Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
- Original Message - From: Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:43 PM Subject: Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda] when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why. Are you the only person on this list with a clue? As it happens, David, on this occasion I did not particularly have you in mind when I made the comments. The above comment wasn't addressed to anyone in particular but to the list by default. Recently I was corrected rebuked by Ben for calling Eugen arrogant for summarily putting down others on this list. As it turns out, he didn't mean to be so arrogant and his next email to the list was one of the best he has sent to the list in a long time IMO. I mentioned to Ben in my email, apologizing for my comment, that I wondered why *very intelligent* people seem to feel it necessary to leave their manners at the door when emailing on the internet. If you have any criticisms you want to voice, by all means do so, but could you do so in a less inflammatory, and more specific way? I can't really follow what you were saying in your text, above. Your above comment wasn't inflammatory? There are many areas of AI interest discussed on this list. Ben should be given credit for allowing a *very* large net of acceptable threads, unlike some other lists, I won't mention. I would like a lot more technical and code fragment like info shared on this list but what I would like and what I can get are different things. I think rooftop8000, in opening the discussion for some kind of AGI collaboration was just looking for more of that kind of interaction as well. Even though it might have sounded like it in some emails, I don't think anyone was contemplating building an AGI without a plan. If someone was, we all know it wouldn't have worked, guaranteed. If relatively new people to this list are turned off from contributing to this list by blanket putdowns or name calling then everyone loses. Everyone on this list is quite different. I think someone with even a simple AI and some demonstratable code deserves much more credit than people with big theories and nothing in code that works. (At this very moment that also includes me!) Others, I am sure, would disagree but I respect their opinion. I believe in getting the big picture right and then refining the details only through code that works. Too many times, I have created details based on other details that just didn't work when coded and so were worthless. I have never even created any code for any project without a computer to help and verify as I go. I read this list because I think somebody might write something that I could use or at least trigger my thinking of something I might not have otherwise. For this reason I read everything *you* write even though your approach is drastically different than mine. My challenge to the list over my 15 points was for a language for AGI, not just any general purpose language. My intentions at least, were to elicit some constructive comments that might help me in my last few months of it's development. I never meant to cause a language flame war or to bore anyone to death. -- David Clark - 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
--- Chuck Esterbrook [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 3/24/07, rooftop8000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: one chooses a decent option and gets on with it. -- Ben That's exactly the problem.. everyone just builds their own ideas and doesn't consider how their ideas and code could (later) be used by other people If Novamente reaches human like, general intelligence, you'll use it by saying things like, Novamente, I'm out of beer. and he'll know to run out to the store to get some! But seriously, some companies may intend that their projects get used more macroscopically than as a marketplace for AGI parts. Adding that extra dimension to a project has extra cost and it's not clear what the pay off will be. Just the fact that you make certain choices about AGI will probably mean that 80% of us say I won't use that because you didn't blah blah blah. Examples of blah blah blah include bake in high level math, use one communication protocol, use multiple communication protocols, use .NET, did not use .NET, use Java, did not use Java, lojbanize everything, etc. AGI companies tend to have a strong(er) idea of what they are trying to accomplish. If you want an open AGI architecture for community collaboration on the internals of the AGI, then it is more likely to come in the form of an open source project pushed mostly by individuals. Furthermore, I have my doubts that such an approach will lead to AGI. I think a close knit, full-time team with a vision, such as Novamente or AdaptiveAI, has a much better chance. I offer no proof--that's just my impression. i think the open route is the only way you're gonna get enough different ideas and representations in a system. any of these other systems will drive as far as possible with their assumptions and ideas (logic for cyc, i don't really know the details of the ones you mention TBH), without thinking about how different ideas could be incorporated but i agree that a full-time team with a vision is much better.. and there isn't much interest in some open AGI architecture apparently the general feeling seems to be: -dedicated team is better and it is too hard as a collaboration of random people -clear set goals and approach/framework from the start is better -it isn't clear what an open AGI architecture should be, and getting people together in an undefined project isn't gonna happen -just throwing stuff together isn't gonna work i hate to admit it, but i guess you guys are right -Chuck - 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/?list_id=303 Need Mail bonding? Go to the Yahoo! Mail QA for great tips from Yahoo! Answers users. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=listsid=396546091 - 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
- Original Message - From: Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 1:46 PM Subject: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda] As for all the other talk on this list, recently, about programming languages and the need for math, etc., I find myself amused by the irrelevance of most of it: when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why, the question of what language (or environment) they need to use will answer itself. I find fluffy concepts and language that never gets put into code quite *irrelevant*. Ben has an internal functinoal language that seems to be of interest to many. Leitl has ideas and information about parallel and low level evolutionary systems. I haven't seen too many posts that say that your ideas are *irrelavant* even if most people aren't working on systems that interest you! Ben seems to have created an AGI that contains both AGI code, system tools (memory management etc) and a higher level language. My language was designed to be a large C++ (like Ben's) with a built in language (like his) that can facilitate my veiw of creating an AGI. The difference is that he codes most of his AGI in C++ where I want to code mine in the internal language I have created. My intent wasn't be debate general purpose computer languages but to get feedback on my language from people who are planning to work on AGI. I have been working on this project for over 2 years and I only brought it up now in response to others who wanted to know what languages would be good to work on AI. I don't think an AGI design can just pop out of thin air any more than I think that the tools used to create an AGI are irrelavant. when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why. Are you the only person on this list with a clue? -- David Clark - 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
David Clark wrote: - Original Message - From: Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 1:46 PM Subject: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda] As for all the other talk on this list, recently, about programming languages and the need for math, etc., I find myself amused by the irrelevance of most of it: when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why, the question of what language (or environment) they need to use will answer itself. I find fluffy concepts and language that never gets put into code quite *irrelevant*. Ben has an internal functinoal language that seems to be of interest to many. Leitl has ideas and information about parallel and low level evolutionary systems. I haven't seen too many posts that say that your ideas are *irrelavant* even if most people aren't working on systems that interest you! Ben seems to have created an AGI that contains both AGI code, system tools (memory management etc) and a higher level language. My language was designed to be a large C++ (like Ben's) with a built in language (like his) that can facilitate my veiw of creating an AGI. The difference is that he codes most of his AGI in C++ where I want to code mine in the internal language I have created. My intent wasn't be debate general purpose computer languages but to get feedback on my language from people who are planning to work on AGI. I have been working on this project for over 2 years and I only brought it up now in response to others who wanted to know what languages would be good to work on AI. I don't think an AGI design can just pop out of thin air any more than I think that the tools used to create an AGI are irrelavant. when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why. Are you the only person on this list with a clue? As it happens, David, on this occasion I did not particularly have you in mind when I made the comments. (The comments I made, btw, apparently summarized a sentiment that several people had either already expressed, or that they were in agreement with). If you have any criticisms you want to voice, by all means do so, but could you do so in a less inflammatory, and more specific way? I can't really follow what you were saying in your text, above. 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/?list_id=303
Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
Ben Goertzel wrote: Mark Waser wrote: IMO, creating an AGI isn't really a programming problem. The hard part is knowing exactly what to program. Which is why it turns into a programming problem . . . . I started out as a biochemist studying enzyme kinetics. The only reasonable way to get a reasonable turn-around time on testing a new fancy formula was to update the simulation program myself. If the tools were there (i.e. Loosemoore's environment), it wouldn't be a programming problem. Since they aren't, the programming turns into a/the real problem.:-) Well, programming AGI takes more time and effort now than it would with more appropriate programming tools ... But it seems like what Loosemore wants is an environment that will help him **discover** the right AGI design ... this is a different matter Or am I misunderstanding? I can answer the specific question about what kind of programming environment I am working on. It is in between the two extremes that Ben suggests: it is specifically designed for a particular *class* of AGI systems, and what it allows the developer to do is to systematically explore various members of that class in ways that current tools do not. What I mean by the class of AGI systems that it is _specifically_ designed for is an AGI design that emerges from a framework document that I working on. The bulk of that framework is a detailed interpretation of the current state of cognitive psychology research -- it is a unified model of all the various micromodels that cognitive psychology folks come up with when they explain their various experimental results. It has a (kind of) connectionist foundation, but it goes well beyond standard connectionism. However, it would be misleading to think of the environment as something that will allow me to discover the right AGI design because there is already more in the way of AGI design in the framework itself, than there is in most existing AGI designs. Yes, the environment allows variations on that theme ... but the theme itself is very specific. Now, with all of the above said: the environment is ALSO designed to be general enough that any other system (Novamente, etc.) could be implemented in the environment, so that its facilities could be used to help in the development. You might not try to use the systematic variation aspects ofteh environment, but there are many other aspects that would be useful, so it might make sense. So in that regard, it would be a general purpose programming tool like any other. Sorry that I have to talk in the future tense, but I am optimistic that pending developments are going to lead to faster implementation of this environment, so you can see it rather than have me talk about it. As for all the other talk on this list, recently, about programming languages and the need for math, etc., I find myself amused by the irrelevance of most of it: when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why, the question of what language (or environment) they need to use will answer itself. 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
As for all the other talk on this list, recently, about programming languages and the need for math, etc., I find myself amused by the irrelevance of most of it: when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why, the question of what language (or environment) they need to use will answer itself. Yes ... and this is the same thing those of us actually working on AGI projects have been saying. My experience is: Once you have an AGI design, the choice of prog. language becomes a pragmatic rather than philosophical/emotional choice. Even if none of the existing languages matches one's desires perfectly, one chooses a decent option and gets on with it. -- 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
one chooses a decent option and gets on with it. -- Ben That's exactly the problem.. everyone just builds their own ideas and doesn't consider how their ideas and code could (later) be used by other people Looking for earth-friendly autos? Browse Top Cars by Green Rating at Yahoo! Autos' Green Center. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ - 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
On 3/24/07, rooftop8000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: one chooses a decent option and gets on with it. -- Ben That's exactly the problem.. everyone just builds their own ideas and doesn't consider how their ideas and code could (later) be used by other people If Novamente reaches human like, general intelligence, you'll use it by saying things like, Novamente, I'm out of beer. and he'll know to run out to the store to get some! But seriously, some companies may intend that their projects get used more macroscopically than as a marketplace for AGI parts. Adding that extra dimension to a project has extra cost and it's not clear what the pay off will be. Just the fact that you make certain choices about AGI will probably mean that 80% of us say I won't use that because you didn't blah blah blah. Examples of blah blah blah include bake in high level math, use one communication protocol, use multiple communication protocols, use .NET, did not use .NET, use Java, did not use Java, lojbanize everything, etc. AGI companies tend to have a strong(er) idea of what they are trying to accomplish. If you want an open AGI architecture for community collaboration on the internals of the AGI, then it is more likely to come in the form of an open source project pushed mostly by individuals. Furthermore, I have my doubts that such an approach will lead to AGI. I think a close knit, full-time team with a vision, such as Novamente or AdaptiveAI, has a much better chance. I offer no proof--that's just my impression. -Chuck - 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
Ben Goertzel wrote: Richard Loosemore wrote: As for all the other talk on this list, recently, about programming languages and the need for math, etc., I find myself amused by the irrelevance of most of it: when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why, the question of what language (or environment) they need to use will answer itself. Yes ... and this is the same thing those of us actually working on AGI projects have been saying. You mean to imply I am *not* one of those actually working on an AGI project? 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
Richard Loosemore wrote: Ben Goertzel wrote: Richard Loosemore wrote: As for all the other talk on this list, recently, about programming languages and the need for math, etc., I find myself amused by the irrelevance of most of it: when someone gets a clue about what they are trying to build, and why, the question of what language (or environment) they need to use will answer itself. Yes ... and this is the same thing those of us actually working on AGI projects have been saying. You mean to imply I am *not* one of those actually working on an AGI project? No, sorry for the inaccurate phrasing... 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/?list_id=303
Re: Environments and Languages for AGI [WAS Re: [agi] My proposal for an AGI agenda]
rooftop8000 wrote: one chooses a decent option and gets on with it. -- Ben That's exactly the problem.. everyone just builds their own ideas and doesn't consider how their ideas and code could (later) be used by other people I'm not at all sure something like AGI is well-suited to a large-scale, open-source project. Linux, for instance, is based on well-known ideas (Unix) and consists of a lot of loosely-related parts; it's well-suited to construction by a large pool of part-timers. An AGI design like Novamente is based on a lot of very obscure ideas that are quite hard to understand (due to being at the research frontier), and consists of a set of parts that interdepend very intricately and subtlely. It really needs to be built by a small team with a deep common understanding and close interaction. I guess most other AGI designs are the same way. 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/?list_id=303
