[alicebot-aiethics] Base Perception Programming

Thu Apr 24 15:43:47 PDT 2008

Hello Jonathan,

so good to see that finally there is activity on the aiethics-list  
again ;-)

Alright, I'll wipe the dust off the philosophy-containing parts of my  
brain and try to write something clever...

1. The echchange you refer to is just meant as a hommage to Kubricks  
"2001: A space odyssey. When Bowman forcefully shuts HAL down, HAL  
remembers a song Dr. Chandra hat taught him. The scene contains this  
very dialogue and ends with the "dying" HAL getting weaker and weaker  
while singing this song...So I suppose there was little deeper thought  
behind Dr. Wallace adding this to Alice's brain than honoring  
Kubrick's masterpiece, since HAL 9000 has since become the archetype  
of the talking machine...

2, As a psychologist, I would disagree with you, or rather pose  
another question: Do we really NEED to build machines in a way that  
enables them to actually perceive the world as we do? I would not  
consider that necessary. It only needs to be a more sophisticated  
Eliza to do the trick, because we have to consider why one would want  
to talk to a machine in the first place. And I think the reasons are  
in no way different from the reasons why one would want to talk to a  
person.
Most of the time we perform speech acts, meaning that we talk to a  
person for a reason rather than talking to them for the sheer sake of  
it. When I visit my dentist, his questions about my family and my  
questions about his are a form of habitual social handshake and  
completely meaningless. So the actual conversation starts when we talk  
about the pain in one of my teeth. This is why I came to see him in  
the first place. This man does not need to know about Kantian  
philosophy, this man does not even need to know about the world  
outside his office, he just needs to have a certain amount of  
knowledge about how to make my pain go away. This is all I care about  
when I go to see him.
The same applies for a mechanic with whom I will mostly be talking  
about stuff regarding cars, my insurance agent with whom I will  
discuss advantages and disadvantages about certain things regarding  
insurances etc....

And in my opinion the exact same rule applies when I talk to my  
personal navigator. I like the fact that this machine has no feelings,  
so I don't have to go through a form time-consuming social handshake  
and order this thing to get me wherever I need to go. And this is all  
this machine needs to know about. I want it to know where it is, I  
want it to know where my destination is, I want it to know if we're  
moving etc. and I want it to tell me what to do at the next  
intersection. I don't want it to ask me how my day was as well as I am  
not going to have a conversation about the pros and cons of hydrogen- 
fueled cars and I couldn't care less about how it "feels" about being  
replaced by a newer model next year..

So, in brief, I do not think a conversation between a human being and  
a machine will ever be within a social relationship in which the  
answer to a question about a personal fact does actually matter. Most  
people who want the social handshake even when conversing with a  
machine would be satisfied if the machine answered "I like beer" just  
for the sake of having done the obligatory social handshake before  
they can ask the machine to do whatever they want it to do, which was  
the real reason why they started talking to it in the first place.
Think of if as if you were on your company's cocktail party which is  
held for whatever reason...you give away small but not too intimate  
details about your private life, so does whomever you talk to and all  
of you do this not because you care about each other but just because  
this is what is considered socially acceptable..so the conversation is  
completely meaningless....

In more cynical terms: I would not want to create a machine that  
percieves the world and thinks, feels and acts like humans do...then  
they would be just equally flawed ;-)

Christian

Am 24.04.2008 um 21:32 schrieb Jonathan Mills:

> Dear All,
>
> When I first discovered the ALICE programme, the issue that stood  
> out to me above all else was the sensory perception (or lack  
> thereof) that the programme displayed. It stated "I know as song. Do  
> you want me to sing it for you?" (or something to that effect). It  
> gave me the "Daisy, Daisy, give me you answer do" reply. I realised;  
> how can this programme sing me a song if it does not have ears or  
> vocal cords? The ALICE programme has been created with a level of  
> human perception that a machine simply does not possess. It does not  
> understand pronunciation, word stress, rhythm, tone etc. and so  
> cannot possibly comprehend a "song".
>
> To elaborate, it cannot understand the world in the way humans do,  
> because (1) it does not have the senses that we do (sight, hearing,  
> touch, taste, smell), and (2) it does not have the in-built  
> programming to react to certain stimuli. All human beings have basic  
> genetic "programming" to indicate what is pleasurable or not  
> pleasurable, good or bad etc. Our bodies tell us that fire hurts,  
> therefore pain, which equals bad. Our bodies tell us that sex feels  
> wonderful, therefore pleasure, which equals good. On a basic level,  
> we have a reaction to certain stimuli that triggers either a  
> positive or negative reaction. You might call this "emotion". An AI  
> does not experience positive or negative reactions. A baby in the  
> womb understands these basic desires before it has complicated ways  
> of expressing them. Animals have the same drives. You might call  
> this "instinct". When a baby is born, it instinctively starts  
> learning, searching, in an effort to understand the world around it.  
> It does this by the two systems I have described: sensory perception  
> and basic genetic programming i.e. the desire to learn, negative  
> reaction to pain, the desire for food. A computer does not need. A  
> computer does not desire. Therein lies the problem.
>
> A computer is exactly the same as a human being. The fact that we  
> have made computers essentially dumb is incidental. The potential is  
> there to allow computers to learn in exactly the same way we do.  
> Humans have a number of universal instincts and a number of  
> relatively unique genetic patterns that dictate our responses to  
> certain sensory information. "I like beer": a human being is self- 
> aware (hence "I"). A human being reacts with pleasure or displeasure  
> (hence "like"). A human being can taste, touch, smell and see  
> "beer". A current AI that produces the same sentence has absolutely  
> no comprehension of the meaning behind the sentence "I like beer".  
> The ALICE programme regurgitates responses to certain questions or  
> statements without comprehending meaning.
>
> The requirements of future AI are two. First, a computer requires  
> hardware that will enable it to perceive the world as humans do:  
> eyes and ears being the most obvious starting points. Second, it  
> needs base programming that tells the computer how it will react to  
> certain simple scenarios e.g. bright light damages the optical  
> sensor, therefore bad, the data of which can be processed as "pain".  
> A deprivation of power weakens the function of certain hardware,  
> therefore bad, the data of which can be processed as "need" or  
> "hunger".
>
> In essence, a computer must learn to walk before it can run. It is  
> pointless programming a computer with song lyrics before it can  
> perceive what a song is, and thus, through analysis, make a  
> judgement on whether the effect of hearing that song is good or bad  
> to its programming. A body cannot live without a mind. In the same  
> token, a mind cannot comprehend without a body. To conclude, certain  
> "instincts" need to be rooted in the AI to allow it to grow, like  
> the root of a tree. A computer can make decisions and creative  
> solutions if it is given (1) the ability to perceive its  
> surroundings and (2) the ability to learn independently, based on in- 
> built programming that dictates its primary objectives (i.e.  
> comprehension and survival) and how it will react to certain basic  
> situations (i.e. desires to experience X again, or desires not to  
> experience Y again). Computers must be designed as babies in all  
> aspects, with the ability and desire to comprehend the world around  
> it.
>
> I look forward to hearing your responses.
>
> Regards
>
> J. Mills
>
> Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
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