Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!greenba From: greenba@gambia.crd.ge.com (ben a green) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Imitations of Humanity Message-ID: Date: 29 Nov 90 20:12:47 GMT References: <129155@tiger.oxy.edu> <1990Nov28.165033.26351@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Organization: GE Corporate Research & Development Lines: 40 In-reply-to: burley@pogo.ai.mit.edu's message of 28 Nov 90 17:52:34 GMT In article burley@pogo.ai.mit.edu (Craig Burley) writes: 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? Maybe this thread is starting to get interesting: What more is needed for an artifical person is motivation, or needs, and an adaptive mechanism that raises the probability of the behavior that satisfies them. This is "reinforcement". You also need a mechanism for acquiring new needs that are based on the old ones. So a robot that starts out inherently valuing only survival can acquire a taste for electrical outlets ... . Warning! This line of thought may lead you into the dreaded world of Behaviorism of the kind explained by B. F. Skinner in "About Behaviorism." And, oh yes, whatever you think you know about behaviorism is probably wrong unless you got it straight from Skinner. Ben -- Ben A. Green, Jr. greenba@crd.ge.com Speaking only for myself, of course.