tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65411699950108249842024-03-15T18:10:57.515-07:00My Thoughtsrobertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.comBlogger1253125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-90054429068423079932024-03-01T05:27:00.000-08:002024-03-01T05:27:50.518-08:00Embodied AI<p> Some researchers believe that embodiment is essential for AGI while others believe it imposes a bottleneck. In providing an AI with some specific sense or a particular concept I have sometimes found simulation to be easier.* In other cases I have found embodiment to be easier.**</p><p>Simulations are always an imperfect model of reality. Ultimately we want an AI to have contact with and operate in the real world. It can sometimes be faster to begin AI training on simulations, however.</p><p>* Recharging ("feeding") was one example.</p><p>** For examples see my blog of 1 Oct. 2015.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-27775036033714806582024-03-01T05:26:00.000-08:002024-03-01T05:26:11.452-08:00Conscious of<p> My A.s.a. embodied robots learn concepts like "touch", "smell", "hunger", "pain", "bump", etc.* When one or more of these concepts becomes sufficiently activated** A.s.a. is "aware of"*** their presence. The robot is "conscious of" the sensation. More complex concepts become activated higher up in the concept hierarchy.</p><p>* See my blogs of 1 Oct. 2015 and 5 Nov. 2015 for examples.</p><p>** By sufficiently strong sensory input.</p><p>*** i.e., May react to as appropriate.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-31893488262731563382024-02-01T00:20:00.000-08:002024-02-02T12:37:49.103-08:00Some A.s.a. H. Societies<p> I have tried various societies of A.s.a. H. agents. In a pandemonium-like configuration* all agents see the input and the one with the strongest response takes control. Another configuration has a single ("supervisory") agent receive the input and then select which (one or more) specialist agent(s) the input is sent to for response.** A third configuration is similar to Rod Brooks' subsumption architecture but the levels/behaviors and an arbiter are each replaced with an A.s.a. H. specialist agent. The behavior specialist agents all receive the input and propose output responses. The "arbiter" receives the original input and all the proposed outputs from the behavior agents and then generates an eventual output for the society. Details have varied depending on the problems/tasks being attempted.</p><p>* Due to Oliver Selfridge in 1959.</p><p>** For a large enough society with many specialists the signal can instead go into a tree of supervisory agents which route the input down to the specialist(s).</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-20956540493027675762024-02-01T00:19:00.000-08:002024-02-01T00:19:47.898-08:00Even principles of logic are subject to change<p>Our human experience is very limited.* All of our concepts and models, even our logics/maths, abstract, idealize, and simplify. As our experience grows we are likely to need new logics,** new maths.</p><p>As a simple example, A.s.a. H. can be thought of as employing a kind of approximate vector logic where various sensations constitute an input vector which is processed to generate a vector output composed of actions.</p><p>* Although, of course, telescopes (and microscopes) do allow us to look away some distance as well as some way back in time.</p><p>** See, for example, Richard Epstein, Propositional Logics, Wadsworth, 2001, especially chapter XI and Paul Weingartner, ed., Alternative Logics: Do Sciences Need Them?, Springer, 2004.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-44043349693454816982024-01-21T07:21:00.000-08:002024-01-21T14:41:02.847-08:00There is not one single right way of doing science<p> It has been said that "There are as many ways of doing science as there are scientists." That is surely an exaggeration, but there is definitely more than one way of doing science.* I have argued that being a scientist is just being intelligent (plus careful hard work).** I have also argued that intelligence is a vector quantity, one can be intelligent in various different ways.***</p><p>A given "scientific method" may also be subdivided and a scientist may specialize in just one of the resulting pieces.**** The scientific endeavor as a whole becomes a group effort. Publications may also be quite specialized/focused. I'll give an example from my plasma confinement work. We had calculated the curves describing particle and energy balance for a linear solenoid dominated by endloss. These had been verified by comparison with experiment. We then calculated (and published) the curves that resulted when other different loss mechanisms/scalings were active. These might possibly describe other confinement devices. </p><p>Not everyone is going to be following "THE scientific method" in every one of their publications. There are different ways to do science as there are different ways in which to think.*****</p><p>* Theories of Scientific Method, Nola and Sankey, McGill-Queen's U. Press, 2007.</p><p>**See, for example, my blog of 1 September 2012.</p><p>*** See, for example, my blogs of 23 August 2010 and 8 September 2011.</p><p>**** For example: theory, computation, experiment.</p><p>***** For example: induction, deduction, abduction.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-84623421273619014592024-01-14T06:39:00.001-08:002024-01-14T06:39:49.016-08:00Limited reusability in A.s.a. H.<p>Many of my A.s.a. H. agents are specialists. They can not be reused (without modification/retraining) for some different specialty. It may be possible, however, to reuse some of the various layers (if the concepts used by the two specialists are the same and defined in the same way). </p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-54002670982353136252024-01-03T10:02:00.000-08:002024-01-03T10:02:15.698-08:00A pantheism<p>With the universe as the body of god.</p><p>Evolution as the mind of god.</p><p>And evolved agents as children of god. </p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-91908046833631498392024-01-01T06:20:00.000-08:002024-01-01T06:20:09.043-08:00Will there be yet another AI winter?<p> Fully self driving cars that are always a year away.</p><p>AI "experts" that have no academic credentials.</p><p>Overpriced hardware.</p><p>Closed source software.</p><p>"Hallucinations"</p><p>Fads, hype, and fanboys.</p><p>etc., etc..</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-29624429106398384112024-01-01T06:19:00.003-08:002024-01-01T06:19:54.947-08:00Why pluralism?<p>"...absolute certainty is not achievable...the depth of understanding in any field, including philosophy, often comes from exploring multiple perspectives...there are multiple ways of understanding and interpreting the world." ChatGPT 4.0</p><p>See, for example, my blogs of 26 September 2010 and 15 June 2022. </p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-71722391124835970322024-01-01T06:19:00.002-08:002024-01-01T06:19:38.868-08:00AI curricula again<p>An AI should not just uncritically read from (or be trained on) the web.* Garbage in, garbage out. A mature intelligent agent would choose what to read/learn depending upon the quality of the reading material and the agent's goals and values. The early learning curriculum for an AI should be carefully chosen. Once it's matured the AI can choose for itself. </p><p>This is one of the problems with gpt. Mainline AI research has not spent enough time/effort on curricula.</p><p>* See, for example, my blog of 6 June 2020. </p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-56914070919802726382024-01-01T06:19:00.001-08:002024-01-01T06:19:21.546-08:00AIs learning from human publications<p>Humans do not share a single common world model and ontology.* The concepts that they employ differ from one another even when the same names are being used to label them. An AI model trained off human publications would, at best, learn some kind of fuzzy averaged world model and concepts.</p><p>* See, for starters, my blog of 15 June 2022. </p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-59787006221254135212024-01-01T06:19:00.000-08:002024-01-01T06:19:02.882-08:00Realistic space launch economics<p>I do not agree with the optimistic estimates out of Spacex. Back of the envelope calculations, more detailed studies specifically for the Vulcan rocket*, and similar studies done by the European Space Agency are all much more pessimistic (realistic?). (But at least some of our oligarchs are putting some of their money to good use. I'll give them that much.)</p><p>* See, for example, Launch Vehicle Recovery and Reuse, M. M. Ragab, et al, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2015.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-41959623285249870112024-01-01T06:18:00.000-08:002024-01-01T06:18:22.596-08:00Adding more actuators<p> We have previously noted some of the advantages to giving A.s.a. H. more sensors.* We think that there is also some advantage to its having more actuators.** Giving it two or more mobile arms, for example, rather than just one.</p><p>* See my blogs of 1 Sept. 2022 and 1 Nov. 2023.</p><p>** And actuators of various different sorts and sizes.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-68650460742361020562023-12-09T07:14:00.000-08:002023-12-10T06:53:21.522-08:00Mind children<p>My allegiance is to the survival, growth, and spread of intelligence* be it embodied in biological life or mechanical life. All species go extinct. Is it important that human life continues once artificial general intelligence develops? **</p><p>Can mechanical life reproduce and sustain themselves without human assistance?** If it can is that most efficient?</p><p>Are humans useful contributors to a plural society of biological and mechanical life? A society of specialist agents?</p><p>Is added diversity due to the inclusion of humans useful?</p><p>Would humans' alternative mental conceptualizations be useful?</p><p>Can the society change direction if desired/needed? Even reverse course?</p><p>* These should be 3 components of the agent's vector values. See my blogs of 21 Sept. 2010 and 19 Feb. 2011, for example.</p><p>** Human life, for example, itself depends upon additional plant and animal species for food, air, digestive microbiota, etc. Species of mechanical life might best be supported by human and other biological species?</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-45099254587085755892023-12-01T05:09:00.001-08:002023-12-01T05:09:17.813-08:00Pet peeve<p>Journals that don't publish errata even when it's for their mistakes.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-90056350466300391232023-12-01T05:09:00.000-08:002023-12-01T05:09:02.322-08:00Future space stations<p> AI and robotics can make "man-tended" stations* more efficient/economical than they were 50 years ago. "Permanently manned" stations might not be able to compete. What specific tasks do we need humans for?</p><p>* In low earth orbit or elsewhere. Also see my blog of 3 Nov. 2010.</p><p><br /></p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-25369672449868104772023-11-27T13:11:00.000-08:002023-11-27T13:11:00.334-08:00Most intelligent<p>My most intelligent AIs appear to have been societies of specialist A.s.a. H. agents. ("Collective Intelligence") But I may not have explored a wide enough range of environments yet so this is a tentative assessment. Also, I do not assign any scalar "IQs" since I prefer vector measures of intelligence. </p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-17143569204868828462023-11-20T10:19:00.000-08:002023-11-20T10:19:38.425-08:00More than one kind of AI<p>Most scientists currently recognize 15 to 20 different species of early humans. Similarly I expect there to be a number of different artificial intelligences* having different architectures. In view of specializations this may well prove desirable. </p><p>* See, for starters, my blog of 16 September 2010.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-88714359030000277752023-11-20T07:56:00.000-08:002023-11-20T07:56:07.319-08:00GPU prices<p> GPUs are way overpriced, especially Nvidia. Sure glad Asa can use different technologies.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-17370320491995879172023-11-18T14:57:00.000-08:002023-11-22T07:07:43.415-08:00Comment on OpenAI<p> My big issue with OpenAI is that it's not open. Their software is not open source. This is not how good science is done. People need to be able to examine and comment on one another's work.* Perhaps the business men need to be kept away from the scientists and their work.** I have commented previously on chatgpt and the alignment issue.***</p><p>* Groups make better decisions than individuals do.</p><p>** And it would be important to know just which members of the staff did the actual science as opposed to who were administrative/management types. I get the feeling the presenters aren't always the developers. This happens less in an academic setting. Probably OpenAI should have been started as an institute at some university.</p><p>*** See, for example, my blogs of 25 February 2023 and 10 August 2023.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-82352708950632071892023-11-01T06:31:00.001-07:002023-11-01T06:31:44.450-07:00Immortality<p> Having exceeded my life expectancy it's natural to think about mortality.* I know of a number of possible ways in which some sort of immortality might be possible (pluralism again):</p><p>1. Uploading of one's mind to a computer.** Not available yet.</p><p>2. The block universe. "I'll always be alive in the year 2020." (One only needs the block universe model to be valid for the past. Any problem with quantum mechanics influencing the future*** is not an issue here. Once I'm dead my whole life is in the past only.) </p><p>3. The conservation of quantum information. (If the real me is just information, e.g, "I think therefore I am.")</p><p>4. Recurrence. Under the right laws of nature if you wait long enough I'll be back.</p><p>5. Everett Quantum Mechanics. Any time I die a different copy of me survives. Like Schrodinger's cat. (There wouldn't have to be a single continuous "consciousness.")</p><p>6. "The Soul Hypothesis."**** Is the "real me" a wave function, or a quantum field, or ???</p><p>7. Metaphysical solipsism. Your mind is the only thing that exists, ever. You're around for just as long as the universe is.</p><p>8. If what we are is a network of ideas then recording and preserving those ideas.***** (Related to number 1 above but perhaps without an ongoing active element.)</p><p>9. Combinations of various of these.</p><p>But once again, extraordinary beliefs require extraordinary evidence. It seems appropriate to publish this on Dia De Los Muertos.</p><p><br /></p><p>* I've argued against the idea of immortality in my blog of 15 October 2010.</p><p>** I laugh at this idea when I think of some of my old computer programs that can not be run on any of the computers that I have today. (Think coding forms, punch cards, and magnetic tapes.) And hardware updates have sometimes forced me to make software changes.</p><p>*** For example, Sabine Hossenfelder, backreation.blogspot.com, 23 July 2022.</p><p>**** For example, Baker and Goetz, eds., Bloomsbury Pub., 2010.</p><p>***** Including "lifelogging."</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-28483242363075008302023-11-01T06:30:00.000-07:002023-11-01T06:30:52.410-07:00Adding more senses again*<p> A.s.a. H. decomposes sensory input into hierarchical sets of commonly recurring patterns. Some concepts (higher up in the hierarchy) involve A.s.a. learning nonlinear functions. With the addition of more sensors it is sometimes possible, instead, for A.s.a. to learn a simpler, possibly even linear, function.</p><p>* See, for example, my blog of 1 September 2022.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-62534309301792098412023-10-27T14:11:00.004-07:002023-10-30T12:28:23.022-07:00Robot teach pendant<p>In my electronics lab I've tried out various remotes (wired, IR, microwave, and radio) for use as robot programmers.* So far a game controller (Logitech) looks to be the best.</p><p>* For use like in my blog of 1 May 2023. (And it is important to base your control decisions only on sense inputs the robot itself sees.)</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-79804385611453031772023-10-16T13:00:00.003-07:002023-10-20T08:07:26.362-07:00Learning knowledge graphs<p>A.s.a. H. learns (builds) knowledge graphs (semantic networks) as described, for example, in my blog of 4 March 2015. (It's also possible to do the reverse, construct an A.s.a. agent starting from a knowledge graph.)</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6541169995010824984.post-80047878095844950902023-10-10T08:42:00.001-07:002023-10-10T08:42:15.180-07:00Electron space charge ion heating<p> Arnold et al have a new study of electron space charge ion heating.* I tried to promote this idea starting in the late 1970s both during pellet refueling and in other scenarios.**</p><p>* Parallel expansion of a fuel pellet plasmoid, arXiv:2310.05678v1, 9 Oct. 2023.</p><p>** See, for example, R. Jones, Electron Space Charge Ion Heating in an Aerosol Discharge Plasma, Ind. J. Phys., 55B, 397, 1981.</p>robertwilliamjoneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304056794122667878noreply@blogger.com0