The Enactive Pathway to AI
Rafik Hadfi
Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University
rafik.hadfi@i.kyoto-u.ac.jp

14 February 2023

BackgroundFeb 2023 –2020 – 2023
2019 – 20202017 – 20192015 – 2017
March 2015
March 2012

Associate Professor, Kyoto University
Department of Social Informatics
Assistant Professor, Kyoto University
Department of Social Informatics
Assistant Professor, Nagoya Institute of Technology
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Research Fellow, Monash University
School of Psychological Sciences / Philosophy Department
Postdoctoral Researcher, Nagoya Institute of Technology
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Doctor of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology
Master of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology

Research Interests

2• AI for Decision-making• Automated Negotiation

1Elicitation

An Implementation of Large-Scale Holonic Multi-agent Society SConsensus

they have to explain the plan to civilian so that civilian can unditively as like they are facing it. In this sense, 3D visualizat
preferable way. We implemented the 3D visualization function bywhich has been widely employed by the developers of 3D online gavides super efficient platform to realize 3D visualizations. Our
produces the result of simulations by using the distributed simu
3D visualization system can re-produce the 3D-simulation fro
results of simulations. Figure 9 shows our 3D visualization syste• Multiagent Social Simulation• Mobility, Driving, Traffic, etc.
Fig. 9. 3D viewer• Conversational AI for Social Good
• Online Deliberation, Polarization, etc.

5Conclusions

This paper presents an implementation of large-scale multiagent
tors. In particular, this paper focuses on traffic simulation and beh
drivers. The proposed architecture effectively distribute the burtation by using the Voronoi algorithm, which has been focused iAlso, we employ holonic architecture where a simulator has severeach layer can be independently modeled. For example, one latraffic while another layer can manage pedestrian. We gatherby using smartphone application we implemented. Then we fit
the data and obtained several driving behaviors. We also condpedestrian data in a large scale. Here, we developed a novel way

The Enactive Pathway to AI
Rafik Hadfi
Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto Universityrafik.hadfi@i.kyoto-u.ac.jp

14 February 2023

Summary• Mind-body Dualism• The Embodied Alternative• Enactive Cognition• Enactive AI

Mind-body dualism• Philosophy, neuroscience, physics … and AI?

• The Cartesian philosophy of mind

• The nature of the mind is different from that of
the body, and so, it is possible for one to exist
without the other
Descartes' mind-body dualism

Mind-body dualism in perception

Light rays

The tree, as perceived by
an external observer

Mind-body dualism in perception
Consious percept of a tree
Qualia?

NCC
Light rays

The tree, as perceived by
an external observer

NRNCC

Mind-body dualism in perception & action• The Bayesian brain• Mental states are treated as hypotheses updated
based on evidence from the physical world• Active Inference• The Free-energy Principle

Mind-body dualism in perception & action
Perception

External Hidden states
about the world 𝒑(𝒚)Bayesian Inference
about the world

Free energy 𝑭 𝒚, 𝜻 ≥ 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆

ActionActing on the world to
avoid surprises
Friston, et al. "Active inference: a process theory." Neural computation 29.1 (2017): 1-49.

𝒂𝒓𝒈𝒎𝒊𝒏𝜻 𝑭 𝒚, 𝜻How the brain models
theenvironmentalstates by aligninginternal to externalstates through freeenergy minimization

Mind-body dualism in AI?
Goals••••

Actions•••

MovementSpeech
Text

Deliver foodRescue people
Score goals
ExplorePrior Knowledge• Important features• Categories of objects• What a sensor tells

Observations••••

VisionSound
SpeechGestureMind-body dualism rejection• Cartesian dualism is rooted in amisunderstanding of the activities of the mind
• Perceiving the mind as an embedded nonbodily entity in the body is admitting that
there are two separate substances, one isabstract, and the other one is concrete(Gilbert Ryle, 1949)• Ryle’s Ghost in the Machine dogma

The Embodied Alternative• Cognition is not something that happens internally but also involves acontinuous interaction between mind, body and environment• All the concepts that humans have are based on bodily experiences• Concepts used to think and express thoughts are shaped by thegestural features of the body
• Example: When we refer to comprehending something in all its facets, we use
the verb “grasp,” which also means holding it tightly

The Embodied Alternative• Cognition is not something that happens internally but also involves acontinuous interaction between mind, body and environment• All the concepts that humans have are based on bodily experiences• Concepts used to think and express thoughts are shaped by thegestural features of the body
• Example: When we refer to comprehending something in all its facets, we use
the verb “grasp,” which also means holding it tightly

The Embodied Alternative• Cognition is not something that happens internally but also involves acontinuous interaction between mind, body and environment• All the concepts that humans have are based on bodily experiences• Concepts used to think and express thoughts are shaped by thegestural features of the body
• When we refer to comprehending something in all its aspects, we use
the verb grasp, which also means holding it tightly

The Embodied Alternative• Cognition is not something that happens internally but also involves acontinuous interaction between mind, body and environment• And by extension, social cognition too

Abramova et al. "Enactive mechanistic explanation of social cognition." (2017)

Enactive (4E) Cognition• Cognition is• Embodied: involves bodily structures and processes, too• Embedded: functioning only in a related external environment• Enacted: involving not only neural processes, but (en)actions• Extended: into the organism's environment

Enactive Cognition• Cognition emerges from sensorimotor activity• Autopoietic: conceives of cognition in terms of the biodynamics ofliving systems (Varela & Maturana 1980)• Sensorimotor: focuses on explaining the intentionality andphenomenology of perceptual experiences (O'Regan 2001)• Radical: replaces all representational explanations of cognition
with embodied, interactive explanations (Hutto 2013)

In Contemporary Cognitive Sciences
Cognitive Functionalism

Non-representationalism

Embodied Cognitive Science

Enactivism

Cognitive
Linguistics
Cognitivism

Autonomous
Robotics
Extended
Mind

Cuffari, et al. "From participatory sense-making to language: there and back again." Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (2015)

In Contemporary Cognitive Sciences
Cognitive Functionalism

Non-representationalism

Embodied Cognitive Science

Enactivism

Cognitive
Linguistics
Cognitivism

AutonomousRobotics
Extended
Mind

Cuffari, et al. "From participatory sense-making to language: there and back again." Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (2015)

In Contemporary Cognitive Sciences, and AI?
Cognitive Functionalism

Non-representationalism

Embodied Cognitive Science

Enactivism

Cognitive
Linguistics
Cognitivism

AutonomousRobotics
Extended
Mind

Cuffari, et al. "From participatory sense-making to language: there and back again." Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (2015)

Enactive AI: the motivation?

iRobotNASA/JPL/Cornell University, Maas Digital LLC

Enactive AI: the motivation?

FR

B

Enactive AI: the motivation?

FL

R

B

Enactive AI: the motivation?

FF

LL

RR

B

B

Enactive AI: the motivation?
+5+10FFLL

BB-10RR-5-5-5-5-5-5

Enactive AI: the motivation?
States 𝑠 ∈ 1, 6 !
Actions 𝑎 ∈ {𝐿, 𝐵, 𝑅, 𝐹}
Rewards 𝑟 ∈ [−10, 10]+5+10F

FLL

B

B-10RR-5-5-5-5-5-5

Enactive AI: the motivation?
States 𝑠 ∈ 1, 6 !
Actions 𝑎 ∈ {𝐿, 𝐵, 𝑅, 𝐹}
Rewards 𝑟 ∈ [−10, 10]+5+10F

FLL

B

B-10

RR

Who defines the states, actions, and rewards?
they always known and/or knowable?
-5 Are -5-5-5-5-5

Enactive AI: the motivation?

iRobotNASA/JPL/Cornell University, Maas Digital LLC

Enactive AI: the motivation?

NASA/JPL/Cornell University, Maas Digital LLC

iRobotAn artistic rendition of the Kepler-35
planetary system, in which a Saturn-size
planet orbits a pair of stars (nasa.gov)

Enactive AI: Reinforcement Learning• Reinforcement Learning and its enactive formulation

Hadfi et al. "Investigating Enactive Learning for Autonomous Intelligent Agents." arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.04535 (2018).

Enactive AI: The enactive agent• No prescribed model of the world• The agent constructs its own model from “nothing”• No prescribed re-presentation of the world• The agent experiences the world as is, an impermanent act of discovery• No prescribed problems• The agent is not designed to solve a specific problem• No prescribed “utilitarian” goals• The agent establishes its own intrinsic goals• No division between the agent and its environment• It is all about the boundary,… and agency, with the observer?

Enactive AI: what next?
• Vis-à-vis the current trends in ML, RL, and robotics• Requirements and practicality?
• The untapped potential of robotics?
• Challenges• Autopoietic systems• Sentient AI

Thank you!
Rafik Hadfi
Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University
rafik.hadfi@i.kyoto-u.ac.jp
14 February 2023