| Both sides previous revisionPrevious revisionNext revision | Previous revision |
| public:t720-atai-2012:constructivistai [2012/11/14 12:55] – thorisson | public:t720-atai-2012:constructivistai [2024/04/29 13:33] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1 |
|---|
| \\ | \\ |
| \\ | \\ |
| ======A New Constructivist AI ====== | ======What is Constructivist AI? ====== |
| |
| Common sense tells us that if we were born with no sensory organs -- //at all// -- then we would be unlikely to develop a normal, healthy, fully-capable mind. The idea that perception is a necessary prerequisite for thought and intelligence has been at the center of epistemology for centuries. In the 1600s René Descartes, thinking about thinking, and what reality really is, as well as his own place and existence in it, came up with the phrase **Cogito ergo sum** -- //I think, therefore I am//. This was not just a phrase, it was a philosophical stance and conclusion that still permeates all deep thinking about thinking. A unique idea was that knowledge was constructed by the mind: If the wax that a candle is made from can so radically change shape and appearance, yet still be understood as "the same stuff", then that had to be a process of //thinking// -- since the perceptions were not enough to inform of this. And so thinking moved to the center stage, in the form of //reasoning//. | Common sense tells us that if we were born with no sensory organs -- //at all// -- then we would be unlikely to develop a normal, healthy, fully-capable mind. The idea that perception is a necessary prerequisite for thought and intelligence has been at the center of epistemology for centuries. In the 1600s René Descartes, thinking about thinking, and about what reality really is, as well as his own place and existence in it, came up with the phrase **Cogito ergo sum** -- //I think, therefore I am//. This was not just a phrase, it was a philosophical stance and conclusion that still permeates all deep thinking about thinking. A unique idea was that knowledge was constructed by the mind: If the wax that a candle is made from can so radically change shape and appearance, yet still be understood as "the same stuff", then that had to be a process of //thinking// -- since the perceptions were not enough to inform of this. And so thinking moved to the center stage, in the form of //reasoning//. |
| |
| Descartes proposed a dualist theory, of mind and physical reality, where the mind is "immaterial" and interacts with the physical world through a particular part of the brain. One problem with this theory is that if the mind is immaterial, then how does it interact with the body that it obviously controls? Descartes proposed that the mind interacts with the body through the pineal gland in the brain. He was right about the brain being important for thought. George "Bishop" Berkeley took this one step further and said that we are nothing more than sensations, since sensations are the only information we have about this thing we call "reality". One problem with this view, pointed out by his critics, is that if something is not being observed it essentially does not exist, since all reality is created by the minds that perceive them. Berkeley did not despair but came up with an ingenious answer (but which most would now call silly), and this became the heart of his proof for the existence of God. The concept is nicely captured in this funny limerick: | Descartes proposed a dualist theory, of mind and physical reality, where the mind is "immaterial" and interacts with the physical world through a particular part of the brain. One problem with this theory is that if the mind is immaterial, then how does it interact with the body that it obviously controls? Descartes proposed that the mind interacts with the body through the pineal gland in the brain. He was right about the brain being important for thought. George "Bishop" Berkeley took this one step further and said that we are nothing more than sensations, since sensations are the only information we have about this thing we call "reality". One problem with this view, pointed out by his critics, is that if something is not being observed it essentially does not exist, since all reality is created by the minds that perceive them. Berkeley did not despair but came up with an ingenious answer (but which most would now call silly), and this became the heart of his proof for the existence of God. The concept is nicely captured in this funny limerick: |
| Around the same time as Piaget was working on his theories the field of cybernetics adopted the idea of a "constructed" reality as well, contending that knowledge is not "handed down" or imparted to minds in some sort of direct way, but rather that the minds take an active part in constructing the knowledge they acquire. There are numerous reasons for taking this proposition seriously, as results in psychology, sociology, developmental robotics and artificial life seem to lend support for it in many ways. | Around the same time as Piaget was working on his theories the field of cybernetics adopted the idea of a "constructed" reality as well, contending that knowledge is not "handed down" or imparted to minds in some sort of direct way, but rather that the minds take an active part in constructing the knowledge they acquire. There are numerous reasons for taking this proposition seriously, as results in psychology, sociology, developmental robotics and artificial life seem to lend support for it in many ways. |
| |
| Cybernetics developed along the same lines as computer science in that it emphasizes the transmission of information, and the operation of information transformation, abstracted from the medium in which it is implemented. This "denouncement" of the importance of implementation stems from the work of Alan Turin, who proposed a model for computation that we now refer to as "a Turing machine". Some work in AI has been under the influence of constructivist theories in psychology, in particular the work of Drescher, whose thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology described one of the first attempts at building an AI system that could, via interaction with the world, create concepts for things in its surroundings. | Cybernetics developed along the same lines as computer science in that it emphasizes the transmission of information, and the operation of information transformation, abstracted from the medium in which it is implemented. This "denouncement" of the importance of implementation stems from the work of Alan Turing, who proposed a model for computation that we now refer to as "a Turing machine". Some work in AI has been under the influence of constructivist theories in psychology, in particular the work of Drescher, whose thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology described one of the first attempts at building an AI system that could, via interaction with the world, create concepts for things in its surroundings. |
| |
| By the same token, my call for a new constructivist AI has at its center a focus is on the constructivist stance -- that minds actively create their own knowledge via interaction with the world. But unlike prior work, it argues that the present methods developed, and loved, in traditional computer science will not suffice for achieving such systems, at least not in their ultimate form or promise of significant developmental autonomy. This is because these methodologies rely on traditions where manual creation of the detailed operations of the computing machinery is the only accepted method. The ability to create systems that can construct themselves, even to some small extent, is exceedingly difficult -- if not impossible. And unlike prior efforts in cybernetics, a new constructivist AI must deal with the reality that **computation takes time**. Computing whether some statement is true, or whether some plan is better or worse than another, or whether we can find exceptions to some generalization about the physical world, is infinitely easier if we are given infinite time. Note that "infinite time" is even longer than "all the time in the world". If we have infinite time we don't even have to hurry! We can just do our thing, for as long as we want, and look at //all possibilities//, even if there is an infinite number of them! Obviously that is not an option for the serious theoretician. In the context of intelligence assuming infinite time even creates an oxymoron, because if it weren't for finite time or finite resources, there would be **no reason for intelligence to exist**. | By the same token, my call for a new constructivist AI has at its center a focus is on the constructivist stance -- that minds actively create their own knowledge via interaction with the world. But unlike prior work, it argues that the present methods developed, and loved, in traditional computer science will not suffice for achieving such systems, at least not in their ultimate form or promise of significant developmental autonomy. This is because these methodologies rely on traditions where manual creation of the detailed operations of the computing machinery is the only accepted method. The ability to create systems that can construct themselves, even to some small extent, is exceedingly difficult -- if not impossible. And unlike prior efforts in cybernetics, a new constructivist AI must deal with the reality that **computation takes time**. Computing whether some statement is true, or whether some plan is better or worse than another, or whether we can find exceptions to some generalization about the physical world, is infinitely easier if we are given infinite time. Note that "infinite time" is even longer than "all the time in the world". If we have infinite time we don't even have to hurry! We can just do our thing, for as long as we want, and look at //all possibilities//, even if there is an infinite number of them! Obviously that is not an option for the serious theoretician. In the context of intelligence assuming infinite time even creates an oxymoron, because if it weren't for finite time or finite resources, there would be **no reason for intelligence to exist**. |
| If a system <m>A</m> increases autonomously the set of patterns <m>#</m> that it can recognize, and the set of states <m>S_o</m> that it can use as output to control the effects of the environment <m>E</m> on itself, the system is said to be //growing// its intelligence. Creation of models that describe <m>A</m>'s possible perceptions <m>P</m>, without increasing the potential of <m>A</m> to control <m>E</m>, is growth of the //knowledge// of <m>A</m>, which is a subset and prerequisite of intelligence. Knowledge + available behavior to control the environment for the purposes of achieving <m>A</m>'s goals, is intelligence. | If a system <m>A</m> increases autonomously the set of patterns <m>#</m> that it can recognize, and the set of states <m>S_o</m> that it can use as output to control the effects of the environment <m>E</m> on itself, the system is said to be //growing// its intelligence. Creation of models that describe <m>A</m>'s possible perceptions <m>P</m>, without increasing the potential of <m>A</m> to control <m>E</m>, is growth of the //knowledge// of <m>A</m>, which is a subset and prerequisite of intelligence. Knowledge + available behavior to control the environment for the purposes of achieving <m>A</m>'s goals, is intelligence. |
| |
| Intelligence in this new formulation is thus the ability of a system to autonomously increase its own ability to control states of its environment, to achieve its goals. But we need more than that, the system must be able to generate subgoals autonomously. | So far, intelligence in this new formulation is thus the ability of a system to autonomously increase its own ability to control states of its environment, to achieve its goals. But we need more than that, the system must be able to generate subgoals autonomously. |
| |
| Any system that capable of cognitive growth must be capable of some sort of self-evaluation, otherwise it will not be able to decide whether certain milestones in its growth are being reached, or whether changes made in light of experience have been for the better. The self evaluation must in fact be of a particularly powerful kind, compared to most constructionist approaches to such evaluation that we could cook up, because large parts of the system's knowledge, as well as the architecturo-cognitive mechanisms that produced them, must be able to serve as the subject of such an evaluation. In its most extreme case the whole architecture evaluates its present state in light of past state(s): | Any system capable of cognitive growth must be capable of some sort of self-evaluation, otherwise it will not be able to decide whether certain milestones in its growth are being reached, or whether changes made in light of experience have been for the better. The self evaluation must in fact be of a particularly powerful kind, compared to most constructionist approaches to such evaluation that we could cook up, because large parts of the system's knowledge, as well as the architecturo-cognitive mechanisms that produced them, must be able to serve as the subject of such an evaluation. In its most extreme case the whole architecture evaluates its present state in light of past state(s): |
| |
| <m>Psi~=~{f_m}~(Psi_{t-n})</m> | <m>Psi~=~{f_m}~(Psi_{t-n})</m> |
| Given a pattern <m>#</m> and a perception <m>P</m> process of agent <m>A</m>, then | Given a pattern <m>#</m> and a perception <m>P</m> process of agent <m>A</m>, then |
| |
| <m> P^A </m> ( <m>#n</m> ) | <m>P^A</m> <m>(#n)</m> |
| |
| is the perception by agent <m>A</m> of pattern <m>#n</m>. | is the perception by agent <m>A</m> of pattern <m>#n</m>. |
| |
| <m>C^A</m>: A set of cognitive process of an agent <m>A</m>. <m>P^{A}subset{C^A}</m>. | <m>C^A</m>: A set of cognitive process of an agent <m>A</m>; <m>P^{A}subset{C^A}</m>. |
| |
| <m>d^A</m>: A decision process of agent <m>A</m>. <m>d^{A}subset{C^A}</m>. | <m>d^A</m>: A decision mechanism of agent <m>A</m>; <m>{C^A} right d^{A}</m>. |
| |
| <m>B^A</m>: A set of actions or behaviors of agent <m>A</m>. <m>B^{A}subset{C^A}</m>. | <m>B^A</m>: A set of actions or behaviors of agent <m>A</m>; <m>C^{A} right {B^A}</m>. |
| |
| ====== ====== | ====== ====== |
