Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ai-lab!life!burley From: burley@pogo.ai.mit.edu (Craig Burley) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Imitations of Humanity Message-ID: Date: 28 Nov 90 17:52:34 GMT References: <129155@tiger.oxy.edu> <1990Nov28.165033.26351@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> Sender: news@ai.mit.edu Organization: /home/fsf/burley/.organization Lines: 49 In-reply-to: fostel@eos.ncsu.edu's message of 28 Nov 90 16:50:33 GMT In article <1990Nov28.165033.26351@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> fostel@eos.ncsu.edu (Gary Fostel) writes: Winebarger, at Occidental College asked (essentially) if there was a Holy Grail: I'm relativity new to this net, so I'm not sure if this question will really be appropriate. My question is: has the possibility of a neural net hooked up to 2 cameras, connected for stereo vision, with other attempts at equivalency for the other 4 physical senses, been considered for attempts to produce intelligence? I have been thinking that if a neural net was given the same senses (as far as we can tell, of course we can't be sure they are the same as our own) as a human, and given something to make it open it's eyes (a proverbial slap in the behind) then the flood of information it would recieve, somewhat like a human baby would recieve, would force it to somehow deal with the flood, and hopefully, eventually, enable intelligence. This is a very seductive expectation, but it founders a bit on the oversimplification of what happens during human development. This is likely at the root of some people's inflated expectations of artificial neural nets. They feel that an artificial net is the same as "brain stuff" and since there is an existence proof for Brain stuff supporting intelligent behavior, then artificial nets should be able to behave intelligently as well. There are a lot of issues that the "flood of data to the gigantic net" idea miss: [very good points omitted] Plus, even if the neural net you built was an excellent equivalent for the human brain (whatever that might mean) and the sensory mechanisms adequate, how do you expect it to ever decide to DO anything with all its "input"? If the motor mechanisms aren't driven at all, big deal according to this machine, and if they're driven randomly because of the "clean slate" that I think means randomized weights in the NN, again big deal...what's going to drive the machine to learn to focus its eyes on things, to walk, and so on? It would be neat to see just what would happen, nevertheless. But it is interesting (at least for me) to think about what we'd have to do to such a machine to make it actually useful. I gather our current model for training NNs is to give them inputs and outputs at the same time, but how could we reasonably do that for this machine, where the outputs are in some ways unimportant? Like, even if we got it to walk and focus and such, how do we manipulate it to actually learn and think, which it is presumably capable of doing if so motivated? -- James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@ai.mit.edu