bwk@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (Barry W. Kort) (08/02/88)
Path: linus!mbunix!bwk From: Barry W. Kort <bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA> Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: The deterministic robot determines that it needs to become nondeterministic. Date: Wed, 27 Jul 88 11:34 EDT References: <19880727030413.0.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Sender: news@linus.UUCP Reply-To: Kort <bwk@mbunix> Distribution: world Organization: Cerebral Tours, Pt. Lobos, CA Lines: 37 In article <19880727030413.0.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (John McCarthy) writes: >Almost all the discussion is too vague to be a contribution. Let me >suggest that AI people concentrate their attention on the question of how >a deterministic robot should be programmed to reason about its own free >will, as this free will relates both to its past choices and to its future >choices. Can we program it to do better in the future than it did in the >past by reasoning that it could have done something different from what it >did, and this would have had a better outcome? If yes, how should it be >programmed? If no, then doesn't this make robots permanently inferior to >humans in learning from experience? To my mind, the robot's problem becomes interesting precisely when it runs out of knowledge to predict the outcome of the choices open to it. The classical metaphors for this state are "The Lady or the Tiger?", the Parable of Buridan's Ass, and "Dorothy meets the Scarecrow at the fork in the road." The children's game of Rock, Scissors, Paper illustrates the predicament faced by a deterministic robot. In the above scenarios, the resolution is to pick a path at random and pursue it first. To operationalize the decision, one needs to implement the Axiom of Choice. One needs a random number generator. Fortunately, it is possible to build one using a Quantum Amplifier. (Casting lots will do, if you live in a low-tech society.) Thus, I conclude that a deterministic robot will perceive itself at a disadvantage relative to a robot who can implement the Axiom of Choice, and will decide (of its own free will) that it must evolve to include nondeterministic behavior. Note, by the way, that decision in the face of uncertainty entails a risk, so a byproduct of such behavior is anxiety. In other words, emotion is the expression of vanishing ignorance. --Barry Kort