems), but it is often amazingly unchaotic considering how loosely it is organized and how many individual entities it has in it, and how many transitions it is constantly undergoing. Unsually, unless something bangs on it hard (such as having the price of a major commodity all of a sudden triple), it has a fair amount of stability, while constantly creating new winners and losers (which is a productive form of mini-chaos). Of course in the absence of regulation it is naturally prone to boom and bust cycles. Ed, I now understand that you have indeed heard of complex systems before, but I must insist that in your summary above you have summarized what they are in such a way that completely contradicts what they are! A complex system such as the economy can and does have stable modes in which it appears to be stable. This does not constradict the complexity at all. A system is not complex because it is unstable. I am struggling here, Ed. I want to go on to explain exactly what I mean (and what complex systems theorists mean) but I cannot see a way to do it without writing half a book this afternoon. Okay, let me try this. Imagine that we got a bunch of computers and connected them with a network that allowed each one to talk to (say) the ten nearest machines. Imagine that each one is running a very simple program: it keeps a handful of local parameters (U, V, W, X, Y) and it updates the values of its own parameters according to what the neighboring machines are doing with their parameters. How does it do the updating? Well, imagine some really messy and bizarre algorithm that involves looking at the neighbors' values, then using them to cross reference each other, and introduce delays and gradients and stuff. On the face of it, you might think that the result will be that the U V W X Y values just show a random sequence of fluctuations. Well, we know two things about such a system. 1) Experience tells us that even though some systems like that are just random mush, there are some (a noticeably large number in fact) that have overall behavior that shows 'regularities'. For example, much to our surprise we might see waves in the U values. And every time two waves hit each other, a vortex is created for exactly 20 minutes, then it stops. I am making this up, but that is the kind of thing that could happen. 2) The algorithm is so messy that we cannot do any math to analyse and predict the behavior of the system. All we can do is say that we have absolutely no techniques that will allow us to mathematical progress on the problem today, and we do not know if at ANY time in future history there will be a mathematics that will cope with this system. What this means is that the waves and vortices we observed cannot be explained in the normal way. We see them happening, but we do not know why they do. The bizzare algorithm is the low level mechanism and the waves and vortices are the high level behavior, and when I say there is a Global-Local Disconnect in this system, all I mean is that we are completely stuck when it comes to explaining the high level in terms of the low level. Believe me, it is childishly easy to write down equations/algorithms for a system like this that are so profoundly intractable that no mathematician would even think of touching them. You have to trust me on this. Call your local Math department at Harvard or somewhere, and check with them
RE: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Ben, You below email is a much more concise statement of the basic point I was trying to make Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Benjamin Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 9:45 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ... There is no doubt that complexity, in the sense typically used in dynamical-systems-theory, presents a major issue for AGI systems. Any AGI system with real potential is bound to have a lot of parameters with complex interdependencies between them, and tuning these parameters is going to be a major problem. The question is whether one has an adequate theory of one's system to allow one to do this without an intractable amount of trial and error. Loosemore -- if I interpret him correctly -- seems to be suggesting that for powerful AGI systems no such theory can exist, on principle. I doubt very much this is correct. -- Ben G On Dec 6, 2007 9:40 AM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jean-Paul, Although complexity is one of the areas associated with AI where I have less knowledge than many on the list, I was aware of the general distinction you are making. What I was pointing out in my email to Richard Loosemore what that the definitions in his paper Complex Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Theoretical Psychology, for irreducible computability and global-local interconnect themselves are not totally clear about this distinction, and as a result, when Richard says that those two issues are an unavoidable part of AGI design that must be much more deeply understood before AGI can advance, by the more loose definitions which would cover the types of complexity involved in large matrix calculations and the design of a massive supercomputer, of course those issues would arise in AGI design, but its no big deal because we have a long history of dealing with them. But in my email to Richard I said I was assuming he was not using this more loose definitions of these words, because if he were, they would not present the unexpected difficulties of the type he has been predicting. I said I though he was dealing with more the potentially unruly type of complexity, I assume you were talking about. I am aware of that type of complexity being a potential problem, but I have designed my system to hopefully control it. A modern-day well functioning economy is complex (people at the Santa Fe Institute often cite economies as examples of complex systems), but it is often amazingly unchaotic considering how loosely it is organized and how many individual entities it has in it, and how many transitions it is constantly undergoing. Unsually, unless something bangs on it hard (such as having the price of a major commodity all of a sudden triple), it has a fair amount of stability, while constantly creating new winners and losers (which is a productive form of mini-chaos). Of course in the absence of regulation it is naturally prone to boom and bust cycles. So the system would need regulation. Most of my system operates on a message passing system with little concern for synchronization, it does not require low latencies, most of its units, operate under fairly similar code. But hopefully when you get it all working together it will be fairly dynamic, but that dynamism with be under multiple controls. I think we are going to have to get such systems up and running to find you just how hard or easy they will be to control, which I acknowledged in my email to Richard. I think that once we do we will be in a much better position to think about what is needed to control them. I believe such control will be one of the major intellectual challenges to getting AGI to function at a human-level. This issue is not only preventing runaway conditions, it is optimizing the intelligence of the inferencing, which I think will be even more import and diffiducle. (There are all sorts of damping mechanisms and selective biasing mechanism that should be able to prevent many types of chaotic behaviors.) But I am quite confident with multiple teams working on it, these control problems could be largely overcome in several years, with the systems themselves doing most of the learning. Even a little OpenCog AGI on a PC, could be interesting first indication of the extent to which complexity will present control problems. As I said if you had 3G of ram for representation, that should allow about 50 million atoms. Over time you would probably end up with at least hundreds of thousand of complex patterns, and it would be interesting to see how easy it would be to properly control them, and get them to work together as a properly functioning thought economy in what ever small interactive world they developed their self-organizing pattern base. Of course on such a PC based system you would only, on average, be able to do about 10million pattern to pattern activations a
RE: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Richard, I read your core definitions of computationally irreducabile and global-local disconnect and by themselves they really don't distinguish very well between complicated and complex. But I did assume from your paper and other writings you meant complex although your core definitions are not very clear about the distinction. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Richard Loosemore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 10:31 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ... Ed Porter wrote: Richard, I quickly reviewed your paper, and you will be happy to note that I had underlined and highlighted it so such skimming was more valuable that it otherwise would have been. With regard to COMPUTATIONAL IRREDUCIBILITY, I guess a lot depends on definition. Yes, my vision of a human AGI would be a very complex machine. Yes, a lot of its outputs could only be made with human level reasonableness after a very large amount of computation. I know of no shortcuts around the need to do such complex computation. So it arguably falls in to what you say Wolfram calls computational irreducibility. But the same could be said for any of many types of computations, such as large matrix equations or Google's map-reduces, which are routinely performed on supercomputers. So if that is how you define irreducibility, its not that big a deal. It just means you have to do a lot of computing to get an answer, which I have assumed all along for AGI (Remember I am the one pushing for breaking the small hardware mindset.) But it doesn't mean we don't know how to do such computing or that we have to do a lot more complexity research, of the type suggested in your paper, before we can successfully designing AGIs. With regard to GLOBAL-LOCAL DISCONNECT, again it depends what you mean. You define it as The GLD merely signifies that it might be difficult or impossible to derive analytic explanations of global regularities that we observe in the system, given only a knowledge of the local rules that drive the system. I don't know what this means. Even the game of Life referred to in your paper can be analytically explained. It is just that some of the things that happen are rather complex and would take a lot of computing to analyze. So does the global-local disconnect apply to anything where an explanation requires a lot of analysis? If that is the case than any large computation, of the type which mankind does and designs every day, would have a global-local disconnect. If that is the case, the global-local disconnect is no big deal. We deal with it every day. Forgive, but I am going to have to interrupt at this point. Ed, what is going on here is that my paper is about complex systems but you are taking that phrase to mean something like complicated systems rather than the real meaning -- the real meaning is very much not complicated systems, it has to do with a particular class of systems that are labelled complex BECAUSE they show overall behavior that appears to be disconnected from the mechanisms out of which the systems are made up. The problem is that complex systems has a specific technical meaning. If you look at the footnote in my paper (I think it is on page one), you will find that the very first time I use the word complex I make sure that my audience does not take it the wrong way by explaining that it does not refer to complicated system. Everything you are saying here in this post is missing the point, so could I request that you do some digging around to figure out what complex systems are, and then make a second attempt? I am sorry: I do not have the time to write a long introductory essay on complex systems right now. Without this understanding, the whole of my paper will seem like gobbledegook. I am afraid this is the result of skimming through the paper. I am sure you would have noticed the problem if you had gone more slowly. Richard Loosemore. I don't know exactly what you mean by regularities in the above definition, but I think you mean something equivalent to patterns or meaningful generalizations. In many types of computing commonly done, you don't know what the regularizes will be without tremendous computing. For example in principal component analysis, you often don't know what the major dimensions of a distribution will be until you do a tremendous amount of computation. Does that mean there is a GLD in that problem? If so, it doesn't seem to be a big deal. PCA is done all the time, as are all sorts of other complex matrix computations. But you have implied multiple times that you think the global-local disconnect is a big, big deal. You have implied multiple times it presents a major problem to developing AGI. If I interpret your prior
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Ed Porter wrote: Richard, I read your core definitions of computationally irreducabile and global-local disconnect and by themselves they really don't distinguish very well between complicated and complex. That paper was not designed to be a complex systems for absolute beginners paper, so these definitions work very well for anyone who has even a little background knowledge of complex systems. Richard Loosemore But I did assume from your paper and other writings you meant complex although your core definitions are not very clear about the distinction. Ed Porter - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73230463-32f239
RE: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Richard, You will be happy to note that I have copied the text of your reply to my Valuable Clippings From AGI Mailing List file. Below are some comments. RICHARD LOOSEMORE= I now understand that you have indeed heard of complex systems before, but I must insist that in your summary above you have summarized what they are in such a way that completely contradicts what they are! A complex system such as the economy can and does have stable modes in which it appears to be stable. This does not constradict the complexity at all. A system is not complex because it is unstable. ED PORTER= Richard, I was citing a relatively stable economies as exactly what you say they are, an example of a complex system that is relatively stable. So why is it that my summary summarized what they are in such a way that completely contradicts what they are!? I implied that economies have traditionally had instabilities, such as boom and bust cycles, and I am aware that even with all our controls, other major instabilities could strike, in much the same ways that people can have nervous breakdowns. ED PORTER= With regard to the rest of your paper I find it one of your better reasoned discussions of the problem of complexity. I like Ben, agree it is a potential problem. I said that in the email you were responding to. My intuition, like Ben's, tells me we probably be able to deal with it, but your paper is correct to point out that such intuitions are really largely guesses. RICHARD LOOSEMORE=how can someone know that how much impact the complexity is going to have, when in the same breath they will admit that NOBODY currently understands just how much of an impact the complexity has. the best that anyone can do is point to other systems in which there is a small amount of complexity and say: Well, these folks managed to understand their systems without getting worried about complexity, so why don't we assume that our problem is no worse than theirs? For example, someone could point to the dynamics of planetary systems and say that there is a small bit of complexity there, but it is a relatively small effect in the grand scheme of things. ED PORTER= A better example would be the world economy. Its got 6 billion highly autonomous players. It has all sorts of non-linearities and complex connections. Although it has fits and starts is has surprising stability considering everything that is thrown at it (Not clear how far this stability will hold into the singularity future) but still it is an instructive example of how extremely complex things, with lots of non-linearities, can work relatively well if there are the proper motivations and controls. RICHARD LOOSEMORE=Problem with that line of argument is that there are NO other examples of an engineering system with as much naked funkiness in the interactions between the low level components. ED PORTER= The key is try to avoid and/or control funkiness in your components. Remember that an experiential system derives most of its behavior by re-enacting, largely through substitutions and probabilistic-transition-based synthesis, from past experience, with a bias toward past experiences that have worked in some sense meaningful to the machine. These creates a tremendous bias toward desirable, vs. funky, behaviors. So, net, net, Richard, re-reading your paper and reading your below long post have increased my respect for your arguments. I am somewhat more afraid of complexity gotchas than I was two days ago. But I still am pretty confident (without anything beginning to approach proof) such gotchas will not prevent use from making useful human level AGI within the decade if AGI got major funding. But I have been afraid for a long time that even the other type of complexity (i.e., complication, which often involves some risk of complexity) means that it may be very difficult for us humans to keep control of superhuman-level AGI's for very long, so I have always worried about that sort of complexity Gotcha. But with regard to the complexity problem, it seems to me that we should design systems with an eye to reducing their knarlyness, including planning multiple types of control systems, and then once we get initial such system up and running try to find out what sort of complexity problems we have. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Richard Loosemore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 11:46 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ... Ed Porter wrote: Jean-Paul, Although complexity is one of the areas associated with AI where I have less knowledge than many on the list, I was aware of the general distinction you are making. What I was pointing out in my email to Richard Loosemore what that the definitions in his paper Complex Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Theoretical Psychology, for irreducible computability and global-local interconnect
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Richard, The problem here is that I am not sure in what sense you are using the word rational. There are many usages. One of those usages is very common in cog sci, and if I go with *that* usage your claim is completely wrong: you can pick up an elementary cog psy textbook and find at least two chapters dedicated to a discussion about the many ways that humans are (according to the textbook) irrational. This is a subject of huge importance, and it shouldn't be hard to reach a mutual understanding at least. Rational in general means that a system or agent follows a coherent and systematic set of steps in solving a problem. The social sciences treat humans as rational agents maximising or boundedly satisficing their utilities in taking decisions - coherently systematically finding solutions for their needs,( there is much controversy about this - everyone knows it ain't right, but no substitute has been offered) Cognitive science treats the human mind as basically a programmed computational machine much like actual programmed computers - and programs are normally conceived of as rational. - coherent sets of steps etc. Both cog sci and sci psych. generally endlessly highlight irrationalities in our decisionmaking/problemsolving processes - but these are only in *parts* of those processes, not the processes as a whole. They're like bugs in the program, but the program and mind as a whole are basically rational - following coherent sets of steps - it's just that the odd heuristic/ attitude/ assumption is wrong (or perhaps they have a neurocognitive deficit). Thousands of years of philosophy have also treated human beings as fundamentally rational creatures. The reality is two-sided. Let's start with why the mind is in fact irrational. The mind is actually designed to deal with problematic, divergent problems, otherwise known as wicked, ill-structured problems. A simple example is - writing an essay. Write an essay (or a post) on the future/evils/ flaws of AI. An even simpler example is: would you like to watch this or that TV program? The literature on wicked problems acknowledges (sotto voce) that these are extraordinarily abundant and more or less continuous. Eysenck acknowledges this too. What characterises these problems is that they are indeed ill-structured - put it another way: there is *no such thing as a rational solution or way of solving them*. There is no rational essay on the future of AI or the causes of the French revolution. No rational beginning, middle, ending or any step at all. There is no rational way to think about them - incl. about which program you want to watch. It would be quite reasonable from a purely logical point of view to spend eternity debating that question. These are in fact infinite problems with infinite solutions or, at least, (with the TV program decision), infinite ways of solving them. The mind has no coherent structure or inner systematic programming for dealing with these problems -no coherent set of steps at all to follow - it has to find and achieve a structure - as you do for an essay or a post. Consequently the mind can be regarded as systematically irrational. Look at how people actually write essays or posts and you will find that they can and will depart at each and any stage from what might be regarded as an ideal process. They don't even define the problem - (I don't think there's a single person engaged in an AGI project who has yet defined the problem) - they don't answer the problem but answer something else entirely - they don't look at the evidence - they don't have ideas but endlessly redefine the problem - they don't order or organize their ideas - do any checking. They actually write a confused mix of three essays rather than one. etc etc. They always jump to conclusions to some extent, because it's actually impossible to do otherwise. And they may or may not make these errors on different occasions. Everyone's practice is highly variable. IOW these errors have nothing to do with bugs or deficits. Put it another way, humans are systematically more or less unfocussed, disordered, disorganized, poorly concentrated and applied, uncritical, unimaginative, sloppy, etc. etc. in their thinking. But since there is never world enough and time to think about divergent problems this is more or less inevitable, (except when an AGI-er doesn't define the problem, which is unforgivable :) ) Sci psych and cog sci v. largely ignore all this. Scientific psychology does not pay any serious attention at all to divergent problems - as Michael Eysenck acknowledges. (Why? Because psychologists like convergent problems with nice right, rational answers that can be easily studied and marked). IQ focusses on convergent problems, even though essaywriting and similar projects constitute a good half - and by far the most important half -of educational and real world problemsolving
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Conclusion: there is a danger that the complexity that even Ben agrees must be present in AGI systems will have a significant impact on our efforts to build them. But the only response to this danger at the moment is the bare statement made by people like Ben that I do not think that the danger is significant. No reason given, no explicit attack on any component of the argument I have given, only a statement of intuition, even though I have argued that intuition cannot in principle be a trustworthy guide here. But Richard, your argument ALSO depends on intuitions ... I'll try, though, to more concisely frame the reason I think your argument is wrong. I agree that AGI systems contain a lot of complexity in the dynamical- systems-theory sense. And I agree that tuning all the parameters of an AGI system externally is likely to be intractable, due to this complexity. However, part of the key to intelligence is **self-tuning**. I believe that if an AGI system is built the right way, it can effectively tune its own parameters, hence adaptively managing its own complexity. Now you may say there's a problem here: If AGI component A2 is to tune the parameters of AGI component A1, and A1 is complex, then A2 has got to also be complex ... and who's gonna tune its parameters? So the answer has got to be that: To effectively tune the parameters of an AGI component of complexity X, requires an AGI component of complexity a bit less than X. Then one can build a self-tuning AGI system, if one does the job right. Now, I'm not saying that Novamente (for instance) is explicitly built according to this architecture: it doesn't have N components wherein component A_N tunes the parameters of component A_(N+1). But in many ways, throughout the architecture, it relies on this sort of fundamental logic. Obviously it is not the case that every system of complexity X can be parameter-tuned by a system of complexity less than X. The question however is whether an AGI system can be built of such components. I suggest the answer is yes -- and furthermore suggest that this is pretty much the ONLY way to do it... Your intuition is that this is not possible, but you don't have a proof of this... And yes, I realize the above argument of mine is conceptual only -- I haven't given a formal definition of complexity. There are many, but that would lead into a mess of math that I don't have time to deal with right now, in the context of answering an email... -- Ben G - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73243865-194e0e
RE: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Richard Loosemore writes: Okay, let me try this. Imagine that we got a bunch of computers [...] Thanks for taking the time to write that out. I think it's the most understandable version of your argument that you have written yet. Put it on the web somewhere and link to it whenever the issue comes up again in the future. If you are right, you may have to resort to told you so when other projects fail to produce the desired emergent intelligence. No matter what you do, system builders can and do and will say that either their system is probably not heavily impacted by the issue, or that the issue itself is overstated for AGI development, and I doubt that most will be convinced otherwise. By making such a clear exposition, at least the issue is out there for people to think about. I have no position myself on whether Novamente (for example) is likely to be slain by its own complexity, but it is interesting to ponder. - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73249587-454993
Re: Last word for the time being [WAS Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...]
Show me ONE other example of the reverse engineering of a system in which the low level mechanisms show as many complexity-generating characteristics as are found in the case of intelligent systems, and I will gladly learn from the experience of the team that did the job. I do not believe you can name a single one. Well, I am not trying to reverse engineer the brain. Any more than the Wright Brothers were trying to reverse engineer a bird -- though I do imagine the latter will eventually be possible. You know, I sympathize with you in a way. You are trying to build an AGI system using a methodology that you are completely committed to. And here am I coming along like Bertrand Russell writing his letter to Frege, just as poor Frege was about to publish his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, pointing out that everything in the new book was undermined by a paradox. How else can you respond except by denying the idea as vigorously as possible? It's a deeply flawed analogy. Russell's paradox is a piece of math and once Frege was confronted with it he got it. The discussion between the two of them did not devolve into long, rambling dialogues about the meanings of terms and the uncertainties of various intuitions. -- Ben - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73249230-63bddf
Last word for the time being [WAS Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...]
Benjamin Goertzel wrote: Richard, Well, I'm really sorry to have offended you so much, but you seem to be a mighty easy guy to offend! I know I can be pretty offensive at times; but this time, I wasn't even trying ;-) The argument I presented was not a conjectural assertion, it made the following coherent case: 1) There is a high prima facie *risk* that intelligence involves a significant amount of irreducibility (some of the most crucial characteristics of a complete intelligence would, in any other system, cause the behavior to show a global-local disconnect), and The above statement contains two fuzzy terms -- high and significant ... You have provided no evidence for any particular quantification of these terms... your evidence is qualitative/intuitive, so far as I can tell... Your quantification of these terms seems to me a conjectural assertion unsupported by evidence. [This is going to cross over your parallel response to a different post. No time to address that other argument, but the comments made here are not affected by what is there.] I have answered this point very precisely on many occasions, including in the paper. Here it is again: If certain types of mechanisms do indeed give rise to complexity (as all the complex systems theorist agree), then BY DEFINITION it will never be possible to quantify the exact relationship between: 1) The precise characteristics of the low-level mechanisms (both the type and the quantity) that would lead us to expect complexity, and 2) The amount of complexity thereby caused in the high-level behavior. Even if the complex systems effect were completely real, the best we could ever do would be to come up with suggestive characteristics that lead to complexity. Nevertheless, there is a long list of such suggestive characteristics, and everyone (including you) agree that all those suggestive characteristics are present in the low level mechanisms that must be in an AGI. So the one most important thing we know about complex systems is that if complex systems really do exist, then we CANNOT say Give me precise quantitative evidence that we should expect complexity in this particular system. And what is your response to this most important fact about complex systems? Your response is: Give me precise quantitative evidence that we should expect complexity in this particular system. And then, when I explain all of the above (as I have done before, many times), you go on to conclude: [You are giving] a conjectural assertion unsupported by evidence. Which is, in the context of my actual argument, a serious little bit of sleight-of-hand (to be as polite as possible about it). 2) Because of the unique and unusual nature of complexity there is only a vanishingly small chance that we will be able to find a way to assess the exact degree of risk involved, and 3) (A corollary of (2)) If the problem were real, but we were to ignore this risk and simply continue with an engineering approach (pretending that complexity is insignificant), The engineering approach does not pretend that complexity is insignificant. It just denies that the complexity of intelligent systems leads to the sort of irreducibility you suggest it does. It denies it? Based on what? My argument above makes it crystal clear that if the engineering approach is taking that attitude, then it does so purely on the basis of wishful thinking, whilst completely ignoring the above argument. The engineering approach would be saying: We understand complex systems well enough to know that there isn't a problem in this case a nonsensical position when by definition it is not possible for anyone to really understand the connection, and the best evidence we can get is actually pointing to the opposite conclusion. So this comes back to the above argument: the engineering approach has to address that first, before it can make any such claim. Some complex systems can be reverse-engineered in their general principles even if not in detail. And that is all one would need to do in order to create a brain emulation (not that this is what I'm trying to do) --- assuming one's goal was not to exactly emulate some specific human brain based on observing the behaviors it generates, but merely to emulate the brainlike character of the system... This has never been done, but that is exactly what I am trying to do. Show me ONE other example of the reverse engineering of a system in which the low level mechanisms show as many complexity-generating characteristics as are found in the case of intelligent systems, and I will gladly learn from the experience of the team that did the job. I do not believe you can name a single one. then the *only* evidence we would ever get that irreducibility was preventing us from building a complete intelligence would be the fact that we would simply run around in circles all the time,
Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
Ed, Get a grip. Try to write with complete words in complete sentences (unless discreted means a combination of excreted and discredited -- which works for me :-). I'm not coming back for a second swing. I'm still pursuing the first one. You just aren't oriented well enough to realize it. Now you are implicitly attacking me for implying it is new to think you could deal with vectors in some sort of compressed representation. Nope. First of all, compressed representation is *absolutely* the wrong term for what you're looking for. Second, I actually am still trying to figure out what *you* think you ARE gushing about. (And my quest is not helped by such gems as all though [sic] it may not be new to you, it seems to be new to some) Why don't you just answer my question? Do you believe that this is some sort of huge conceptual breakthrough? For NLP (as you were initially pushing) or just for some nice computational tricks? I'll also note that you've severely changed the focus of this away from the NLP that you were initially raving about as such quality work -- and while I'll agree that kernel mapping is a very elegant tool -- Collin's work is emphatically *not* what I would call a shining example of it (I mean, *look* at his results -- they're terrible). Yet you were touting it because of your 500,000 dimension fantasies and you're belief that it's good NLP work. So, in small words -- and not whining about an attack -- what precisely are you saying? - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73247008-aecb7f
RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
Mark, You claimed I made a particular false statement about the Collins paper. (That by itself could have just been a misunderstanding or an honest mistake.) But then you added an insult to that by implying I had probably made the alleged error because I was incapable of understand the mathematics involved. As if that wasn't enough in the way of gratuitous insults, you suggested my alleged error called in to question the validity of the other things I have said on this list. That is a pretty deep, purposely and unnecessarily, insulting put down. I think I have shown that I did understood the math in question, perhaps better than you, since you initially totally ignored the part of the paper that supported my statement. I have shown that my statement was in fact correct by a reasonable interpretation of my words. Thus, not only was your accusation of my error unjustified, but also, even more so, the two insults placed on top of it. You have not apologized for your unjustified accusation of error and the two additional unnecessary insults (unless your statement Ok. I'll bite. is considered an appropriate apology for such an improper set of deep insults). Instead you have continued in an even more insulting tone, including starting one subsequent email with a comment about something I had said that went as follows: HeavySarcasmWow. Is that what dot products are?/HeavySarcasm I don't mind people questioning me, or pointing out errors when I make them. I even have a fair amount of tolerance for people mistakenly accusing me of making an error, if they make the false accusation honestly and not in a purposely insulting manner, as did you. Why should I waste more time conversing with someone who wants to converse in such an insulting tone? Mark, you have been quick to publicly call other people on this list trolls, in effect to their face, in front of the whole list. This is a behavior most people would consider very hurtful. So what do you call people on this list who not only falsely accuse other people of errors, add several unnecessary insults based on the false accusation, and then when shown to be in error, continue addressing comments to the falsely accused person in a HeavySarcasm style? How about mean spirited. Mark, you are an intelligent person, and I have found some of your posts valuable. That day a few weeks ago when you and Ben were riffing back and forth, I was offended by your tone, but I thought many of your questions were valuable. If you wish to continue any sort of communication with me, feel free to question and challenge, but please lay off the HeavySarcasm and insults which do nothing to further the exchange and clarification of ideas. With regard to your questions below, If you actually took the time to read my prior responses, I think you will see I have substantially answered them. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Mark Waser [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 1:24 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research] Ed, Get a grip. Try to write with complete words in complete sentences (unless discreted means a combination of excreted and discredited -- which works for me :-). I'm not coming back for a second swing. I'm still pursuing the first one. You just aren't oriented well enough to realize it. Now you are implicitly attacking me for implying it is new to think you could deal with vectors in some sort of compressed representation. Nope. First of all, compressed representation is *absolutely* the wrong term for what you're looking for. Second, I actually am still trying to figure out what *you* think you ARE gushing about. (And my quest is not helped by such gems as all though [sic] it may not be new to you, it seems to be new to some) Why don't you just answer my question? Do you believe that this is some sort of huge conceptual breakthrough? For NLP (as you were initially pushing) or just for some nice computational tricks? I'll also note that you've severely changed the focus of this away from the NLP that you were initially raving about as such quality work -- and while I'll agree that kernel mapping is a very elegant tool -- Collin's work is emphatically *not* what I would call a shining example of it (I mean, *look* at his results -- they're terrible). Yet you were touting it because of your 500,000 dimension fantasies and you're belief that it's good NLP work. So, in small words -- and not whining about an attack -- what precisely are you saying? - 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/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to:
RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
--- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a lot of respect for Google, but I don't like monopolies, whether it is Microsoft or Google. I think it is vitally important that there be several viable search competators. I wish this wicki one luck. As I said, it sounds a lot like your idea. Partly. The main difference is that I am also proposing a message posting service, where messages become instantly searchable and are also directed to persistent queries. Wikia has a big hurdle to get over. People will ask how is this better than Google? before they bother to download the software. For example, Grub (distributed spider) uses a lot of bandwidth and disk without providing much direct benefit to the user. The major benefit of Wikia seems to be that users provide feedback on relevance to query responses, which in theory ought to provide a better ranking algorithm than something like Google's PageRank. But assuming they get enough users to get to this level, spammers could still game the system by flooding the network with with high rankings for their websites. In a distributed message posting service, each peer would have its own policy regarding which messages to relay, keep in its cache, or ignore. If a document is valuable, then lots of peers would keep a copy. A client could then rank query responses by the number of copies received weighted by the peer's reputation. Spammers could try to game the system by adding lots of peers and flooding the network with advertising, but this would fail because most other peers would be configured to ignore peers that don't provide reciprocal services by routing their own outgoing messages. Any peer not so configured would quickly be abused and isolated from the network in the same way that open relay SMTP servers get abused by spammers and blacklisted by spam filters. Of course a message posting service would have a big hurdle too. Initially, the service would have to be well integrated with the existing Internet. Client queries would have to go to the major search engines, and there would have to be websites set up as peers without the user having to install software. Most computers are not configured to run as servers (dynamic IP, behind firewalls, slow upload, etc), so peers will probably need to allow message passing over client HTTP (website polling), by email, and over instant messaging protocols. File sharing networks became popular because they offered a service not available elsewhere (free music). But I don't intend for the message posting service to be used to evade copyright or censorship (although it probably could be). The protocol requires that the message's originator and intermediate routers all be identified by a reply address and time stamp. It won't work otherwise. -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73286384-77b385
RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
Matt, Does a PC become more vulnerable to viruses, worms, Trojan horses, root kits, and other web attacks if it becomes part of a P2P network? And if so why and how much. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 3:01 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]) --- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a lot of respect for Google, but I don't like monopolies, whether it is Microsoft or Google. I think it is vitally important that there be several viable search competators. I wish this wicki one luck. As I said, it sounds a lot like your idea. Partly. The main difference is that I am also proposing a message posting service, where messages become instantly searchable and are also directed to persistent queries. Wikia has a big hurdle to get over. People will ask how is this better than Google? before they bother to download the software. For example, Grub (distributed spider) uses a lot of bandwidth and disk without providing much direct benefit to the user. The major benefit of Wikia seems to be that users provide feedback on relevance to query responses, which in theory ought to provide a better ranking algorithm than something like Google's PageRank. But assuming they get enough users to get to this level, spammers could still game the system by flooding the network with with high rankings for their websites. In a distributed message posting service, each peer would have its own policy regarding which messages to relay, keep in its cache, or ignore. If a document is valuable, then lots of peers would keep a copy. A client could then rank query responses by the number of copies received weighted by the peer's reputation. Spammers could try to game the system by adding lots of peers and flooding the network with advertising, but this would fail because most other peers would be configured to ignore peers that don't provide reciprocal services by routing their own outgoing messages. Any peer not so configured would quickly be abused and isolated from the network in the same way that open relay SMTP servers get abused by spammers and blacklisted by spam filters. Of course a message posting service would have a big hurdle too. Initially, the service would have to be well integrated with the existing Internet. Client queries would have to go to the major search engines, and there would have to be websites set up as peers without the user having to install software. Most computers are not configured to run as servers (dynamic IP, behind firewalls, slow upload, etc), so peers will probably need to allow message passing over client HTTP (website polling), by email, and over instant messaging protocols. File sharing networks became popular because they offered a service not available elsewhere (free music). But I don't intend for the message posting service to be used to evade copyright or censorship (although it probably could be). The protocol requires that the message's originator and intermediate routers all be identified by a reply address and time stamp. It won't work otherwise. -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?; - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73293460-0b3fcd
[agi] Re: Hacker intelligence level
With regard to your questions below, If you actually took the time to read my prior responses, I think you will see I have substantially answered them. No, Ed. I don't see that at all. All I see is you refusing to answer them even when I repeatedly ask them. That's why I asked them again. All I've seen is you ranting on about how insulted you are and *many* divergences from your initial statements. Why don't you just answer the questions instead of whining about how unfairly you're being treated. Hint: Answers are most effective when you directly address the question *before* rampaging down apparently unrelated tangents. - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73301324-a28b1f
RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
--- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, Does a PC become more vulnerable to viruses, worms, Trojan horses, root kits, and other web attacks if it becomes part of a P2P network? And if so why and how much. It does if the P2P software has vulnerabilities, just like any other server or client. Worms would be especially dangerous because they could spread quickly without user intervention, but slowly spreading viruses that are well hidden can be dangerous too. There is no foolproof defense, but it helps to keep the protocol and software as simple as possible, to run the P2P software as a nonprivileged process, use open source code, and not to depend to any large extent on a single source of software. The protocol I have in mind is that a message contain searchable natural language text, possibly some nonsearchable attached files, and a header with the reply address and timestamp of the originator and any intermediate peers through which the message was routed. The protocol is not dangerous except for the attached files, but these have to be included because it is a useful service. If you don't include it, people will figure out how to embed arbitrary data in the message text, which would make the protocol more dangerous because it wasn't planned for. In theory, you could use the P2P network to spread information about malicious peers and deliver software patches. But I think this would introduce more problems than it solves because it would also introduce a mechanism for spreading false information and patches containing trojans. Peers should have defenses that operate independently of the network, including disconnecting itself if it detects anomalies in its own behavior. Of course the network is vulnerable even if the peers behave properly. Malicious peers could forge headers, for example, to hide the true source of messages or to force replies to be directed to unintended targets. Some attacks could be very complex depending on the idiosyncratic behavior of particular peers. -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73321137-bba914
Human Irrationality [WAS Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...]
Mike Tintner wrote: Richard, The problem here is that I am not sure in what sense you are using the word rational. There are many usages. One of those usages is very common in cog sci, and if I go with *that* usage your claim is completely wrong: you can pick up an elementary cog psy textbook and find at least two chapters dedicated to a discussion about the many ways that humans are (according to the textbook) irrational. This is a subject of huge importance, and it shouldn't be hard to reach a mutual understanding at least. Rational in general means that a system or agent follows a coherent and systematic set of steps in solving a problem. The social sciences treat humans as rational agents maximising or boundedly satisficing their utilities in taking decisions - coherently systematically finding solutions for their needs,( there is much controversy about this - everyone knows it ain't right, but no substitute has been offered) Cognitive science treats the human mind as basically a programmed computational machine much like actual programmed computers - and programs are normally conceived of as rational. - coherent sets of steps etc. Both cog sci and sci psych. generally endlessly highlight irrationalities in our decisionmaking/problemsolving processes - but these are only in *parts* of those processes, not the processes as a whole. They're like bugs in the program, but the program and mind as a whole are basically rational - following coherent sets of steps - it's just that the odd heuristic/ attitude/ assumption is wrong (or perhaps they have a neurocognitive deficit). Mike, What is happening here is that you have gotten an extremely oversimplified picture of what cognitive science is claiming. This particular statement of yours focusses on the key misunderstanding: Cognitive science treats the human mind as basically a programmed computational machine much like actual programmed computers - and programs are normally conceived of as rational. - coherent sets of steps etc. Programs IN GENERAL are not rational, it is just that the folks who tried to AI and build models of mind in the very very early years started out with simple programs that tried to do reasoning-like computations, and as a result you have seen this as everything that computers do. This would be analogous to someone saying Paint is used to build pictures that directly represent objects in the world. This would not be true: paint is completely neutral and can be used to either represent real things, or represent non-real things, or represent nothing at all. In the same way computer programs are completely neutral and can be used to build systems that are either rational or irrational. My system is not rational in that sense at all. Just because some paintings represent things, that does not mean that paint only does that. Just because some people tried to use computers to build rational-looking models of mind, that does not mean that computers in general do that. Richard Loosemore - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73344123-2104e3
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Derek Zahn wrote: Richard Loosemore writes: Okay, let me try this. Imagine that we got a bunch of computers [...] Thanks for taking the time to write that out. I think it's the most understandable version of your argument that you have written yet. Put it on the web somewhere and link to it whenever the issue comes up again in the future. Thanks: I will do that very soon. If you are right, you may have to resort to told you so when other projects fail to produce the desired emergent intelligence. No matter what you do, system builders can and do and will say that either their system is probably not heavily impacted by the issue, or that the issue itself is overstated for AGI development, and I doubt that most will be convinced otherwise. By making such a clear exposition, at least the issue is out there for people to think about. True. I have to go further than that if I want to get more people involved in working on this project though. People with money listen to the mainstream voice and want nothing to do with an idea so heavily criticised, no matter that the criticism comes from those with a vested interest in squashing it. I have no position myself on whether Novamente (for example) is likely to be slain by its own complexity, but it is interesting to ponder. I would rather it did not, and I hope Ben is right in being so optimistic. I just know that it is a dangerous course to follow if you actually don't want to run the risk of another 50 years of running around in circles. Richard Loosemore. - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73348560-68439c
RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
Richard, What is your specific complaint about the 'viability of the framework'? Ed, This line of data gathering is very interesting to me as well, though I found quickly that using all web sources quickly devolved into insanity. By using scanned text novels, I was able to extract lots of relational information on a range of topics. With a well defined ontology system, and some human overview, a large amount of information can be extracted and many probabilities learned. James Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RICHARD LOOSEMORE= You are implicitly assuming a certain framework for solving the problem of representing knowledge ... and then all your discussion is about whether or not it is feasible to implement that framework (to overcome various issues to do with searches that have to be done within that framework). But I am not challenging the implementation issues, I am challenging the viability of the framework itself. JAMES--- What e ED PORTER= So what is wrong with my framework? What is wrong with a system of recording patterns, and a method for developing compositions and generalities from those patterns, in multiple hierarchical levels, and for indicating the probabilities of certain patterns given certain other pattern etc? I know it doesn't genuflect before the alter of complexity. But what is wrong with the framework other than the fact that it is at a high level and thus does not explain every little detail of how to actually make an AGI work? RICHARD LOOSEMORE= These models you are talking about are trivial exercises in public relations, designed to look really impressive, and filled with hype designed to attract funding, which actually accomplish very little. Please, Ed, don't do this to me. Please don't try to imply that I need to open my mind any more. Th implication seems to be that I do not understand the issues in enough depth, and need to do some more work to understand you points. I can assure you this is not the case. ED PORTER= Shastri's Shruiti is a major piece of work. Although it is a highly simplified system, for its degree of simplification it is amazingly powerful. It has been very helpful to my thinking about AGI. Please give me some excuse for calling it trivial exercise in public relations. I certainly have not published anything as important. Have you? The same for Mike Collins's parsers which, at least several years ago I was told by multiple people at MIT was considered one of the most accurate NL parsers around. Is that just a trivial exercise in public relations? With regard to Hecht-Nielsen's work, if it does half of what he says it does it is pretty damned impressive. It is also a work I think about often when thinking how to deal with certain AI problems. Richard if you insultingly dismiss such valid work as trivial exercises in public relations it sure as hell seems as if either you are quite lacking in certain important understandings -- or you have a closed mind -- or both. Ed Porter - 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/?; - 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/?; ___ James Ratcliff - http://falazar.com Looking for something... - Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73349390-542055
Re: Last word for the time being [WAS Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...]
Benjamin Goertzel wrote: Show me ONE other example of the reverse engineering of a system in which the low level mechanisms show as many complexity-generating characteristics as are found in the case of intelligent systems, and I will gladly learn from the experience of the team that did the job. I do not believe you can name a single one. Well, I am not trying to reverse engineer the brain. Any more than the Wright Brothers were trying to reverse engineer a bird -- though I do imagine the latter will eventually be possible. You know, I sympathize with you in a way. You are trying to build an AGI system using a methodology that you are completely committed to. And here am I coming along like Bertrand Russell writing his letter to Frege, just as poor Frege was about to publish his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, pointing out that everything in the new book was undermined by a paradox. How else can you respond except by denying the idea as vigorously as possible? It's a deeply flawed analogy. Russell's paradox is a piece of math and once Frege was confronted with it he got it. The discussion between the two of them did not devolve into long, rambling dialogues about the meanings of terms and the uncertainties of various intuitions. Believe me, I know: which is why I envy Russell for the positive response he got from Frege. You could help the discussion enormously by not pushing it in the direction of long rambling dialogues, and by not trying to argue about the meanings of terms and the uncertainties of various intuitions, which have nothing to do with the point that I made. I for one hate that kind of pointless discussion, which is why I keep trying to make you address the key point. Unfortunately, you never do address the key point: in the above, you ignored it completely! (Again!) At least Frege did actually get it. Richard Loosemore - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73346948-931def
RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
Matt, So if it is perceived as something that increases a machine's vulnerability, it seems to me that would be one more reason for people to avoid using it. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:06 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]) --- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, Does a PC become more vulnerable to viruses, worms, Trojan horses, root kits, and other web attacks if it becomes part of a P2P network? And if so why and how much. It does if the P2P software has vulnerabilities, just like any other server or client. Worms would be especially dangerous because they could spread quickly without user intervention, but slowly spreading viruses that are well hidden can be dangerous too. There is no foolproof defense, but it helps to keep the protocol and software as simple as possible, to run the P2P software as a nonprivileged process, use open source code, and not to depend to any large extent on a single source of software. The protocol I have in mind is that a message contain searchable natural language text, possibly some nonsearchable attached files, and a header with the reply address and timestamp of the originator and any intermediate peers through which the message was routed. The protocol is not dangerous except for the attached files, but these have to be included because it is a useful service. If you don't include it, people will figure out how to embed arbitrary data in the message text, which would make the protocol more dangerous because it wasn't planned for. In theory, you could use the P2P network to spread information about malicious peers and deliver software patches. But I think this would introduce more problems than it solves because it would also introduce a mechanism for spreading false information and patches containing trojans. Peers should have defenses that operate independently of the network, including disconnecting itself if it detects anomalies in its own behavior. Of course the network is vulnerable even if the peers behave properly. Malicious peers could forge headers, for example, to hide the true source of messages or to force replies to be directed to unintended targets. Some attacks could be very complex depending on the idiosyncratic behavior of particular peers. -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?; - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73357661-483045
Re: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
On 06/12/2007, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, So if it is perceived as something that increases a machine's vulnerability, it seems to me that would be one more reason for people to avoid using it. Ed Porter Why are you having this discussion on an AGI list? Will Pearson - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73366106-264b25
Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
On Dec 7, 2007 1:20 AM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is something I have been telling people for years. That you should be able to extract a significant amount (but probably far from all) world knowledge by scanning large corpora of text. I would love to see how well it actually works for a given size of corpora, and for a given level of algorithmic sophistication. But what's knowledge? -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73373961-20dc54
RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
James, Do you have any description or examples of you results. This is something I have been telling people for years. That you should be able to extract a significant amount (but probably far from all) world knowledge by scanning large corpora of text. I would love to see how well it actually works for a given size of corpora, and for a given level of algorithmic sophistication. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: James Ratcliff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:51 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research] Richard, What is your specific complaint about the 'viability of the framework'? Ed, This line of data gathering is very interesting to me as well, though I found quickly that using all web sources quickly devolved into insanity. By using scanned text novels, I was able to extract lots of relational information on a range of topics. With a well defined ontology system, and some human overview, a large amount of information can be extracted and many probabilities learned. James Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RICHARD LOOSEMORE= You are implicitly assuming a certain framework for solving the problem of representing knowledge ... and then all your discussion is about whether or not it is feasible to implement that framework (to overcome various issues to do with searches that have to be done within that framework). But I am not challenging the implementation issues, I am challenging the viability of the framework itself. JAMES--- What e ED PORTER= So what is wrong with my framework? What is wrong with a system of recording patterns, and a method for developing compositions and generalities from those patterns, in multiple hierarchical levels, and for indicating the probabilities of certain patterns given certain other pattern etc? I know it doesn't genuflect before the alter of complexity. But what is wrong with the framework other than the fact that it is at a high level and thus does not explain every little detail of how to actually make an AGI work? RICHARD LOOSEMORE= These models you are talking about are trivial exercises in public relations, designed to look really impressive, and filled with hype designed to attract funding, which actually accomplish very little. Please, Ed, don't do this to me. Please don't try to imply that I need to open my mind any more. Th implication seems to be that I do not understand the issues in enough depth, and need to do some more work to understand you points. I can assure you this is not the case. ED PORTER= Shastri's Shruiti is a major piece of work. Although it is a highly simplified system, for its degree of simplification it is amazingly powerful. It has been very helpful to my thinking about AGI. Please give me some excuse for calling it trivial exercise in public relations. I certainly have not published anything as important. Have you? The same for Mike Collins's parsers which, at least several years ago I was told by multiple people at MIT was considered one of the most accurate NL parsers around. Is that just a trivial exercise in public relations? With regard to Hecht-Nielsen's work, if it does half of what he says it does it is pretty damned impressive. It is also a work I think about often when thinking how to deal with certain AI problems. Richard if you insultingly dismiss such valid work as trivial exercises in public relations it sure as hell seems as if either you are quite lacking in certain important understandings -- or you have a closed mind -- or both. Ed Porter - 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/?; - 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/?; ___ James Ratcliff - http://falazar.com Looking for something... _ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http:/mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8H DtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ%20 it now. _ 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/? http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73371326-7ffb17
Re: Human Irrationality [WAS Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...]
Richard: In the same way computer programs are completely neutral and can be used to build systems that are either rational or irrational. My system is not rational in that sense at all. Richard, Out of interest, rather than pursuing the original argument: 1) Who are these programmers/ systembuilders who try to create programs (and what are the programs/ systems) that are either irrational or non-rational (and described as such)? When I have proposed (in different threads) that the mind is not rationally, algorithmically programmed I have been met with uniform and often fierce resistance both on this and another AI forum. My argument re the philosophy of mind of cog sci other sciences is of course not based on such reactions, but they do confirm my argument. And the position you at first appear to be adopting is unique both in my experience and my reading. 2) How is your system not rational? Does it not use algorithms? And could you give a specific example or two of the kind of problem that it deals with - non-rationally? (BTW I don't think I've seen any problem examples for your system anywhere, period - for all I know, it could be designed to read children' stories, bomb Iraq, do syllogisms, work out your domestic budget, or work out the meaning of life - or play and develop in virtual worlds). - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73382084-a9590d
RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
It was part of a discussion of using a P2P network with OpenCog to develop distributed AGI's. -Original Message- From: William Pearson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 5:20 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]) On 06/12/2007, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, So if it is perceived as something that increases a machine's vulnerability, it seems to me that would be one more reason for people to avoid using it. Ed Porter Why are you having this discussion on an AGI list? Will Pearson - 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/?; - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73390249-cd905b
Re: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
--- William Pearson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 06/12/2007, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, So if it is perceived as something that increases a machine's vulnerability, it seems to me that would be one more reason for people to avoid using it. Ed Porter Why are you having this discussion on an AGI list? Because this is an AGI design. The intelligence comes from having a lot of specialized experts on narrow topics and a distributed infrastructure that directs your queries to the right experts. The P2P protocol is natural language text. I will write up the proposal so it will make more sense than the current collection of posts. -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73390737-69c951
RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
Are you saying the increase in vulnerability would be no more than that? -Original Message- From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 6:17 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]) --- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, So if it is perceived as something that increases a machine's vulnerability, it seems to me that would be one more reason for people to avoid using it. Ed Porter A web browser and email increases your computer's vulnerability, but it doesn't stop people from using them. -Original Message- From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:06 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]) --- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, Does a PC become more vulnerable to viruses, worms, Trojan horses, root kits, and other web attacks if it becomes part of a P2P network? And if so why and how much. It does if the P2P software has vulnerabilities, just like any other server or client. Worms would be especially dangerous because they could spread quickly without user intervention, but slowly spreading viruses that are well hidden can be dangerous too. There is no foolproof defense, but it helps to keep the protocol and software as simple as possible, to run the P2P software as a nonprivileged process, use open source code, and not to depend to any large extent on a single source of software. The protocol I have in mind is that a message contain searchable natural language text, possibly some nonsearchable attached files, and a header with the reply address and timestamp of the originator and any intermediate peers through which the message was routed. The protocol is not dangerous except for the attached files, but these have to be included because it is a useful service. If you don't include it, people will figure out how to embed arbitrary data in the message text, which would make the protocol more dangerous because it wasn't planned for. In theory, you could use the P2P network to spread information about malicious peers and deliver software patches. But I think this would introduce more problems than it solves because it would also introduce a mechanism for spreading false information and patches containing trojans. Peers should have defenses that operate independently of the network, including disconnecting itself if it detects anomalies in its own behavior. Of course the network is vulnerable even if the peers behave properly. Malicious peers could forge headers, for example, to hide the true source of messages or to force replies to be directed to unintended targets. Some attacks could be very complex depending on the idiosyncratic behavior of particular peers. -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?; - 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/?; -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?; - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73394329-17b2b6
RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
--- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, So if it is perceived as something that increases a machine's vulnerability, it seems to me that would be one more reason for people to avoid using it. Ed Porter A web browser and email increases your computer's vulnerability, but it doesn't stop people from using them. -Original Message- From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:06 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]) --- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, Does a PC become more vulnerable to viruses, worms, Trojan horses, root kits, and other web attacks if it becomes part of a P2P network? And if so why and how much. It does if the P2P software has vulnerabilities, just like any other server or client. Worms would be especially dangerous because they could spread quickly without user intervention, but slowly spreading viruses that are well hidden can be dangerous too. There is no foolproof defense, but it helps to keep the protocol and software as simple as possible, to run the P2P software as a nonprivileged process, use open source code, and not to depend to any large extent on a single source of software. The protocol I have in mind is that a message contain searchable natural language text, possibly some nonsearchable attached files, and a header with the reply address and timestamp of the originator and any intermediate peers through which the message was routed. The protocol is not dangerous except for the attached files, but these have to be included because it is a useful service. If you don't include it, people will figure out how to embed arbitrary data in the message text, which would make the protocol more dangerous because it wasn't planned for. In theory, you could use the P2P network to spread information about malicious peers and deliver software patches. But I think this would introduce more problems than it solves because it would also introduce a mechanism for spreading false information and patches containing trojans. Peers should have defenses that operate independently of the network, including disconnecting itself if it detects anomalies in its own behavior. Of course the network is vulnerable even if the peers behave properly. Malicious peers could forge headers, for example, to hide the true source of messages or to force replies to be directed to unintended targets. Some attacks could be very complex depending on the idiosyncratic behavior of particular peers. -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?; - 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/?; -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73388768-0927ef
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Hi Richard, On Dec 6, 2007 8:46 AM, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Try to think of some other example where we have tried to build a system that behaves in a certain overall way, but we started out by using components that interacted in a completely funky way, and we succeeded in getting the thing working in the way we set out to. In all the history of engineering there has never been such a thing. I would argue that, just as we don't have to fully understand the complexity posed by the interaction of subatomic particles to make predictions about the way molecular systems behave, we don't have to fully understand the complexity of interactions between neurons to make predictions about how cognitive systems behave. Many researchers are attempting to create cognitive models that don't necessarily map directly back to low-level neural activity in biological organisms. Doesn't this approach mitigate some of the risk posed by complexity in neural systems? -- Scott - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73399933-fcedd2
Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
Edward, It's certainly a trick question, since if you don't define semantics for this knowledge thing, it can turn out to be anything from simplest do-nothings to full-blown physically-infeasible superintelligences. So you assertion doesn't cut the viability of knowledge extraction for various purposes, and without that it's not clear what you actually mean. On Dec 7, 2007 1:20 AM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is something I have been telling people for years. That you should be able to extract a significant amount (but probably far from all) world knowledge by scanning large corpora of text. I would love to see how well it actually works for a given size of corpora, and for a given level of algorithmic sophistication. -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73400395-303d49
Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
Yes, it's what triggered my nitpicking reflex; I am sorry about that. Your comment sounds fine when related to viability of teaching an AGI in a text-only mode without too much manual assistance, but semantics of what it was given to is quite different. On Dec 7, 2007 3:13 AM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vlad, My response was to the following message == Ed, This line of data gathering is very interesting to me as well, though I found quickly that using all web sources quickly devolved into insanity. By using scanned text novels, I was able to extract lots of relational information on a range of topics. With a well defined ontology system, and some human overview, a large amount of information can be extracted and many probabilities learned. James = so I was asking what sort of knowledge he had extracted as part of the lots of relational information on a range of topics. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Vladimir Nesov [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 7:02 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research] Edward, It's certainly a trick question, since if you don't define semantics for this knowledge thing, it can turn out to be anything from simplest do-nothings to full-blown physically-infeasible superintelligences. So you assertion doesn't cut the viability of knowledge extraction for various purposes, and without that it's not clear what you actually mean. On Dec 7, 2007 1:20 AM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is something I have been telling people for years. That you should be able to extract a significant amount (but probably far from all) world knowledge by scanning large corpora of text. I would love to see how well it actually works for a given size of corpora, and for a given level of algorithmic sophistication. -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[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/?; - 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/?; -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73408474-ba1629
RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]
Vlad, My response was to the following message == Ed, This line of data gathering is very interesting to me as well, though I found quickly that using all web sources quickly devolved into insanity. By using scanned text novels, I was able to extract lots of relational information on a range of topics. With a well defined ontology system, and some human overview, a large amount of information can be extracted and many probabilities learned. James = so I was asking what sort of knowledge he had extracted as part of the lots of relational information on a range of topics. Ed Porter -Original Message- From: Vladimir Nesov [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 7:02 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research] Edward, It's certainly a trick question, since if you don't define semantics for this knowledge thing, it can turn out to be anything from simplest do-nothings to full-blown physically-infeasible superintelligences. So you assertion doesn't cut the viability of knowledge extraction for various purposes, and without that it's not clear what you actually mean. On Dec 7, 2007 1:20 AM, Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is something I have been telling people for years. That you should be able to extract a significant amount (but probably far from all) world knowledge by scanning large corpora of text. I would love to see how well it actually works for a given size of corpora, and for a given level of algorithmic sophistication. -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[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/?; - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73401551-1f6d58
[agi] Viability of the framework [WAS Re: Hacker intelligence level]
James Ratcliff wrote: Richard, What is your specific complaint about the 'viability of the framework'? I was referring mainly to my complex systems problem (currently being hashed to death on a parallel thread, and many times before). Richard Loosemore Ed, This line of data gathering is very interesting to me as well, though I found quickly that using all web sources quickly devolved into insanity. By using scanned text novels, I was able to extract lots of relational information on a range of topics. With a well defined ontology system, and some human overview, a large amount of information can be extracted and many probabilities learned. James */Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED]/* wrote: RICHARD LOOSEMORE= You are implicitly assuming a certain framework for solving the problem of representing knowledge ... and then all your discussion is about whether or not it is feasible to implement that framework (to overcome various issues to do with searches that have to be done within that framework). But I am not challenging the implementation issues, I am challenging the viability of the framework itself. [snipped] - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73423342-cd44d9
Re: Human Irrationality [WAS Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...]
Mike Tintner wrote: Richard: In the same way computer programs are completely neutral and can be used to build systems that are either rational or irrational. My system is not rational in that sense at all. Richard, Out of interest, rather than pursuing the original argument: 1) Who are these programmers/ systembuilders who try to create programs (and what are the programs/ systems) that are either irrational or non-rational (and described as such)? I'm a little partied out right now, so all I have time for is to suggest: Hofstadter's group builds all kinds of programs that do things without logic. Phil Johnson-Laird (and students) used to try to model reasoning ability using systems that did not do logic. All kinds of language processing people use various kinds of neural nets: see my earlier research papers with Gordon Brown et al, as well as folks like Mark Seidenberg, Kim Plunkett etc. Marslen-Wilson and Tyler used something called a Cohort Model to describe some aspects of language. I am just dragging up the name of anyone who has ever done any kind of computer modelling of some aspect of cognition: all of these people do not use systems that do any kind of logical processing. I could go on indefinitely. There are probably hundreds of them. They do not try to build complete systems, of course, just local models. When I have proposed (in different threads) that the mind is not rationally, algorithmically programmed I have been met with uniform and often fierce resistance both on this and another AI forum. Hey, join the club! You have read my little brouhaha with Yudkowsky last year I presume? A lot of AI people have their heads up their asses, so yes, they believe that rationality is God. It does depend how you put it though: sometimes you use rationality to not mean what they mean, so that might explain the ferocity. My argument re the philosophy of mind of cog sci other sciences is of course not based on such reactions, but they do confirm my argument. And the position you at first appear to be adopting is unique both in my experience and my reading. 2) How is your system not rational? Does it not use algorithms? It uses dynamic relaxation in a generalized neural net. Too much to explain in a hurry. And could you give a specific example or two of the kind of problem that it deals with - non-rationally? (BTW I don't think I've seen any problem examples for your system anywhere, period - for all I know, it could be designed to read children' stories, bomb Iraq, do syllogisms, work out your domestic budget, or work out the meaning of life - or play and develop in virtual worlds). I am playing this close, for the time being, but I have released a small amount of it in a forthcoming neuroscience paper. I'll send it to you tomorrow if you like, but it does not go into a lot of detail. Richard Loosemore - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73425500-35e13a
Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Scott Brown wrote: Hi Richard, On Dec 6, 2007 8:46 AM, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Try to think of some other example where we have tried to build a system that behaves in a certain overall way, but we started out by using components that interacted in a completely funky way, and we succeeded in getting the thing working in the way we set out to. In all the history of engineering there has never been such a thing. I would argue that, just as we don't have to fully understand the complexity posed by the interaction of subatomic particles to make predictions about the way molecular systems behave, we don't have to fully understand the complexity of interactions between neurons to make predictions about how cognitive systems behave. Many researchers are attempting to create cognitive models that don't necessarily map directly back to low-level neural activity in biological organisms. Doesn't this approach mitigate some of the risk posed by complexity in neural systems? I completely agree that the neural-level stuff does not have to impact cognitive-level stuff: that is why I work at the cognitive level and do not bother too much with exact neural architecture. The only problem with your statement was the last sentence: when I say that there is a complex systems problem, I only mean complexity at the cognitive level, not complexity at the neural level. I am not too worried about any complexity that might exist down at the neural level because as far as I can tell that level is not *dominated* by complex effects. At the cognitive level, on the other hand, there is a strong possibility that what happens when the mind builds a model of some situation, it gets a large nummber of concepts to come together and try to relax into a stable representation, and that relaxation process is potentially sensitive to complex effects (some small parameter in the design of the concepts could play a crucial role in ensuring that the relaxation process goes properly, for example). I am being rather terse here due to lack of time, but that is the short answer. Richard Loosemore - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73430502-7926e9
Re: Human Irrationality [WAS Re: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...]
Well, I'm not sure if not doing logic necessarily means a system is irrational, i.e if rationality equates to logic. Any system consistently followed can classify as rational. If for example, a program consistently does Freudian free association and produces nothing but a chain of associations with some connection: bird - - feathers - four..tops or on the contrary, a 'nonsense' chain where there is NO connection.. logic.. sex... ralph .. essence... pi... Loosemore... then it is rational - it consistently follows a system with a set of rules. And the rules could, for argument's sake, specify that every step is illogical - as in breaking established rules of logic - or that steps are alternately logical and illogical. That too would be rational. Neural nets from the little I know are also rational inasmuch as they follow rules. Ditto Hofstadter Johnson-Laird from again the little I know also seem rational - Johnson-Laird's jazz improvisation program from my cursory reading seemed rational and not truly creative. I do not know enough to pass judgment on your system, but you do strike me as a rational kind of guy (although probably philosophically much closer to me than most here as you seem to indicate). Your attitude to emotions seems to me rational, and your belief that you can produce an AGI that will almost definitely be cooperative , also bespeaks rationality. In the final analysis, irrationality = creativity (although I'm using the word with a small c, rather than the social kind, where someone produces a new idea that no one in society has had or published before). If a system can change its approach and rules of reasoning at literally any step of problem-solving, then it is truly crazy/ irrational (think of a crazy path). And it will be capable of producing all the human irrationalities that I listed previously - like not even defining or answering the problem. It will by the same token have the capacity to be truly creative, because it will ipso facto be capable of lateral thinking at any step of problem-solving. Is your system capable of that? Or anything close? Somehow I doubt it, or you'd already be claiming the solution to both AGI and computational creativity. But yes, please do send me your paper. P.S. I hope you won't - I actually don't think - that you will get all pedantic on me like so many AI-ers say ah but we already have programs that can modify their rules. Yes, but they do that according to metarules - they are still basically rulebound. A crazy/ creative program is rulebreaking (and rulecreating) - can break ALL the rules, incl. metarules. Rulebound/rulebreaking is one of the most crucial differences between narrow AI/AGI. Richard: In the same way computer programs are completely neutral and can be used to build systems that are either rational or irrational. My system is not rational in that sense at all. Richard, Out of interest, rather than pursuing the original argument: 1) Who are these programmers/ systembuilders who try to create programs (and what are the programs/ systems) that are either irrational or non-rational (and described as such)? I'm a little partied out right now, so all I have time for is to suggest: Hofstadter's group builds all kinds of programs that do things without logic. Phil Johnson-Laird (and students) used to try to model reasoning ability using systems that did not do logic. All kinds of language processing people use various kinds of neural nets: see my earlier research papers with Gordon Brown et al, as well as folks like Mark Seidenberg, Kim Plunkett etc. Marslen-Wilson and Tyler used something called a Cohort Model to describe some aspects of language. I am just dragging up the name of anyone who has ever done any kind of computer modelling of some aspect of cognition: all of these people do not use systems that do any kind of logical processing. I could go on indefinitely. There are probably hundreds of them. They do not try to build complete systems, of course, just local models. When I have proposed (in different threads) that the mind is not rationally, algorithmically programmed I have been met with uniform and often fierce resistance both on this and another AI forum. Hey, join the club! You have read my little brouhaha with Yudkowsky last year I presume? A lot of AI people have their heads up their asses, so yes, they believe that rationality is God. It does depend how you put it though: sometimes you use rationality to not mean what they mean, so that might explain the ferocity. My argument re the philosophy of mind of cog sci other sciences is of course not based on such reactions, but they do confirm my argument. And the position you at first appear to be adopting is unique both in my experience and my reading. 2) How is your system not rational? Does it not use algorithms? It uses dynamic relaxation in a generalized neural
RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research])
--- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you saying the increase in vulnerability would be no more than that? Yes, at least short term if we are careful with the design. But then again, you can't predict what AGI will do, or else it wouldn't be intelligent. I can't say for certain long term (2040s?) it wouldn't launch a singularity, or even that it wouldn't create an intelligent worm that would eat the Internet. I don't think anyone is smart enough to get it right, but it is going to happen in one form or another. I wrote up a quick description of my AGI proposal at http://www.mattmahoney.net/agi.html basically summarizing what I posted over the last several emails, including various attack scenarios. I'm sure I didn't think of everything. It is kind of sketchy because it's not an area I am actively pursuing. It should be a useful service at least in the short term before it destroys us. -Original Message- From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 6:17 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]) --- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, So if it is perceived as something that increases a machine's vulnerability, it seems to me that would be one more reason for people to avoid using it. Ed Porter A web browser and email increases your computer's vulnerability, but it doesn't stop people from using them. -Original Message- From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:06 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: Distributed search (was RE: Hacker intelligence level [WAS Re: [agi] Funding AGI research]) --- Ed Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, Does a PC become more vulnerable to viruses, worms, Trojan horses, root kits, and other web attacks if it becomes part of a P2P network? And if so why and how much. It does if the P2P software has vulnerabilities, just like any other server or client. Worms would be especially dangerous because they could spread quickly without user intervention, but slowly spreading viruses that are well hidden can be dangerous too. There is no foolproof defense, but it helps to keep the protocol and software as simple as possible, to run the P2P software as a nonprivileged process, use open source code, and not to depend to any large extent on a single source of software. The protocol I have in mind is that a message contain searchable natural language text, possibly some nonsearchable attached files, and a header with the reply address and timestamp of the originator and any intermediate peers through which the message was routed. The protocol is not dangerous except for the attached files, but these have to be included because it is a useful service. If you don't include it, people will figure out how to embed arbitrary data in the message text, which would make the protocol more dangerous because it wasn't planned for. In theory, you could use the P2P network to spread information about malicious peers and deliver software patches. But I think this would introduce more problems than it solves because it would also introduce a mechanism for spreading false information and patches containing trojans. Peers should have defenses that operate independently of the network, including disconnecting itself if it detects anomalies in its own behavior. Of course the network is vulnerable even if the peers behave properly. Malicious peers could forge headers, for example, to hide the true source of messages or to force replies to be directed to unintended targets. Some attacks could be very complex depending on the idiosyncratic behavior of particular peers. -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?; - 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/?; -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?; - 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/?; -- Matt Mahoney, [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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73450735-649fdc
RE: [agi] None of you seem to be able ...
Interesting - after drafting three replies I have come to realize that it is possible to hold two contradictory views and live or even run with it. Looking at their writings, both Ben Richard know damn well what complexity means and entails for AGI. Intuitively, I side with Richard's stance that, if the current state of 'the new kind of science' cannot even understand simple chaotic systems - the toy-problems of three-variable differential quadratic equations and 2-D Alife, then what hope is there to find a theoretical solution for a really complex system. The way forward is by experimental exploration of part of the solution space. I don't think we'll find general complexity theories any time soon. On the other hand, practically I think that it *is* (or may be) possible to build an AGI system up carefully and systematically from the ground up i.e. inspired by a sound (or at least plausible) theoretical framework or by modelling it on real-world complex systems that seem to work (because that's the way I proceed too), finetuning the system parameters and managing emerging complexity as we go along and move up the complexity scale. (Just like engineers can build pretty much anything without having a GUT.) Both paradagmatic approaches have their merits and are in fact complementary: explore, simulate, genetically evolve etc. from the top down to get a bird's eye view of the problem space versus incrementally build up from the bottom up following a carefully chartered path/ridge inbetween the chasms of the unknown based on a strong conceptual theoretical founding. It is done all the time in other sciences - even maths! Interestingly, I started out wanting to use a simulation tool to check the behaviour (read: fine-tune the parameters) of my architectural designs but then realised that the simulation of a complex system is actually a complex system itself and it'd be easier and more efficient to prototype than to simulate. But that's just because of the nature of my architecture. Assuming Ben's theories hold, he is adopting the right approach. Given Richard's assumption or intuitions, he is following the right path too. I doubt that they will converge on a common solution but the space of conceivably possible AGI architectures is IMHO extremely large. In fact, my architectural approach is a bit of a poor cousin/hybrid: having neither Richard's engineering skills nor Ben's mathematical understanding I am hoping to do a scruffy alternative path :) -- Research Associate: CITANDA Post-Graduate Section Head Department of Information Systems Phone: (+27)-(0)21-6504256 Fax: (+27)-(0)21-6502280 Office: Leslie Commerce 4.21 On 2007/12/07 at 03:06, in message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Conclusion: there is a danger that the complexity that even Ben agrees must be present in AGI systems will have a significant impact on our efforts to build them. But the only response to this danger at the moment is the bare statement made by people like Ben that I do not think that the danger is significant. No reason given, no explicit attack on any component of the argument I have given, only a statement of intuition, even though I have argued that intuition cannot in principle be a trustworthy guide here. But Richard, your argument ALSO depends on intuitions ... I agree that AGI systems contain a lot of complexity in the dynamical- systems-theory sense. And I agree that tuning all the parameters of an AGI system externally is likely to be intractable, due to this complexity. However, part of the key to intelligence is **self-tuning**. - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73455082-621f89
Re[2]: [agi] How to represent things problem
Richard, It's Neural Network -- set of nodes (concepts), when every node can be connected with the set of other nodes. Every connection has it's own weight. Some nodes are connected with external devices. For example, one node can be connected with one word in text dictionary (that is an external device). you need special extra mechanisms to handle the difference between generic nodes and instance nodes (in a basic neural net there is no distinction between these two, so the system cannot represent even the most basic of situations), 1) Are you talking about problems of basic neural net or problems of Neural Net that I described? 2) Human brain is more complex than basic neural net and probably works similar to what I described. 3) Extra mechanisms would add additional features to instance nodes. (I prefer to call such nodes peripheral or surface.) Surface nodes have the same abilities as regular nodes, but they are also heavily affected by special device. 4) Are you saying that developing special device is a problem? and you need extra mechanisms to handle the dynamic creation/assignment of new nodes, because new things are being experienced all the time. That's correct. Such mechanism that creates new nodes is required. Is that a problem? These extra mechanisms are so important that is arguable that the behavior of the system is dominated by *them*, not by the mere fact that the design started out as a neural net. It doesn't matter what part of system dominates. If we able to solve How to represent things problem by such architecture -- it's good enough, right? Having said that, I believe in neural nets as a good conceptual starting point. Are you saying that what I described is not exactly a Neural Net? How would you call it then? Blend Neural Net? It is just that you need to figure out all that machinery - and no one has, so there is a representation problem in my previous list of problems. We can talk about machinery in all details. I agree, that the system would be complex, but it would have manageable complexity. - 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/?member_id=8660244id_secret=73456976-acd60e
