Shunya's Notes

The Dearth of Artificial Intelligence

(Cross-posted on 3 Quarks Daily, where it has attracted lots of comments.)

As a graduate student of computer engineering in the early 90s, I recall impassioned late night debates on whether machines can ever be intelligent—intelligent, as in mimicking the cognition, common sense, and problem-solving skills of ordinary humans. Neural network research was hot and one of my professors was a star in the field. Scientists and bearded philosophers spoke of ‘humanoid robots.’ A breakthrough seemed inevitable and imminent. Still, I felt certain that Artificial Intelligence (AI) was a doomed enterprise.

I argued out of intuition, from a sense of the immersive nature of our life in the world—how much we subconsciously acquire and summon to get through life, how we arrive at meaning and significance not in isolation but through embodied living, and how contextual, fluid, and intertwined this was with our moods, desires, experiences, selective memory, physical body, and so on. How can we program all this into a machine and have it pass the unrestricted Turing test? How could a machine that did not care about its existence as humans do, ever behave as humans do? In hindsight, it seems fitting that I was then also drawn to Dostoevsky, Camus, and Kierkegaard.

My interlocutors countered that while extremely complex, the human brain is clearly an instance of matter, amenable to the laws of physics. Our intelligence, and everything else that informed our being in the world, had to be somehow ‘coded’ in our brain’s circuitry, including the great many symbols, rules, and associations we relied on to get through a typical day. Was there any reason why we couldn’t ‘decode’ and reproduce it in a machine some day? Couldn’t a future supercomputer mimic our entire neural circuitry and be as smart as us? They posited a reductionist and computational approach to the brain that many, including Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett, continue to champion today. Just three months ago, Dennett declared in his sonorous voice, “We are robots made of robots made of robots made of robots.”

But despite the big advances in computing—for example, today’s supercomputers are ten million times faster than those of the early 90s—AI has fallen woefully short of its ambition and hype. Instead, we have “expert systems” that process predetermined inputs in specific domains, perform pattern matching and database lookups, and learn to adapt their outputs algorithmically. Examples include chess software, search engines, speech recognition, industrial and service robots, and traffic and weather forecasting systems. Machines have done well with tasks that we ourselves pursue, or can pursue, algorithmically, as in searching for the word “ersatz” in an essay, making cappuccino, or restacking books on a library shelf. But so much else that defines our intelligence remains well beyond machines, such as projecting our creativity and imagination to understand new contexts and their significance, or figuring out how and why new sensory stimuli are relevant or not. Why is AI in such a braindead state? Is there any hope for it? Let’s take a closer look.

The Minds of Machines

From Philosophy Now, here is Nicholas Everitt's instructive review of a book on the philosophy of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by Matt Carter, whose "main concern is to outline and defend the possibility of a computational theory of mind."

[A major reservation Everitt has with this book] is a matter of substance. Computer programs operate on purely ‘syntactic’ features – ultimately speaking, they depend upon the physical form of the inputs, transformations and outputs. By contrast, human thought is always a thought about something, it represents something, it has a content. It displays what philosophers call ‘intentionality’. One central problem for artificial intelligence is how to get aboutness into computer programs – how to get semantics out of syntactics.

More here. (Stay tuned for a major new essay on the philosophy of AI by yours truly — arriving 22 June.)

Do Languages Speak Us?

A really good article by Lera Boroditsky on how inseparably intertwined our language is with how we look at the world:

Humans communicate with one another using a dazzling array of languages, each differing from the next in innumerable ways. Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the way we think, and the way we live our lives? Do people who speak different languages think differently simply because they speak different languages? Does learning new languages change the way you think? Do polyglots think differently when speaking different languages?

These questions touch on nearly all of the major controversies in the study of mind. They have engaged scores of philosophers, anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists, and they have important implications for politics, law, and religion. Yet despite nearly constant attention and debate, very little empirical work was done on these questions until recently. For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question. We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.

More here. (via 3QD)

On the Measure of All Things

Chris Schoen on how very radically the human self participates in its own creation. Essential reading for all philosophers of science.

Is it possible that our understanding of the world expands and develops not before we describe it, and not because we describe it, but as we describe it? This seems much more plausible than the Darwinian explanation, in which we are in constant stenographic response to a world of given stimuli; and because the latter has us spinning our wheels, culturally, over alleged biological imperatives from a world long past, the possibility that we particpate in our description of the world also seems much more likely to allow some actual evolution of thought, philosophical, scientific, and moral.

More here. And here is an another good one by Chris.

Witnessing Evolution

From AlphaGalileo, which dubs itself "the world's leading resource for European research news," comes a report of an experiment that allowed scientists to watch new organisms evolve by natural selection. It is, as they say, what Darwin only dreamed of:

Since publication of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin 150 years ago, it has been known that one of the dynamics of evolution is natural selection. Its results depend on environmental conditions and interactions between the species present (competition, predation, parasitism, cooperation). Some twenty years ago, a new field of research - experimental evolution - started to develop, and it has enabled scientists to better understand the mechanisms underlying evolution. For example, one idea was to cultivate populations of bacteria under well-controlled conditions over a large number of generations. These populations are made up of numerous individuals that were initially identical from the genetic point of view. And because the turnover of generations was very rapid, just a few months were sufficient to observe the emergence of new mutants, constituting a source of genetically-different lines. Instead of reconstituting the past, the scientists thus became eye-witnesses to the appearance of new species.

In the experiment, predator and prey bacteria are grown up together for hundreds of generations. Both evolve: the prey evolves to better evade its predator; the predator evolves to better catch its prey. (Link via NoBeliefs.com.)

Candles in the Dark?

Beyond Belief, an annual symposium that seeks to promote the constituency of reason in society, was held this year from October 3-6 in La Jolla, CA. One weekend recently, I watched all 44 of its talks and panel discussions now available online (each about 25-30 mins). The theme this year was Candles in the Dark. Participants were asked "to propose a Candle — a potential solution to a problem that they have identified in their area of expertise or informed passion." The symposium was organized around sessions that focused on science's contribution to five human preoccupations: politics, morality, happiness, money, and law.

If the anthropologists stole the show in 2006, this year belonged to the lawyers, or rather law academics who actively seek to incorporate science in their methods. By far the smartest group of people in the room, they evinced the most nuanced understanding of the difference between science and metaphysics in general, and the limits and ethical implications of neuroscience research on criminal law, in particular. Other presentations I enjoyed came from Jonathan Haidt, Beatrice Golomb (her animated talk on how money is corrupting medical research was also the scariest), Philip Zimbardo, and Jonathan Glover. Strategies for promoting science in the public sphere—via Washington lobbies, media outreach—were presented and debated but only peripherally mentioned was the one I think can make a more fundamental impact: a "next-generation Carl Sagan" to seduce young minds by showing them the wonder and power of science, using the best available multimedia and teaching aids.

The least inspiring session was the opening one on Human Flourishing/Eudaimonia. Disquisitions on happiness somehow managed to neither define happiness, nor how to measure it. Individual speakers who irked me the most included Patricia Churchland, a snake oil seller at the crossroads of neuroscience and philosophy, and whose thesis was effectively destroyed by a sharp observation from Nita Farahany, a lawyer; Sam Harris, the Dick Cheney of the symposium, who understands neither science nor religion but is wholly unaware of it. Why does he get invited every year? For the tawdry drama he adds to the proceedings? Peter Atkins, a textbook example of what a scientist without humility can become. Last year he fatuously proclaimed the impending demise of philosophy and the coming reign of science, adding that "We've got to get rid of philosophy because it is really such a ball and chain on progress ... a philosopher is really just a nuisance." Choosing Atkins to end the symposium with his talk was a real downer.

The first two symposiums (2006, 2007) were dominated by scientists taking cheap potshots at religion and sparring over it. This year's format made that difficult but the symposium's lack of diversity remains a serious problem—nearly all of the participants continue to be white Anglo-American atheists to whom religion means Abrahamic rule books. Excluding a handful of multidisciplinary researchers, intellectual breadth also remained a problem—many scientists demonstrated yet again that outside their narrow specialties, they aren't necessarily smarter than their hairdressers. Some new faces I'd like to propose for the symposium next year include H. Allen Orr, Mark Lilla, Reza Aslan, Ashis Nandy, Nicholas Maxwell, Jill Bolte Taylor, Amartya Sen, Meera Nanda, Jonathan Spence, Sudhir Kakar, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Hubert Dreyfus, and some thinkers from East Asia.

The 2008 Shunya's Notes Best Speaker Award at the Beyond Belief Symposium goes to Amanda Pustilnik, a brilliant woman who conducts research and teaches in the area of law and neuroscience at Harvard Law School. She spoke about where neuroscience can make a contribution to legal doctrine (video below, 17 mins).

Jonathan Haidt at TED

Jonathan Haidt delivers a compelling and thoughtful digest of the essence of his research and insights on human moral psychology, and what makes conservatives and liberals different (and alike). As a follow-up to Namit's post on Haidt a few weeks ago, here's the 20-minute video of Haidt's TED talk:

Haidt invites us to take his research quiz at YourMorals.Org.

On Conservative Values

With battle lines clearly drawn in the US, Jonathan Haidt explains what, deep down, separates the Democrats from the Republicans:

...the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.

When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label "elitist." But how can Democrats learn to see—let alone respect—a moral order they regard as narrow-minded, racist, and dumb?

Do read the full article. In the comments section, Scott Atran is particularly interesting. [via 3QD]

Haidt's compelling thesis—which I read last year, after watching his brilliant lecture at the Beyond Belief conference—appears in this paper, which carries the following abstract:

Abstract: Researchers in moral psychology and social justice have agreed that morality is about matters of harm, rights, and justice. On this definition of morality, conservative opposition to social justice programs appears to be immoral, and has been explained as a product of various non-moral processes such as system justification or social dominance orientation. In this article we argue that, from an anthropological perspective, the moral domain is usually much broader, encompassing many more aspects of social life and valuing institutions as much or more than individuals. We present theoretical and empirical reasons for believing that there are five psychological systems that provide the foundations for the world's many moralities. The five foundations are psychological preparations for detecting and reacting emotionally to issues related to harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. Political liberals have moral intuitions primarily based upon the first two foundations, and therefore misunderstand the moral motivations of political conservatives, who generally rely upon all five foundations.

Haidt is able to explain not just the culture wars in the US but also the social preferences in other cultures, including those based on "Asian Values". It is important for liberals to try and understand the conservative worldview on its own terms, if only to pick the right battles and to have greater success selling their own. The liberal-individualist worldview, Haidt also reminds us, is not without significant costs of its own.

What Are We?

"We are the life force power of the universe with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds."

This is part of the answer Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor leaves us with after relating the fascinating and gripping story of her stroke, caused by hemorrhage to the left hemisphere of her brain, and the unexpected spiritual moment she experienced within that stroke: Nirvana.

As a dedicated neuroanatomist whose work involves postmortem studies of human brains, Dr. Taylor was in a rare position to understand and examine what was happening to her when her cognitive facilities began to shut down one morning in 1996. It took her 8 years to fully recover from that stroke and to be able to share what she now calls her "stroke of insight." When she speaks of it at the TED conference in February 2008, she begins by describing the basic functioning of the brain's hemispheres, presenting a fresh human brain for our inspection with discomfiting matter-of-factness*. But as she continues her talk with warmth and humor, her presentation leaves off being an introductory lecture on brain anatomy and takes flight into realms of cognitive and spiritual sensation, her stroke as she lived it, her innermost life. Her telling becomes theatrical; she moves and brings her entire body to help us understand the intensity and power of her experience, and we are moved to take the journey with her. 19 minutes.

For this impassioned talk, Dr. Taylor has been named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2008. Today, in addition to continuing her brain research, she spends time designing a line of stained-glass brains and traveling the country as the "Singing Scientist," encouraging people to leave their brains to the Harvard Brain Bank for scientific research. She's also written a book, My Stroke of Insight. You can learn about her advocacy, her designs, her singing, her book, and more on her website.

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* I couldn't stop wondering what happened to the individual who until just shortly before was using that brain and spinal cord.

Bundle of Joy?

Like the protagonist of Machado de Asis's novel, Epitaph of a Small Winner, I consider myself a small winner for having overcome my blind urge to procreate. Not long ago, an Indian auntie, displeased with my choice, called me selfish to my face—I was too devoted to living for myself, she said, echoing a common view of people who choose like me. I pointed out politely that modern couples who produce children seem to me more selfish in that case. They certainly do no favors to the unborn—or to anyone else in this crowded world—by engendering for their own gratification those who have no say in the matter. She persisted: But what about the emotional well-being that children provide?

A recent article in Newsweek brought me some delight. Next time this pesky auntie needles me about the deprivations of my "childless" state (there is nothing "less" about it, I tell her; call me "childfree"), I'll be sure to point her to this study:

The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not."