12 ms·

Building Smarter Artificial Intelligence By ... Shrinking The Body?

13 points by njrc 17y ago

Tichy 17y ago
I don't believe in this (relatively recent) trend of associating AI with bodies. Why should AIs need bodies? Clearly AIs without bodies must be possible. Of course if you want AI that resembles humans, bodies might help. But why specialize too soon (creating AI is easier than creating AI that is like humans).
- warfangle 17y ago
  I think it's in terms of sensory input and area of control that causes the brain/body size : smarts correlation. If the brain has to worry less about controlling massive amounts of tissue (and dealing with all of the sensory input that entails), it is "free" to become more advanced. One of the keys may be to be very selective about the kind and quantity of input and outputs the AI can have: the less it has to control itself, the more it can think. Purely speculative, of course.
  - TeHCrAzY 17y ago
    I think you have the right idea. My idea was immediately along the lines of "if you have less to control, you can devote more hardware to control it", which would seemingly produce higher levels of perceived intelligence.
- gnosis 17y ago
  "I don't believe in this (relatively recent) trend of associating AI with bodies." The problem is that "strong AI" (ie. an AI considered intelligent in the deepest sense of the term, with intelligence equal to or greater than that of a human) has pretty much run in to a dead end. Lots of approaches have been tried over the decades, and all have failed. Strong AI research needs new ideas and new approaches. Making a close coupling between the "brain" (or "mind") and the body is one such relatively new approach. As such, I applaud it. Like the approaches that came before, it also might lead up a blind alley. But at least they're trying something new and different, instead of banging their head on the same wall. And, apart from the sheer novelty of the approach, there has been a lot of evidence that much of the "processing" that has been assumed to be done in the brain is actually done in the body. Some relatively recent robotics research has been focused on creating robots without any kind of a "brain", but just with a "nervous system". These robots are able to move around and achieve goals. Here's some information on a conference where these sorts of robots are demonstrated: http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2010/telluride-2010/index.html http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2010/telluride-2010/... These robots are a far cry from achieving the goal of strong AI, but they point to an alternative approach to AI that is not brain-centric, to coin a term.
  - marshallp 17y ago
    "Lots of approaches have been tried over the decades, and all have failed." I beg to differ with that. Marvin Minsky's idea of having 5000 people creating a common sense database of sorts wasn't tried. (the closest is cyc, which only had 20 people most of the time). Genetic programming has not been tried at all really. Machine learning hasn't been seriously tried either (the closest efforts have been google goggles and google search maybe). AI is serious and complicated engineering project. Billions are spent on creating skyscapers, tunnels, and airplanes. Yet the money spent on AI is orders of magnitude less even though the payoff is orders of magnitude more. If I had to guess, I'd say AI would be easily achievable within a year using any of the above approaches if a trillion dollars were spent on it this year.
    - eru 17y ago
      I beg to differ. All the approaches you mentioned are still under heady investigation. It's only the name of AI that has been tarnished. And the progress in the tools will eventually lead to more "intelligent" systems.
      - marshallp 17y ago
        What do you mean by 'heavy investigation'. The latest skyscrapers in dubai cost billions of dollars each. How much is spent on AI per year worldwide. I'd bet it's less than 100 million. I wouldn't call that serious effort. How has the name of AI been tarnished. If people believe you can spend a fraction of the money spent on a building to create human level intelligence then it's their 'intelligence' that is tarnished. If your goal is create human level ai, than more 'intelligent' systems is not progress, we've had 'intelligent' tools since the first loom weaving machines were created hundreds of years ago.
        coffeeaddicted 17y ago
        The game industry does spend some money on AI development. Not sure if it's 100 million, but it's a serious amount as most game development teams have at least one or two AI developers. Although most people probably don't realize how much game AI has advanced in the last decade as most of the advances had been to cope with increasingly complex game worlds.
olalonde 17y ago
I disagree with that author and I'm not even sure what point he is trying to make. If a smaller brain is more intelligent than a bigger brain, I assume it is more complex (for instance, it has more interconnections). In computer science though, it takes more processing power to simulate more complex representations of reality. Therefore, we would need more processing power to represent a small intelligent brain than a big stupid brain. Software and our analog world are two very different beasts. Small and complex physical things sometimes take more processing power to represent than big simple ones.
coffeeaddicted 17y ago
How far can you take a brain out of it's environment before it stops working? For the brain the body size is just an external factor. I suspect changing any factors will probably make copying the brains rather harder than easier.
geuis 17y ago
What correlation is the author trying to make? To my knowledge, Blue Brain has so far gotten as far as simulating a single cat cortical column. In most higher mammalian brains, they are built up from hundreds to thousands of these columns. The approach that Blue Brain is taking is to start with the neurons, making sure the simulations match real-world data. Then wire the neurons into the cortical columns and make sure the simulations match real-world data. The idea is to build from the base components, test the hell out of them each time using the best medical data we can get about how neurons work, then scale to the next level. In this case, hooking together an increasing number of columns to simulate ever more functional parts of the brain. This has crap-all to do with a 'body'. This is such an obvious case of someone not defining their terms that it bugs the hell out of me. In the terms of the Dictionary from Anathem, it comes across as "bullshit" in sense 2. We are still at the point where we don't have a whole enough picture to completely figure out the math of what makes a thing "think". We have ideas, hypothesis, and some theories. But its all very much in flux. People quite often make the wrong analogy between the discovery of flight and conscious AI. Before engineers knew about how air moving over a curved surface creates pressure differentials that provide lift, they tried to build flying machines by simulating wings. For decades, these people were laughed at by the common folk who believed human flight was impossible. However, once it was discovered how air movement made pressures and it was possible to mathematically describe it, the approach changed. Then the first successes happened. Then there was a huge amount of innovation in the next 40-50 years before the innovation in plane and wing design leveled off. Figuring out how to organize matter so that it "thinks" is still being figured out. We have some ideas that are well-supported by data. I feel the approach IBM is taking is among the best. Since we don't know the completely mathematical theory that applies to neuron networks to allow some to be conscious and others not, our best chance is to take as much real world data as we can and to build one in simulation. On the way, we discover all kinds of things we didn't know before. In a way, it sounds like I'm countering my previous argument about how people trying to build wings failed. But, I'm not. It was in the process of attempting to re-create examples of structures that obviously could fly (birds) that we figured out the principles of how they flew. Blue Brain probably won't become THE method of building AI in the future. However, its one of the first massive attempts to do the modern equivalent of building a wing from the atom up. Along the way, we will start really figuring out exactly what needs to happen to make one network of neurons conscious, and another one not conscious. Then we'll be able to take those mathematical algorithms and start playing with them. Eventually we will get to a point where we can test an entity for consciousness. Once we can scientifically describe how consciousness works, we can devise tests for neuronal networks of any complexity to say if its actually conscious or not. This opens up the prospect of seeing if other animals on earth ranging from ants to dolphins are conscious in the same way that we are (or not). It also gives us an actual true test for AI consciousness. If we see the same or similar results on a human that we do for an AI, its fairly obvious that if the AI says "I think, I am" then it probably is. I've always had a problem with the Turing Test. Its too subjective. Just because you can fool 8 of 10 people, or even 10 of 10 people into thinking something typing to you is conscious doesn't mean it is. You CANNOT determine that without analyzing the structure of the mind that you're communicating with. If that mind is based on biology, you examine the network of neurons. If its based on software, you analyze the structure of the programming and the flow of data. Since the biological systems and software systems would both be using similar patterns of information to describe their structure and functioning, the same tests apply to both. Sorry to get off on a rant. A "body" has shit all nothing to do with "making a better AI".
indrax 17y ago
If you think he's not making any sense, You're halfway to understanding. He's not making any sense. The author doesn't seem to understand the causal link between intelligence, brain size, and body size. Smaller bodies don't make things smarter. Heavy organs have a survival cost. Animals with bigger brains only do better if the brains pay for themselves with survival-related intelligence. In species that don't generally get a payoff for figuring things out, the lighter and faster dummies breed better. If you want to think clearly about AI, read Lesswrong.

13 points by njrc 17y ago

Tichy 17y ago

I don't believe in this (relatively recent) trend of associating AI with bodies. Why should AIs need bodies? Clearly AIs without bodies must be possible. Of course if you want AI that resembles humans, bodies might help. But why specialize too soon (creating AI is easier than creating AI that is like humans).

warfangle 17y ago
I think it's in terms of sensory input and area of control that causes the brain/body size : smarts correlation. If the brain has to worry less about controlling massive amounts of tissue (and dealing with all of the sensory input that entails), it is "free" to become more advanced. One of the keys may be to be very selective about the kind and quantity of input and outputs the AI can have: the less it has to control itself, the more it can think. Purely speculative, of course.
- TeHCrAzY 17y ago
  I think you have the right idea. My idea was immediately along the lines of "if you have less to control, you can devote more hardware to control it", which would seemingly produce higher levels of perceived intelligence.
gnosis 17y ago
"I don't believe in this (relatively recent) trend of associating AI with bodies." The problem is that "strong AI" (ie. an AI considered intelligent in the deepest sense of the term, with intelligence equal to or greater than that of a human) has pretty much run in to a dead end. Lots of approaches have been tried over the decades, and all have failed. Strong AI research needs new ideas and new approaches. Making a close coupling between the "brain" (or "mind") and the body is one such relatively new approach. As such, I applaud it. Like the approaches that came before, it also might lead up a blind alley. But at least they're trying something new and different, instead of banging their head on the same wall. And, apart from the sheer novelty of the approach, there has been a lot of evidence that much of the "processing" that has been assumed to be done in the brain is actually done in the body. Some relatively recent robotics research has been focused on creating robots without any kind of a "brain", but just with a "nervous system". These robots are able to move around and achieve goals. Here's some information on a conference where these sorts of robots are demonstrated: http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2010/telluride-2010/index.html http://ine-web.org/telluride-conference-2010/telluride-2010/... These robots are a far cry from achieving the goal of strong AI, but they point to an alternative approach to AI that is not brain-centric, to coin a term.
- marshallp 17y ago
  "Lots of approaches have been tried over the decades, and all have failed." I beg to differ with that. Marvin Minsky's idea of having 5000 people creating a common sense database of sorts wasn't tried. (the closest is cyc, which only had 20 people most of the time). Genetic programming has not been tried at all really. Machine learning hasn't been seriously tried either (the closest efforts have been google goggles and google search maybe). AI is serious and complicated engineering project. Billions are spent on creating skyscapers, tunnels, and airplanes. Yet the money spent on AI is orders of magnitude less even though the payoff is orders of magnitude more. If I had to guess, I'd say AI would be easily achievable within a year using any of the above approaches if a trillion dollars were spent on it this year.
  - eru 17y ago
    I beg to differ. All the approaches you mentioned are still under heady investigation. It's only the name of AI that has been tarnished. And the progress in the tools will eventually lead to more "intelligent" systems.
    - marshallp 17y ago
      What do you mean by 'heavy investigation'. The latest skyscrapers in dubai cost billions of dollars each. How much is spent on AI per year worldwide. I'd bet it's less than 100 million. I wouldn't call that serious effort. How has the name of AI been tarnished. If people believe you can spend a fraction of the money spent on a building to create human level intelligence then it's their 'intelligence' that is tarnished. If your goal is create human level ai, than more 'intelligent' systems is not progress, we've had 'intelligent' tools since the first loom weaving machines were created hundreds of years ago.
      - coffeeaddicted 17y ago
        The game industry does spend some money on AI development. Not sure if it's 100 million, but it's a serious amount as most game development teams have at least one or two AI developers. Although most people probably don't realize how much game AI has advanced in the last decade as most of the advances had been to cope with increasingly complex game worlds.

olalonde 17y ago

I disagree with that author and I'm not even sure what point he is trying to make. If a smaller brain is more intelligent than a bigger brain, I assume it is more complex (for instance, it has more interconnections). In computer science though, it takes more processing power to simulate more complex representations of reality. Therefore, we would need more processing power to represent a small intelligent brain than a big stupid brain. Software and our analog world are two very different beasts. Small and complex physical things sometimes take more processing power to represent than big simple ones.

coffeeaddicted 17y ago

How far can you take a brain out of it's environment before it stops working? For the brain the body size is just an external factor. I suspect changing any factors will probably make copying the brains rather harder than easier.

geuis 17y ago

What correlation is the author trying to make? To my knowledge, Blue Brain has so far gotten as far as simulating a single cat cortical column. In most higher mammalian brains, they are built up from hundreds to thousands of these columns. The approach that Blue Brain is taking is to start with the neurons, making sure the simulations match real-world data. Then wire the neurons into the cortical columns and make sure the simulations match real-world data. The idea is to build from the base components, test the hell out of them each time using the best medical data we can get about how neurons work, then scale to the next level. In this case, hooking together an increasing number of columns to simulate ever more functional parts of the brain. This has crap-all to do with a 'body'. This is such an obvious case of someone not defining their terms that it bugs the hell out of me. In the terms of the Dictionary from Anathem, it comes across as "bullshit" in sense 2. We are still at the point where we don't have a whole enough picture to completely figure out the math of what makes a thing "think". We have ideas, hypothesis, and some theories. But its all very much in flux. People quite often make the wrong analogy between the discovery of flight and conscious AI. Before engineers knew about how air moving over a curved surface creates pressure differentials that provide lift, they tried to build flying machines by simulating wings. For decades, these people were laughed at by the common folk who believed human flight was impossible. However, once it was discovered how air movement made pressures and it was possible to mathematically describe it, the approach changed. Then the first successes happened. Then there was a huge amount of innovation in the next 40-50 years before the innovation in plane and wing design leveled off. Figuring out how to organize matter so that it "thinks" is still being figured out. We have some ideas that are well-supported by data. I feel the approach IBM is taking is among the best. Since we don't know the completely mathematical theory that applies to neuron networks to allow some to be conscious and others not, our best chance is to take as much real world data as we can and to build one in simulation. On the way, we discover all kinds of things we didn't know before. In a way, it sounds like I'm countering my previous argument about how people trying to build wings failed. But, I'm not. It was in the process of attempting to re-create examples of structures that obviously could fly (birds) that we figured out the principles of how they flew. Blue Brain probably won't become THE method of building AI in the future. However, its one of the first massive attempts to do the modern equivalent of building a wing from the atom up. Along the way, we will start really figuring out exactly what needs to happen to make one network of neurons conscious, and another one not conscious. Then we'll be able to take those mathematical algorithms and start playing with them. Eventually we will get to a point where we can test an entity for consciousness. Once we can scientifically describe how consciousness works, we can devise tests for neuronal networks of any complexity to say if its actually conscious or not. This opens up the prospect of seeing if other animals on earth ranging from ants to dolphins are conscious in the same way that we are (or not). It also gives us an actual true test for AI consciousness. If we see the same or similar results on a human that we do for an AI, its fairly obvious that if the AI says "I think, I am" then it probably is. I've always had a problem with the Turing Test. Its too subjective. Just because you can fool 8 of 10 people, or even 10 of 10 people into thinking something typing to you is conscious doesn't mean it is. You CANNOT determine that without analyzing the structure of the mind that you're communicating with. If that mind is based on biology, you examine the network of neurons. If its based on software, you analyze the structure of the programming and the flow of data. Since the biological systems and software systems would both be using similar patterns of information to describe their structure and functioning, the same tests apply to both. Sorry to get off on a rant. A "body" has shit all nothing to do with "making a better AI".

indrax 17y ago

If you think he's not making any sense, You're halfway to understanding. He's not making any sense. The author doesn't seem to understand the causal link between intelligence, brain size, and body size. Smaller bodies don't make things smarter. Heavy organs have a survival cost. Animals with bigger brains only do better if the brains pay for themselves with survival-related intelligence. In species that don't generally get a payoff for figuring things out, the lighter and faster dummies breed better. If you want to think clearly about AI, read Lesswrong.