Cognitive Development

1
Cognitive Development

• Studying the developmental processes implicated
  in the acquisition of language and general
  intelligence

2
Review The Turing Test

• What is it?

3
Does HAL pass it?

• Cant answer the question directly.
• HAL doesnt play the Imitation Game
• So Would HAL pass it?
• Lets look at what HAL says, and what we can
  infer from that.

4
HALs Chess Dialogue

• Frank Anyway, queen takes pawn.
• HAL Bishop takes knights pawn.
• Frank Rook to King 1.
• HAL Im sorry, Frank. I think you missed it.
  Queen to bishop 3, bishop takes queen, knight
  takes bishop, mate.
• Frank Yea, looks like youre right. I resign.
• HAL Thank you for an enjoyable game.
• Frank Thank you.

5
Observations/Inferences

• Does HAL understand what hes talking about?
• What does understanding presuppose?
• What does take mean in Franks opening line?
• How could HAL come to have the capacities
  displayed in this conversation?

6
take in another conversation

• HAL We can certainly afford to be out of
  communication for the short time it will take to
  replace it.
• HAL I honestly think you ought to sit down
  calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

7
Compare

• take a pawn
• take a pill
• take your time
• on the take
• what will it take
• How do you differentiate meanings?

8
Schanks first claim

• Understanding involves fixing the context.
• Context resolves ambiguity.
• A familiar example
• The box is in the pen.
• Describe a context that would resolve the
  ambiguity.

9
More evidence for the importance of context

• Play the You can take the ___ but not the _ _ _
  game.
• Whats the context?
• What does take mean in this context?
• What happens when you get it?
• Did you learn by induction?

10
Another dialogue

• BBC Announcer HAL, despite your enormous
  intellect, are you ever frustrated by your
  dependence on people to carry out actions?
• HAL Not in the slightest bit. I enjoy working
  with people. I have a stimulating relationship
  with Dr. Poole and Dr. Bowman. My mission
  responsibilities range over the entire operation
  of this ship, so I am constantly occupied. I am
  putting myself to the fullest possible use, which
  is all I think that any conscious entity can ever
  hope to do.

11
Two interpretations

• HAL understands the words enormous,
  responsibility, mission element, conscious,
  etc.
• HALs response is appropriate but canned.
• What is Schanks view?

12
Schanks second claim

• To acquire context requires experience.
• Consider frustration.
• the only way he could understand the word is by
  actually experiencing frustration. (p. 180)
• Not impossible to build HAL, but harder than it
  appears. (p. 183)

13
Schanks Conclusions

• Understanding language requires getting the
  context in which language is used.
• Getting the context requires experience.
• Getting experience requires acquiring language by
  learning.
• Computers of the HAL variety arent positioned to
  do that.
• But we may want canned or limited-purpose
  intelligent machines for a variety of purposes.

14
Revisiting Turing

• Did Turing think learning might be important in
  artificial intelligence?
• See Section 7 of Computing Machinery and
  Intelligence Learning Machines