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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 084
AIList Digest Wednesday, 4 Jul 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 84
Today's Topics:
Brain Theory - Memory,
Poetry - Robots,
Turing Test - Discussion,
Law - Robot Rights,
Cognitive Psychology - Mind and Brain,
Seminar - Knowledge-Based Circuit Design
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Date: 27 Jun 84 13:38:00-PDT (Wed)
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!convex!graham @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: Objection to Crane: A Quick Question - (nf)
Article-I.D.: convex.45200002
"... a person can be enabled (through
hypnosis or by asking him the right way) to remember
infinite details of any experience of this or prior life
times ... "
> Memory recall under hypnosis has been found to be just as reconstructive
> (perhaps more so) as normal memory. Hypnotic states buy you some recall,
> but not that much!
I have heard (but have no reference document to cite) that neuro-surgeons
have demonstrated that stimulation (i.e, contact with) certain parts of the
brain can produce complete recall of all sensory input from a past event,
even of details not originally "noticed". There is apparently a complete
record of sensory input stored which some mechanism filters, so that we are
"aware" of only some of it. Can anyone corroborate this, and cite a reference?
Marv Graham; ConVex Computer Corp. {allegra,ihnp4,uiucdcs,ctvax}!convex!graham
------------------------------
Date: 03 Jul 84 17:06:08 bst
From: "J.R. COWIE%rco"@ucl-cs.arpa
Use of if in natural language:
The following is a brief description of the project proposal by one
of our students on a M.Sc. course in Information Technology.
This student is originally a philosopher by profession, but has
decided to move over into Computer Science. He is interested in
using prolog to test out his ideas.
If you have any suggestions or references send them to me and I will pass them
on to him. (j.r.cowie%rco@ucl-cs.arpa)
---------------------------------------------
It is arguable that contraposition is not a universally
valid principle of inference for empirical conditionals and
yet we use it, apparently successfully, all the time. An
obvious suggestion is that we are discriminating and select
a subclass of cases to contrapose. We then ask what
characterizes that subclass.
The approach to be adopted attempts to isolate several
components of a conditional 1) a truth-functional component
2) an inferential component 3) an explanatory component. An
attempt is to be made to explain features of the logic of
conditionals in terms of the relations between these
components and in particular the relation between the
explanatory direction of a conditional (antecedent-to-
consequent or consequent-to-antecedent) and the inferential
direction.
In the philosophical literature questions about the
validity of contraposition are generally associated with
questions about the validity of (the invalid principles)
"strengthening the antecedent" (i.e. the logic of "if" in
English is not monotonic) and transitivity. And all these
questions are generally asked under the headings "Subjunctive
Conditionals","Counterfactuals" or "Contrary-to-fact
Conditionals". It may well be appropriate to cover these
topics to some extent.
Since what is envisaged is of the nature of an empirical
hypothesis concerning the logic of natural language
statements, and that hypothesis will take the form of a set
of principles of natural inference, it is expected that it
will be desirable to construct a (PROLOG) inference machine
employing these principles for test purposes. It has not been
decided how the machine should work or how it should be
employed.
I am not acquainted with the psychological literature or
artificial intelligence literature on these topics and would be
grateful for any references.
Ian Wilson.
------------------------------
Date: 29 Jun 1984 08:00:20-EDT
From: kushnier@NADC
Subject: The Law
The Law
By Ron Kushnier
The Robotic Laws of Asimov
Have always been in Fiction,
But now through High Technology
They've lost that last restriction.
So the Robots are becoming real
They are our new found tools.
Although they may be getting smart,
They must still obey the Rules.
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jul 1984 08:33:47-EDT
From: kushnier@NADC
Subject: The Last Laugh
The Last Laugh
By Ron Kushnier
Some people laughed
When they heard me say,
"We need a robot right away".
And I must admit
I had to smile
When I thought about it
For awhile.
This funny little box of steel
Running about on one big wheel
Raising its arm
So it can say,
"excuse me folks,
But you're in my way".
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jul 1984 09:10:53-EDT
From: kushnier@NADC
Subject: The Robot Boom
The Robot Boom
By Ron Kushnier
The Robot Boom
Will be here soon-
Bigger than Home Computers.
The parents will pay,
But the kids will play
And be their main recruiters.
For there is no fear
In our children, dear
Of androids or machines.
Kids feel quite at ease,
Think it's a breeze
To proces all our dreams.
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jun 84 17:36:05-PDT (Wed)
From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Pucc-I.ags @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: The Turing Test - machines vs people
Article-I.D.: pucc-i.331
> [This followup was actually written by a very clever computer program.]
>
> As you say, the Turing test is a _conversational_ test. Do you remember
> Turing's original "conversation"? "...Count me out on this. I never
> could write poetry."
[...]
> The whole conversation is fatuous! But then, it has no bonafide purpose.
> It was merely set up by a scientist to prove something.
>
> But would you want to carry on such a conversation with a computer?
> One converses socially only with conversers that one knows to be people.
Your bug-killer line turns out to have more apparent truth in it than the
rest of the article. It's too bad you didn't read the original conversation
which you quoted from. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt here by
assuming that you did not deliberately misrepresent the conversation (and that
you were not unable to understand it):
Q: Please write me a sonnet on the subject of the Forth Bridge.
A: Count me out on this one. I never could write poetry.
Q: Add 34957 to 70764.
A: (Pause about 30 seconds and then give as answer) 105621.
Q: Do you play chess?
A: Yes.
Q: I have K at my K1, and no other pieces. You have only K at K6
and R at R1. It is your move. What do you play?
A: (After a pause of 15 seconds) R-R8 mate.
The point of the first answer is that no human is an expert on everything,
and that a program which hopes to pass the Turing test had best not give
itself away by being overly knowledgeable.
Did you notice that the answer to the second question is incorrect? It
should be 105721. [Aha! a sexist machine! It assumes that women are no
good with figures. Oops--I forgot. Since you haven't read Turing's
"Can a Machine Think?" you won't understand what women have to do with
this discussion. Oh, well...]
Dave Seaman "My hovercraft is full of eels."
..!pur-ee!pucc-i:ags
------------------------------
Date: 29 Jun 84 17:22:46 EDT
From: kyle.wbst@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Robot Rights
re: Why distinguish humans from machines...
For the same reason the Supreme Court in the last century got into the
business of deciding what fraction of a human being a slave was for
political purposes. Pandora's box will be opened again on this issue in
the future if and when we succeed in creating AI devices that pass
various tests. I don't care if the devices are made of silicon, biomass
(shades of genetic engineering), or some hybrid combo. The point is, I
can see some group organizing them into either a union, a voting block,
or a public interest group to keep another ton of lawyers living off the
fat of the land for years to come.
------------------------------
Date: 26 Jun 84 7:42:05-PDT (Tue)
From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!unc!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr
@ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: Mind and Brain
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.784
> "subconsious", "mind", etc -- what DO these words mean? More
> importantly, do these things exist?
> I assert they do not. I take the behaviorist philosophy that what
> you call "mind" is a thing invented by Plato or some dead Greek
> person which is just as mystical and unreal as "the Gods" or
> "magic."
> What you have is a brain. What you do is behavior. You are an
> organism that responds to AND IS CHANGED BY your environment.
> That's all. The rest you've made up or assumed was true because
> some dead greek person said it was there.
> Show me your "mind" -- demonstrate its existence. I dare you.
BRA-VO!!!!!!!
It doesn't matter what you wear, just as long as you are there.
Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jun 84 14:38:01-PDT (Wed)
From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!ech @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: Human Models
Article-I.D.: spuxll.514
Jules Greenwall's suggestion is an extreme example of what researchers in the
area refer to as a "meat machine." Traditionally, such experiments contain
a neuron model and attempt to simulate a brain at THAT level of detail.
His suggestion suffers from a similar problem, also: assuming that one
has a complete quantum-mechanical model of a human brain, how is one to model
the behavior of molecules, in real time, with a computer made of molecules?
I thank him for the suggestion, of course, because it drives home an
important point: you simply can't build a real-time emulation of a brain
by modelling it at the quantum-mechanical level; you MUST use some
"higher level" model.
Note that, except for rather simple neuron nets, traditional meat machines
are also many orders of magnitude removed from a real-time simulation of
a brain of human-class complexity.
Finally, I will note that we are on the verge of opening yet another round
of the reductionist/wholist debate; yet again, I will recommend that you
go devour a copy of "The Mind's I".
=Ned=
------------------------------
Date: Mon 2 Jul 84 13:51:39-PDT
From: Sharon Bergman <SHARON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Ph.D. Oral - Knowledge-Based Circuit Design
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
KNOWLEDGE-BASED CIRCUIT DESIGN
Christopher Tong
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
Dissertation defense
2:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 17, 1984
Margaret Jacks Hall 146
DESIGN AS DIALECTIC. Design is a dialectic between the designer and what is
possible. As design of an artifact, circuit design involves creating artifact
descriptions that satisfy the requirements imposed by designer, environment,
domain, logic, and limited experience; good design exploits these requirements
of the design problem by converting them into constraints on the design
process. As design of a functionally decomposable artifact, circuit design
entails recursive partitioning of functional requirements in such a way that
the partitioned requirements map onto technologically available structures that
satisfy them. Finally, viewing circuit design as the design of a physical
computational system, we can categorize the required functionality along a
small number of functional dimensions (e.g. control, communication, behavior).
This thesis makes several contributions. It introduces the notion of a
playful design process as an ideal toward which the engineering of design
knowledge should be steered; it describes the extent to which the "playful
design" ideal can be realized by a circuit design process. It extends the
notion of play to playful control of the design process; and finally, it
presents an ontology of dimensions for categorizing and relating design
requirements and approaches.
A PLAYFUL DESIGN PROCESS. Play is doing what one wants to do when wants to do
it. Playful design is possible to the degree that: refinement steps can be
carried out in an order-insensitive manner; and decomposition creates
context-insensitive components. We show that the benefits derived from enabling
such play in the process of design include: enablement of goal-directed
refinement, and an exponential reduction in number of solutions considered over
a more traditional "fixed phases" approach to circuit design. By characterizing
circuit specifications by the ubiquitous functional dimensions of control,
communication, and behavior, we enable a measure of order-insensitive
refinement; these functional dimensions induce a set of evaluation dimensions
for performing goal-directed refinement. Viewing components as processors
facilitates context-insensitive decomposition.
PLAYFUL CONTROL OF THE DESIGN PROCESS. Playful control entails being able to
resolve current design problems by pursuing strategies that are appropriate
given the resource limitations of the designer. Playful control is possible to
the extent that: the problems produced by the design process are
well-categorized; and problem posting and resolution can be separated. Playful
control is knowledge-intensive, drawing on a library of strategies indexed by
problem type and resource allocation.
We describe an interactive computer program called DONTE (Design
ONTology Experiment). DONTE has served to implement, motivate, and help debug
the contributions made by this research.
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End of AIList Digest
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