Emotion, fear, reflex

A Lego NXT robot can be given an innate fear of heights using code like:

#define USONIC     IN_1
#define WHEELS    OUT_AC
.....
.....
#define CLIFF_DETECTED (SensorUS(USONIC)>35)
.....
.....
if (CLIFF_DETECTED)
{
   AvoidCliff();
}
.....
.....
sub AvoidCliff()
{
    Off(WHEELS);
    RotateMotorEx(WHEELS,80,550,-100,true,true);
    OffEx(WHEELS,RESET_ALL);
}

I have experimented with 5 mobile robots which were given a fear of heights in order to prevent them from falling down stairs or off of a tabletop.  Of course we can arrange for fear to be modulated by other cognitive processing.

Novelty detector/filter

In Asa H one or more similarity measures examines newly input spatial-temporal patterns and either adds them to existing clusters (cases) or records a new (novel) pattern (see blog of 10 Feb. 2011 and 14 May 2012 for code).

Turing tests

I have no intention of subjecting Asa H to the Turing test.  Humans suffer from a number of cognitive defects like confirmation bias, anchoring, framing, the focusing illusion, motivated reasoning, false memory, etc.  These could be used to distinguish a human reasoner from an AI.  Perhaps I could give Asa H such defects but I have no desire to do so.

Robot AI

I am not someone who believes that an AI, in order to be intelligent, must be embodied. I just find that it's easier to define some primitives in terms of sensors and their signals.

Multi-mind effect

Selmer Bringsjord, et al, of the Rensselaer AI lab state that "logically untrained individuals cannot solve problems that require context-independent reasoning" but that groups of the same individuals can solve such problems.  They further state that "in decision-making ....using only one representation or one type of reasoning can lead to erroneous conclusions."  This argues again for a society of intelligent agents and for scientific pluralism.

Minimalist programming

I see the human as the weak link in computer programming, so I try to keep things simple for the human.  Consequently, I write much of my code in a subset of BASIC, and a bit of PROLOG when I want to do logic programming. Clearly, some compromises are involved here as there must be.

Creativity in Asa H 2.0

Asa H discovered and reported to me that (in the context of something like a neural network with feedback or the related models of consciousness)  "feedback narrows view." This was something I did not know.   Much like with oscillators in electronics, feedback narrows bandwidth.  Subsequently, in searching google I find evidence that cortical feedback in the human brain may restrict the receptive field of that cortical cell assembly. (Krupa, et al, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 6 July 1999, pg 8200)