Re: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
--- Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 05:26:43PM -0800, Matt Mahoney wrote: The issues of consciousness have been discussed on the singularity list. These are hard questions. I'm not sure questions about anything as ill-defined as consciousness are meaningful. The question arises when we need to make moral decisions, such as is it moral to upload a human brain into software, then manipulate that data in arbitrary ways, e.g. simulate pain? I think consciousness is poorly defined because any attempt to define it leads to the conclusion that it does not exist. You know what consciousness is, but try to define it. 1. Consciousness is the little person in your head that observes everything you sense and decides everything you do. 2. Consciousness (or self awareness) is what makes you different than everyone else. 3. Consciousness is what makes the world today different than before you were born. 4. If an exact copy of you was made, atom for atom, replicating all of your memories and behavior, then the only distinction between you and your copy would be that you have a consciousness. But with any of these definitions, it becomes clear that there is no physical justification for consciousness. You believe that other people have consciousnesses because you know that you do, and others are like you. But there is no way to know for sure. How do you distinguish between a person who has self awareness and one who only behaves as if he or she does? Perhaps we can drop the insistence that consciousness exists. Then a possible definition would be any behavior consistent with a belief in self awareness or free will. But this has problems too. - Does a thermostat want to keep the room at a constant temperature, or does it only behave as if that is what it wants? (Ask this question about human behavior). I don't understand your question. It depends on your definition of want. I mean that if an agent has goal directed behavior, then it behaves as if it wants to satisfy its goals. I use this example to show that goal directed behavior is not a criteria for consciousness. Do animals have consciousness? Does an embryo? These questions are controversial. AGI will raise new controversies. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
Re: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
Thanks for the link. I found some related information about this meeting at http://freescienceonline.blogspot.com/2006/12/cognitive-computing-consciousness.html Pei On 1/20/07, Kingma, D.P. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (lmaden Institute Conference on Cognitive Computing) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=41347195024906280 An amusing and informative video of mix of neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and AI scientists. Informative because of the future-directed questions, and the interesting answers by a wide group of people. I found it strangely amusing the way the group reacts on Dileep George (Numenta Inc.) comments. :) Greets, Durk Kingma 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 - 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: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
For instance, Sam Adams, an IBM Distinguished Engineer who has created the Joshua Blue AGI architecture, http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/1107 See also http://www.csupomona.edu/~nalvarado/PDFs/AAAISam.pdf for slightly more meat... - 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: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 10:03:52AM -0500, Benjamin Goertzel wrote: One thing I find interesting is that IBM is focusing their AGI-ish efforts so tightly on human-brain-emulation-related approaches. IBM is smart. They know what they're doing. Kurzweil, as is well known, has forecast that human brain emulation is the most viable path to follow to get to AGI. I agree that it is a viable path, but I don't think it is anywhere near the shortest path. There are shorter paths, but nobody knows where they are. That's the key point of it: the world is complicated. Dealing with the world takes lost of machinery. There's a strange cognitive bias in people, AIlers specifically, to think that AI is based on some simple generic method, and they just know what it is. No validation or further evidence required; it's all obvious. Whomever you ask, they all know it, but all their answers differ. Historically, this approach has failed abysmally. Trying to reverse-engineer a known working system might do less for one's ego, but it's the only game in town, as far as I can see. However, I think it's possible (though not extremely likely) that if all the pundits and funding sources (like IBM) continue to harp on the brain-emulation approach to the exclusion of other approaches, the prophecy that human brain emulation will be the initial path to AGI could become a self-fulfilling one ;-p ... In this race, there are no second places. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE - 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 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
RE: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
Eugen IBM is smart. They know what they're doing. Yeah! What an impressive argument. Eugen There are shorter paths, but nobody knows where they are There is more known about the shorter paths than actual the functioning of the human mind/brain. * All current useful robots are engineered, not reverse-engineered. * All AI successes so far are engineered solutions, not copies of wetware (Deep Blue, Darpa Challenge, Google, etc.) * Planes have been flying for 100 years, yet we haven't even reverse-engineered a sparrow's fart... Ben ... the prophecy that human brain emulation will be the initial path to AGI could become a self-fulfilling one. Ben, your comment seems to reflect your frustration at lack of funding rather than a realistic assessment of the situation. Even if no *dedicated* AGI engineering project is first to achieve AGI, people in the software/AI community will stumble on a solution long before reverse engineering becomes feasible. Don't you agree? Peter Voss http://adaptiveai.com/ -Original Message- From: Eugen Leitl [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 10:03:52AM -0500, Benjamin Goertzel wrote: One thing I find interesting is that IBM is focusing their AGI-ish efforts so tightly on human-brain-emulation-related approaches. IBM is smart. They know what they're doing. Kurzweil, as is well known, has forecast that human brain emulation is the most viable path to follow to get to AGI. I agree that it is a viable path, but I don't think it is anywhere near the shortest path. There are shorter paths, but nobody knows where they are. That's the key point of it: the world is complicated. Dealing with the world takes lost of machinery. There's a strange cognitive bias in people, AIlers specifically, to think that AI is based on some simple generic method, and they just know what it is. No validation or further evidence required; it's all obvious. Whomever you ask, they all know it, but all their answers differ. Historically, this approach has failed abysmally. Trying to reverse-engineer a known working system might do less for one's ego, but it's the only game in town, as far as I can see. However, I think it's possible (though not extremely likely) that if all the pundits and funding sources (like IBM) continue to harp on the brain-emulation approach to the exclusion of other approaches, the prophecy that human brain emulation will be the initial path to AGI could become a self-fulfilling one ;-p ... In this race, there are no second places. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ - 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: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
Some recent experiments detecting neurons and their processes in high resolution microscope images lead me to believe that the possibility of reverse engineering the physical structure of the brain might not be as far off as perhaps many people believe. However, knowing what the 3D structure is for an entire brain to within a few micrometers and working out its function could be very different problems, although they're certainly related. The structural data will certainly help those doing large scale neural simulations. Whether the biologists or the engineers will be first to the AGI finishing line is hard to say. It's true that the strictly engineering approach has seen only sluggish progress over the last half century, but that doesn't necessarily imply that this state of affairs will continue. There seem to be a few maturing technologies coming into place which may well rock the boat in the next five or ten years. On 21/01/07, Peter Voss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Eugen IBM is smart. They know what they're doing. Yeah! What an impressive argument. Eugen There are shorter paths, but nobody knows where they are There is more known about the shorter paths than actual the functioning of the human mind/brain. * All current useful robots are engineered, not reverse-engineered. * All AI successes so far are engineered solutions, not copies of wetware (Deep Blue, Darpa Challenge, Google, etc.) * Planes have been flying for 100 years, yet we haven't even reverse-engineered a sparrow's fart... Ben ... the prophecy that human brain emulation will be the initial path to AGI could become a self-fulfilling one. Ben, your comment seems to reflect your frustration at lack of funding rather than a realistic assessment of the situation. Even if no *dedicated* AGI engineering project is first to achieve AGI, people in the software/AI community will stumble on a solution long before reverse engineering becomes feasible. Don't you agree? Peter Voss http://adaptiveai.com/ -Original Message- From: Eugen Leitl [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 10:03:52AM -0500, Benjamin Goertzel wrote: One thing I find interesting is that IBM is focusing their AGI-ish efforts so tightly on human-brain-emulation-related approaches. IBM is smart. They know what they're doing. Kurzweil, as is well known, has forecast that human brain emulation is the most viable path to follow to get to AGI. I agree that it is a viable path, but I don't think it is anywhere near the shortest path. There are shorter paths, but nobody knows where they are. That's the key point of it: the world is complicated. Dealing with the world takes lost of machinery. There's a strange cognitive bias in people, AIlers specifically, to think that AI is based on some simple generic method, and they just know what it is. No validation or further evidence required; it's all obvious. Whomever you ask, they all know it, but all their answers differ. Historically, this approach has failed abysmally. Trying to reverse-engineer a known working system might do less for one's ego, but it's the only game in town, as far as I can see. However, I think it's possible (though not extremely likely) that if all the pundits and funding sources (like IBM) continue to harp on the brain-emulation approach to the exclusion of other approaches, the prophecy that human brain emulation will be the initial path to AGI could become a self-fulfilling one ;-p ... In this race, there are no second places. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ - 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 - 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: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
Peter wrote: Ben ... the prophecy that human brain emulation will be the initial path to AGI could become a self-fulfilling one. Ben, your comment seems to reflect your frustration at lack of funding rather than a realistic assessment of the situation. Even if no *dedicated* AGI engineering project is first to achieve AGI, people in the software/AI community will stumble on a solution long before reverse engineering becomes feasible. Don't you agree? Peter: I am confident that the Novamente design can work to lead to AGI, and I'm confident that other workable non-brain-based designs are possible as well. At the level the Novamente project is currently funded, it could take us a pretty long time to produce AGI. However, we will get there even at this rate, and there are reasons to believe our funding situation may improve this year. I understand that your project is better-funded than Novamente at this moment. However, I don't know your current A2I2 design in depth so I can't offer a solid opinion on it. I am also confident that, once the human brain is mapped in great detail (by not-yet-existent high-spatial-and-temporal-precision brain scanning technology), detailed human brain emulation can lead to AGI. I think it is pretty unlikely that the brain-emulators will get there (to AGI) first. But I wouldn't rule it out entirely. Here is how the brain-emulators could potentially get there first. Someone like Jeff Hawkins or Robert Hecht-Nielsen could turn out to be right about there being one, or a handful, of simple representation and processing tricks underlying the human brain's intelligence. (Hawkins thinks the simple trick is hierarchical memory/prediction networks. Hecht-Nielsen thinks the simple trick is the confabulation operation.) If this turns out to be right, **then** a brainlike AGI architecture could potentially be built **before** brain-scanning technology has reached the point where we can understand the structure and dynamics of the human brain in detail. This would surely be a very computationally inefficient way to achieve AGI (since brain architecture and von Neumann computing architecture don't mix very well), but with a vast enough expenditure of money and manpower it might be achievable. However, I don't think these brain-theory-simplifiers are right. I doubt the brain's general intelligence is based on a few simple tricks/mechanisms. My guess is that it is fundamentally based on a complex, unhol-ily messy combination of very many mechanisms, and that we **will** need pretty advanced brain-scanning technology to puzzle it all out. Because of this, my guess is that even with vast amounts of $$ and scientific wizardry, the brain-emulation-based approach will NOT get there first. Eugen wrote: There are shorter paths, but nobody knows where they are. but I say: Don't assume everyone is as ignorant in this regard as you are ;-) He also wrote: That's the key point of it: the world is complicated. Dealing with the world takes lost of machinery. Yes, but not necessarily the same kind of machinery as the brain has. There's a strange cognitive bias in people, AIlers specifically, to think that AI is based on some simple generic method, and they just know what it is. I don't think the bias toward oversimplification is any more present in AI than in other scientific disciplines. And the brain-based approach to cognition has certainly suffered from at least as much oversimplification as the computer-science-based approach, cf Hawkins and Hecht-Nielsen. No validation or further evidence required; it's all obvious. I don't know whom you're attacking here, but I have certainly never claimed that achieving AGI via computer science rather than brain emulation is **obvious**. If it weren't very hard someone would have done it long ago. But very hard doesn't mean implausible if you are very smart and work very hard... Historically, this approach has failed abysmally. Historically, all approaches to AGI have failed so far. Trying to reverse-engineer a known working system might do less for one's ego, I really don't think ego is the issue here. IMO, creating AGI via emulating the human brain **or** by creating a novel architecture, would be mighty ego-gratifying for nearly anybody!!! but it's the only game in town, as far as I can see. It is not the only game in town, there are plenty of us taking the computer-science approach to AGI as well. Your point of view seems even more extreme than Kurzweil's, as he e.g. mentioned Novamente favorably in The Singularity is Near. I find it frustrating that your attitude is at least approximately shared by so many others, including Kurzweil and some of the high muck-a-mucks at IBM. However, I also find it gratifying that there are many other smart folks such as Pei and Peter Voss and others on this list who have a more open-minded attitude regarding various AGI approaches. -- Ben G - This list is sponsored
Re: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
Peter wrote: Ben, your comment seems to reflect your frustration at lack of funding rather than a realistic assessment of the situation. Even if no *dedicated* AGI engineering project is first to achieve AGI, people in the software/AI community will stumble on a solution long before reverse engineering becomes feasible. Don't you agree? Actually, I don't quite agree with your penultimate sentence... I don't think that people in the software/AI community are likely to stumble on a solution to AGI in the next few decades Definitely not before the 2030-or-so time-point that Kurzweil speculates for the human-brain-emulation approach. Narrow-AI and AGI are pretty different. If we have to rely on the narrow-AI folks -- even smart ones like the Google folks -- to get us to AGI, then we're in pretty bad luck, and the brain-emulators may win the race... But my projection is that explicit AGI research is going to zoom to prominence vividly and excitingly sometime in the first half of the next decade. Of course, what triggers this may be when word of our amazing AGI successes with Novamente ... or yours with A2I2 ... begin to leak out ;-) [Not that we have had amazing AGI successes yet with Novamente, except on the theory-and-design level -- we've had some fun small-scale practical successes, but our practical work is still at the level of a very sophisticated cognitive-mechanism-toolkit being used to drive a pretty primitive baby-AI -- but I'm projecting into the future...!]. Then we will see just how fast the takeoff is, and how big is the vaunted first-mover advantage after all ;=) 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: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
On Sun, Jan 21, 2007 at 08:25:54AM -0800, Peter Voss wrote: Eugen IBM is smart. They know what they're doing. Yeah! What an impressive argument. If you're not impressed by IBM's raw resources and PI power in comparison to everybody else (all here present including, of course), then I don't know what you find impressing. Eugen There are shorter paths, but nobody knows where they are There is more known about the shorter paths than actual the functioning of the human mind/brain. Reality check: what is working so far? Do you have anything which would approach the skills across the board of a 3 year old human baby? * All current useful robots are engineered, not reverse-engineered. I don't find these robots particularly useful so they would compete for the same job slots I'm applying, nevermind the same job slots for which extreme talents are applying. * All AI successes so far are engineered solutions, not copies of wetware (Deep Blue, Darpa Challenge, Google, etc.) Deep Blue was a chess system. If you're defining AI in terms how a specialized system plays chess, this is ridiculous I have frankly nothing more to add. The Darpa Challenge is actually a good example, but is still a specialized system, with pathetic performance. Google, AI? You *are* kidding, right? * Planes have been flying for 100 years, yet we haven't even reverse-engineered a sparrow's fart... And we've been having AI since 1950, right? Except, we don't, and we won't for another 50 years, if you're continuing down the same, downtrodden, sterile path. Ben, your comment seems to reflect your frustration at lack of funding rather than a realistic assessment of the situation. Even if no *dedicated* AGI engineering project is first to achieve AGI, people in the software/AI community will stumble on a solution long before reverse engineering Stumble upon just like that, tripping on the soldering iron's power cord, and finding a couple simple neat equations on a piece of paper. *Right* Thanks for giving such a nice illustration of hubris and problem agnosia in one fell swoop. becomes feasible. Don't you agree? I'm not Ben, but I disagree emphatically. Feel free to prove me wrong. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE - 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 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [agi] (video)The Future of Cognitive Computing
Yeah, I think that it is unlikely that the software (primarily commercial) sector will come up with a solution to the problem before dedicated projects will, and I also think that when people say that brain emulation is a viable option that they are ignoring the fact (after they have a way of reading the state of every neuron in the brain) that it would take a pretty sophisticated system to make sense of the raw data, and that at some point they would have to disconnect the scanner from the computer and let it simulate it's own interpretation of the data... so what I am getting at is... you practically have to have an AGI to figure out how to get that recorded data to continue functioning or else you have to record every possible action/reaction couple that the brain could experience in the real world which is pretty pathetic... I see brain simulation as the cop-out or last resort for creating AI even though I have no doubt it would eventually succeed. BTW: I'm a high school senior, I'm working on my own AGI design, and this is my first post here on the list, I've been watching the list for about two months and finally decided to contribute :) Nice to meet you all! - 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
