DM: [Robot-for-President] Machine Learning Taxonomy (fwd)

I am trying to get more psychologists involved in machine learning but
this may be helpful to our discussion on datamine-l.
FWP.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 18:05:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Franklin Wayne Poley <fwpoley@vcn.bc.ca>
Reply-To: Robot-for-President@onelist.com
To: robot-for-president@onelist.com
Cc: asap@spssi.org
Subject: [Robot-for-President] Machine Learning Taxonomy

From: Franklin Wayne Poley <fwpoley@vcn.bc.ca>

Can we come up with a taxonomy which would incorporate enough CATEGORIES
of learning such that all of the end results of learning in humans would
be accounted for? That has to do with the "what" of human learning. The
"how" is another matter and differs greatly in mice, men and machines even
if the end result is the same. Maze learning is a good example, easily
explained in these terms.
    Next, can we verbalize a theoretical "how", an abstract notion of how
one might master a maze, extract the useful information from text, etc?
If Skinner's dictum is correct ("If it can be verbalized it can be
programmed"), next a program can be written for each category of learning.
Is there a machinery which can then execute each of these categories of
learning? It seems there is. That being so, we have the beginnings of a
"general learning program" for robots which can extend their learning in
co-operative relationships with humans as the Waseda University web site
says.
FWP.

 > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
 > Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 12:42:20 -0800 (PST)
 > From: Franklin Wayne Poley <culturex@vcn.bc.ca>
 > Reply-To: FUTURE-CITIES@onelist.com
 > To: spsp@scp.rochester.edu, spssi@spssi.org, ahoffice@aol.com,
 >      enquiry@bps.org.uk, public.affairs@apa.org, apa@psych.org
 > Cc: future-cities@onelist.com, humanoids@usc.edu, sschaal@usc.edu,
 >      knoll@ti.uni-bielefeld.de
 > Subject: [FUTURE-CITIES] Humanoids 2000 Conference
 >
 > From: Franklin Wayne Poley <culturex@vcn.bc.ca>
 >
 > Dear Psychology Colleague:
 >                                           I am writing this letter to 
bring to your attention the Humanoids 2000 Conference, 
http://humanoids.usc.edu . This is the world's first major international 
conference on humanoids and I believe it is a wonderful opportunity for 
psychologists in a number of specialties as well as general practitioners. 
The Humanoids 2000 web page invites multi-disciplinary participation.
 > Perhaps Category 2 for "Sessions" would be most suited for psychology 
participation: "Interaction With Humans And The Environment".
 >    I think we have the beginning of a complete artificial psychological 
system. This is far more than traditional AI. How complete is this 
artificial personality? What would psychologists at the Society for 
Personality and Social Psychology say? How applicable are standard tests 
and profiles with respect to comparing humans and humanoids? I do know that 
psychologists who specialize in psychometric assessments of mentally and 
physically handicapped patients could contribute much to Humanoids 2000. I 
worked for almost a decade in an institution for mentally and physically 
handicapped people but that was a long time ago and psychometrics was not 
my specialty so I am not the best practitioner to address this topic now. 
However, I would be very eager to read a report from an up to date 
practitioner who does this work on a daily basis.
 >    The wording of the Waseda University web site, 
http://www.humanoid.rise.waseda.ac.jp tells us how much the humanoid is a 
psychological system. Their goal is "to develop an anthropomorphic robot 
named 'humanoid' which will comprise sensing, recognition, expression and 
motion sub-systems to enable robots and humans to build common mental and 
physical spaces, co-operatively." Clinical and counselling psychologists 
typically have two sets of reports. One is technical and can be understood 
by their colleagues. The other set is no less meaningful but is presented 
in the vernacular for family, community etc. I believe the latter is needed 
to advance the building of those common mental and physical spaces as 
humanoids take their place in human society. I also think the mechanical 
engineers, electrical engineers and computer scientists who create the 
humanoids will be pleasantly surprised by how much psychologists can 
contribute to their field. This is, after all a "creative" unde!
!
!
!
rtaking
 > as much as an engineering feat following draftsmans' plans. The next 
creative step for a humanoid R&D project could be foreseen by a 
psychologist as well as an engineer.
 >    Psychologists who work in commerce, from personnel to marketing 
psychology will have much to say about humanoids. Putting a humanoid into 
the mass market capable of occupying a number of work roles is something 
no-one has done before! The objective of the Shadow Robot Project, 
http://www.shadow.org.uk/philo/manifesto.stm is "...to build a genuinely 
useful general-purpose robot, at a price which people, rather than just 
institutions, can afford." Perhaps it will take R&D funding comparable to 
the International Space Station to get to that stage but society at large 
may decide it is worth the cost. That cost could be $100 b. over 10 years. 
Those providing the funding are seldom engineers or computer scientists and 
they are represented by very shrewd professionals called politicians and 
administrators. The psychologist can serve as liason between these two 
factions in society, the faction supplying the grants and those using them 
to develop humanoids. Statements to the publi!
!
!
!
c must
 > sum up as "This is the state of the art, now; here are some expected 
steps in the near future; and here is where we expect to be after spending 
x dollars and y years."
 >    I think the Association for Humanistic Psychology and psychologists 
involved in ethics, self-actualization and transpersonal psychology will be 
concerned about the extent to which a humanoid constitutes a living system. 
Ian Pearson from British Telecom writes in the latest issue of The Futurist 
that by 2020 we can expect "electronic life-forms (to be) given basic 
rights". Certainly we cannot dismiss humanoid rights as a joke when we have 
a complex, intelligent, human-like creature with much autonomy, capable of 
learning ad self-improvement.
 >    Next we come to the 'holy grail' of robotics, the "general learning 
program". Pearson writes that by 2011, "computers (will) surpass human 
learning and logic abilities." That seems surprising but it looks to me as 
if we can find computers or robots now which are capable of every category 
of learning found in humans. I say category, not process. How humans and 
humanoids learn may differ greatly. Consider this list of learning 
categories: (1) maze learning; (2) hand-over-hand learning as is used to 
train small children and some robots in factories; (3) 
modelling/imitation/mimicry as described on the Kawato Humanoid web site; 
(4) one-trial learning which is how we could describe the acquisition of 
knowledge by direct downloading; (5) learning from text (refer to some 
recent research by Seeung and Lee); (6) trail-and-error learning (see 
Christiansen et al); (7) object recognition (Holland's classifiers; face, 
fingerprint and iris recognition programs); (8) voice recognition l!
!
!
!
earning
 > (standard office dictation programs); (9) mapping (mapping from an 
artificial vision system and range finders); (10) reinforcement learning 
(robot responses to reward and punishment); (11) self-improvement learning 
(including evolutionary robotics, generating new software). What have I 
left out? Given that humanoids now manifest all categories of learning 
found in humans could they not be assembled into that "general learning 
program"?  After it is clearly written in layman's language, psychology 
language and computer language, anyone is free to suggest ways in which it 
can be improved upon, large or small. Of course psychologists who 
specialize in conditioning, learning and educational psychology will be 
able to advance this technology a great deal. The dictum of the late B.F. 
Skinner is as relevant now as it was a half century ago: "If it can be 
verbalized, it can be programmed."
 >    If Pearson is correct and we are only a decade away from 
humanoids/robots which can learn better than humans then we need to hear 
from social philosophers and political psychologists as to what they think 
the social-political-economic implications will be. How much incentive will 
humans have to learn when humanoids can learn better and tell us what we 
need to know? Will we then have problems maintaining control over the 
humanoids?  How fast might humanoids learn? Is there any way humans can 
predict humanoid growth in learning with reasonable accuracy? Will it be 
fast enough to keep ahead of human populations increasing with geometric 
growth and expanding across the near galaxy?
 > A starter project which could be initiated some time in this century 
might be to send humanoids out to the near-by asteroid belt to learn how to 
mine, mill and ship the billions x billions of dollars in mineral wealth.
 >    I am hoping this letter will encourage psychologists of many 
backgrounds to get involved in Humanoids 2000. As valuable as their 
contributions have been it seems to me that AI psychologists have been 
co-opted to the way of thinking of computing science experts. In my 
opinion, society would be better served if psychologists would approach 
humanoids as they would "very unusual humans". They should maintain their 
techniques, concepts, jargon, analyses etc. as much as possible. Humanoids 
2000 is very exciting. It opens up opportunities for psychologists to 
contribute to the development of this new technology in the service of 
humankind. I hope many will avail themselves of the opportunities.
 >    Please circulate this letter/information freely.
 > Sincerely-Franklin Wayne Poley, Ph.D.
 >
 > http://users.uniserve.com/~culturex/Machine-Psychology.htm

------------------------------------------------------------------------
GET A NEXTCARD VISA, in 30 seconds!  Get rates as low as 2.9%
Intro or 9.9% Fixed APR and no hidden fees.  Apply NOW!
http://click.egroups.com/1/936/5/_/433155/_/953777121/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

           *** The Era of Total Automation is Now ***

• Prev by Date: Re: DM: Datamining Definition...and Machine Learning Definition.
• Next by Date: Re: DM: Datamining Definition.
• Prev by thread: DM: Re: DM Datamining Definition...and Machine Learning Definition.
• Next by thread: Re: DM: Datamining Definition...and Machine Learning Definition.
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread