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Haha, indeed. I think we're trying to stretch too far here. We've always dreamt of having a conversation with a bot without actually constructing the intellige

Haha, indeed. I think we're trying to stretch too far here. We've always dreamt of having a conversation with a bot without actually constructing the intelligence behind that bot. And it's not going to work. We should start with something simpler, like cats, which definitely have feeling, but have a mental capacity that is closer to what we may be able to emulate through software. And then monitor progress through its 'meowing', 'purring' and 'tail wagging'.

OmarShehata 7y ago
This seems that a more complex approach, not simpler. To try to emulate a form of intelligence we don't understand and even worse, monitor its progress through some proxy interactions that don't tell us much. Like if you're going to create a creature from scratch why create something that can't communicate with you? Unless you mean we should just tackle simpler forms of intelligence in general, which is what the rest of the AI field outside of conversational AI are doing.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  Basically your last sentence. You can't have an intelligent conversation with something that's fundamentally not intelligent. It could have recited the whole wikipedia but still be basically a query bot. Building more advanced query methods (e.g. use machine learning) doesn't solve that problem.
Animats 7y ago
We've always dreamt of having a conversation with a bot without actually constructing the intelligence behind that bot. And it's not going to work. Well, at least the ML people have. This is automated nattering. These systems have no clue, but pretend they do. It's autocomplete with a big data set. The illusion falls apart after about three sentences or interactions. That's not much better than classic Eliza. Most of the systems that can actually answer questions have some notion of "slots". As in, you ask "How do I get to X", and that matches something like "How do I get to DESTINATION from STARTINGPOINT by TRANSPORTATIONMODE". There are limited systems like that, slightly smarter than phone trees. You can get something done them in their limited area. MIT has the START system which does something like that. Stanford has the SQUAD database. Both draw heavily from Wikipedia. I gather Alexa works something like that when ordering, using the Amazon catalog. Eliza had a few "slots"; if you revealed your name, or the name of wife/mother/siblings, those were stored for later template instantiation. It's not much of a mental model, but it's something. Few of these systems have enough smarts that if you ask a question that needs clarification, they ask you a question to get the data they need. "How do I get to Pittsburgh?" ought to come back with "Where are you", or "Pittsburgh, PA, or Pittsburgh, CA", to fill in the slots. Without someone having to make up a menu tree for that class of question.
nradov 7y ago
We should start with something simpler, like flatworms. We are far, far away from being able to accurately emulate a complex, social mammal like a cat. I doubt whether researchers can achieve cat equivalence in our lifetimes.

OmarShehata 7y ago

This seems that a more complex approach, not simpler. To try to emulate a form of intelligence we don't understand and even worse, monitor its progress through some proxy interactions that don't tell us much. Like if you're going to create a creature from scratch why create something that can't communicate with you? Unless you mean we should just tackle simpler forms of intelligence in general, which is what the rest of the AI field outside of conversational AI are doing.

Aperocky 7y ago
Basically your last sentence. You can't have an intelligent conversation with something that's fundamentally not intelligent. It could have recited the whole wikipedia but still be basically a query bot. Building more advanced query methods (e.g. use machine learning) doesn't solve that problem.

Animats 7y ago

We've always dreamt of having a conversation with a bot without actually constructing the intelligence behind that bot. And it's not going to work. Well, at least the ML people have. This is automated nattering. These systems have no clue, but pretend they do. It's autocomplete with a big data set. The illusion falls apart after about three sentences or interactions. That's not much better than classic Eliza. Most of the systems that can actually answer questions have some notion of "slots". As in, you ask "How do I get to X", and that matches something like "How do I get to DESTINATION from STARTINGPOINT by TRANSPORTATIONMODE". There are limited systems like that, slightly smarter than phone trees. You can get something done them in their limited area. MIT has the START system which does something like that. Stanford has the SQUAD database. Both draw heavily from Wikipedia. I gather Alexa works something like that when ordering, using the Amazon catalog. Eliza had a few "slots"; if you revealed your name, or the name of wife/mother/siblings, those were stored for later template instantiation. It's not much of a mental model, but it's something. Few of these systems have enough smarts that if you ask a question that needs clarification, they ask you a question to get the data they need. "How do I get to Pittsburgh?" ought to come back with "Where are you", or "Pittsburgh, PA, or Pittsburgh, CA", to fill in the slots. Without someone having to make up a menu tree for that class of question.

nradov 7y ago

We should start with something simpler, like flatworms. We are far, far away from being able to accurately emulate a complex, social mammal like a cat. I doubt whether researchers can achieve cat equivalence in our lifetimes.