From: justin@cybernet.cse.fau.edu (Justin Davila)
Subject: re: grounding and the entity/environment boundary
Organization: Cybernet BBS, Boca Raton, Florida
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 05:06:09 GMT

>So, how can you build An AI as grounded as a human?  There are two
>extremes: you can either give it high bandwidth sensors and effectors 
>and let it build its models the way people do; or you can build it more 
>accurate than a human and get by with more limited world experience-- 
>the narrower the bandwidth, the more accurate the system must be.
>
>...mark young

(I would have 'followed' with quotes, but your post was... high 
bandwidth)

There exist intrinsic philosophical problems with the notion of relating 
the "correctness" or even "accuracy" of computer-attained notions of the 
universe with any human notions.

Regarding the above statement, I believe the very achievement of 
"accuracy" on the part of a computer system relies necessarily on its 
correlation with human interpretation of the universe that _we_ live in, 
constrained by the limited experiences and ability to experience that we 
have.  A computer may come to nearly exactly the same conclusions about 
reality that we humans have come to: in that case we label the computer 
interpretation as a success.

However, should a computer disagree, your conclusions would seem to 
suggest that that computer simply did not have a wide enough bandwidth to 
ground itself effectively in reality, or possibly the human assistance in 
the grounding process of a system with limited bandwidth was at fault.  
Yet there exists another possibility, however counterintuitive and even 
unsettling it may be: a computer that disagrees with human evaluation of 
reality may "actually" be right.

This, of course, harkens back to the philosophical problem of "other 
minds".  If you say the sky is green, even though I and everyone I know 
agrees that it is blue, how can I really argue?  Realistically, you'll 
likely be accused of suffering from a delusion, but the basis of that 
accusation stems from the condition that you, alone, believe one thing, 
while practically everyone else beleives another.  Not too long ago 
everyone thought the world was flat.  Was the world actually flat?  
Conceptually, to the people alive amidst that belief, it really was.

The "other mind" of a computer adds another twist to the problem.  We're 
on the verge of granting computers intelligence (albeit human-like 
intelligence, but it's the best we can do for now).  Yet the fundamental 
structures of computers are physically, if not functionally, quite 
different from us.  No matter how closely we try to design them according 
to human standards, who's to say that a computer will be "experiencing" 
anything close to what we experience (not to mention that I have no idea, 
really what you "experience").

What if a computer tells us it can see auras surrounding humans?  What if 
it says it sees ghosts mulling about the world among us?  Certainly there 
would be a blurb in _Omni_ and the embarrassed programmers would set upon 
reparing the problem.  But... well, you think about it.  This accuracy 
thing may not be the pinnacle of design.  We may come to the point where 
we try to fix something that really might not be broke.

..Justin Davila