With the certain coming of integrated systems of neural architecture, how is self recognition produced by applications of redundancy and repetition coming along at MIT and other institutions? How is the utilization of so called mirror genes explicable in this project? I understand there are qualifications for minimal recognition as pre-requisite, and this has been achieved. Some earlier researchers, such as Francis Frick have heavily contributed.
Another given is that only chimpanzees among animals passed the self recognition test in mirrors, and in humans babies over 18 months.
At what stage of research, development and application has technology advanced? Any comments?
I am not sure I can answer the question in the OP though, I am not sure even in the top minds in their fields can as yet. From what I have read it is at a very early stage they are still trying to work out the fundamentals, how connectivity of cells allows particular function, how function allows communication between various areas of the brain as a whole and why, to produce a neurological output that is something recognisable, ie as to do with any thought about any particular thing. Early days. You can poke a particular area of the brain with electrical stimuli and it will cause a particularised thought, such as about say tools, or objects relating to tools or even a particular tool: a hammer say. It just shows there is some parts of the brain that are object orientated, it tells us absolutely nothing about how or why or even what they do to make any semblance of thought an actual thought. With this in mind it worries me when people make overarching claims of not just how the brain works, how it is, if there is free will, if there is an answer to the hard question at all. These all seem to be so tentative at the moment that anyone who is sure to me seems a bit, well, to say the least cocksure and misguided.
Atm anything in robotics is just mimicking what humans do, it has about as much understanding of what it is doing as an ant does of calculus. Mind you I am sure they are doing valuable work, but they are probably painting on a canvas with two colours, black and black atm.
Just bookmarking see if anyone knows anything more than I do, which let’s face it is not hard. Carry on.
Researchers at yale U. Have had a robot pass 2 makers of self recognition in 2012. The robot could recognize marks on it's hand looking in a mirror. Given the fact that information doubles every 10 years, if I am not mistaken. It's conceivable, that they are much further ahead in this field. Voice recognition has already found practical applications, so photo recognition, other than self recognition can not be that far in the future. But, if, let's say a prototype could be developed in say another 10-15 years, the applications would be phenomenal, what would happen to the already shrinking labor market?
It could be imagined that a completely self conscious robot would be extremely expensive,I could foresee their use as autopilots in dangerous missions, space exploration etc. But given the fact, that science is so very heavily subsidized, progress is a foregone conclusion, even if it doesn’t go beyond pure research. But nikko is certainly an existing entity, gaining ground by the moment.
Yeah does that even remotely mirror what an animal does or a human for that matter? Or is it just mimicking the action, does it exactly model the synapses of a biological creature, and how that creature learns to be self aware, and is that robot hence self aware in any meaningful way? Or just miming or mirroring the act of self awareness like a marionette a puppet or play thing that has not anything but lines of code as its action. Does it even know what it is doing and does it even care to not do what it it is doing, does it peck at it’s master, does it have emotion, feeling or a state of consciousness we might say even mirror a crow. Does it stare with an eye that is clever enough to make us stop doing what we are doing to it because it now knows itself, does it understand that it is a thing that has some sort of will besides that which it is programmed to do? Is it even alive? Do we feel uncomfortable at the actions of a puppet we made mimic an action, that we then disassemble and put in boxes. If we did that to a crow that we saw pick a spot off itself in a mirror, would we feel as comfortable in taking it apart putting it in boxes and then passing it’s now dead bits under a microscope?
I don’t think robotics is in any place to claim anything more than puppetry of its masters atm, I would be glad to hear otherwise, but I will not hold my breath.
We can all make a robot do things by mimicking the actions of a thing, but can we make it a real living conscious thing, actually doing something because it has learnt and enabled itself to see itself as an individual? Well can we fuck to put it bluntly. We are still in the dark ages of understanding anything remotely about any brain, human or otherwise.
Don’t get me wrong I am sure this technology will succeed in the end, but talking about a doubling of capacity when the capacity is nothing means nothing times nothing? Making an inapt analogy to a law that applied to the processing power of computers (Moore’s law is it) will not make by magic the laws that apply to conscious reason double by the same rate. Early days, I am not going to argue it wont happen, but I think we have to be reasonable about time frames, and this is not going to happen in my lifetime. Long way off, achievable oh God yeah almost unlikely not to be.
I see where you’re coming from. But things are getting virtually unbelievable as they are. Science didn’t really take off until the very end of the 19 century. Now they have the international space station, and been to the moon(remember jules vern in the 1800’s just dreaming about, while everyone thought he was mad) , they are planning a colonizing Mars. All in less then 120 years’. The previous billions to millions to the ten thousand years of human existence what is 120 years? You see? Its a very sharp curve toward an assymptote of a unified field. So I may disagree on that one, that it mayn’t be in your life time.
How would a robot being able to recognize itself help? What uses are you imagining or are they imagining?
Also we have had pattern reacting Machines for a long time. This would simply be a machine reacting to a pattern that matches what is programmed as the self pattern. This odes not necessarily at all mean it is self-conscious or conscious at all, just that it reacts to a specific pattern.
A thermostat reacts to specific inputs and does something. Most people would not say it is concious, so for most people reacting to a pattern is not necessarily an indication of consciousness.
Yes morano, but this project, is qualitatively different. It uses neural architecture to try to duplicate self awareness. Niko at yale, is a prototype, meeting only the minimum treshold of self recognition. This technology is the beginning of an age of using information to artificially simulate intelligence. The idea is to create a simulation indisntinguishable from the real ones.
I am not saying it is not different. But 1) what uses does self-consciousness have for a robots? I can imagine this might be useful, but I am not sure how. 2) my Point with reacting to a specific pattern, even the look of itself, does not entail that it ‘recognizes’ or is self conscious. And I would raise this issue even if it passed a generalized Turing test.
The idea is that when it happens, if it happens,the simulated self consciousness will be useful in the development of artificial intelligence. Self recognition, or reflection is the starting point of consciousness. Moreno, consciousness, as it developed started with the consciousness of the self. Recognition of the other, as in say the first thing the baby sees, the mother, is not of as yet differentiated from the baby. After distancing him/herself from the mother, the baby recognizes him/herself. The test of this is to place a mirror in front of a baby, and see if it sees itself. This type of self recognition in a baby, generally occurs at 18 months. This self reflection, in the mirror, is related to the baby’s development of it’s self image.
This process, is technologically feasible as a simulation into robots, to create robots with consciousness. As I understand it, science proceeds as research, even without foreseeable applications, but here, applications can be seen, as extension of the use of extensive robotic technology, as in Japan. It’s simply a money saving device.
Not to speak of military usage, which seems to be a foregone conclusion. In a vast array of technological development.
I don’t Think it is. I Think consciousness need not include self-consciousness.
Babies are conscious of their mothers Before they can recognize themselves in mirrors.
But note. I agree that self-r ecognition is an interesting thing and no doubt a telling thing. But again 1) I am not sure what this specific skill actually does for a robot and 2) a robot that reacts to itself in a mirror may not be conscious. It might. I am not saying such a machine would not be conscious - iow having subjective experiences. I am just saying I see no reason to assume that a machine that can indentify it’s own image in a mirror is having experiences, has a subjective self. That machine may not have any experience at all.
yeah, I still don’t see how self-recognition saves monry.
War machines and andriod police must be able to identify not only themselves, but each other.
The new Samsung iPhone not only recognizes who is looking at it (you), but can also tell when you are looking away from it (and thus pauses the video). It seriously would have no trouble at all recognizing itself or others like itself.
Sure - and not that you are saying this - but these Machines need not be conscious or self-conscious, to be able to avoid shooting each other or themselves. This could be done with very simple sensory devices and programming.
IOW I can see the potential uses, many bad, for Machines being able to distinguish between objects even themselves as objects, but they need not be conscious or self-conscious to do this. We have Machines now that can indentify potentially every human on Earth via retinal scanning and based on this ‘decide’ to unlock a door or not, but this does not indicate consciousness.
Again, to stress it, I realize you were not saying anything different from what I am asserting here. I just want to make this Point clear since it might seem, given the discussion between me and obe that you were supporting this idea that this ability to react means a machine is conscious.
Marino, these reactions, are minimal thresholds of recognition. The example that comes to mind, is the robotic self recognition test, where the same Niko had. Signals put on one of it's robotic arms. In the mirror, it was able to self-identify itself. This form of recognition is the minimum threshold for considering it a form of self consciousness. And this happened , I believe 2 years ago. Progress is ongoing, and there is no telling as to how much further they can go on with this.
I Believe, utterly, that Niko functioned such that it differentiated between itself and other similar objects via reacting to sensory Cues in whatever way the testers programmed it to. I do not question that. My question is, do you Think this indicates that Niko is conscious? Is there a subjective Niko self that has experiences. When you use the Word ‘self-consciousness’ it indicates an experiencer. Not simply function, objective function - when machine X receives stimulus 2E it acts one way, since this is an image of itself vs. the image of some other robot - but experience. Consciousness. I see no reason to assume that a machine is conscious, let alone self-conscious, because it can function like Niko functioned. Another way to put this I do not Think it is necessary for Niko to be alive for it to be able to function this way. And I would not assume even vastly improved Nikos are alive because they respond to patterns on their Surfaces differently then they respond to patterns on the Surface of other robots.
And then, again, I am still not clear how being self-conscious is a useful function for robots (for us to have robots that would be self-conscious as we are).
“Conscious” merely means “aware”.
“Self-conscious” means “aware of self”.
Most machines today are already conscious. It is merely what they are conscious of that is concerning.
The more they are conscious of you, the more their owners are aware of whether they like you.
Cars that won’t open the door if they don’t recognize you as an having driving privileges for it.[/]
[]Buildings that don’t unlock unless they recognize the proper authority to enter.
Signal lights that won’t turn green unless you are on a priority list.
Computers that won’t operate unless it recognizes you and verifies your current social status.
Telephones that won’t operate unless you are authorized to use the phone and call that particular number… already knowing whether the person you are calling is home or doesn’t want to be disturbed… or is someone you are authorized to speak to.
Medical dispensers that won’t open unless you are the registered user.
Shopping stores that block anyone at the door until they are recognized and registered to be there.
Food dispensers that only serve the registered deserving…
Endless uses for the conscious machine… to determine who lives and who dies.
So you Believe they have experiences. That there is a subjective aspect to these Machines.
And would a device, like Niko that Obe describes, necessarily be self-conscious, even if it was conscious. IOW a device could be programmed to deal with what are ‘its’ hands or ‘its’ image in a mirror, differently from how it treats other ones. This could be programmed in. But does this mean it realizes ‘that is me’ ‘those are mine’ or simply that these should be dealt with via Another line of programming. IOW difference is noted, and this difference affects actions, but need not have the kind of realization that a human has when seeing a reflection in a mirror. There need be no self-consciousness at all, even if there is consciuosness.
Honestly i dunno excatly in what state we are in, with this selfrecognition, in itself it doesn’t seem as importaint as abstract logic, such as speech contrary liniar logic like math.
