Hi,
I strongly disagree - there is a need to provide a definition of AGI - not
necessarily the right or optimal definition, but one that poses concrete
challenges and focusses the mind - even if it's only a starting-point. The
reason the Turing Test has been such a successful/ popular idea is that it
focusses the mind.
(BTW I immediately noticed your lack of a good definition on going through your
site and papers, and it immediately raised doubts in my mind. In general, the
more or less focussed your definition/ mission statement, I would argue, the
more or less seriously people will tend to take you).
Ironically, I was just trying to take Marvin Minsky to task for this on another
forum. I suddenly realised that although he has been talking about the problem
of AGI for decades, he has only waved at it, and not really engaged with it. He
talks about how having different ways of thinking about a problem like the
human mind does, is important for AGI - and that's certainly one central
problem/ goal - but he doesn't really focus it.
Here's my first crack at a definition - very crude - offered strictly in
brainstorming mode - but I think it does focus a couple of AGI challenges at
least - and fits with some of the stuff you say.
AN AGI MACHINE - a truly adaptive, truly learning machine - is one that will be
able to:
1) conduct a set of goal-seeking activities
- where it starts with only a rough, incomplete idea of how to reach its goals,
- i.e. knows only some of the steps it must take, & some of the rules that
govern those steps
- and can find its way to its goals "making it up as it goes along"
- by finding new ways round more or less unfamiliar obstacles.
To do this it must be able to:
2) Change its steps and rules -
-not just revising them according to predetermined formulae but
-adding new steps and rules, & even
-creating new rules, that break existing ones.
3) can learn new related activities
[[The key things in this definition for me are that it focusses on the need for
AGI to be able to radically change the steps and rules of any activity it
undertakes].
EXAMPLE: {again a very crude one - first that came to mind]:
An AGI machine would be a SPORTING ROBOT that first could learn to play soccer,
as we do, by being taught a few basic principles [like "try to score a goal by
running towards the goal with the ball, or passing it to other team members,
...." and shown a few soccer games.
It would then be able to learn the game as it goes along, by playing. And
should be able to find and learn new routes to goal, new passes, new kicks
(with perhaps new spins and backswings), It should even be able to adapt its
rules, - adding new ones like "you can move back towards your own goal when you
have the ball, as well as forwards towards the opponent's"
And having learned soccer, it should be able to learn OTHER FIELD/ COURT SPORTS
in similar fashion, - like Gaelic football, hockey, basketball, etc. etc.
[Comment: Perhaps much too extravagant a starting-goal - maybe better to have a
maze-running robot that can learn to run radically different and suprising
kinds of mazes - but once objections are considered, more realistic goals can
be set]
----- Original Message -----
From: Benjamin Goertzel
To: singularity@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: [singularity] Why do you think your AGI design will work?
Hi,
We don't have any solid **proof** that Novamente will "work" in the sense of
leading to powerful AGI.
We do have a set of mathematical conjectures that look highly plausible and
that, if true, would imply that Novamente will work (if properly implemented
and a bunch of details are gotten right, etc.). But we have not proved these
conjectures and are not currently focusing on proving them, as that is a big
hard job in itself.... We have decided to seek proof via practical
construction and experimentation rather than proof via formal mathematics.
Wright Bros. did not prove their airplane would work before building it. But
they were confident based on their intuitive theoretical model of aerodynamics,
which turned out to be correct. The case with Novamente is a bit more rigorous
than this because we have gotten to the point of stating but not proving
mathematical conjectures that would imply the workability of the system...
As for Matt Mahoney's point about "definining AGI" being the bottleneck, I
really think that is a red herring. Rigorously defining any natural language
term is a pain. You can play for hours with the definition of "cup" versus
"bowl", or the definition of "flight" versus "leaping" versus "floating in
space", etc. Big deal!
-- Ben G
-- Ben G
On 4/24/07, Joshua Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ben has confidently stated that he believes Novamente will work (
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=3 and others).
AGI builders, what evidence do you have that your design will work?
This is an oft-repeated question, but I'd like to focus on two possible
bases for saying that an invention will work before it does.
1. A clear, simple, mathematical theory, verified by experiment. The
experiments can be "pure science" rather than technology tests.
2. Functional tests of component parts or of crude prototypes.
Maybe I am missing something in the articles I have read, but do
contemporary AGI builders have a verified theory and/or verified components and
prototypes?
Joshua
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