Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!greenba From: greenba@gambia.crd.ge.com (ben a green) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Modelling reinforcement Message-ID: Date: 15 Jan 91 19:48:55 GMT References: <25667@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <113250001@hpcuhc.cup.hp.com> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Organization: GE Corporate Research & Development Lines: 34 In-reply-to: selmer@hpcuhc.cup.hp.com's message of 11 Jan 91 03:33:29 GMT In article <113250001@hpcuhc.cup.hp.com> selmer@hpcuhc.cup.hp.com (Steve Elmer) writes: Whatever happened to the "comp.ia.philosophy" part of this notes string? Steve, my email to you and to Carl Turner bounces. I would like to post a specification for a robot whose program imitates that of humans in a way that reflects what we understand today about learning and maintenance of behavior. It would result in a robot that could be described not only as intelligent but also intuitive and subject to certain human frailties, such as getting hooked on horse-race betting. My problem with doing this is lack of time and some fear of the explanation task, considering that the line in psychology that I would follow is rather out of fashion among readers of comp.ai. Reinforcement is a central idea in this approach. Neural nets are not so central but offer a practical way around certain computational hurdles, such as rapid updating of a conditional probability table. Cellular automata are not part of the scheme of things at all. I think of cellular automata as things analogous to cells -- maybe even nerve cells -- that operate at an even lower level that that I am interested in. They are surely interesting in their own right. (One of my cellular automaton pastimes is written up in Algo/rithms, Winter, 1990.) Thanks for the show of interest. Maybe that will help me get up the energy and courage to post my design. -- Ben A. Green, Jr. greenba@crd.ge.com Speaking only for myself, of course.