Commonsense Computing

From WikiDotMako
This page is written and maintained by someone other than Benjamin Mako Hill and is being hosted here by special arrangement.


Architectures for Commonsense

Marvin Minsky has proposed the Emotion Machine architecture for [#Resourcefulness resourceful] commonsense thinking. Its main premise is that we need many ways to represent knowledge, solve problems and learn from mistakes. The underlying structure is a simple 6-layered organization, Model-6, where each layer has specialized critics, that match patterns against a case-library, and selectors, which arbitrate between the many different ways to respond to the problem. The job of a selector can vary from invoking a representation, a procedure, or debugging another representation.

Problem Solving in Model-6

See Glossary for an explanation of the interrelated terms such as: goals, actions, problems and plans.

Problems are identified in terms of a rule-based system called the Critic-Selector model, where a critic observes the problem and a selector a way for it to be solved. In the Model-6 architecture, each layer specializes in a specific type of problem solving, so that each layer has a collection of critics that identify and propose ways to solve problems (see EM-ONE, for an implementation of the first three layers of Model-6 Singh, 2005).

  • Reactive Critics: Notice problems in the internal descriptions of the world and proposes goals.
  • Deliberative Critics: Classify goals and propose ways to achieve them based on past epsiodes
  • Reflective Critics: Recognize problems in the deliberative layer, including planning, and suggest ways to improve the problem sovling.
  • Self-Reflective Critics:
  • Self-Conscious Critics:

Self-Conscious Thinking and Goals

Where do high-level goals come from? High-level goals determine which problems an agent tries to solve, thus determining the subjects they "think about." It would