Initial thoughts on AI, A-life and robotics
After watching this brilliant video:
I’ve decided that my PhD Viva should now be conveyed through the medium of interpretive dance. Right now I just need a choreographer who’s willing to take on double-weak direct realism and the emergence of language.
A few other “Dance your PhDs” can be found here.
So today I’ve been updating my blog and putting together a grant proposal for the forthcoming Interspeech expo and I ended up thinking about how this whole ‘public engagement’ gig started. After all, shockingly, there is no real incentive for me to talk to the wider public about my research or about science in general. As a young Postdoc my career is entirely based on my ability to communicate my research to my ‘peers’, a very small set of experts.
But I then remembered how it all started: with the story of Nkisi the Parrot. You see as a young, naive, PhD student I read on the BBC about this bird’s amazing linguistic talents, with a 950 word vocabulary and an ability to express new concepts it certainly seemed impressive. After all animal communication systems can give us a real insight into the evolution of our own linguistic abilities. So I conscientiously chased up the references and was startled to discover that this parrot could not only conduct lengthy conversations but that it was also psychic!
Now even back in 2004 I wasn’t entirely innocent, I was aware of spin and sensationalism, but the fact that a BBC science journalist could take a look at the Journal of Psychic Animal Research (or wherever) and think: “Yes, that looks fine to me I’ll write about this instead of all of the other valid and interesting studies on animal communication” shook me up a bit.
Anyway, the whole episode left me convinced that scientists really should tell the general public what they’re up to and hopefully raise the bar when it comes to critical thinking. The modern scientific method means that groundbreaking discoveries are being made on an astoundingly regular basis and these have implications for the whole of society. Not all of these discoveries are put to good use, but hysteria, sensationalism and an apparent willingness to simply make stuff up isn’t helping anyone.
Call for Participation: Interspeech Speech & Intelligence Competition
Interspeech 2009 in Brighton, UK will be playing host to the Loebner Prize in Artificial Intelligence on September 6th. Building upon this tradition the Interspeech Speech & Intelligence Competition will pit systems against each other to see which is most capable of imitating a human conversation through the audio channel.
In keeping with the theme of ‘Speech and Intelligence’ the systems will be asked to complete a simple, direct and urgent scenario within an artificial setting. In order to usefully advance the current state of the art the challenge will be limited, requiring only an urgent focus on the task at hand. However, we anticipate that successful systems will posses some of the following features:
This will enable researchers to use the competition to address current, pressing, research challenges. To add further interest, children from local schools will be asked to judge each entrant (ensuring natural, unpredictable conversation within the scope of the scenario) and the systems themselves will be competing against local actors playing a role within the scenario. It promises to be a lot of fun!
I’m always amazed by some of the stuff that comes out of the Rodney Brooks inspired school of
Dave Eggers presents a brilliant TED Prize wish about engaging with local schools. It’s exactly the kind of thing I was mulling over when I wrote this post. Wouldn’t it be great if communities of experts had ‘shop fronts’ that bought in members of the wider community creating opportunities for teaching, discussion and inspiration.
Well, after an incredibly long review process one of my papers has been accepted for publication in the “Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence.” The paper’s basically an experimental investigation into some of the cognitive philosophies underlying artificial intelligence. At present there are a whole host of thought experiments considering various fundamental questions: To what extent our are concepts and beliefs innate? How do aspects of the environment acquire meaning? Can human reasoning be captured by mere symbol shuffling?
Instead of adding my own speculations I decided to put these questions to the test by building agents with a cognitive architecture based on one of three competing approaches: symbol grounding, symbol attachment and enactivism. I was able to compare their performance in fulfilling various tasks in a complex environment. The results of this little competition certainly don’t resolve these deep philosophical issues but I like to think that they highlight a different approach to this thorny debate.
An idea that no doubt contains fatal flaws but why isn’t there greater public engagement with the sciences? After all the tax payer funds our research so we should probably tell them what we get up to. I keep returning to the genuine surprise that I encountered at Bristol, to many the idea of meeting a scientist in a science museum seemed shocking almost absurd. It’s no wonder we’re often perceived as some sort of isolated elite emerging from our ivory towers to make arcane pronouncements from authority, like some sort of modern day priesthood. Surely the onus is on the universities to rectify this situation.
I think a university museum approach would also benefit the wider research community. I could imagine even a small ‘museum’ acting as a summary page of current research. Bringing together ideas from across the campus and allowing visiting or isolated academics to quickly identify potential interdisciplinary research opportunities. The preparation and presentation of various displays and exhibits can also sharpen research teams thinking on their subject and open them up to thousands of potentially useful, potentially critical, viewpoints. Ultimately, by providing a university ‘shop front’ we’re saying to the public “come in, this is what we do and it’s not as scary or as weird as you think.”
Well my time at Evolang wound up with my own presentation on this paper. Returning to one of my favourite themes on the necessity and problems of abstraction within artificial intelligence. (Until we can simulate every molecule of every neuron – and then embody that simulation within reality- abstraction will always be with us). I considered Edingburgh’s Iterated Learning Model – an interesting simulation of the cultural evolution of language – and sought to remove their mind reading abstractions.
After a few late nights putting in extra slides and a few dress rehearsals to tackle my nerves I think I put forward a reasonable case for success. So, feel free to have a look at the paper and let me know what you think.
I know I was as shocked by this revelation as the next guy! But when you think about it it’s quite an interesting observation, during conversations you can get a sense that people aren’t listening they’re just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they get there chance they frequently tell surprising or emotional stories that contain little factual information and insignificant survival benefit.
In fact, according to Jean-Louis Dessalles from the ENST in France, roughly 45% of our conversations are exercises in storytelling. Why? What possible Darwinian motivation could we have for doing this? As Jean-Louis says “If language has been selected because of its effect on the welfare of the group or as a fair exchange of information based on strict reciprocity, then the efforts that speakers devote to tell stories for all to hear, most often with much emphasis to highlight interest, is incomprehensible.” We’re fascinated by unexpectedness and by highlighting or recounting unexpected events we gain the attention of others. One theory is that this makes language a form of display. As, the advent of the spear made strength (a common feature of display amongst animals) an increasing irrelevance, a weakling could kill a hulk simply by taking them by surprise. In this new political landscape the best form of defence was to surround yourself with allies who were able to spot the unusual and anticipate a spear in the gullet. So, ‘How to attract friends and influence people?’, simple display your alertness by spotting the unexpected and being the first to tell people about it!
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