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From: andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head       )
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: determining the input space
Summary: bootstrap
Message-ID: <720@berlioz.nsc.com>
Date: 3 Mar 90 00:38:59 GMT
References: <6603@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Lines: 38

In article <6603@hydra.gatech.EDU>, kirlik@chmsr (Alex Kirlik) writes:
> 
> A poster recently inquired about the possible existence of "optimal" ways
> to go about determining the inputs to a network.  As is well known, a
> judicious selection of primitive inputs (or features) may allow for a very
> simple categorization rule, whereas a poor selection can result in the
> need for a very cumbersome rule to perform the same task.  So much of 
> human expertise, it seems, is in "knowing what to look for,"....

Note that babies bootstrap, so that "knowing what to look for" becomes
increasingly sophisticated.

> The problem of determining an "optimal" or even good input representation
> for a network, or any other model for that matter, is in my opinion one of
> the must central and difficult tasks in modeling....

Note that networks are especially good at feature extraction.

> There cannot be a formal optimization method for attacking such a problem
> that works on anything less than a full blown input representation. Any
> abstractions of the environment made by the modeler always open up the
> possibility that the "optimal" solution is gone before the game can start.

So, combining my two short comments, why not build a network that bootstraps
on an increasingly complex environment? - in other words, build two networks.

There are a couple of ways you might do this; one way could be hierarchical;
one on top of another. The top network is the "knowing what to look for" unit,
which would provide a parallel "vigilance" input to the lower unit which
is actually performing the task in hand.

Another way might be a serial approach, whereby the "knowing what to
look for" unit acts as an input preprocessor.

Or a combination of the two.... just a thought.
-- 
...........................................................................
Andrew Palfreyman	andrew@dtg.nsc.com	Albania before April!