Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
I think it's normal for tempers to flare during a depression. This kind of technology really pays for itself. The only thing that matters is the code Eric B On 10/12/08, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No idea, Mentifex ... I haven't filtered out any of your messages (or anyone's) ... but sometimes messages get held up at listbox.com by their automated spam filters (or for other random reasons) and I take too long to log in there and approve them... ben Well, how come my posts aren't getting through? (Going out to the list) What do you call that? ATM/Mentifex -- http://code.google.com/p/mindforth/ -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Brad, But, human intelligence is not the only general intelligence we can imagine or create. IMHO, we can get to human-beneficial, non-human-like (but, still, human-inspired) general intelligence much quicker if, at least for AGI 1.0, we avoid the twin productivity sinks of NLU and embodiment. In the end, of course, both or us really have only our opinions. You can't prove the OCP approach, novel though it may be, will, finally, crack the elusive NLU problem. I can't prove it won't. I, agree, therefore, that we should agree to disagree and let history sort things out. However, the OCP approach has been described publicly in detail, so those details can be discussed if you care to take the time and effort to understand them. It is not realistic to expect Dave or me or others to repeat the details in the OCP technical documentation in emails on this list. OTOH, your proposed alternative has not been articulated anywhere that we could read, has it? Your counterargument is not about the particulars of the OCP approach but just about the general idea of using language or embodiment so as to create a system that can be taught. If you want to keep the discussion on this high level of generality, then why don't you answer this question: **What is your alternative to teaching??** I.e., to me, the main point of having intelligence coevolve with linguistic and body-control/perception capability in an AGI, is so as to enable humans to effectively teach that AGI. If you make an AGI without any ability for linguistic, gestural, etc. interaction with humans -- how will you teach it??? Or is your idea that it will be **so** smart from the get-go, on its own, that you won't need to teach it. That it will gain all the knowledge it needs by pure unsupervised pattern-recognition from the environment based on seeking to achieve its goals and learning from experience? In my view, that is possible but much much much harder. It's hard enough to learn to cope with the world when you have a teacher, parent, etc. This seems to be a basic point of logic or information theory rather than anything particular about OCP. thx Ben G --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Dave, Sorry to reply so tardily. I had to devote some time to other, pressing, matters. First, a general comment. There seems to be a very interesting approach to arguing one's case being taken by some posters on this list in recent days. I believe this approach was evinced most recently, and most baldly, by list newbie, Colin Hales. Apparently, Mr. Hales doesn't believe he is responsible for making his arguments clear or backing up his assertions of fact. Rather, it is we who must educate ourselves about the background for his particular arguments and assertions so we will be able to prove those arguments and assertions to ourselves for him. Now, THAT's an ego! This approach, of course, begs the question, Why should I care what Mr. Hales argues or asserts if he isn't going to take the time and effort needed to convince me he's not just some poseur? Does anyone else find this a tad insulting? It's tantamount to saying, Well, I've made my argument in English. It may not be perfectly clear to you because, to really understand it, you need to be fluent in Esperanto. If you're not, that's your problem. Go learn Esperanto so you can understand my fabulous reasoning and be convinced of my argument's veracity. Get real. I can (and will) ignore Mr. Hales. But, then, you used this same approach in your last post to me when you wrote, The OCP approach/strategy, both in crucial specifics of its parts and particularly in its total synthesis, *IS* novel; I recommend a closer re-examination! I think not. If you really care whether I think OCP's approach is novel, you have to convince me, not give me homework. I'm not arguing OCP's position. You are. If you think I don't understand OCP well enough, and if you think that is important to get me to take your argument seriously, then it's up to you to do the heavy lifting. In this case, though, I'll let you off the hook by gladly conceding the point. I will accept as true the proposition that OCP's approach to NLU is completely novel. Of course, I do this gladly because it makes not a bit of difference. In the first place, I didn't argue that the OCP approach was not novel in either its design or implementation. In fact, I'm sure it is. I argued that trying to solve the artificial intelligence problem by, first, solving the NLU problem is not a novel strategy. We have Mr. Turing to thank for it. It has been tried before. It has, to date, always failed. But, as I said, this makes no difference simply because thr fact that the OCP strategy is novel doesn't prove it will work. Indeed, it's not even good evidence. Prior approaches that failed were also once novel. If the problem of NLU is AI-complete (and this is widely believed to be the case), it will not fall to a finite algorithm with space/time complexity small enough to make it viable in a real-time AGI. If NLU turns out to not be AI-complete, then we still have fifty years of past failed effort by many intelligent, sincere and dedicated people to support the argument that it is at least a very difficult problem. My point has been, and still is, that NLU becomes a necessary condition of AGI IFF we define AGI as AGHI. Many people simply can't conceive of a general intelligence that isn't human-like. This is understandable since the only general intelligence we (think we) know something about is human intelligence. In that context, cracking the NLU problem can (although still needn't necessarily) be viewed as a prerequisite to cracking the AGI problem. But, human intelligence is not the only general intelligence we can imagine or create. IMHO, we can get to human-beneficial, non-human-like (but, still, human-inspired) general intelligence much quicker if, at least for AGI 1.0, we avoid the twin productivity sinks of NLU and embodiment. In the end, of course, both or us really have only our opinions. You can't prove the OCP approach, novel though it may be, will, finally, crack the elusive NLU problem. I can't prove it won't. I, agree, therefore, that we should agree to disagree and let history sort things out. Cheers, Brad David Hart wrote: On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, it has, in fact, been tried before. It has, in fact, always failed. Your comments about the quality of Ben's approach are noted. Maybe you're right. But, it's not germane to my argument which is that those parts of Ben G.'s approach that call for human-level NLU, and that propose embodiment (or virtual embodiment) as a way to achieve human-level NLU, have been tried before, many times, and have always failed. If Ben G. knows something he's not telling us then, when he does, I'll consider modifying my views. But, remember, my comments were never directed at the OpenCog project or Ben G. personally. They were directed at an AGI
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Ben, Well, I guess you told me! I'll just be taking my loosely-coupled ...bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets... right on out of here. No need to worry about me venturing an opinion here ever again. I have neither the energy nor, apparently, the intellectual ability to respond to a broadside like that from the top dog. It's too bad. I was just starting to fell at home here. Sigh. Cheers (and goodbye), Brad Ben Goertzel wrote: A few points... 1) Closely associating embodiment with GOFAI is just flat-out historically wrong. GOFAI refers to a specific class of approaches to AI that wer pursued a few decades ago, which were not centered on embodiment as a key concept or aspect. 2) Embodiment based approaches to AGI certainly have not been extensively tried and failed in any serious way, simply because of the primitive nature of real and virtual robotic technology. Even right now, the real and virtual robotics tech are not *quite* there to enable us to pursue embodiment-based AGI in a really tractable way. For instance, humanoid robots like the Nao cost $20K and have all sorts of serious actuator problems ... and virtual world tech is not built to allow fine-grained AI control of agent skeletons ... etc. It would be more accurate to say that we're 5-15 years away from a condition where embodiment-based AGI can be tried-out without immense time-wastage on making not-quite-ready supporting technologies work 3) I do not think that humanlike NL understanding nor humanlike embodiment are in any way necessary for AGI. I just think that they seem to represent the shortest path to getting there, because they represent a path that **we understand reasonably well** ... and because AGIs following this path will be able to **learn from us** reasonably easily, as opposed to AGIs built on fundamentally nonhuman principles To put it simply, once an AGI can understand human language we can teach it stuff. This will be very helpful to it. We have a lot of experience in teaching agents with humanlike bodies, communicating using human language. Then it can teach us stuff too. And human language is just riddled through and through with metaphors to embodiment, suggesting that solving the disambiguation problems in linguistics will be much easier for a system with vaguely humanlike embodied experience. 4) I have articulated a detailed proposal for how to make an AGI using the OCP design together with linguistic communication and virtual embodiment. Rather than just a promising-looking assemblage of in-development technologies, the proposal is grounded in a coherent holistic theory of how minds work. What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is going to lead to an AGI capable of adapting to fundamentally new situations not envisioned by any of its programmers? I'm not completely ruling out the possiblity that this kind of strategy could work, but where's the beef? I'm not asking for a proof, I'm asking for a coherent, detailed argument as to why this kind of approach could lead to a generally-intelligent mind. 5) It sometimes feels to me like the reason so little progress is made toward AGI is that the 2000 people on the planet who are passionate about it, are moving in 4000 different directions ;-) ... OpenCog is an attempt to get a substantial number of AGI enthusiasts all moving in the same direction, without claiming this is the **only** possible workable direction. Eventually, supporting technologies will advance enough that some smart guy can build an AGI on his own in a year of hacking. I don't think we're at that stage yet -- but I think we're at the stage where a team of a couple dozen could do it in 5-10 years. However, if that level of effort can't be systematically summoned (thru gov't grants, industry funding, open-source volunteerism or wherever) then maybe AGI won't come about till the supporting technologies develop further. My hope is that we can overcome the existing collective-psychology and practical-economic obstacles that hold us back from creating AGI together, and build a beneficial AGI ASAP ... -- Ben G On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 2:34 AM, David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, it has, in fact, been tried before. It has, in fact, always failed. Your comments about the quality of Ben's approach are noted. Maybe you're right. But, it's not germane to my argument which is that those parts of Ben G.'s approach that call for human-level NLU, and that propose embodiment (or virtual embodiment) as a way to achieve human-level NLU, have been tried before,
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Brad, Sorry if my response was somehow harsh or inappropriate, it really wasn't intended as such. Your contributions to the list are valued. These last few weeks have been rather tough for me in my entrepreneurial role (it's not the best time to be operating a small business, which is what Novamente LLC is) so I may be in a crankier mood than usual for that reason. I've been considering taking a break from this email list myself for a few weeks or months, not because I don't enjoy the discussions, but because they're taking so much of my time lately! I guess the essence of my response to you was *** What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is going to lead to an AGI capable of adapting to fundamentally new situations not envisioned by any of its programmers? I'm not completely ruling out the possiblity that this kind of strategy could work, but where's the beef? I'm not asking for a proof, I'm asking for a coherent, detailed argument as to why this kind of approach could lead to a generally-intelligent mind. *** and I don't really see what is offensive about that, but maybe my judgment is off this week... -- Ben G On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Ben, Well, I guess you told me! I'll just be taking my loosely-coupled ...bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets... right on out of here. No need to worry about me venturing an opinion here ever again. I have neither the energy nor, apparently, the intellectual ability to respond to a broadside like that from the top dog. It's too bad. I was just starting to fell at home here. Sigh. Cheers (and goodbye), Brad Ben Goertzel wrote: A few points... 1) Closely associating embodiment with GOFAI is just flat-out historically wrong. GOFAI refers to a specific class of approaches to AI that wer pursued a few decades ago, which were not centered on embodiment as a key concept or aspect. 2) Embodiment based approaches to AGI certainly have not been extensively tried and failed in any serious way, simply because of the primitive nature of real and virtual robotic technology. Even right now, the real and virtual robotics tech are not *quite* there to enable us to pursue embodiment-based AGI in a really tractable way. For instance, humanoid robots like the Nao cost $20K and have all sorts of serious actuator problems ... and virtual world tech is not built to allow fine-grained AI control of agent skeletons ... etc. It would be more accurate to say that we're 5-15 years away from a condition where embodiment-based AGI can be tried-out without immense time-wastage on making not-quite-ready supporting technologies work 3) I do not think that humanlike NL understanding nor humanlike embodiment are in any way necessary for AGI. I just think that they seem to represent the shortest path to getting there, because they represent a path that **we understand reasonably well** ... and because AGIs following this path will be able to **learn from us** reasonably easily, as opposed to AGIs built on fundamentally nonhuman principles To put it simply, once an AGI can understand human language we can teach it stuff. This will be very helpful to it. We have a lot of experience in teaching agents with humanlike bodies, communicating using human language. Then it can teach us stuff too. And human language is just riddled through and through with metaphors to embodiment, suggesting that solving the disambiguation problems in linguistics will be much easier for a system with vaguely humanlike embodied experience. 4) I have articulated a detailed proposal for how to make an AGI using the OCP design together with linguistic communication and virtual embodiment. Rather than just a promising-looking assemblage of in-development technologies, the proposal is grounded in a coherent holistic theory of how minds work. What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is going to lead to an AGI capable of adapting to fundamentally new situations not envisioned by any of its programmers? I'm not completely ruling out the possiblity that this kind of strategy could work, but where's the beef? I'm not asking for a proof, I'm asking for a coherent, detailed argument as to why this kind of approach could lead to a generally-intelligent mind. 5) It sometimes feels to me like the reason so little progress is made toward AGI is that the 2000 people on the planet who are passionate about it, are moving in 4000 different directions ;-) ... OpenCog is an attempt to get a substantial number of AGI enthusiasts all moving in the same direction, without
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
And, just to clarify: the fact that I set up this list and pay $12/month for its hosting, and deal with the occasional list-moderation issues that arise, is not supposed to give my **AI opinions** primacy over anybody else's on the list, in discussions I only intervene as moderator when discussions go off-topic, not to try to push my perspective on people ... and on the rare occasions when I am speaking as list owner/moderator rather than as just another AI guy with his own opinions, I try to be very clear that that is the role I'm adopting.. ben g On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brad, Sorry if my response was somehow harsh or inappropriate, it really wasn't intended as such. Your contributions to the list are valued. These last few weeks have been rather tough for me in my entrepreneurial role (it's not the best time to be operating a small business, which is what Novamente LLC is) so I may be in a crankier mood than usual for that reason. I've been considering taking a break from this email list myself for a few weeks or months, not because I don't enjoy the discussions, but because they're taking so much of my time lately! I guess the essence of my response to you was *** What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is going to lead to an AGI capable of adapting to fundamentally new situations not envisioned by any of its programmers? I'm not completely ruling out the possiblity that this kind of strategy could work, but where's the beef? I'm not asking for a proof, I'm asking for a coherent, detailed argument as to why this kind of approach could lead to a generally-intelligent mind. *** and I don't really see what is offensive about that, but maybe my judgment is off this week... -- Ben G On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Ben, Well, I guess you told me! I'll just be taking my loosely-coupled ...bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets... right on out of here. No need to worry about me venturing an opinion here ever again. I have neither the energy nor, apparently, the intellectual ability to respond to a broadside like that from the top dog. It's too bad. I was just starting to fell at home here. Sigh. Cheers (and goodbye), Brad Ben Goertzel wrote: A few points... 1) Closely associating embodiment with GOFAI is just flat-out historically wrong. GOFAI refers to a specific class of approaches to AI that wer pursued a few decades ago, which were not centered on embodiment as a key concept or aspect. 2) Embodiment based approaches to AGI certainly have not been extensively tried and failed in any serious way, simply because of the primitive nature of real and virtual robotic technology. Even right now, the real and virtual robotics tech are not *quite* there to enable us to pursue embodiment-based AGI in a really tractable way. For instance, humanoid robots like the Nao cost $20K and have all sorts of serious actuator problems ... and virtual world tech is not built to allow fine-grained AI control of agent skeletons ... etc. It would be more accurate to say that we're 5-15 years away from a condition where embodiment-based AGI can be tried-out without immense time-wastage on making not-quite-ready supporting technologies work 3) I do not think that humanlike NL understanding nor humanlike embodiment are in any way necessary for AGI. I just think that they seem to represent the shortest path to getting there, because they represent a path that **we understand reasonably well** ... and because AGIs following this path will be able to **learn from us** reasonably easily, as opposed to AGIs built on fundamentally nonhuman principles To put it simply, once an AGI can understand human language we can teach it stuff. This will be very helpful to it. We have a lot of experience in teaching agents with humanlike bodies, communicating using human language. Then it can teach us stuff too. And human language is just riddled through and through with metaphors to embodiment, suggesting that solving the disambiguation problems in linguistics will be much easier for a system with vaguely humanlike embodied experience. 4) I have articulated a detailed proposal for how to make an AGI using the OCP design together with linguistic communication and virtual embodiment. Rather than just a promising-looking assemblage of in-development technologies, the proposal is grounded in a coherent holistic theory of how minds work. What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is going to lead to an AGI capable of
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brad, Sorry if my response was somehow harsh or inappropriate, it really wasn't intended as such. Your contributions to the list are valued. These last few weeks have been rather tough for me in my entrepreneurial role (it's not the best time to be operating a small business, which is what Novamente LLC is) so I may be in a crankier mood than usual for that reason. I don't think your response was in any way harsh or inappropriate; honestly, you in a cranky mood are still generally more polite and tolerant than most of us in a good mood! Hoping Novamente LLC pulls through the current recession okay. --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: These last few weeks have been rather tough for me in my entrepreneurial role (it's not the best time to be operating a small business, which is what Novamente LLC is) so I may be in a crankier mood than usual for that reason. The economy is fundamentally ground. --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Ben, I think that's all been extremely clear -and I think you've been very good in all your different roles :). Your efforts have produced a v. good group -and a great many thanks for them. And, just to clarify: the fact that I set up this list and pay $12/month for its hosting, and deal with the occasional list-moderation issues that arise, is not supposed to give my **AI opinions** primacy over anybody else's on the list, in discussions I only intervene as moderator when discussions go off-topic, not to try to push my perspective on people ... and on the rare occasions when I am speaking as list owner/moderator rather than as just another AI guy with his own opinions, I try to be very clear that that is the role I'm adopting.. ben g --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
If nothing else, for the price of a movie ticket per month, it provides me many more hours of monthly entertainment ... with a much more interesting cast of characters than any Hollywood flick ... though the plot development gets confusing at times ;-) And who knows, some of these discussions might even lead to something of value eventually ;-O ben g On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Ben, I think that's all been extremely clear -and I think you've been very good in all your different roles :). Your efforts have produced a v. good group -and a great many thanks for them. And, just to clarify: the fact that I set up this list and pay $12/month for its hosting, and deal with the occasional list-moderation issues that arise, is not supposed to give my **AI opinions** primacy over anybody else's on the list, in discussions I only intervene as moderator when discussions go off-topic, not to try to push my perspective on people ... and on the rare occasions when I am speaking as list owner/moderator rather than as just another AI guy with his own opinions, I try to be very clear that that is the role I'm adopting.. ben g -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
No idea, Mentifex ... I haven't filtered out any of your messages (or anyone's) ... but sometimes messages get held up at listbox.com by their automated spam filters (or for other random reasons) and I take too long to log in there and approve them... ben Well, how come my posts aren't getting through? (Going out to the list) What do you call that? ATM/Mentifex -- http://code.google.com/p/mindforth/ -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome - Dr Samuel Johnson --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Ben Goertzel wrote: And, just to clarify: the fact that I set up this list and pay $12/month for its hosting, and deal with the occasional list-moderation issues that arise, is not supposed to give my **AI opinions** primacy over anybody else's on the list, in discussions I only intervene as moderator when discussions go off-topic, not to try to push my perspective on people ... and on the rare occasions when I am speaking as list owner/moderator rather than as just another AI guy with his own opinions, I try to be very clear that that is the role I'm adopting.. ben g Well, how come my posts aren't getting through? (Going out to the list) What do you call that? ATM/Mentifex -- http://code.google.com/p/mindforth/ --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
The quantum level biases would be more general and more correct as it is the case with quantum physics and classical physics. The reasons why humans do not have modern physics biases for space and time: There is no relevant advantage to survive when you have such biases and probably the costs of necessary resources to obtain any advantage are far too high for a biological system. But with future AGI (not the first level), these objections won't hold. We don't need AGI do help us with middle level physics. We will need AGI to make progress in worlds, were our innate intuitions do not hold, namely nanotechnology, inner cellular biology. So there would be an advantage for quantum biases and because of this advantage the quantum biases would probably more often used than non-quantum biases. And what about the costs of resources? We could imagine an AGI brain which has the size of a continent. Of course not for the first level AGI. But I am sure, that future AGIs will have quantum biases. But as Ben said: First we should build AGI with biases we have and understand. And the main 3 problems of AGI should be solved first: How to obtain knowledge, how to represent knowledge and how to use knowledge to solve different problems in different domains. Charles Hixson wrote: I feel that an AI with quantum level biases would be less general. It would be drastically handicapped when dealing with the middle level, which is where most of living is centered. Certainly an AGI should have modules which can more or less directly handle quantum events, but I would predict that those would not be as heavily used as the ones that deal with the mid level. We (usually) use temperature rather then molecule speeds for very good reasons. --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, it has, in fact, been tried before. It has, in fact, always failed. Your comments about the quality of Ben's approach are noted. Maybe you're right. But, it's not germane to my argument which is that those parts of Ben G.'s approach that call for human-level NLU, and that propose embodiment (or virtual embodiment) as a way to achieve human-level NLU, have been tried before, many times, and have always failed. If Ben G. knows something he's not telling us then, when he does, I'll consider modifying my views. But, remember, my comments were never directed at the OpenCog project or Ben G. personally. They were directed at an AGI *strategy* not invented by Ben G. or OpenCog. The OCP approach/strategy, both in crucial specifics of its parts and particularly in its total synthesis, *IS* novel; I recommend a closer re-examination! The mere resemblance of some of its parts to past [failed] AI undertakings is not enough reason to dismiss those parts, IMHO, dislike of embodiment or NLU or any other aspect that has a GOFAI past lurking in the wings not withstanding. OTOH, I will happily agree to disagree on these points to save the AGI list from going down in flames! ;-) -dave --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
A few points... 1) Closely associating embodiment with GOFAI is just flat-out historically wrong. GOFAI refers to a specific class of approaches to AI that wer pursued a few decades ago, which were not centered on embodiment as a key concept or aspect. 2) Embodiment based approaches to AGI certainly have not been extensively tried and failed in any serious way, simply because of the primitive nature of real and virtual robotic technology. Even right now, the real and virtual robotics tech are not *quite* there to enable us to pursue embodiment-based AGI in a really tractable way. For instance, humanoid robots like the Nao cost $20K and have all sorts of serious actuator problems ... and virtual world tech is not built to allow fine-grained AI control of agent skeletons ... etc. It would be more accurate to say that we're 5-15 years away from a condition where embodiment-based AGI can be tried-out without immense time-wastage on making not-quite-ready supporting technologies work 3) I do not think that humanlike NL understanding nor humanlike embodiment are in any way necessary for AGI. I just think that they seem to represent the shortest path to getting there, because they represent a path that **we understand reasonably well** ... and because AGIs following this path will be able to **learn from us** reasonably easily, as opposed to AGIs built on fundamentally nonhuman principles To put it simply, once an AGI can understand human language we can teach it stuff. This will be very helpful to it. We have a lot of experience in teaching agents with humanlike bodies, communicating using human language. Then it can teach us stuff too. And human language is just riddled through and through with metaphors to embodiment, suggesting that solving the disambiguation problems in linguistics will be much easier for a system with vaguely humanlike embodied experience. 4) I have articulated a detailed proposal for how to make an AGI using the OCP design together with linguistic communication and virtual embodiment. Rather than just a promising-looking assemblage of in-development technologies, the proposal is grounded in a coherent holistic theory of how minds work. What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is going to lead to an AGI capable of adapting to fundamentally new situations not envisioned by any of its programmers? I'm not completely ruling out the possiblity that this kind of strategy could work, but where's the beef? I'm not asking for a proof, I'm asking for a coherent, detailed argument as to why this kind of approach could lead to a generally-intelligent mind. 5) It sometimes feels to me like the reason so little progress is made toward AGI is that the 2000 people on the planet who are passionate about it, are moving in 4000 different directions ;-) ... OpenCog is an attempt to get a substantial number of AGI enthusiasts all moving in the same direction, without claiming this is the **only** possible workable direction. Eventually, supporting technologies will advance enough that some smart guy can build an AGI on his own in a year of hacking. I don't think we're at that stage yet -- but I think we're at the stage where a team of a couple dozen could do it in 5-10 years. However, if that level of effort can't be systematically summoned (thru gov't grants, industry funding, open-source volunteerism or wherever) then maybe AGI won't come about till the supporting technologies develop further. My hope is that we can overcome the existing collective-psychology and practical-economic obstacles that hold us back from creating AGI together, and build a beneficial AGI ASAP ... -- Ben G On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 2:34 AM, David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: So, it has, in fact, been tried before. It has, in fact, always failed. Your comments about the quality of Ben's approach are noted. Maybe you're right. But, it's not germane to my argument which is that those parts of Ben G.'s approach that call for human-level NLU, and that propose embodiment (or virtual embodiment) as a way to achieve human-level NLU, have been tried before, many times, and have always failed. If Ben G. knows something he's not telling us then, when he does, I'll consider modifying my views. But, remember, my comments were never directed at the OpenCog project or Ben G. personally. They were directed at an AGI *strategy* not invented by Ben G. or OpenCog. The OCP approach/strategy, both in crucial specifics of its parts and particularly in its total synthesis, *IS* novel; I recommend a closer re-examination! The mere resemblance of some of its parts to past [failed] AI undertakings is not enough reason to dismiss those parts, IMHO, dislike of
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Ben, V. interesting and helpful to get this pretty clearly stated general position. However: To put it simply, once an AGI can understand human language we can teach it stuff. you don't give any prognostic view about the acquisition of language. Mine is - in your dreams. Arguably, most AGI-ers still see handling language as a largely logical exercise of translating between symbols in dictionaries and texts, with perhaps a little grounding. I see language as an extremely sophisticated worldpicture, and system for handling that picture, which is actually, even if not immediately obvious, a multimedia exercise that is both continuously embodied in our system and embedded in the real world. Not just a mode of, but almost the whole of the brain in action, interacting with the whole of the world. No AGI system will be literate in an awfully long time. Your view? And: I think we're at the stage where a team of a couple dozen could do it in 5-10 years I repeat - this is outrageous. You don't have the slightest evidence of progress - you [the collective you] haven't solved a single problem of general intelligence - a single mode of generalising - so you don't have the slightest basis for making predictions of progress other than wish-fulfilment, do you? Ben:A few points... 1) Closely associating embodiment with GOFAI is just flat-out historically wrong. GOFAI refers to a specific class of approaches to AI that wer pursued a few decades ago, which were not centered on embodiment as a key concept or aspect. 2) Embodiment based approaches to AGI certainly have not been extensively tried and failed in any serious way, simply because of the primitive nature of real and virtual robotic technology. Even right now, the real and virtual robotics tech are not *quite* there to enable us to pursue embodiment-based AGI in a really tractable way. For instance, humanoid robots like the Nao cost $20K and have all sorts of serious actuator problems ... and virtual world tech is not built to allow fine-grained AI control of agent skeletons ... etc. It would be more accurate to say that we're 5-15 years away from a condition where embodiment-based AGI can be tried-out without immense time-wastage on making not-quite-ready supporting technologies work 3) I do not think that humanlike NL understanding nor humanlike embodiment are in any way necessary for AGI. I just think that they seem to represent the shortest path to getting there, because they represent a path that **we understand reasonably well** ... and because AGIs following this path will be able to **learn from us** reasonably easily, as opposed to AGIs built on fundamentally nonhuman principles To put it simply, once an AGI can understand human language we can teach it stuff. This will be very helpful to it. We have a lot of experience in teaching agents with humanlike bodies, communicating using human language. Then it can teach us stuff too. And human language is just riddled through and through with metaphors to embodiment, suggesting that solving the disambiguation problems in linguistics will be much easier for a system with vaguely humanlike embodied experience. 4) I have articulated a detailed proposal for how to make an AGI using the OCP design together with linguistic communication and virtual embodiment. Rather than just a promising-looking assemblage of in-development technologies, the proposal is grounded in a coherent holistic theory of how minds work. What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is going to lead to an AGI capable of adapting to fundamentally new situations not envisioned by any of its programmers? I'm not completely ruling out the possiblity that this kind of strategy could work, but where's the beef? I'm not asking for a proof, I'm asking for a coherent, detailed argument as to why this kind of approach could lead to a generally-intelligent mind. 5) It sometimes feels to me like the reason so little progress is made toward AGI is that the 2000 people on the planet who are passionate about it, are moving in 4000 different directions ;-) ... OpenCog is an attempt to get a substantial number of AGI enthusiasts all moving in the same direction, without claiming this is the **only** possible workable direction. Eventually, supporting technologies will advance enough that some smart guy can build an AGI on his own in a year of hacking. I don't think we're at that stage yet -- but I think we're at the stage where a team of a couple dozen could do it in 5-10 years. However, if that level of effort can't be systematically summoned (thru gov't grants, industry funding, open-source volunteerism or wherever) then maybe AGI won't come about till the supporting
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
I think we're at the stage where a team of a couple dozen could do it in 5-10 years I repeat - this is outrageous. You don't have the slightest evidence of progress - you [the collective you] haven't solved a single problem of general intelligence - a single mode of generalising - so you don't have the slightest basis for making predictions of progress other than wish-fulfilment, do you? The argument is complex and technical and doesn't lend itself to convincing summarization in a few glib, nontechnical paragraphs, sorry... Read and understand -- OpenCogPrime wikibook -- PLN book -- The Hidden Pattern and we could have an interesting argument about this Otherwise, it's mostly gonna be just surface-level yakking... ben g --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Good points. I would like to add a further point: Human language is a sequence of words which is used to transfer patterns of one brain into another brain. When we have an AGI which understands and speaks language, then for the first time there would be an exchange of patterns between an artificial brain and a human brain. So human language is not only useful to teach the AGI some stuff. We also will have an easy access to the toplevel patterns of the AGI when it speaks to us. Human language will be useful to understand what is going on in the AGI. This makes testing easier. -Matthias Ben G wrote A few points... 1) Closely associating embodiment with GOFAI is just flat-out historically wrong. GOFAI refers to a specific class of approaches to AI that wer pursued a few decades ago, which were not centered on embodiment as a key concept or aspect. 2) Embodiment based approaches to AGI certainly have not been extensively tried and failed in any serious way, simply because of the primitive nature of real and virtual robotic technology. Even right now, the real and virtual robotics tech are not *quite* there to enable us to pursue embodiment-based AGI in a really tractable way. For instance, humanoid robots like the Nao cost $20K and have all sorts of serious actuator problems ... and virtual world tech is not built to allow fine-grained AI control of agent skeletons ... etc. It would be more accurate to say that we're 5-15 years away from a condition where embodiment-based AGI can be tried-out without immense time-wastage on making not-quite-ready supporting technologies work 3) I do not think that humanlike NL understanding nor humanlike embodiment are in any way necessary for AGI. I just think that they seem to represent the shortest path to getting there, because they represent a path that **we understand reasonably well** ... and because AGIs following this path will be able to **learn from us** reasonably easily, as opposed to AGIs built on fundamentally nonhuman principles To put it simply, once an AGI can understand human language we can teach it stuff. This will be very helpful to it. We have a lot of experience in teaching agents with humanlike bodies, communicating using human language. Then it can teach us stuff too. And human language is just riddled through and through with metaphors to embodiment, suggesting that solving the disambiguation problems in linguistics will be much easier for a system with vaguely humanlike embodied experience. 4) I have articulated a detailed proposal for how to make an AGI using the OCP design together with linguistic communication and virtual embodiment. Rather than just a promising-looking assemblage of in-development technologies, the proposal is grounded in a coherent holistic theory of how minds work. What I don't see in your counterproposal is any kind of grounding of your ideas in a theory of mind. That is: why should I believe that loosely coupling a bunch of clever narrow-AI widgets, as you suggest, is going to lead to an AGI capable of adapting to fundamentally new situations not envisioned by any of its programmers? I'm not completely ruling out the possiblity that this kind of strategy could work, but where's the beef? I'm not asking for a proof, I'm asking for a coherent, detailed argument as to why this kind of approach could lead to a generally-intelligent mind. 5) It sometimes feels to me like the reason so little progress is made toward AGI is that the 2000 people on the planet who are passionate about it, are moving in 4000 different directions ;-) ... OpenCog is an attempt to get a substantial number of AGI enthusiasts all moving in the same direction, without claiming this is the **only** possible workable direction. Eventually, supporting technologies will advance enough that some smart guy can build an AGI on his own in a year of hacking. I don't think we're at that stage yet -- but I think we're at the stage where a team of a couple dozen could do it in 5-10 years. However, if that level of effort can't be systematically summoned (thru gov't grants, industry funding, open-source volunteerism or wherever) then maybe AGI won't come about till the supporting technologies develop further. My hope is that we can overcome the existing collective-psychology and practical-economic obstacles that hold us back from creating AGI together, and build a beneficial AGI ASAP ... -- Ben G On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 2:34 AM, David Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, it has, in fact, been tried before. It has, in fact, always failed. Your comments about the quality of Ben's approach are noted. Maybe you're right. But, it's not germane to my argument which is that those parts of Ben G.'s approach that call for human-level NLU, and that propose embodiment (or virtual embodiment) as a way to achieve human-level NLU, have been tried
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Dr. Matthias Heger wrote: *Ben G wrote* ** Well, for the purpose of creating the first human-level AGI, it seems important **to** wire in humanlike bias about space and time ... this will greatly ease the task of teaching the system to use our language and communicate with us effectively... But I agree that not **all** AGIs should have this inbuilt biasing ... for instance an AGI hooked directly to quantum microworld sensors could become a kind of quantum mind with a totally different intuition for the physical world than we have... Ok. But then I have again a different understanding of the G in AGI. The “quantum mind” should be more general than the human level AGI. But since the human level AGI is difficult enough, we should build it first. After that, for AGI 2.0, I propose the goal to build a quantum mind. ;-) I feel that an AI with quantum level biases would be less general. It would be drastically handicapped when dealing with the middle level, which is where most of living is centered. Certainly an AGI should have modules which can more or less directly handle quantum events, but I would predict that those would not be as heavily used as the ones that deal with the mid level. We (usually) use temperature rather then molecule speeds for very good reasons. --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Charles Hixson [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: I feel that an AI with quantum level biases would be less general. It would be drastically handicapped when dealing with the middle level, which is where most of living is centered. Certainly an AGI should have modules which can more or less directly handle quantum events, but I would predict that those would not be as heavily used as the ones that deal with the mid level. We (usually) use temperature rather then molecule speeds for very good reasons. A single AGI should be able to use different sets of biases and heuristics in different contexts, and do so simultaneously (i.e. multiple concurrent areas of hyper-focus, each with its own context, assuming the AGI is running on powerful enough hardware). This ability is clearly pointed in the direction of *greater* generality. The PLN book hints that this scenario is forseen and planned for in the design of PLN; future revisions may well mention a similar example specifically, inline with Ben's related comments on this topic. -dave --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 3:55 PM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: More generally, as long as AGI designers and developers insist on simulating human intelligence, they will have to deal with the AI-complete problem of natural language understanding. Looking for new approaches to this problem, many researches (including prominent members of this list) have turned to embodiment (or virtual embodiment) for help. IMHO, this is not a sound tactic because human-like embodiment is, itself, probably an AI-complete problem. Incrementally tackling the AI-complete nature of the natural language problem is one of the primary reasons for going down the virtual embodiment path in the first place, to ground the concepts that an AI learns in non-verbal ways which are similar to (but certainly not identical to) the ways in which humans and other animals learn (see Piaget, et al). Whether or not human-like embodiment is an AI-complete problem (we're betting it's not) is much less clear compared with whether or not natural language comprehension is an AI-complete problem (research to date indicates that it is). Insofar as achieving human-like embodiment and human natural language understanding is possible, it is also a very dangerous strategy. The process of understanding human natural language through human-like embodiment will, of necessity, lead to the AGHI developing a sense of self. After all, that's how we humans got ours (except, of course, the concept preceded the language for it). And look how we turned out. The development of 'self' in an AI does NOT imply the development of the same type of ultra-narcissistic self that developed evolutionarily in humans. The development of something resembling a 'self' in an AI should be pursued only with careful monitoring, guidance and tuning to prevent the development of a runaway ultra-narcissistic self. I realize that an AGHI will not turn on us simply because it understands that we're not (like) it (i.e., just because it acquired a sense of self). But, it could. Do we really want to take that chance? Especially when it's not necessary for human-beneficial AGI (AGI without the silent H)? Embodiment is indeed likely not necessary to reach human-beneficial AGI, but there's a good line of reasoning that indicates it might be the shortest path there, managed risks and all. There are also significant risks to be faced (bio/nano/info) for delaying human-beneficial AGI (e.g., because of being overly precautious about getting there via human-like AGI). -dave --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Brad Paulson wrote More generally, as long as AGI designers and developers insist on simulating human intelligence, they will have to deal with the AI-complete problem of natural language understanding. Looking for new approaches to this problem, many researches (including prominent members of this list) have turned to embodiment (or virtual embodiment) for help. We only know one human level intelligence which works. And this works with embodiment. So for this reason, it seems to be an useful approach. But, of course, if we always use the humans as a guide to develop AGI then we will probably obtain similar limitations we observe in humans. I think an AGI which should be useful for us, must be a very good scientist, physicist and mathematician. Is the human kind of learning by experience and the human kind of intelligence good for this job? I don't think so. Most people on this planet are very poor in these disciplines and I don't think that this is only a question of education. There seems to be a very subtle fine tuning of genes necessary to change the level of intelligence from a monkey to the average human. And there is an even more subtle fine tuning necessary to obtain a good mathematician. This is discouraging for the development of AGI because it shows that human level intelligence is not only a question of the right architecture but it seems to be more a question of the right fine tuning of some parameters. Even if we know that we have the right software architecture, then the real hard problems would still arise. We know that humans can swim. But who would create a swimming machine by following the example of the human anatomy? Similarly, we know that some humans can be scientists. But is it real the best way to follow the example of humans to create an artificial scientists? Probably not. If you have the goal to create an artificial scientist in nanotechnology, is it a good strategy to let this artificial agent walk through an artificial garden with trees and clouds and so on? Is this the best way to make progress in nanotechnology, economy and so on? Probably not. But if we have no idea how to do it better, we have no other chance than to follow the example of human intelligence. --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Brad:Unfortunately, as long as the mainstream AGI community continue to hang on to what should, by now, be a thoroughly-discredited strategy, we will never (or too late) achieve human-beneficial AGI. Brad, Perhaps you could give a single example of what you mean by non-human intelligence. What sort of faculties for instance? Or problemsolving? How will these be fundamentally different? Maybe you didn't follow my discussion with Ben about this - it turned out that Novamente is entirely humanoid. IOW when AGI-ers talk of producing a non-human intelligence, what they actually mean in practice is cherry-picking those human faculties they like ( think they can mimic) ignoring those they don't (or find too difficult). There is no real, thought-through conception of a non-human entity at all.Have you thought one through? --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Dr. Matthias Heger wrote: Brad Paulson wrote More generally, as long as AGI designers and developers insist on simulating human intelligence, they will have to deal with the AI-complete problem of natural language understanding. Looking for new approaches to this problem, many researches (including prominent members of this list) have turned to embodiment (or virtual embodiment) for help. We only know one human level intelligence which works. And this works with embodiment. So for this reason, it seems to be an useful approach. Dr. Heger, First, I don't subscribe to the belief that AGI 1.0 need be human-level. In fact, my belief is just the opposite: I don't think it should be human-level. And, with all due respect sir, while we may know that human-level intelligence works, we have no idea (or very little idea) *how* it works. That, to me, seems to be the more important issue. If we did have a better idea of how human-level intelligence worked, we'd probably have built a human-like AGI by now. Instead, for all we know, human intelligence (and not just the absence or presence or degree thereof in any individual human) may be at the bottom end of the scale in the universe of all possible intelligences. You are also, again with all due respect, incorrect in saying that we have no other intelligence with which to work. We have the digital computer. It can beat expert humans at the game of chess. It can beat any human at arithmetic -- both in speed and accuracy. Unlike humans, it remembers anything ever stored in its memory and can recall anything in its memory with 100% accuracy. It never shows up to work tired or hung over. It never calls in sick. On the other hand, what a digital computer doesn't do well at present, things like understanding human natural language and being creative (in a non-random way), humans do very well. So, why are we so hell-bent on building an AGI in our own image? It just doesn't make sense when it is manifestly clear that we know how to do better. Why aren't we designing and developing an AGI that leverages the strengths, rather than attempts to overcome the weaknesses, of both forms of intelligence? For many tasks that would be deemed intelligent if Turing's imitation game had not required natural HUMAN language understanding (or the equivalent mimicking thereof), we have already created a non-human intelligence superior to human-level intelligence. It thinks nothing like we do (base-2 vs. base-10) yet, for many feats of intelligence only humans used to be able to perform, it is a far superior intelligence. And, please note, not only is human-like embodiment *not* required by this intelligence, it would be (as it is to the human chess player) a HINDRANCE. But, of course, if we always use the humans as a guide to develop AGI then we will probably obtain similar limitations we observe in humans. I actually don't have a problem with using human-level intelligence as an *inspiration* for AGI 1.0. Digital computers were certainly inspired by human-level intelligence. I do, however, have a problem with using human-level intelligence as a *destination* for AGI 1.0. I think an AGI which should be useful for us, must be a very good scientist, physicist and mathematician. Is the human kind of learning by experience and the human kind of intelligence good for this job? I don't think so. Most people on this planet are very poor in these disciplines and I don't think that this is only a question of education. There seems to be a very subtle fine tuning of genes necessary to change the level of intelligence from a monkey to the average human. And there is an even more subtle fine tuning necessary to obtain a good mathematician. One must be careful with arguments from genetics. The average chimp will beat any human for lunch in a short-term memory contest. I don't care how good the human contestant is at mathematics. Since judgments about intelligence are always relative to the environment in which it is evinced, in an environment where those with good short-term memory skills thrive and those without barely survive, chimps sure look like the higher intelligence. This is discouraging for the development of AGI because it shows that human level intelligence is not only a question of the right architecture but it seems to be more a question of the right fine tuning of some parameters. Even if we know that we have the right software architecture, then the real hard problems would still arise. Perhaps. But your first sentence should have read, This is discouraging for the development of HUMAN-LEVEL AGI because It doesn't really matter to a non-human AGI. We know that humans can swim. But who would create a swimming machine by following the example of the human anatomy? Yes. Just as we didn't design airplanes to fly bird-like, even though the bird was our best source of inspiration for developing
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 7:29 PM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] Unfortunately, as long as the mainstream AGI community continue to hang on to what should, by now, be a thoroughly-discredited strategy, we will never (or too late) achieve human-beneficial AGI. What a strange rant! How can something that's never before been attempted be considered a thoroughly-discredited strategy? I.e., creating an AI system system designed for *general learning and reasoning* (one with AGI goals clearly thought through to a greater degree than anyone has attempted previously: http://opencog.org/wiki/OpenCogPrime:Roadmap ) and then carefully and deliberately progressing that AI through Piagetan-inspired inspired stages of learning and development, all the while continuing to methodically improve the AI with ever more sophisticated software development, cognitive algorithm advances (e.g. planned improvements to PLN and MOSES/Reduct), reality modeling and testing iterations, homeostatic system tuning, intelligence testing and metrics, etc. One might well have said in early 1903 that the concept of powered flight was a thoroughly-discredited strategy. It's just as silly to say that now [about Goertzel's approach to AGI] as it would have been to say it then [about the Wright brothers' approach to flight]. -dave --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: AW: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Dr. Matthias Heger wrote: Brad Paulson wrote Fortunately, as I argued above, we do have other choices. We don't have to settle for human-like. I do not see so far other choices. Chess is AI but not AGI. Yes, I agree but IFF by AGI you mean human-level AGI. As you point out below, a lot has to do with how we define AGI. Your idea of an incremental roadmap to human-level AGI is interesting, but I think everyone who tries to build a human-level AGI already makes incremental experiments and first steps with non-human-level AGI in order to make a proof of concept. I think, Ben Goertzel has done some experiments with artificial dogs and other non-human agents. So it is only a matter of definition what we mean by AGI 1.0 I think, we now have already AGI 0.0.x and the goal is AGI 1.0 which can do the same as a human. Why this goal? An AGI which resembles functionally (not necessarily in algorithmic details) a human has the great advantage that everyone can communicate with this agent. Yes, but everyone can communicate with baby AGI right now using a highly-restricted subset of human natural language. The system I'm working on now uses the simple, declarative sentence, the propositional (if/then) rule statement, and simple query as its NL interface. The declarations of fact and propositional rules are upgraded, internally, to FOL+. AI-agent to AI-agent communication is done entirely in FOL+. I had considered using Prolog for the human interface but the non-success of Prolog in a community (computer programmers) already expert at communicating with computers using formal languages caused me to drop back to the, more difficult, but not impossible, semi-formal NL approach. We don't need to crack the entire NLU problem to be able to communicate with AGI's in a semi-formalized version of natural human language. Sure, it can get tedious. just as talking to a two-year old human child can get tedious (unless it's your kid, of course: then, it's fascinating!). Does it impress people at demos? The average person? Yep, it pretty much does. Even though it's far from finished at this time. Skeptical AGHI designers and developers? Not so much. But, I'm working on that! The question I'm raising in this thread is more one of priorities and allocation of scarce resources. Engineers and scientists comprise only about 1% of the world's population. Is human-level NLU worth the resources it has consumed, and will continue to consume, in the pre-AGI-1.0 stage? Even if we eventually succeed, would it be worth the enormous cost? Wouldn't it be wiser to go with the strengths of both humans and computers during this (or any other) stage of AGI development? Getting digital computers to understand natural human language at human-level has proven itself to be an AI-complete problem. Do we need another fifty years of failure to achieve NLU using computers to finally accept this? Developing NLU for AGI 1.0 is not playing to the strengths of the digital computer or of humans (who only take about three years to gain a basic grasp of language and continue to improve that grasp as they age into adulthood). Computers calculate better than do humans. Humans are natural language experts. IMHO, saying that the first version of AGI should include enabling computers to understand human language like humans is just about as silly as saying the first version of AGI should include enabling humans to be able to calculate like computers. IMHO, embodiment is another loosing proposition where AGI 1.0 is concerned. For all we know, embodiment won't work until we can produce an artificial bowel movement. It's the, To think like Einstein, you have to stink like Einstein. theory. Well, I don't want AGI 1.0 to think like Einstein. I want it to think BETTER than Einstein (and without the odoriferous side-effect, thank you very much). It would be interesting for me which set of abilities you want to have in AGI 1.0. Well, we (humanity) need, first, to decide *why* we want to create another form of intelligence. And the answer has to be something other than because we can. What benefits do we propose should issue to humanity from such an expensive pursuit? In other words, what does human-beneficial AGI really mean? Only once we have ironed out our differences in that regard (or, at least, have produced a compromise on a list of core abilities), should we start thinking about an implementation. In general, though, when it comes to implementation, we need to start small and play to our strengths. For example, people who want to build AGHI tend to look down their noses at classic, narrow-AI successes such as expert (production) systems (Ben G. is NOT in this group, BTW). This has prevented these folks from even considering using this technology to achieve AGI 1.0. I *am* (proudly and loudly) using this technology to build bootstrapping intelligent agents for AGI.
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
David Hart wrote: On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 7:29 PM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] Unfortunately, as long as the mainstream AGI community continue to hang on to what should, by now, be a thoroughly-discredited strategy, we will never (or too late) achieve human-beneficial AGI. What a strange rant! How can something that's never before been attempted be considered a thoroughly-discredited strategy? I.e., creating an AI system system designed for *general learning and reasoning* (one with AGI goals clearly thought through to a greater degree than anyone has attempted previously: http://opencog.org/wiki/OpenCogPrime:Roadmap ) and then carefully and deliberately progressing that AI through Piagetan-inspired inspired stages of learning and development, all the while continuing to methodically improve the AI with ever more sophisticated software development, cognitive algorithm advances (e.g. planned improvements to PLN and MOSES/Reduct), reality modeling and testing iterations, homeostatic system tuning, intelligence testing and metrics, etc. Please: strange rant? I've been known to employ inflammatory rhetoric in the past when my blood was boiling and I have always been sorry I did it. I have an opinion. You don't think it agrees with your opinion. That's called a disagreement amongst peers. Not a strange rant. First, you have taken my statement out of context. I was NOT referring to Ben G.'s overall approach to AGI. His *concept* of AGI, if you will. I was referring to the (not his) strategy of making human-level NLU a prerequisite for AGI (this is not a strategy pioneered by Ben G.). Human-level AGI is an AI-complete problem. So, this strategy makes the goal of getting to AGI 1.0 dependent on solving an AI-complete problem. The strategy of using embodiment to help crack the NLU problem (also not pioneered by Ben G.) may very well be another AI-complete problem (indeed, it may contain a whole collection of AI-complete problems). I don't think that's a very good plan. You, apparently, do. I can point to past failures, you can only point to future possibilities. Still, neither of us is going to convince the other we are right. End of story. Time will tell (and this e-mail list is conveniently archived for later reference). Second, ...never before been attempted...? Simply not true. I was in high school when this stuff was first attempted. I personally remember reading about it. I haven't succumbed to Alzheimer's yet. By the time I got to college, most of the early predictions had already been shown to have been way too optimistic. But, since eyewitness testimony is not usually good enough, I give you this quote from the Wikipedia article on Strong AI (which is what searching Wikipedia for AGI will get you): The first generation of AI researchers were convinced that [AGI] was possible and that it would exist in just a few decades. As AI pioneer Herbert Simon wrote in 1965: machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do.[10] Their predictions were the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's character HAL 9000, who accurately embodied what AI researchers believed they could create by the year 2001. Of note is the fact that AI pioneer Marvin Minsky was a consultant[11] on the project of making HAL 9000 as realistic as possible according to the consensus predictions of the time, having himself said on the subject in 1967, Within a generation...the problem of creating 'artificial intelligence' will substantially be solved.[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence) So, it has, in fact, been tried before. It has, in fact, always failed. Your comments about the quality of Ben's approach are noted. Maybe you're right. But, it's not germane to my argument which is that those parts of Ben G.'s approach that call for human-level NLU, and that propose embodiment (or virtual embodiment) as a way to achieve human-level NLU, have been tried before, many times, and have always failed. If Ben G. knows something he's not telling us then, when he does, I'll consider modifying my views. But, remember, my comments were never directed at the OpenCog project or Ben G. personally. They were directed at an AGI *strategy* not invented by Ben G. or OpenCog. One might well have said in early 1903 that the concept of powered flight was a thoroughly-discredited strategy. It's just as silly to say that now [about Goertzel's approach to AGI] as it would have been to say it then [about the Wright brothers' approach to flight]. What? No it's not just as silly. Let me see if I have this straight. You would have me believe that because One might as well have said in early 1903 the concept of powered flight was a 'thoroughly-discredited' strategy.' my objection to a 2008 AGI strategy is just as silly. Nice try,
AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
From my points 1. and 2. it should be clear that I was not talking about a distributed AGI which is in NO place. The AGI you mean consists of several parts which are in different places. But this is already the case with the human body. The only difference is, that the parts of the distributed AGI can be placed several kilometers from each other. But this is only a quantitative and not a qualitative point. Now to my statement of an useful representation of space and time for AGI. We know, that our intuitive understanding of space and time works very well in our life. But the ultimate goal of AGI is that it can solve problems which are very difficult for us. If we give an AGI bias of a model of space and time which is not state of the art of the knowledge we have from physics, then we give AGI a certain limitation which we ourselves suffer from and which is not necessary for an AGI. This point has nothing to do with the question whether the AGI is distributed or not. I mentioned this point because your question has relations to the more fundamental question whether and which bias we should give AGI for the representation of space and time. Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: Mike Tintner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gesendet: Samstag, 4. Oktober 2008 14:13 An: agi@v2.listbox.com Betreff: Re: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once. Matthias: I think it is extremely important, that we give an AGI no bias about space and time as we seem to have. Well, I ( possibly Ben) have been talking about an entity that is in many places at once - not in NO place. I have no idea how you would swing that - other than what we already have - machines that are information-processors with no sense of identity at all.Do you? --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Stan wrote: Seems hard to imagine information processing without identity. Intelligence is about invoking methods. Methods are created because they are expected to create a result. The result is the value - the value that allows them to be selected from many possible choices. Identity can be distributed in space. My conscious model of myself is not located at a single point in space. I identify myself with my body. I do not even have to know that I have a brain. But my body is distributed in space. It is not a point. This is also the case with my conscious model of myself (= model of my body). Furthermore if you think more from a computer scientist point of view: Even your brain is distributed in space and is not at a single place. Your brain consists of a huge amount of processors where each processor is at a different place. So I see no new problem with distributed AGI at all. Stan wrote Is it the time and space bias that is the issue? If so, what is the bias that humans have which machines shouldn't? I don't know whether it is bias for space and time representation or it comes from the bias within our learning algorithms. But all human create a model of their environment with the law that a physical object has a certain position at a certain time. Also we think intuitively that the distance to a point does not depend on the velocity towards this point. These were two examples which are completely wrong as we know from modern physics. Why is it so important for an AGI to know this? Because AGI should help us with the progress in technology. And the most promising open field in technology are within the nanoworld and the macrocosm. It should be useful if an AGI has an intuitive understanding of the laws in these worlds. We should avoid to rebuild our own weakness within AGI. --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
Dr. Heger, Point #3 is brilliantly stated. I couldn't have expressed it better. And I know this because I've been trying to do so, in slightly broader terms, for months on this list. Insofar as providing an AGI with a human-biased sense of space and time is required to create a human-like AGI (what I prefer to call AG*H*I), I agree it is a mistake. More generally, as long as AGI designers and developers insist on simulating human intelligence, they will have to deal with the AI-complete problem of natural language understanding. Looking for new approaches to this problem, many researches (including prominent members of this list) have turned to embodiment (or virtual embodiment) for help. IMHO, this is not a sound tactic because human-like embodiment is, itself, probably an AI-complete problem. Insofar as achieving human-like embodiment and human natural language understanding is possible, it is also a very dangerous strategy. The process of understanding human natural language through human-like embodiment will, of necessity, lead to the AGHI developing a sense of self. After all, that's how we humans got ours (except, of course, the concept preceded the language for it). And look how we turned out. I realize that an AGHI will not turn on us simply because it understands that we're not (like) it (i.e., just because it acquired a sense of self). But, it could. Do we really want to take that chance? Especially when it's not necessary for human-beneficial AGI (AGI without the silent H)? Cheers, Brad Dr. Matthias Heger wrote: 1. We feel ourselves not exactly at a single point in space. Instead, we identify ourselves with our body which consist of several parts and which are already at different points in space. Your eye is not at the same place as your hand. I think this is a proof that a distributed AGI will not need to have a complete different conscious state for a model of its position in space than we already have. 2.But to a certain degree you are of course right that we have a map of our environment and we know our position (which is not a point because of 1) in this map. In the brain of a rat there are neurons which each represent a position of the environment. Researches could predict the position of the rat only by looking into the rat's brain. 3. I think it is extremely important, that we give an AGI no bias about space and time as we seem to have. Our intuitive understanding of space and time is useful for our life on earth but it is completely wrong as we know from theory of relativity and quantum physics. -Matthias Heger -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: Mike Tintner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gesendet: Samstag, 4. Oktober 2008 02:44 An: agi@v2.listbox.com Betreff: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once. The foundation of the human mind and system is that we can only be in one place at once, and can only be directly, fully conscious of that place. Our world picture, which we and, I think, AI/AGI tend to take for granted, is an extraordinary triumph over that limitation - our ability to conceive of the earth and universe around us, and of societies around us, projecting ourselves outward in space, and forward and backward in time. All animals are similarly based in the here and now. But,if only in principle, networked computers [or robots] offer the possibility for a conscious entity to be distributed and in several places at once, seeing and interacting with the world simultaneously from many POV's. Has anyone thought about how this would change the nature of identity and intelligence? --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
AW: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once.
1. We feel ourselves not exactly at a single point in space. Instead, we identify ourselves with our body which consist of several parts and which are already at different points in space. Your eye is not at the same place as your hand. I think this is a proof that a distributed AGI will not need to have a complete different conscious state for a model of its position in space than we already have. 2.But to a certain degree you are of course right that we have a map of our environment and we know our position (which is not a point because of 1) in this map. In the brain of a rat there are neurons which each represent a position of the environment. Researches could predict the position of the rat only by looking into the rat's brain. 3. I think it is extremely important, that we give an AGI no bias about space and time as we seem to have. Our intuitive understanding of space and time is useful for our life on earth but it is completely wrong as we know from theory of relativity and quantum physics. -Matthias Heger -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: Mike Tintner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gesendet: Samstag, 4. Oktober 2008 02:44 An: agi@v2.listbox.com Betreff: [agi] I Can't Be In Two Places At Once. The foundation of the human mind and system is that we can only be in one place at once, and can only be directly, fully conscious of that place. Our world picture, which we and, I think, AI/AGI tend to take for granted, is an extraordinary triumph over that limitation - our ability to conceive of the earth and universe around us, and of societies around us, projecting ourselves outward in space, and forward and backward in time. All animals are similarly based in the here and now. But,if only in principle, networked computers [or robots] offer the possibility for a conscious entity to be distributed and in several places at once, seeing and interacting with the world simultaneously from many POV's. Has anyone thought about how this would change the nature of identity and intelligence? --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
