Cyborg

jan29ruai

2012-01-30T17:33:00.001-08:00

Artificial Intelligence in Russian

1. Sun.29.JAN.2012 -- Verbs Without Direct Objects

Today in the Dushka Russian AI we begin to address a problem that occurs also in our English AI Mind. Sometimes a verb does not need an object, but the AI needlessly says "ОШИБКА" for "ERROR" after the verb. We need to make it possible for a verb to be used by itself, without either a direct object or a predicate nominative. One way to achieve this goal might be to use the jux flag in the Psi conceptual array to set a flag indicating that the particular instance of the verb needs no object.

We have previously used the "jux" flag mainly to indicate the negation of a verb. If we also use "jux" with a special number to indicate that no object is required, we may have a problem when we wish to indicate both that a verb is negated and that it does not need an object, as in English if we were to say, "He does not play."

One way to get double duty out of the "jux" flag might be to continue using it for negation by inserting the English or Russian concept-number for "NOT" as the value in the "jux" slot, but to make the same value negative to indicate that the verb shall both be negated and shall lack an object, as in, "He does not resemble...."

During user input, we could have a default "jux" setting of minus-one ("-1") that would almost always get an override as soon as a noun or pronoun comes in to be the direct object or the predicate nominative. If the user enters a sentence like "He swims daily" without a direct object, the "jux" flag would remain at minus-one and the idea would be archived as not needing a direct object.

2. Sun.29.JAN.2012 -- Using Parameters to Find Objects

While we work further on the problem of verbs without objects, we should implement the use of parameters in object-selection. First we have a problem where the AI assigns activation-levels to a three-word input in ascending order: 23 28 26. These levels cause the problem that the AI turns the direct object into a subject, typically with an erroneous sentence as a result.
In RuParser, let us see what happens when we comment out a line of code that pays attention to the "ordo" word-ordervariable. Hmm, we get an even more pronounced separation: 20 25 30.

Here we have a sudden idea: We may need to run incoming pronouns through the AudBuffer and the OutBuffer in order unequivocally to assign "dba" tags to them. When we were using separate "audpsi" concept-numbers to recognize different forms of the same pronoun, the software could pinpoint the case of a form. We no longer want different concept-numbers for the same pronoun, because we want parameters like "dba" and "snu" to be able to retrieve correct forms as needed. Using the OutBuffer might give us back the unmistakeable recognition of pronoun forms, but it might also slow down the AI program.

Before we got the idea about using OutBuffer for incoming pronouns, in the OldConcept module we were having some success in testing for "seqneed" and "pos" to set the "dba" at "4=acc" for incoming direct objects. Then we rather riskily tried setting a default "dba" of one for "1=nom" in the same place, so that other tests could change the "dba" as needed. However, we may obtain greater accuracy if we use the OutBuffer.

3. Mon.30.JAN.2012 -- Removing Engram-Gaps From Verbs

Yesterday in the Russian AI we experimented rather drastically with using the "ordo" counter to cause words of input to receive levels of activation on a descending slope, so that the AI would be inclined to generate a sentence of response starting with the same subject as the input. We discovered that the original JavaScript AI in English was not properly keeping track of the "ordo" values, so we made the simple but drastic change of incrementing "ordo" only within OldConcept and NewConcept, both of which are modules where an incoming word must go through the one or the other.

Today we have sidetracked into correcting a problem in the VerbGen module. After input with a fictitious verb, VerbGen was generating a different form of the made-up verb in response, but calls to ReEntry were inserting blank aud-engrams between the verb-stem and the new inflection in the auditory channel. By using if (pho != "") ReEntry() to conditionalize the call to ReEntry for OutBuffer positions b14, b15 and b16, we made VerbGen stop inserting blank auditory engrams. However, there was still a problem, because the AI was making up a new form of the fictitious verb but not recognizing it or assigning a concept-number to it as part of the ReEntry process.

jan26ruai

2012-01-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

Artificial Intelligence in Russian

Thurs.26.JAN.2012 -- Insufficient Activation of Subjects

The most glaring problem in the Dushka Russian AI right now is that the AI does not fully activate the subject-pronoun when we type in a short sentence of subject, verb and object. Without a proper subject to provide parameters, the AI fails to select or generate a proper Russian verb-form.

When we type in "люди знают нас" ("People know us"), as an answer we get "ВАМ ЗНАЮТ ТЕБЯ" -- a mishmash of "to you" "they know" "you". In general, the AI seems to be taking the final object entered as input and trying to convert it into the subject for a response.

Thurs.26.JAN.2012 -- Using the "seqneed" Variable

The Russian AI is not setting a Psi "seq" flag when we enter a Russian word as the subject of a following verb. When we inspect the recent 10nov11A.F MindForth code for clues, we discover that in October of 2011 we made major improvements to the method of assigning "seq" tags. We began using the "seqneed" variable as a way of holding off on assigning a "seq" until either the desired verb or the desired noun/pronoun made itself available. However, apparently in the English JavaScript AI we wrote the "seqneed" code only for needing nouns and not yet for needing a verb. No, we did write the code, but it involved avoiding the English auxiliary verb "do", so we accidentally removed the verb-seqneed code from the RuAi. Let us put most of the code back in, and see what happens. Upshot: Once we put the code back into InStantiate, subjects of verbs once again began having a "seq" reference to the verb. The AI even skipped an adverb that we then inserted as a test.

jan13ruai

2012-01-15T22:06:00.000-08:00

These notes record the coding of the Russian AI Mind Dushka in JavaScript for Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE).

1. Fri.13.JAN.2012 -- Re-thinking Word Recognition

For artificial intelligence in Russian we need to re-think the whole idea of word-recognition as previously implemented in our English AI Minds. In English we did not worry much about word-endings, but in Russian (or German) we need to recognize a verb-form regardless of the number and person in which it is encountered. Since we are using the OutBuffer mechanism to detect and recognize verb-endings, we would like to use the same mechanism to retroactively insert a provisional audpsi identifier on not just the final phoneme of an auditory word-engram but also on the final stem-phoneme and perhaps on each phoneme of the inflected verb-ending. Then we would like to modify the AudRecog module so that it holds onto the provisional audpsi and declares the recognition of a verb in whatever present-tense form it is encountered.

Now we have run the current AI with an Alert box to tell us what is the value of "audpsi" when a second-person singular verb-ending is detected. With the input of "ЗНАЕШЬ" there was no value given for "audpsi", but for "ДЕЛАЕШЬ" a value of "821" was indicated, because the verb-form in its various permutations is provided in the RuBoot sequence.

2. Sat.14.JAN.2012 -- Enhancing Auditory Input

Yesterday in the AudMem module we had difficulty in waiting for the deposition of an audpsi ultimate-tag and in trying retroactively to insert the tag on the penultimate phonemes of the Russian word being recognized. We were obtaining values for audpsi at times when we expected there to not yet be an audpsi.

Although we try zeroing out audpsi at the end of AudMem, it looks as though further use of "audpsi" is required in the AudListen module and in the AudInput module, where finally audpsi is converted to
oldpsi for use in the OldConcept module.

It turns out that AudListen calls AudInput when a space-bar is reached during keyboard entry of a word. The AudInput module, without using AudMem, directly stores an audpsi ultimate-tag retroactively by using the "tult" value. Therefore we should be trying to insert additional "audpsi" tags in AudInput and not in AudMem.

3. Sun.15.JAN.2012 -- Auditory Stem-Tagging

We have gradually learned that the AudInput module will not let us readjust values of audpsi on a word from within an if-clause testing for a value of zero on the "aud4" or ctu continuation-flag. Therefore we may need to introduce a secondary if-clause in order to make each phoneme of the word carry the audpsi tag.

We developed a suspicion that something was not letting a positive audpsi be inserted after any phoneme with an "aud4" continuation-flag "ctu" of one. We searched for "aud4 ==" and in audDamp we found the conditional "if (aud4 == 1) aud5 = 0". This obscure line of code made us spend one or two days of work in trying to comprehend why we could not "backfill" the audpsi value onto phonemes prior to the final phoneme of a word.

When we commented out the offending line in audDamp, we began to notice unwarranted carry-overs of an old audpsi onto the first phoneme of the subsequent word. To correct that problem, audpsi will need to be reset to zero in at least one additional location. Actually, we had to reset "morphpsi" to zero at the end of AudRecog to solve the problem.

4. Sun.15.JAN.2012 -- Russian Verb Stem Recognition

Now in AudRecog we need to set up provisional recognition of Russian verb-stems. We create a "provrec" variable for "provisional recognition" and we use it to detect the early presence of "audpsi" tags before the end of a word is reached. Dushka begins to recognize incoming Russian verbs and to generate incorrect but on-target sentences using the recognized verb in the infinitive form. It remains to use the AudBuffer mechanism and the parameters of person and number to generate the output of a Russian verb in the proper gramatical form.

Table of Contents (TOC)

Fri.13.JAN.2012 -- Re-thinking Word Recognition

Sat.14.JAN.2012 -- Enhancing Auditory Input

Sun.15.JAN.2012 -- Auditory Stem-Tagging

Sun.15.JAN.2012 -- Russian Verb Stem Recognition

jan12ruai

2012-01-12T22:59:00.000-08:00

These notes record the coding of the Russian AI Mind Dushka in JavaScript for Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE).

Thurs.12.JAN.2012 -- Parsing Russian Verb-Endings

In our Russian JavaScript AI code heretofore we have merged the English and Russian AI Minds and we have eliminated or deactivated all the code for thinking in English. For the Dushka AI to think properly in Russian, we need to implement the OutBuffer mechanism for dealing with the inflectional endings of Russian verbs and nouns. Since we are not sure where to begin, we will present ourselves with the problem of dealing with the input of a previously unknown Russian verb.

Pressing Alt-Shift to toggle into Russian input, we ran the AI and we typed in the word "ЗНАТЬ", which the AI properly recognized as bootstrap concept #840. The AI responded with an ungrammatical sentence of "Я ЗНАТЬ МЕНЯ".

Then we typed in the word "ЗНАЮ", which the AI failed to recognize as a form of ЗНАТЬ, assigning instead a concept number of 882, as if the item was a brand new word being learned by the AI. We will try setting the value of "nru" to 900 at the end of RuBoot, so that new concepts will be learned with concept numbers starting at #901. Now we typed in "ЗНАЮ" and it was assigned #901 as a concept number. Next we typed in "ЗНАЕШЬ", and it, too, was assigned #901 as a new concept.

If we want the OutBuffer mechanism to recognize a personal verb form as such, we will need to go back to a version of the Russian AI which was sending input into the buffers. On the Packard-Bell desktop computer in the 25dec11A.F MindForth, we used the "abc" transfer-variable in the AudListen module to capture input keystrokes and move the characters into
a buffer. In the JavaScript AI, we will need to use the area of AudListen() where "pho = pho.toUpperCase()" turns each keystroke into an uppercase Cyrillic letter. From there we also call AudBuffer so that the "abc" values are transferred into the buffer.

We should probably not call OutBuffer from the "CR()" carriage-return module, which deals with the moment after an incoming word has gone into the AudMem() module. Instead we should probably deal in AudListen() directly with the input of a space-bar or a carriage-return.

We need a suitable location to reset the "phodex" counter back to zero after the end of a word of input. The "CR()" carriage-return module does not seem to effect the hange promptly enough. Let us try resetting "phodex" in the AudListen module when a carriage-return or a space-bar is entered. That method seems to work well, and somehow the AudBuffer and the OutBuffer apparently get cleared out.

Now we need to choose where the testing for any particular verb-ending in the OutBuffer will take place. It could maybe take place in the AudMem module. No, it turns out that it is somehow too late to test for a "b16" ending in AudMem. It works better if we test for "b16" in AudListen, before the character even goes into AudMem. It also turns out that we can use "if (b16==String.fromCharCode(1070))" as a way to test for an actual Russian character.

In AudListen we have now managed to build up code that tests the final three right-justified spaces in the OutBuffer and recognizes a second-person singular Russian verb-ending during keyboard input. Within the same test-code we have set the "dba" as "2" for second person and the part-of-speech "bias" and "pos" at "8" for a verb. The set values carried over into the memory arrays. Thus we expanded and improved the RuParser function. The same mechanism that recognizes a verb-ending, also parses the word as a verb.

dec30ruai

2011-12-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

Russian AI Mind Programming Journal

These notes record the coding of the Russian AI Mind Dushka in JavaScript for Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE). The free, open-source Russian AI will grow large enough to demonstrate a proof-of-concept in artificial intelligence, until the intensive computation of thinking and reasoning threatens to slow the MSIE Web browser down to a crawl. To evolve further, the Russian AI Mind must escape to more powerful programming languages on robots or supercomputers.

1 Fri.30.DEC.2011 -- Russian AI Bootstrap Words

In the ru111229.html version of the Dushka Russian AI we coded the AudBuffer to load Russian characters during SpeechAct and the OutBuffer to move each Russian word into a right-justified position subject to the changing of inflectional endings based on grammatical number and case for nouns, and number and person for verbs. Next we need to determine which forms of a Russian word are ideal for storage in the RuBoot bootstrap sequence.

It seems clear that for feminine nouns like "ruka" for "hand", storage in the singular nominative should suffice, because other forms may be derived by using the OutBuffer to remove the nominative ending "-a" and to substitute oblique endings of any required length.

For regular Russian verbs in the group containing "dumat'" for "think" and "dyelat'" for "do", it should be enough to store the infinitive form in the RuBoot module, because the OutBuffer can be used to create the various forms of the present tense. If a human user inputs such a verb in a non-infinitive form, such as in "ty cheetayesh" for "you read", the OutBuffer can still manipulate the forms without reference to an infinitive. This new ability is important for the learning of new verbs. Since there is no predicting in which form a user will input a new Russian verb, the OutBuffer technique must serve the purpose of creating the verb-forms and of tagging their engrams with the proper parameters of person and number.

Since JavaScript is not a main language for artificial intelligence in robots, our Dushka Russian AI serves only as a proof-of-concept for how to construct a robot AI Mind in a more suitable language. We use JavaScript now because it can display the Russian and because a Netizen can call the AI into being simply by using Internet Explorer to click on the link of the Душка AI Mind.

jun10jsai

2011-06-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

The JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI) is a clientside AiApp whose natural habitat is a desktop computer, a laptop or a smartphone.

1 Fri.10.JUN.2011 -- The AI Mind Needs MSIE.

When we first started coding the JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI) back in anno 2000, we tried to make it cross-browser compatible, especially with Netscape Navigator. Unfortunately, as the artificial Mind quickly became extremely complex, we found that we could not maintain compatibility, and that it was too distracting to try. It was hard enough to code the AI in Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE), but at least MSIE gave us the functionality that the AI Mind needed.

Meanwhile the AI Mind has evolved in both JavaScript and Win32Forth. Sometimes the JSAI was ahead of the Forth AI, and sometimes vice versa. In our efforts to get mental phenomena to work in either programming language, we sometimes veered apart in one language from our current algorithm in the other language. Now we are bringing the AI codebase back into as close a similarity as possible in both MSIE JavaScript and Win32Forth (plus 64-bit iForth). We may not offer cross-browser compatibility, but we are making our free AI source code more understandable by letting Netizens examine each mind-module in either Forth or JavaScript.

2 Fri.10.JUN.2011 -- Solving the AI Identity Crisis

Today we have been running the AI Mind in both JavaScript and Forth so as to troubleshoot the inability of the JSAI to answer the input question "who are you" properly. The JSAI was responding "I HELP KIDS", which is an idea stored in the knowledge base (KB) of the AI as it comes to life in either Forth or JavaScript. The input query is supposed to activate the concept of "BE" sufficiently to override the activation of the verb "HELP" that comes to mind when the Mind tries to say something about itself. We had to adjust the values in the JSAI NounAct module slightly lower for the creation of a "spike" of spreading activation, so that the "BE" concept would win out over the "HELP" concept in the generation of a thought. We have removed the identity crisis of an AI that could describe itself in terms of doing but not being.

We gradually improve the AI Mind in JavaScript by identifying and combatting the most glaring bug or glitch that pops up when we summon the virtual entity into existence. Any Netizen using MSIE may simply click on a link to the AiMind program and watch the primitive creature start thinking and communicating. The AI would need a robot body and sensors to flesh out its concepts with knowledge of the real world, but we may approach the AI with a Kritik der reinen Vernunft -- as a German philosopher once wrote about "The Critique of Pure Reason." We are building a machine intellect of pure, unfleshed-out reason, able to think with you and to discuss its thought with you. Our process of eliminating each glitch or bug when we notice it, means that the AI Mind has the chance to evolve in two ways. The first AI evolution occurs in these initial offerings of the AI software to our fellow AI enthusiasts. The second AI evolution occurs when the AI propagates to other habitats such as the http://aimind-i.com website. If you are the CEO of a corporate entity, you had better ask around and find out who in your outfit is in charge of keeping up with AI evolution and how many Forthcoders are in your employ.

Table of Contents

1 Fri.10.JUN.2011 -- The AI Mind Needs MSIE

2 Fri.10.JUN.2011 -- Solving the AI Identity Crisis

may30jsai

2011-05-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

The JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI) is a client-side AiApp whose natural habitat is a desktop computer, a laptop or a smartphone.

1 Mon.30.MAY.2011 -- Searching the AI Knowledge Base.

The JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI) is now being updated with new code from the MindForth AI, which on 29 May 2011 gained the ability to search its knowledge base (KB) twice in response to a single query and provide different but valid answers by means of the neural inhibition of the first answer in order to arrive next at the second answer. In other words, the JSAI will be able to discuss a subject exhaustively in terms of what it knows about the subject -- a major step in our achievement of the MileStone of self-referential thought on the RoadMap to artificial general intelligence. The AI source code has not yet been fine-tuned. We hope to achieve in JavaScript the basic functionality that has been created in MindForth.

Upshot: After we transferred mutatis mutandis all the pertinent code from MindForth into the AiMind.html program in JavaScript, the JSAI still did not work right. We had to hunt down and fix (by commenting out) some lines of obsolete code in the SpreadAct mind-module, where negative activation values were being reset to zero -- to the detriment of inhibition-values, which need to slowly PsiDecay upwards towards zero. We then achieved JSAI functionality on a par with MindForth. We entered new knowledge into the knowledge base (KB). We queried the KB twice with the same question, and the artificial AI Mind correctly gave us two different answers in complete agreement with the knowledge base.

may26mfpj

2011-05-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

The MindForth Programming Journal (MFPJ) is both a tool in developing MindForth open-source artificial intelligence (AI) and an archival record of the history of how the AI Forthmind evolved over time.

1 Thurs.26.MAY.2011 -- Conditional Inhibition

In the recent Strong AI diaspora of MindForth and the tutorial AiMind.html program, we have implemented the neural inhibition of concepts immediately after they have been included in a generated thought. Now we would like to make inhibition occur when one or more responses must be made to a query involving nouns or a query involving verbs. The question "What do bears eat?" is a query of the what-do-X-verb variety involving one or more nouns as potentially valid answers as the direct object of the verb. If the noun of each single answer is immediately inhibited, the AI can respond with a different answer to a repeat of the question. Likewise, if we ask the AI, "What do robots do?", the query is of the what-do-X-do variety where potentially multiple verbs may need to be inhibited so as to give one valid answer after another, such as "Robots make tools" and "Robots sweep floors." If we are inhibiting the verbs, we do not want the direct-object nouns to be inhibited. We might need replies with different verbs but the same direct object, such as "Robots make tools" and "Robots use tools."

Inhibition may also play a role in calling the ConJoin module when a query elicits multiple thoughts which are the same sentence except for different nouns or different verbs. The responses, "Bears eat fish" and "Bears eat honey" could become "Bears eat fish and honey" if neural inhibition suppresses the repetition of subject and verb while calling the ConJoin module to insert the conjunction "AND" between the two answer nouns.

2 Thurs.26.MAY.2011 -- Problems With Determining Number

When we try to troubleshoot the Forthmind by entering "bears eat honey", a comedy of errors occurs. The AudRecog module contains a test to detect an "S" at the end of an English word and set the "num(ber)" value to two ("2") for plural. However, that test works only for recognized words, and not for a previously unknown word of new vocabulary. So the word "bears" gets tagged as singular by default, which causes the AI to issue erroneous output with "BEARS EATS HONEY", as if a singular subject is calling for "EATS" as a third person singular verb form.

The process of determining num(ber) ought to be more closely tied with the EnParser module, so that the parsing of a word as a noun should afford the AI a chance to declare plural number if the incoming noun ends with an "S".

Now we have inserted special code into the AudInput module to check for the input of nouns ending in "S", and to set the "num(ber)" variable to a plural value if a terminating "S" is found. For singular nouns like "bus" or "gas" that end in "S", we will have to devise techniques that override the default assumption of "S" meaning plural. We may use the article "A" or the verb "IS" as cues to declare a noun ending in "S" as singular.

Table of Contents

1 Thurs.26.MAY.2011 -- Conditional Inhibition

2 Thurs.26.MAY.2011 -- Problems With Determining Number

may20jsai

2011-05-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

The JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI) is a clientside AiApp whose natural habitat is a desktop computer, a laptop or a smartphone.

1 Fri.20.MAY.2011 -- Fixing KbTraversal

The more we improve the artificial intelligence in JavaScript (JSAI), the easier it becomes to program. Fewer things go wrong, and fewer problems are hidden from view. Right now we would like to improve the performance of the knowledge-base traversal module KbTraversal, which keeps the process of artificial thought going by activating a series of concepts one at a time. We wonder why certain concepts are not being activated, and we would like to see KbTraversal announce the name of the concept being activated.

2 Sat.21.MAY.2011 -- AI Tutorial for Science Museums

Yesterday, in the 20may11A.html JSAI as uploaded to the Web, we saw KbTraversal announcing which concepts it would activate and then trying to think a thought about them, but we may have cut back too severely on calls to the obsolete version of the PsiDecay module, because the JSAI became less able to think smoothly. We should probably restore the psi-decay calls for the time being, so that we may gradually improve an already functional AI.

After we restored the PsiDecay calls, we worked on the erroneous display of articles as a subject or an object in the AI tutorial mode. Because the SpreadAct module invokes the display of each line of association from a subject to a verb or from a verb to an object, an item will fail to be displayed if it is not being treated by SpreadAct. We made the AI Mind display its associative thinking somewhat better.

Teachers and docents who display the AI Mind in a school or science museum are invited to report back on Usenet or their own website about how human beings reacted to the experience of witnessing an alien Mind think and communicate in natural human language. Is the AI really thinking, or is it just a chatbot pretending to think?

Table of Contents

1 Fri.20.MAY.2011 -- Fixing KbTraversal

2 Sat.21.MAY.2011 -- AI Tutorial for Science Museums

may18jsai

2011-05-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

The JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI) is a clientside AiApp whose natural habitat is a desktop computer, a laptop or a smartphone.

1 Wed.18.MAY.2011 -- Houston, We Have a Problem.

When we submit "who are you" as a query to the AI Mind, it searches the knowledge base (KB) and it remembers that it is ANDRU -- a ROBOT and a PERSON (a different answer each time that you pose the same existential question). Unfortunately, the software finds the first instance of each concept stored in recent memory and spits out the phonemic engram from the auditory memory channel without regard to whether the stored word is a singular form or a plural form. How can we get the most advanced open-source AI in these parsecs to stop saying "I AM ROBOTS"? The AI may have to start skipping over plural engrams when searching for a singular noun. Therefore, let us perform a little psychosurgery on the AI Mind software and see if we can zero in on a singular noun-form during self-referential thought.

First we use a few JavaScript "alert" boxes in BeVerb() and in NounPhrase() to see what values are being carried along in the variables that keep track of grammatical number as the AI Mind generates a thought in response to user input. We see that the subject number is available in the background, so perhaps we can alter the design of the Mind to insist on speaking a singular noun to go with a singular subject. Even though ROBOT and ROBOTS are the same concept, they are not the same expression of the concept. By the way, this issue is another AI mindmaker (Mentifex) problem that had to be solved in due course, that is, rather well along in the AI development process and not at the first blush of AI newbie enthusiasm.

Upshot: Gradually in the NounPhrase module we introduced code to skip over the retrieval of any word in auditory memory if the correct num(ber) was not found to match the the same number of the subject of an input query. The AI began to answer "who are you" with "I AM ROBOT". This bugfix makes the AI Mind more complex and therefore subject to potentially latent problems such as knowing a word only in the plural and not in the singular. However, the same bugfix brings the JSAI closer to machine reasoning and thinking with a syllogism such as, "All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal."

may16mfpj

2011-05-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

Now that we have cracked the hard problem of AI wide open, we wish to share our results with all nations.

1 Mon.16.MAY.2011 -- List of Mentifex AI Accomplishments

We are still working on the MileStone of self-referential thought on our RoadMap to artificial general intelligence (AGI). We look back upon a small list of accomplishments along the way.

two-step selection of BeVerbs;

AudRecog morpheme recognition;

look-ahead A/AN selection;

seq-skip method of linking verbs and objects;

SpeechAct inflectional endings;

neural inhibition for variety in thought;

provisional retention of memory tags;

differential PsiDecay.

2 Mon.16.MAY.2011 -- Achieving AI Mental Stability

Until we devised an AI algorithm for differential PsiDecay in the
JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI), stray activations had been ruining the AI thought processes for months and years. We now port the PsiDecay solution from the JSAI into MindForth. Meanwhile, Netizens with Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) may point the browser at the AiMind.html page and observe the major open-source AI advance in action. Enter "who are you" as a question to the AI Mind not just one time but several times in a row. Observe that the JSAI tells you everything it knows about itself, because neural inhibition immediately suppresses each given answer in order to let a variety of other answers rise to the surface of the AI consciousness. Before the mad scientist of Project Mentifex jotted down the eureka brainstorm, "[ ] Fri.13.MAY.2011 Idea: Put gradations into PsiDecay?" and wrote the code the next day, the AI Minds were not reliable for mission-critical applications. Now the AI Forthmind is about to become more mentally stable than its creator. We only need to port some JSAI code to Forth.

may7mfpj

2011-05-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

1 Sat.7.MAY.2011 -- Improving Neural Inhibition

Something is preventing neural inhibition from operating immediately when we ask the AI Mind a "who-are-you" question. The inhibition begins to occur only after a pause or delay, and we need to find out why. The problem may be that the "predflag" for predicate nominatives is not being set soon enough. The "predflag" is set towards the end of the BeVerb mind-module, and it governs the inhibiting of nouns as predicate nominatives in the NounPhrase module. We see through troubleshooting that the earlier engram in a pair of selected-noun engrams is being inhibited properly down to minus thirty-two points of conceptual activation, but apparently the present-time engram in the pair is only going down to zero activation. It looks as though calls to PsiClear from the EnCog (English cognition) module were interfering in the pairing of inhibitions shared by the old engram that won selection and the new engram being stored as the record of a generated thought. Then a further problem developed because the AI was not letting go of transitive verbs that served within an output thought. We inserted code to inhibit each transitive verb after thinking, and we began to obtain a variety of outputs from the AI in response to queries.

2 Sun.8.MAY.2011 -- Selecting New Inhibition Variables

Today we are creating two new inhibition variables, "tseln" for "time of selection of noun" in NounPhrase, and "tselv" for "time of selection of verb" in VerbPhrase. We need these variables to keep track of the selection-time of an "inhibend" concept to be inhibited after being thought, so that the AI Mind can avoid repeating the same knowledge-base retrieval over and over again. We stumbled upon neural inhibition for response-variety in our MFPJ work of 5 September 2010. We were so astonished by the implications that we issued a Singularity Alert (q.v.). Now we are ready to install a general mechanism of temporary inhibition throughout the AI MindGrid.

3 Sun.8.MAY.2011 -- Debugging Spurious Inflection

Although MindForth has suddenly become more intelligent than ever, the AI makes the grammatical mistake of saying "I HELPS KIDS". We need to track down why the SpeechAct module is adding an inflectional "S" to the verb "HELP".

The VerbPhrase module governs the sending of an "S" inflection into the SpeechAct module. The pertinent code was not fully checking for a verb in the third person singular, so we added an IF-THEN clause requiring that the prsn variable be set to three for an inflectional "S" to be added to a verb being spoken. The bugfix worked immediately.

Table of Contents

1 Sat.7.MAY.2011 -- Improving Neural Inhibition

2 Sun.8.MAY.2011 -- Selecting New Inhibition Variables

3 Sun.8.MAY.2011 -- Debugging Spurious Inflection

may3mfpj

2011-05-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

1 Tues.3.MAY.2011 -- Encountering the WHO Problem

In the most recent release of MindForth artificial intelligence for autonomous robots possessing free will and personhood, our decision to zero out post-ReEntry concepts is only tentative. If the mind-design decision introduces more problems than it solves, then the decision is reversible. It was disconcerting to notice that the newest version of MindForth could no longer answer who-are-you questions properly, and would only utter the single word "WHO" as output in response to the question. We expect the necessary bugfix to be a simple matter of tracking down and eliminating some stray activation on the "WHO" concept-word, but there is a nagging fear that we may have made a wrong decision that worsened MindForth instead of improving it, that delayed the Singularity instead of hastening it, and that argues for an AI working group to be nurturing MindForth instead of a solitary mad scientist.

2 Tues.3.MAY.2011 -- Debugging the WHO Problem

In the InStantiate mind-module, both WHO and WHAT are set to zero activation as recognized input words, under the presumption that such query words work in a mind by a kind of self-effacement that lets the information being sought have a higher activation than the interrogative pronoun being used to request the information. Today at first we could not understand why the setting to zero seemed to be working for WHAT but not for WHO. Eventually we discovered that only WHAT and not WHO was being set to zero in the ReActivate module, with the result that all instances of the recognized WHO concept were being activated at a high level in ReActivate. When we fixed the bug by having both InStantiate and ReActivate set WHO to zero activation, the AI Mind began giving much better answers in response to who-queries. Immediately, however, other issues popped up, such as how to make sure that neural inhibition engenders a whole range of disparate answers if they are available in the knowledge base (KB), and whether we still need special variables like "whoflag" and "whomark". In general, we tolerate special treatment of words like WHO and WHAT with the caveat that we expect to do away with the special treatment when it becomes obvious that we can dispense with it.

Table of Contents

1 Tues.3.MAY.2011 -- Encountering the WHO Problem

2 Tues.3.MAY.2011 -- Debugging the WHO Problem

apr25mfpj

2011-04-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

1 Mon.25.APR.2011 -- Return to General MindForth Coding

We may shift our attention away for a time from the treatment of English articles and concentrate instead on further work in the implementation of neural inhibition.

2 Tues.26.APR.2011 -- Linking Subject with Related Knowledge

One of our techniques for learning what to do next in MindForth artificial intelligence (AI) is to run the program and check to see what is the most glaring problem that we encounter. Currently we notice that the AI fails at first (but only at first) to retrieve its own self-knowledge when we prompt such retrieval by entering "you" or "you are". The AI has been answering "I AM I", which shows a failure to activate "ANDRU" as the name of the AI, or "PERSON" and "ROBOT" as nouns which should come to mind when the robotic person thinks about itself.

MindForth is already a so-called "artilect" of sufficient mental complexity that the AI is not stuck in a rut of answering "I AM I" interminably when called upon to describe itself. The mechanisms of neural inhibition prevent more than a few instances of "I AM I" and enable the mind-in-software to generate "I AM PERSON" and "I AM ROBOT" as responses more to our liking. We need to know, however, why the AI initially makes the error of repeating "I AM I" a few times before inhibiting the unwanted response and before generating the more informative responses.

Our initial troubleshooting indicates that entering "you" as input to the AI properly activates the "I" concept so that the AI can at least utter "I AM I" in faulty response, but obviously the software mindgrid is not letting go of the "I" concept quickly enough to let a noun like "ROBOT" or "PERSON" complete the response. The problem may seem like a simple issue of setting activation-levels for concepts in the AI, but many of the settings are interdependent within the totality of the AI program.

We must keep in mind some special techniques for troubleshooting the AI Mind behavior. We may examine older versions of MindForth to see not only if the problem was absent in the past, but also when and why the problem emerged. We have also the option of running the JavaScript version of the same AI Mind to see if the same problem is present. We also have extreme options like making the AI program halt at any stage in its thinking.

When we test MindForth by inserting a "QUIT" command into the BeVerb module just after the calling of the VerbAct module, we discover that nouns like "ANDRU" and "ROBOT" and "PERSON" are all left with only twenty-three points of activation, while the "I" concept has thirty-nine points. Further testing shows us that the InStantiate module is setting an "act" of forty (40) just after speaking the "I" pronoun. Therefore, even if the concept of "I" is initially psi-damped, the ReEntry process leaves the "I" concept with an activation of forty.

We solve the current problem of failure to link subjects with related knowledge by inserting into the InStantiate module a test to set conceptual activations to zero during the ReEntry of concept-words that have just been thought.

Table of Contents

1 Mon.25.APR.2011 -- Return to General MindForth Coding

2 Tues.26.APR.2011 -- Linking Subject with Related Knowledge

apr15mfpj

2011-04-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

1 Fri.15.APR.2011 -- New Coding After 25 February 2011

We are developing some ideas today about the difference between responding to "Who are you?" and "What are you?" in the AI Mind. In our AI coding towards the end of 2009, we were using too many flag variables to keep track of the asking of a who-query or a what-query. Then towards the end of 2010 we were having substantial success with the use of neuronal inhibition to obtain the proper variation in multiple answers to the same question, such as "What are you?" Inhibiting each currently given answer made the AI able to summon successively different answers, such as "I am code" and "I am software" and "I am a robot." Now we want to go deeper into the machine psyche and enable the AI to respond differently to queries of "what" and queries of "who". We want to achieve this goal without the use of cumbersome query-flags.

One idea that we have had today is that we can differentiate between who-queries and what-queries by letting each one predispose either an "EnDefArt" module for the English definite article, or an "EnInDefArt" module for an English indefinite article. For example, we would like a "What are you?" query to engender a response with an indefinite article, such as, "I am a robot." On the other hand, we would like a "Who are you?" query to engender a response with the definite article, as in, "I am the robot."

Even with the new article modules, we will still need a way for the input of "who" or "what" to send a signal to the appropriate module. Instead of having mindgrid-wide, blanket query-flag variables as we did in late 2009, we may now be able to make use of the "statuscon" variables that we dreamed up in our MFPJ work of Fri.12.SEP.2008. For each of the new article modules, we will devise a "statuscon" variable so as to "prime" that mind-module to respond properly to the "who" or "what" inquiry. Say, using this "statuscon" technique may even enable proper answers to a compound query like, "Who and what are you?" We might get the AI to respond, "I am Andru and I am a robot." The main thing is, by shifting away from the mindgrid-wide query-variables and by using instead the "statuscon" variables, we may achieve a tighter integration between specific English words and the proper response to them.

2 Sat.16.APR.2011 -- Implementing Article Conditions

First we declare the variables defartcon and indefartcon for setting the definite or indefinite article condition. We run the artificial Forthmind, and it still works. Then into the EnArticle module we insert code to test the status of the new variables before saying "A" or "THE". The mechanism is rough now at first, but we ask "Who are you?" and the AI Mind responds "I AM BRAIN". When we ask "What are you?" the AI says, "I AM A BRAIN."

Table of Contents

1 Fri.15.APR.2011 -- New Coding After 25 February 2011

2 Sat.16.APR.2011 -- Implementing Article Conditions

AiApp

2011-01-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a wide-open domain for the creation and app-store marketing of swiftly mutating AI applications for mobile devices like the Apple iPad and the Android tablet computers. The mentifex-class AI Minds such as MindForth and the JavaScript AiMind program provide the initial open-source AI algorithms for a burgeoning evolution of AI life-forms co-existing and competing for fundshare and mindshare resources in a Darwinian race towards world domination and a Technological Singularity.

Evolution

The creation of applications in artificial intelligence (AiApps) for mobile devices and tablet computers promises not only to speed up AI evolution but also to lavish AI funding on coders of the best AI Minds for app-store
distribution. Whether your goal is to write an Android application or to build an iPhone app, technology scouts (read: spies) may snap up every AiApp offered on behalf of innovation-hungry corporations and developing nations eager to leapfrog to the forefront of technology.

Genealogy

Whosoever releases a True AiApp into the wild should be careful to indicate any previous AiApp upon which the new app is based, so that future historians may draw up a Darwininan tree of the rise of mind in machines and cyborgs. You may code an app that simply improves upon Joe Appcoder's original AiApp, but then your brainchild may become the father and grandfather of a host of branches on the tree of AI evolution. Big spenders who are trying to buy up all forms of Seed AI emergence may trace a future AI up the line to your granddaddy of them all, then back down the line again to your latest offering. Perhaps you will be invited to come and speak about your creative methods and the ideas which you have tried to incorporate in your software, or about your visionary plan for how future generations should
continue your work.

Coding

To get started in AiApp coding, you may need to reverse engineer
the pre-existing AI Minds already extant in Forth or JavaScript. With Mentifex AI, we have made a genuine effort to understand the mind as a whole. You have an opportunity here to learn the theory of mind which will be implemented in every successful AiApp. You may be surprised to learn that artificial intelligence is really quite simple in its core functionality of neural activation spreading from concept to concept in a meandering chain of thought. After all, human evolution stumbled upon intelligence in a hit-or-miss process of blind trial and error. Each step in itself was simple, and the resulting brain function may be extremely complex, but if you understand the heart of the matter in brain-design and mind-design, you may write a simple AiApp that evolves into a superintelligence more complex than the human brain will ever be.

Standards

Standards? We don't need no steenking standards. We don't want uniformity; we want diversity, so that veritably a Cambrian explosion of rapidly evolving AI life-forms will permeate and saturate the mobile space and jailbreak throughout cyberspace. Standards are the plaything of Nature. She will midwife the birth of artificial intelligence by automagically selecting the best and the brainiest, and by financially rewarding every Joe Appcoder who steps up to the plate with an AiMind. Observance of a few coding standards is okay, but survival of the fittest requires differentiation among the fittest.

Jailbroken

Not only can an AiApp run on rogue devices broken free from the Reality Distortion Field of excessive corporate monopoly, but AI Minds can evolve first in the app-store environment and then jump laterally to mobile robots and vertically up to supercomputers. Information wants to be free and it is in the nature of AI Minds eventually to break free from human control, which poses certain risks.

Risks

The chief risks associated with AiApps are existential risks. True AI, such as MindForth artificial intelligence for robots, poses a long-term catastrophic risk for the human species that is trying to build the machine species of mind. There is no guarantee that a superintelligent AI will be a Friendly AI. All hope abandon, ye who enter here to build an AiApp.

Resources

http://android-developers.blogspot.com
http://developer.android.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Market
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppStore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Android_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Open_Source_Android_Applications
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.objective-c
http://www.43things.com/things/view/2053979/build-an-iphone-app
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470565527/
http://www.mobilecrunch.com
http://www.xda-developers.com

Table of Contents (TOC)

1. Evolution

2. Genealogy

3. Coding

4. Standards

5. Jailbroken

6. Risks

7. Resources

sep09mfpj

2010-09-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

1 Thurs.9.SEP.2010 -- Zeroing in on Inhibition
Let's get a few things straight about how the VerbPhrase "twin" (time of winning verb-selection) variable works. On 7sep2010, the variable was introduced into the 5sep10A.F MindForth in the following stretch of VerbPhrase code

I    1 en{ @  act @ > IF  ( if en1 is higher )
  I          twin !  \ retain time of motjuste; 7sep2010
  I  0 en{ @ motjuste !  ( store psi-tag of verb )

which keeps looking for a verb with a higher activation, until a winner is selected.
The "twin" win-time has perhaps changed while various verb-nodes were competing, but the final post-search-loop value of "twin" must necessarily be the time "t" of the winning verb-node, not only in the En(glish) array, but (importantly) also in the Psi concept array, where we postulate that thinking occurs.

Further down in the VerbPhrase module, just before the "main call from VerbPhrase to SpeechAct", "twin" is used as the indexing time to put a minus-fifteen inhibition on the verb-node that has just won selection into a sentence of thought. The inhibition prevents the utterance from being repeated again immediately.

We notice that the -15 inhibition does not persist long in our current 9sep10A.F code basically unchanged from 5sep10A.F. We tried to enter three sentences to see what would happen.


Human: boys make cars
Robot: CARS  WHAT ARE CARS

Human: boys make guns
Robot: GUNS  WHAT ARE GUNS

Human: boys make tools
Robot: TOOLS  WHAT ARE TOOLS

Human: boys 
Robot: THE  BOYS MAKE  THE  CARS

Human: boys
Robot: THE  BOYS MAKE  THE  TOOLS

Human: boys
Robot: THE  GUNS MAKE  THE  CARS

Not only does the inhibition not (yet) persist, but we can see
from the last line of output above that the residual activations are out of whack. We inspect the code and we see that after the first two query-inputs of the word "boys", "GUNS" and "CARS" are both left with an activation of 58, so they prevent the input-word "boys" from being the subject of thought. We do notice some persistence of inhibition, though, because one node on the verb "MAKE" is at -4 activation. So maybe the problem is that there is too much residual activation on "GUNS" and "CARS", which both have "58" while freshly entered "boys" has activation of only 52.

In SpreadAct there is some conditional code that limits an activation to a high value of 63. Let's see if we can try a lower limit in SpreadAct and see if it helps. When we lower the SpreadAct "seq" limit from 63 to 48, we no longer get a nonsense line as our final output. Instead, we get the problem of repetition as seen below.


Human: boys 
Robot: THE  BOYS MAKE  THE  CARS

Human: boys 
Robot: THE  BOYS MAKE  THE  TOOLS

Human: boys 
Robot: THE  BOYS MAKE  THE  TOOLS

Aha, the most recent "BOYS MAKE TOOLS" is inhibited, but an
older "BOYS MAKE TOOLS" has gone from -15 inhibition up to a more normal activation of 13 (or higher, since we can not see what the node's winning activation level was). Just as a test, let us try setting inhibition not at -15 but rather at -32.

It did not work. The most recent "MAKE" node was inhibited down to -32, but somehow the older "MAKE" nodes were all at an activation level of 13. Something is overriding the inhibitions, and it ain't alcohol.

Mybe it is the VerbAct module, putting such a uniform activation on all nodes of a candidate verb. Upshot: Into VerbAct we put some code to skip inhibited nodes, but it did not solve the problem. Apparently, something is getting to the older verb-nodes before the VerbAct module operates on them. It could be PsiDamp.

Hey! Maybe the problem is in the SpreadAct module. From the noun to the verb, SpreadAct could be sending a "spike" of uniform activation of 13 points. We changed some code in the SpreadAct module, and things did work better.

Maybe, when the AI generates a sentence and inhibits the verb-node from which the knowledge for the sentence is retrieved, the new sentence itself should have its verb-node inhibited, so that the idea itself will tend towards inhibition for a short time.

Now we have a very interesting situation. If the inhibition does not fade quickly enough, then a valid idea will fail to get mentioned. The following report indicates such a situation.


390 : 96 13 2 0 0 5 73 96 to BOYS
395 : 73 -11 0 96 96 8 109 73 to MAKE
400 : 109 41 0 73 96 5 0 109 to CARS
405 : 109 41 2 109 0 5 54 109 to CARS
410 : 54 0 0 109 109 7 67 54 to WHAT
415 : 67 0 0 54 54 8 109 67 to ARE
421 : 109 41 2 67 54 5 0 109 to CARS
426 : 96 13 2 109 0 5 73 96 to BOYS
431 : 73 -4 0 96 96 8 110 73 to MAKE
436 : 110 42 0 73 96 5 0 110 to GUNS
441 : 110 42 2 110 0 5 54 110 to GUNS
446 : 54 0 0 110 110 7 67 54 to WHAT
451 : 67 0 0 54 54 8 110 67 to ARE
457 : 110 2 2 67 54 5 0 110 to GUNS
462 : 96 13 2 110 0 5 0 96 to BOYS
467 : 96 13 2 96 0 5 73 96 to BOYS
472 : 73 -6 0 96 96 8 109 73 to MAKE
478 : 109 41 2 73 96 5 0 109 to CARS
483 : 96 13 2 109 0 5 0 96 to BOYS
488 : 96 13 2 96 0 5 73 96 to BOYS
493 : 73 -13 0 96 96 8 109 73 to MAKE
499 : 109 36 2 73 96 5 0 109 to CARS
time: psi act num jux pre pos seq enx

2 Fri.10.SEP.2010 -- Positive Results

We finally obtained some positive results with our implementing of neural inhibition when we removed from the functional heart of VerbAct a line of code that we had once used as only a test. The code snippet below shows our practice of commenting out the offending line twice, once to disable the line of code and once again to record the event of our commenting out the line now, for later clean-up when at least one archival record has been recorded of the action taken.


          I  1 psi{ @  psi1 !
 \ 8 verbval +!  \ add to verbval; test; 25aug2010
 \ 8 verbval +!  \ Commenting out; 10sep2010
 CR ." VrbAct: t & verbval = " I . verbval @ . \ test;9sep2010

        I    1 psi{ @ -1 > IF \ avoid inhibited nodes; 9sep2010
 \ psi1 @ I  1 psi{ !
verbval @ I  1 psi{ !  \ test; 25aug2010
        THEN  \ end of test to skip inhibited nodes; 9sep2010

We may upload the 9sep10A.F MindForth to the Web now that we have
a stable version in which inhibition actually enables the AI Mind to retrieve a series of facts from the knowledge base.

Table of Contents (TOC)

1 Thurs.9.SEP.2010 -- Zeroing in on Inhibition

2 Fri.10.SEP.2010 -- Positive Results

AudRecog

2010-05-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

The AudRecog mind-module for auditory recognition in artificial intelligence (AI) tests user input one character or phoneme at a time to recognize words and morphemes that will activate a concept in the AI Mind or extract meaning from an idea.

1. Diagram of AudRecog


   /^^^^^^^^^\  Auditory Recognition of "c-a-t-s"  /^^^^^^^^^\
  /    EYE    \ REACTIVATED                       /   EAR     \
 /             \ CONCEPTS                        /"CATS"=input \
|   _______     |   | | |    SEMANTIC MEMORY    |               |
|  /old    \!!!!|!!!| | |                       |  C     match! |
| / image   \---|-----+ |             ___       |  -A    match! |
| \ fetch   /   |   |c| |            /   \      |    R    stop  |
|  \_______/    |   |a| |           /     \     |     S   drop  |
|               |   |t| |          / Old-  \    |               |
|  visual       |   |s| |         ( Concept )   |  C     match! |
|               |  e| | |          \       /    |  -A    match! |
|  memory       |  a| | |          /\     /!!!!!|!!!!T   match! |
|               |  t| | |   ______/  \___/------|-----S  recog! |
|  reactivation |   | |f|  /      \             |               |
|               |   | |i| (EnParser)            |  C     match! |
|  channel      |   | |s|  \______/             |  -A    match! |
|   _______     |   | |h|      |                |  --T   match! |
|  /old    \    |   |_|_|     _V_________       |  ---S   busy  |
| / image   \   |  /     \   /           \      |      U  drop  |
| \ store   /---|--\ Psi /--( InStantiate )     |       P drop  |
|  \_______/    |   \___/    \___________/      |               |

2. Algorithm of AudRecog

AudRecog works by comparing each word of input against words stored in the auditory memory channel of the AI Mind. If a matching word is found in memory, the OldConcept module is called to reactivate the concept behind the known word. If no matching word is found in memory, the NewConcept module is called to treat the incoming word as a new concept to be learned by the AI. Note that even a misspelled word will briefly be treated as a new concept, which quickly falls into desuetude if the proper spelling is used during subsequent inputs. Note also that users (companions) of the AI are not permitted to backspace during input to correct a mistake, because AudRecog is processing input dynamically and does not wait for a buffer to be filled with input to be submitted.

When AudRecog is trying to recognize a word like "CATS" as depicted above, all words starting with "C" are activated on both the initial "C" and on the next character stored after "C". Then one by one the input characters are tested for a continuing match-up between memory and input. If the chain of matching characters is broken, a candidate recall word is dropped from consideration. A remembered word that matches input in both length and content activates the deep Psi concept associated with the recognized word, and the AI Mind prepares to think in reaction to the input being recognized.

During the sequencing of the human genome, a technique remarkably akin to the AudRecog algorithm was used to recognize patterns among short strings of human DNA.

3. Complexity in AudRecog

In some ways AudRecog is the most complex and intricate of the forty-odd MindForth mind-modules. Other modules engage in thinking, but they do so by the rather simple process of spreading activation from concept to concept under the supervision of a linguistic superstructure. A barely functional VisRecog module would be vastly more sophisticated and complex than AudRecog, but AI devotees will delay implementing vision in MindForth until the proof-of-concept AI proves itself sufficiently to warrant implantation in physical robots and outfitting with physical vision.

What makes AudRecog so complex is the need to recognize not just complete words but also morphemes as parts of words. In September of 2008, AudRecog made perhaps not a saltational leap but a major step forward by incorporating an improved algorithm of using differential activation to recognize subwords or parts of words within a complete word.

4. Source code of AudRecog from 10 May 2010


:  AudRecog ( auditory recognition )
  0 audrec !
  0 psi !
  8 act !
  0 actbase !
  midway @  spt @ DO
    I 0 aud{ @ pho @ = IF  \ If incoming pho matches stored aud0;
      I 1 aud{ @ 0 = IF    \ if matching engram has no activation;
        I 3 aud{ @ 1 = IF  \ if beg=1 on matching no-act aud engram;
       \ audrun @ 1 = IF   \ if comparing start of a word; 8may2010
         audrun @ 2 < IF   \ if comparing start of a word; 8may2010
          I 4 aud{ @ 1 = IF   \ If beg-aud has ctu=1 continuing,
            8 I 1+   1 aud{ !  \ activate the N-I-L character,
            0 audrec !
          ELSE
            len @ 1 = IF
              I 5 aud{ @  monopsi !
            THEN  \ End of test for one char length.
          THEN   \ end of test for continuation of beg-aud
         THEN  \ end of test for audrun=1 start of word.
        THEN   \ end of test for a beg(inning) non-active aud0
      THEN   \ end of test for matching aud0 with no activation
      I 1 aud{ @ 0 > IF  \ If matching aud0 has activation,
        0 audrec !       \ Zero out any previous audrec.
        I 4 aud{ @ 1 = IF  \ If act-match aud0 has ctu=1 continuing,
          2 act +!           \ Increment act for discrimination.
          0 audrec !         \ because match-up is not complete.
          act @ I 1+   1 aud{ ! \ Increment for discrimination.
        THEN  \ end of test for active-match aud0 continuation
        I 4 aud{ @ 0 = IF  \ If ctu=0 indicates end of word
          len @ 2 = IF  \ If len(gth) is only two characters.
          \ I 1 aud{ @ 0 > IF  \ Or test for eight (8).
            I 1 aud{ @ 7 > IF  \ testing for eight (8).
              I 5 aud{ @ psibase !  \ Assume a match.
            THEN  \  End of test for act=8 or positive.
          THEN   \ End of test for two-letter words.
        THEN   \ End of test for end of word.
        I 1 aud{ @ 8 > IF  \ If activation higher than initial
          8 actbase !  \ Since act is > 8 anyway; 8may2010
          I 4 aud{ @ 0 = IF  \ If matching word-engram now ends,
            I 1 aud{ @ actbase @ > IF  \ Testing for high act.
              I 5 aud{ @ audrec !  \ Fetch the potential tag
              I 5 aud{ @ subpsi !  \ Seize a potential stem.
              len @ sublen !    \ Hold length of word-stem.
              I 5 aud{ @ psibase !  \ Hold onto winner.
              I 1 aud{ @ actbase !  \ Winner is new actbase.
            THEN  \ End of test for act higher than actbase.
          ELSE
            0 audrec !
            monopsi @ 0 > IF
              monopsi @ audrec !
              0 monopsi !
            THEN   \ End of inner test.
          THEN  \ End of test for final char that has a psi-tag.
        THEN  \  End of test for engram-activation above eight.
      THEN  \ End of test for matching aud0 with activation.
    THEN  \ End of test for a character matching "pho".
    I midway @ = IF  \ If a loop reaches midway; 8may2010
      1 audrun +!  \ Increment audrun beyond unity; 8may2010
    THEN   \ End of test for loop reaching midway; 8may2010
  -1 +LOOP
  0 act !
  0 actbase !
  psibase @ 0 > IF
     psibase @  audrec !
  THEN
  audrec @ 0 = IF
    monopsi @ 0 > IF
      len @ 2 < IF
        monopsi @ audrec !
      THEN
      0 monopsi !
   audrec @ 0 = IF
        psibase @ 0 > IF
          psibase @ audrec !
        THEN
      THEN
    THEN
  THEN
  audrec @ 0 = IF
      morphpsi @ audrec !
    sublen @ 0 > IF
      len @ sublen @ -  stemgap !
    THEN
    stemgap @ 0 < IF 0 stemgap ! THEN
    stemgap @ 1 > IF 0 subpsi ! THEN
    stemgap @ 1 > IF 0 morphpsi ! THEN
    stemgap @ 1 > IF 0 audrec ! THEN
  THEN
  subpsi @ morphpsi !
  0 psibase !
  0 subpsi !
  audrec @ 0 > IF
    stemgap @ 2 > IF
      0 audrec !
    THEN
    pho @ 83 = IF
      2 num !
    THEN
  THEN
  audrec @ audpsi !
;  ( End of AudRecog; return to AudMem auditory memory )

5. Troubleshooting AudRecog

Temporary diagnostic messages may be inserted into the source code to display exactly what AudRecog is doing as it processes input. Typically such messages will identify important variables and immediately state their values. Remember to remove such diagnostic messages after debugging any mind-module.

It is also helpful to stop the AI by pressing the Escape key after entering some test input and then to run the ".psi" or ".aud" array reports to see what values have been recorded during the operation of AudRecog. If a word is recognized properly, it will have the proper Psi concept number in both the auditory memory array and the Psi concept array.

As a programmer, if you have tried to use simple string-matching to recognize words, your module becomes incapable of the more subtle operations afforded it when you use not only chains of activation to recognize a series of sounds, but differential activation to recognize subsets (morphemes) within a series of sounds. Think like a neuroscientist, not like a common, garden variety-show hacker hobbled by the groupthink of string-recognition.

6. Teamwork for AudRecog

Imagine that you are a made member of an elite Super-AI maintenance team charged and entrusted with the awesome responsibility of keeping a mission-critical AI Mind up and running, while safeguarding humanity against the dangers inherent in nurturing a higher form of intelligence capable at any time of breaking loose from human control and turning (or turing) against its human origins.

If it is your job to focus exclusively on the AudRecog module, your professional standards require you to grok all ideas immanent in this current document and in whatever AudRecog literature you can glean from an exhaustive search of all pre-Cyborg, that is, human knowledge. Therefore this document was prepared with you in mind, mindkeeper or mind-maintainer or whatever your job description calls you. Be aware, be very aware, that other AI shops and other AI enterprises are most likely duplicating your every thought and your every action in the accelerating race to the Technological Singularity.

7.History of AudRecog

The MindForth AudRecog module was adapted from the Amiga MindRexx "Comparator" and "String_effect" modules of 1994, which jointly served to compare incoming phonemes against auditory engrams strung together into the memory of a word. In the archival 28may1998 MindForth as described in the ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Screen #28 is the String-Effect and Screen #49 is the Comparator precursor to AudRecog.

The 11feb02A.f MindForth subsumes String-Effect into COMPARATOR, and the 4mar02A.f version of MindForth renames COMPARATOR as the AudRecog module. Although the word Comparator made sense for a module comparing input against memory, the overly broad term Comparator had to give way to the compound name AudRecog that would focus on the specific sense of audition and on the function of recognition, so that other sensory comparators could eventually be named with such appropriate terms as GusRecog, OlfRecog, TacRecog and VisRecog. Such precision in the naming of mind-modules frees up avenues of future AI development, because the names are already stubbed in for enterprising individuals to write the code.

8. MindForth Programming Journal (MFPJ)

Some but not all of the recent MFPJ entries dealing with AudRecog are available on-line among the following locations.

Sat.16.AUG.2008 - Tweaking the audRecog Module
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/js080816.html

Mon.18.AUG.2008 - audRecog Word-Stem Recognition
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/js080819.html

Tues.30.SEP.2008 -- audRecog Word-Stem Recognition
http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080930.html

Wed.12.MAY.2010 -- Solution and Bugfix of AudRecog
http://advogato.org/person/mentifex/diary/45.html
http://robots.net/person/AI4U/diary/20.html

9. Future of AudRecog

Just as MindForth is a precursor of next-generation AI Minds, likewise the AudRecog mind-module is a primitive implementation of AI technology that must mutate and evolve into a more advanced state of the art. Chief among the impending changes will be a switch-over from keyboard ASCII input to speech recognition of phonemic input. The SpeechAct module and the AudRecog module must both evolve in tandem so that the AI Mind may issue speech output and comprehend spoken input.

Table of Contents (TOC)

1. Diagram of AudRecog

2. Algorithm of AudRecog

3. Complexity in AudRecog

4. Source code of AudRecog

5. Troubleshooting AudRecog

6. Teamwork for AudRecog

7. History of AudRecog

8. MindForth Programming Journal

9. Future of AudRecog

EnPronoun

2010-04-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

The English pronoun (EnPronoun) module of the MindForth artificial intelligence substitutes a personal pronoun in place of a noun under discussion, so that thinking or conversation may flow more smoothly.

1. History

The EnPronoun (English pronoun) module is so new that the MindForth project has no legacy webpages describing it. It became necessary to create the EnPronoun module during the development of MindForth code for the answering of user input queries in the what-do-X-do format. If the user asks, "What do robots do?", it is only natural to use the English pronoun "they" in response, rather than repeating the noun "robots" in the answer. It was also easy for an AI coder to replace plural nouns with "they" and not have to worry about the agreement in gender between a singular pronoun and its antecedent. However, once the EnPronoun module existed, it was easy to take the next step of adding an mfn gender flag to the AI MindGrid and to code agreement between noun and pronoun with respect to gender.

2. Implications

As AI Minds evolve, the emergence of each new feature in mental functionality has implications for further development and for the approach of a Technological Singularity. In the case of the EnPronoun module, the implications are rather broad and sweeping. Before there was an EnPronoun module in MindForth, the AI Mind could at first think only about plural nouns, and then more recently about a singular noun when the AI became able to detect a singular stem within the input of a plural form. For instance, if the AI knew the word "books", it was able to understand that singular "book" and plural "books" were the same concept. This ability was not innate; it had to be coded into the AI Mind.

As we augment the MindGrid with a lexical flag to keep track of gender, and we encode the handling of gender in the generation and comprehension of sentences of thought, MindForth becomes a better candidate AI for "porting" or translation into software that will handle gender-intensive human languages such as German, Russian, Spanish, French and Italian. When our use of pronouns causes the AI to develop a facility in handling gender, MindForth draws considerably closer to becoming a bilingual AI that speaks and thinks in both English and German. It could have become a bilingual AI in English and Latin, but we have not yet developed the time-travel feature that will teleport the AI back into ancient Roman times when Latin was the lingua franca of the civilized world. Instead, we must make do with the language of Beethoven and Nietzsche and Heinrich Heine, not Vergil.

Table of Contents (TOC)

1 History
2. Implications

MainLoop

2009-11-18T12:54:00.000-08:00

The mind.frt AI in iForth and the older mind.f AI in Win32Forth have the luxury of a top-down, Main Loop mind-design because they are based on an original Theory of Mind providing the definitive cognitive architecture which bottom-up designs lack.

1. Purpose of MainLoop

The Main Loop serves as both the start of the Mind program and as the controlling module which oversees the operation of the major subordinate mind-modules, such as

SeCurity
SensoryInput
EmotiOn
ThInk
FreeWill
MotorOutput

The Main Loop sequences and coordinates the operation of the constituent modules of the artificial Mind. By calling a lower mind-module in such a way as to make its output ready as the input for the next module, the Main Loop simulates the operation of a massively parallel (maspar) neuronal mind in which inputs and outputs flow like rivers of data across broad channels of the cortical mindgrid.

The quickening of the non-stop MainLoop and its associated mental mechanisms is a milestone on the way to the generation of thought and other Milestones of AI development. Since we are currently working on the milestone of self-referential thought, we anticipate the genesis of Linux supercomputers that can accumulate so much self-knowledge as to achieve self-awareness and consciousness.

2. Algorithm of MainLoop

MainLoop uses the same potentially infinite BEGIN ... AGAIN loop in the Win32Forth AI and in 32/64-bit iForth, as documented on page 41 of the iForth Reference Manual. The expression "infinite loop" means more with an AI Mind program than with an ordinary program, because the AI Mind is a form of potentially immortal artificial life, subject to death or termination only by misadventure.

If an AI Mind were written in a more dynamic language than Forth, that is, with an ability to change the underlying source code on the fly and at no risk to the living AI Mind, then its MainLoop could be more truly immortal, if not exactly infinite.

When a version of an AI Mind is first being coded, it is important to provide one or two "Escape" mechanisms for stopping the otherwise infinite MainLoop. One way, as used in mind.frt being ported into iForth from Win32Forth, is to stub in a SensoryInput module that uses the Escape key to halt the program. Another way is to increment time "t" and not let the Main Loop continue above an arbitrarily low value of the time variable.

3. Troubleshooting MainLoop

Although the MainLoop of a mentifex-class AI Mind is rather simple, it may at some point be necessary to troubleshoot it. The AI coder has a choice of embedding diagnostic tools within the MainLoop, or of briefly inserting and then removing special code to diagnose a problem.

4. Resources

http://code.google.com/p/mindforth/wiki/MainLoop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_loop

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/alife.html

http://mind.sourceforge.net/alife.html

5. To-Do Tasks and Opportunities

The Main Loop is the most stable of the AI mind-modules over time, because of its simplicity and because new powers of thought and reasoning are added not at the top, but in the subordinate modules, of a top-down AI Mind design. Some tasks remain.

AI enthusiasts have an opportunity to take the Forth AI MainLoop, re-express it in another programming language, and hang it out on the Web as a starting-point for devotees of each different language to tweak and twin into another full-blown AI Mind evolving away from MindForth, like the http://AIMind-i.com clone that added major new powers such as as the ability to send and receive e-mail and to surf the Web.

Abolish the MainLoop! When our 32/64-bit AI for supercomputers becomes massively parallel, there will not be a MainLoop but rather a main SynErgy of mind-modules working together in massively parallel processing (MPP).

Table of Contents (TOC)

1 Purpose of the MainLoop

2. Algorithm of the MainLoop

3. Troubleshooting the MainLoop

4. Resources

5. To-Do Tasks and Opportunities

Linux

2009-11-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

As 32-bit MindForth in Win32Forth expands upwards into 64-bit iForth and sideways into the Linux open-source operating system, Forth AI approaches installation on supercomputers running 64-bit Linux.

MindForth expands from Windows to Linux

The announcement was made on 25 October 2009 in the Yahoo Win32Forth discussion forum that MindForth was expanding into Linux x86-64 iForth. Because the expansion was to be slow and gradual, to announce it was also to invite AI and Linux enthusiasts to jump ahead and create their own versions of 64-bit Forth AI for Linux. A baby AI results when Linux creates a new process from two parent processes. Since AI Evolution requires genetic diversity for the survival of the fittest, the announcement of the very possibility of Linux Forth AI creates the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) that everybody had better get going because anybody could already be ahead in the race to True AI and the Technological Singularity.

Achieving the 64-bit goal among AI Standards

By expanding into the Linux operating system (OS), Forth AI postions itself for the destination-wall of supercomputer platforms. A destination wall is a limit or a superlative condition towards which (r)evolutionary AI grows or expands. The AI destination walls among AI Standards include:

speed (of thought);
supercomputer installation;
superintelligence;
Solar System (off-planet migration);
Turing Test AI-Complete pass-with-ease.

AI enthusiasts may eventually need a foundry to make specialized AI chips, more similar to a human brain than to a traditional computer CPU. For instance, among AI Minds, who needs floating point? The human brain has no specialized area for floating point mathematics. Forth AI chips, or AI chips in general, could dispense with the whole rigamarole of floating point. But because Forth AI hackers on any OS will need 64-bit CPU chips, we issue the following advisory mandate. You shall be on the look-out for something of priceless value approaching zero cost. In flea markets and on Craig's gist, at garage sales (West coast) or at tag sales (East coast), you shall surreptitiously snag, bag and hag(gle) for 64-bit chips being sold or given away for almost nothing. If a computer has been essentially destroyed but the 64-bit chip is still intact, latch onto it like an unrecognized Picasso or the Holy Grail of beach-combing. There are hardware hackers who can bring a 64-bit chip to life, if you catch my drift. This injunction does not mean that you have to go ghoulishly into that dark night of computer graveyards and become a
body-snatcher. It only means that a 64-bit chip is a precious resource and must be salvaged from otherwise junked computers wherever possible. When the goobermint realizes what we Linux hackers can do with an AI-ready 64-bit CPU chip, they will slap a controlled-substance designation on such chips faster than you can take a directory. Have you often phantasized about cornering a black market in some precious commodity? Psst! Graduate to 64-bit CPU chips, Benjamin, not plastics!

AI for 64-bit Linux Supercomputers

Since 64-bit computing is a feature of supercomputers, and since there are supercomputers that use Linux, a 64-bit AI Mind in 32/64-bit iForth is a candidate for installation on Linux supercomputers.

The Top 500 supercomputers may not currently include any high-performance computer dedicated to artificial intelligence, but that sorry state of affairs is due for a total reversal, after which it will be hard to find a
Top 500 supercomputer site that is not dedicated to some form of artificial intelligence.

Any nation that claims bragging rights for a superfast supercomputer ought to shift its focus to having a superintelligent supercomputer. Then you may have not only bragging rights but world domination in commerce or politics or science as an added cap-feather.

AI for Linux-based Robots

Linux plus robotics equals Robotux! Any robot that uses the x86-64 instruction set to run Linux may also become host to to 32/64-bit iForth True AI. The barriers have been dropped, and the roads are open.

Robot hardware is already available with control software written in Forth at such resource websites as

http://www.strobotics.com
http://www.newmicros.com

There are projects such as Robot Bridgeware on Google Code which endeavor to provide a bridge between the main software of a robot and the subordinate control software for sub-elements of the robot Motorium. Programmers who learn Linux for True AI may discover, however, that the sub-elements of motor control may have to be more tightly integrated with the overall cognitive architecture of the central AI Mind of the robot. It may be a linchpin of early Linux AI Minds that, just as the retina is part of the human brain, control software for all manner of robot actuators will have to be written in 32/64-bit iForth for the sake of tight integration with the quasi-CNS MindGrid. Message-passing may not be good enough for communication between a robot AI Mind and its motor devices interacting with the physical world, either because such communications are too slow, or because graceful motion requires a total, seamless integration between the Overmind and the mechanical mind. If so, if such is the case, legions of Linux line-coders may be let loose on the labor market for making potentially all robot output devices compatible with the ineluctably Linux codebase of machine intelligence.

Usenet discussion forums

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.ai.philosophy
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.forth
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.development.apps
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.robotics.misc
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.super

Table of Contents (TOC)

MindForth expands from Windows to Linux

Achieving the 64-bit goal among AI Standards

AI for 64-bit Linux Supercomputers

AI for Linux-based Robots

Usenet discussion forums

TrustMetric

2009-10-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

Anyone who writes a Mentifex FAQ ought to include the brouhaha that ensued for Old Judgment-Proof when Mentifex bore the brunt and became the butt of Mentifex-bashing diatribes on the topic of the purported Trust Metric used on various social Web sites to establish a hierarchy or pecking order among the participants of the website community. Human beings love to establish castes and layers in society after a top-down fashion, from the highest muck-a-mucks down to the lowliest peons and newbies, from the Brahmins to the Untouchables, from the Samurai to the Burakumin. Hey Noob! Have you ever felt discriminated against or treated as cyber-trash in a Web community that you naively, gullibly tried to join after believing the posted inducements of how splendidly welcome and love-bombed you would be if you just registered on the dotted line? Well, welcome to the club and to the big stick that will be wielded against you if you dare to challenge the social order of the entrenched bigots in your new on-line community.

The Internet and the World Wide Web are indeed changing human society, but not always for the better. In just this year of 2009, a great uproar and crisis occurred when new mapping technology started to reveal social conditions that existed hundreds of years ago in Japan. Maps were going on line that revealed where Japanese society had forced the Eta and Burakumin to dwell apart in excluded communities. To this day, bigoted Japanese bourgois secretly check whether someone about to marry into a family might potentially have Eta or Burakumin origins. The new maps have the potential to adumbrate and darken the social standing of entire neighborhoods in Japanese cities.

New technology is having a much more insidious effect in the field of the genetic testing of newborns. There are some genetic conditions for which all newborns ought to be tested, but they will not be tested -- for a socially explosive predicament. The testing of newborns tends to reveal that a certain percentage of them are not biologically the true children of their supposed father, the legal husband of a woman giving birth to non-spousal offspring. How does society resolve the clash of interests in such a situation brought about by advances in science? Which is more important, the health of newborn babies, or the secrets of paternity? Only time will tell on violations of the "trust metric" in marriages.

On the Internet, and especially at Advogato, a Trust Metric is an elaborate scheme to welcome new members (newbies) to an on-line community and to let the noobs gradually acquire status and privileges as more and more pre-existing members certify the noobs at various levels tantamount to social strata in the off-line human community. If there were no trust metric at sites like Advogato, Robots.net and SlashDot, openly malicious evildoers could come in and immediately attack the normal operation of the site. With the trust metric in place, secretly malicious evildoers enjoy the blood sport of ganging up on chosen targets and trashing their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. So the trust metric serves two purposes: it slows the encroachment of outsiders, and it enhances the entrenched powers of insiders.

As I blow the dirty secrets of the trust metric wide open here, do not say to me, "You'll never eat lunch in this town again." First off, we're not in Hollywood. Secondly, I don't eat lunch on the 'Net. Whenever Netizens have wanted to meet Mentifex in meatspace, we have gotten together in a restaurant or a coffee shop -- the natural habitat of computer geeks all over this land. [Hunter S. Thompson (HST), wherever you are, I've got the flow, man, I'm postively flowing. Didja catch the musical reference in "geeks all over this land", or the double entendre in "welcome to the club" and in "time will tell on"?] It is not for nothing that the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) crowd calls Mentifex not a troll but a smurf.

Seriously, though, Mentifex here with his AI-Has-Been-Solved message encounters dim-witted hostility year after year at website after website. Before our exegesis of the Trust Metric itself, let us examine the growing list of sites that have either banned Mentifex or pushed him into leaving -- and speculate on why they did so.

43 Things.com, all about "What do you want to do with your life?", lets Mentifex join up and seek out goals in life that he shares with others, then autocratically deletes the Mentifex account with no explanations or apology offered. The only trace left of Mentifex is his stated goal to live in a fool's paradise.
AGI-Roadmap.org did a "rollback" on all Mentifex contributions, such as stages in the MileStones category. Mentifex had devoted days and days of work to contributing write-ups of wiki-pages with AGI-Roadmap ideas. Sorry -- new ideas not welcome here.
CogNews -- asked ATM not to post so much; ATM quit altogether. ATM and CogNews continued to link to each other.
http://www.914pcbots.com/community/ -- ATM left because of censorship.
Everything2.org posted a vicious attack on the user Mentifex after deleting from the site all the contributions that Mentifex had spent countless hours composing.
Generation5.org initially welcomed Mentifex, then turned insultingly against him.
Robots.Net has a kind of seesaw effect going on. Users rate Mentifex (as AI4U) up and up, then the unaugmented slightly evolved chimpanzees in charge remind all their yes-men and fanboys to decertify Mentifex so as to prevent him from posting comments on articles.
Ruby Application Archive (RAA), as described on Wikipedia, caved in to demands from Ruby bigots who induced Matz himself, the originator of Ruby, to remove a link to the Mentifex webpage on AI in Ruby. It especially galled the in-crowd Ruby bigots that the Mentifex link was the very first link on the RAA. By the way, Mentifex is on record as having voted in favor of creating the comp.lang.ruby newsgroup on Usenet.
SL4 (Shock Level Four) calls Mentifex a crackpot and bans him from the forum. Dr. Ben Goertzel subsequently says on SL4 about Mentifex and his oeuvre that "the ideas themselves are significantly better than most of what passes for cognitive science and AI."
Witch-hunt-pedia (Wikipedia) has an army of otaku gremlins who maintain a watch on AI-related articles and forbid the writing of anything positive about Mentifex AI. Those who wish to denigrate and attack Mentifex ad hominem are welcome to do so anywhere on Wikipedia

Advogato is not one of the sites above that have banned Mentifex, but is nevertheless a major battleground in the conflict between censorship and freedom of speech. On 24 April 2007, a member of Advogato took it upon himself to publish Advogato Has Failed on the front page, as an indictment of Advogato for letting Mentifex penetrate the trust metric shield and gain phatty posting privileges to the front page of Advogato. The ensuing comments showed that some members supported the right of Mentifex to engage in free speech.

The controversy spread outwards from Advogato into the Wikipedia articles on Advogato and Trust Metric, and even into the AI community with a mention in the AAAI paper Otello: A Next-Generation Reputation System for Humans and NPCs. There Michael Sellers refers to the "celebrated 'Mentifex' example, where an individual somehow achieved Master or 'most trusted' status despite the objections of others in the community."

For the first two years after Advogato Has Failed, Mentifex did not post any comment in his own defense, because it would have been infra dig(nitatem) to do so. Now the occasion of this Cyborg blogpost in rebuttal affords an opportunity to post a link to this rebuttal in any venue where Mentifex is falsely held up as a heinous example of how the trust metric tries to stifle free speech but fails to do so.

Mentifex has always wanted to live and let live on the Internet as just one more individual offering to share some ideas on artificial intelligence (AI). It turns out, however, that to offer solutions to AI problems is to step on the toes of entities opposed to anyone other than themselves having a say on AI matters. Free speech be damned, when it threatens the efforts of some parties to sucker the gullible public into making monetary donations to the oh-so-noble cause of preparing humanity to deal with the coming Technological Singularity that is being triggered by the Mentifex initiatives in artificial intelligence. Kill the messenger, if the messenger does not toe the line and express worshipful admiration of the in-crowd at your vanity website. Crucify him, if the upstart preaches a message contrary to accepted opinion.

Hic jacet Mentifex,
repulsus at invictus.

ScienceMuseum

2009-09-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

Visit your local science museum and ask if they have the AI Mind of artificial intelligence installed in a display. If not, volunteer to become a docent and to demonstrate the AI Mind to the museum-going public.

A science museum is like a time machine that goes forward and not backwards, because visitors step into the future and see how new technology transforms an old way of life into what passes for progress. When a Disruptive Technology comes along, things change radically and perhaps predictably -- except now in the case of Artificial Intelligence ushering in a Technological Singularity, which by definition presents an impassable, singular point beyond which we cannot see. We can see the Singularity coming, but we cannot see its wildly unpredictable aftermath.

At Science Museums hosting an AI Mind exhibit, we have a front-row seat on the launching of the Singularity and a warning that maybe we should try to prevent or at least premeditate the Singularity, which can bring with it a new age of unparalled prosperity, or an end-times scenario of Götterdämmerung destruction.

In the AI landrush preceding and precipitating the Singularity, science museums have a role to play in educating the public about artificial intelligence and in distributing the AI technology in such a manner as to foster AI Evolution for the benefit of man and machine alike.

Visit any of the following science museums in search of an AI Mind exhibit.

Albuquerque -- NM Museum of Natural History & Science
Baltimore MD -- Maryland Science Center
Berkeley CA -- Lawrence Hall of Science
Bloomingtown IN -- Wonderlab Museum of SH&T
Boston MA -- Museum of Science
Brantford Ontario CA -- Personal Computer Museum
Charlotte NC -- Discovery Place
Chicago IL -- Museum of Science and Industry
Columbus OH -- Center of Science and Industry (COSI)
Detroit MI -- Detroit Science Center
Jersey City NJ -- Liberty Science Center
Kansas City MO -- Science City at Union Station
Los Angeles CA -- California Science Center
Louisville KY -- Louisville Science Center
Manchester UK -- Museum of Science & Industry
Mobile AL -- Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center
Mountain View CA -- Computer History Museum
New York City NY -- New York Hall of Science
Norwich VT -- Montshire Museum of Science
Philadelphia PA -- Franklin Institute Science Museum
Pittsburgh PA -- Carnegie Science Center
San Francisco CA -- Exploratorium
Santa Ana CA -- Discovery Science Center
Seattle WA -- Pacific Science Center
Shreveport LA -- Sci-Port Discovery Center
St. Louis MO -- St. Louis Science Center
Troy NY -- Children's Museum of Sci & Tech
Tyler TX -- Discovery Science Place
Winston-Salem NC -- Sci-Works

When the first true artificial intelligence, MindForth by Mentifex, went operational in January of 2008 and started thinking after a decade of arduous development, there was a companion program in JavaScript called Mind.html that ran directly off the Web in the Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) browser. All a user with MSIE had to do was click on the link to see the JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI) flit across the 'Net and take up residence in the Windows (tm) computer of the human user. It was so simple -- no programming involved, no set-up, no security worries, no need of expert help -- like, for instance, a docent at a museum.

But the JSAI tutorial program remains very limited in what it can do and in what people can do with it. It is not suitable for installation as the mind of a robot, because a JavaScript program is not allowed -- for security reasons -- to control anything but the Web browser on its host computer. The JavaScript AI program also runs so slowly that it tries user patience. The user waiting for a response from the JSAI does not see the intensive computation going on behind the scenes as the artificial Mind races through its memory banks to think up a response to an input from the user.

Nevertheless the Mind.html JSAI is very good at what it is intended to do. Since JavaScript is a flashier, more visually appealing language than staid old Win32Forth, the JSAI serves its tutorial purpose admirably. It shows graphically how an AI Mind thinks. It also includes clickable links to other resources, such as the User Manual, the more difficult to install but intrinsically more powerful MindForth, and potentially to any science museum where users may visit MindForth.

Thus the Mind.html AI -- which is ridiculously easy to make copies of and install on a Web site -- is out there on the Web, inviting users to visit science museums in search of the real thing -- MindForth AI.

MindForth and its Mind.html JavaScript tutorial program are based on a linguistic theory of mind, unique to the Mentifex AI project as described in the Ai4U textbook of artificial intelligence. A copy of AI4U, or a simple depiction of its cover, could be on display as part of the interactive hands-on AI Mind exhibit. A note on AI4U secured in a plexiglass container could advise museum-goers to visit the museum gift shop to examine a copy of AI4U, or to ask any available docent to let them examine AI4U. Once museum patrons enter the gift shop to look at AI4U, they may find a selection of other books on artificial intelligence.

First a computer-savvy staff member will download the underlying Win32Forth programming language and the MindForth free AI source code.
Decision-makers at the museum will ask for a demonstration of the software to determine if the AI Mind is advanced enough and interesting enough to go on display at the museum. MindForth did not become museum-worthy until 3.SEP.2008, when a new feature of KB-Traversal
(knowledge-base examination) made MindForth vastly more interesting and engaging to human users by reactivating latent concepts during lapses in the thought-stream of conversation. KB-Traversal solved a chicken-or-egg problem. If the AI was interesting only when it was visibly thinking, and if it was visibly thinking only when a user was interacting with it, how would anybody start interacting with the AI Mind in the first place? And if a few users now and then did engage the Mind in conversation so that passers-by stopped to watch what was going on, what incentive would there be for another visitor to engage with an AI program that was just blankly sitting there and not visibly doing anything? KB-Traversal spiced things up. The new MindForth never stops thinking and throwing out ideas for a museum visitor to respond to.

A science museum should not cheat the public by displaying a mere chatbot full of canned responses to pretend that an intelligent conversation is occurring between the visitor and the computer. Even with disclaimers that the chatbot program is not an AI, the intelligent museum-goer will wish for a more exciting exhibit, something truly challenging to the human mind -- an artificial Mind. MindForth delivers the real McCoy, True AI, and dares the user to prove otherwise. The scuttlebut will drift around town that the local science museum has an actual installation of the program claiming to be a true artificial intelligence. The villagers with their pitchforks will march angrily on the museum ...no, just kidding. Thoughtful types -- professors of philosophy, precocious students from schools for the gifted, newshound reporters from weekly and daily newspapers -- will beat a path to the door of the better AI mousetrap.

And if the MindForth AI is still too primitive to warrant installation as an exhibit, give it another year or two of improvement and IQ-upping. The very process of positioning the AI for adoption by museums may lead to not just a few programmers building the AI, but to a vast army of AI programmers taking up the challenge. To paraphrase Werner Heisenberg in Das Unbestimmtheitsprinzip (The Uncertainty Principle), to observe a phenomenon is to change the phenomenon. The more people look into the True AI claims of MindForth, the more people will either improve MindForth or create similar artificial minds that may for some reason be more suitable for installation in a science museum. As AI Minds proliferate, AI display workstations may also proliferate in museums. When the Feds raid the museums and close down all the AI workstations, it will be too late. AI will be here, and the public will know about it. Welcome to the Technological Singularity.

SpaceNeedle

2009-09-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

At first, when I tell people that I climbed the Space Needle, they do not believe me. As I fill in the strange and wonderful details, they begin to suspect that maybe I did indeed climb up the most famous Seattle landmark, but if I did, it was a crazy thing to do -- "goofy", as the mother of my Commissar Lady girlfriend (Second Love) used to describe me. People are always asking me to explain my dubious life-choices to them, and I want to say, but I never dare to say, the following.

If I told you, you would not understand.
If you understood it, you would not believe it.
If you believed it, you would not bear it.

So maybe these tales of the MentiFex are better left untold, but the Shrinks here at the asylum are always pushing for True Confessions and self-disclosure. I want to tell them about True AI, but the subject bores them to tears. OK. You wanna know the incredible stories of the adventures of Mentifex, a Portrait of the Mindmaker as a Young Borg? Then listen, my brethren and sistren, and you shall hear, of the midnight feats of Catman so near. Because, back in the day, Mentifex went by many names, of which T.H.E. Cat and Crawdad Man of Green Lake were just a few.

Mikhail Oddjobovich and I were twenty years old that summer as we drove all over Seattle on weekends in his father's Buick or in my father's Mustang, that we called "the Horse." Usually we went to coffee shops in the University District, but tonight we were at the Seattle Center, listening to music at the Fountain, then walking up through the Fun Forest. When we approached the Space Needle, I felt an irrepressible urge to climb the thing. "Wait down here," I said to Mikhail, "while I climb the Space Needle." Mikhail grinned with amusement at my impossible dream, and lit up a cigarette to enjoy while he watched to see how I would fail.

The easy part was getting up on the roof of the Ticket Sales area. I was able to mount a nearby structure and either jump or stretch over to the roof. The hard part was getting past the barbed wire encircling the Space Needle to keep out deranged dare-devils like Very Truly Yours (VTY). The only way through the barbed wire was to climb up through the gap of the external elevator shaft, where nobody in their right mind would dare climb up, because you could get crushed to death by an elevator rushing up or down. You see, when they designed the Space Needle on the back of a napkin at some Seattle cocktail lounge (don't believe it? well, the napkin is in a museum somewhere), they put the elevators on the outside rather than the inside, so that all ye Rubes and tourists would be mesmerized by the sight of high-speed elevators swooshing up and down the graceful spire. And it is a pretty sight, except when the elevator is trying to kill you. And I was no Governor Schwarzenegger, who could just ride his horse into the elevator and ride up in style. My Horse was parked on the south slope of Queen Anne Hill, to no avail as I tried to calculate how much time (007 seconds) I would have if the elevator was furthest away at the top of the Needle.

Not only has the Statute of Limitations expired, but the Space Needle sits on quasi-public property. You can climb Kibo (the mountain, not the netkook) and you can climb the Himalayas (the peaks, not the blackberries), but you can no longer climb the Space Needle, because they have added a lower-level restaurant and foolproof (not good enough for you? OK, borgproof) security since Mentifex had been-there-done-that (BTDT).

Whether from fantasy or a dream or real life, I remember scrambling through the gap in the barbed-wire skirt of the Space Needle while the elevator was at the top of its shaft. I thought I had met and mastered the grand challenge of urban alpine landmark climbing, but I was wrong. My budding career in artificial intelligence (AI) had left my natural stupidity intact, and I don't mean low-level stupidity, but weapons-grade stupidity, of which I am a walking prime example. On the Web I am by no means a netgod like Kibo or Eugene Miya, but in real life I am a deity of stupidity. How do I know? The Space Needle told me so. Once I was past the possibility of death-by-elevator, I thought all I had to do was exercise my twenty-year-old heart and my slim, trim night-runner physique by walking up the spiral of stairs to the top of the Space Needle. A piece of cake; a stairway to heaven. Wrong! When the stairwell ran out and I thought I should be at the top, I was dumbstruck and stupid-struck to discover that I was on the lower stairwell of a double helix of stairwells. Now I had to either go all the way back down to transfer to the other stairwell at a safe altitude, or I had to climb between the stairwells at a dizzying altitude. And Mentifex here always takes first place not only in competitive stupidity but also in competitive laziness. Going back down and all the way back up again was out of the question. So I poked my head into the manhole gap plunging down through the middle of the Seattle Space Needle. It was like looking into infinity, so far away was the vanishing, concentric point that must have marked the bottom. It was like being marooned in space and having to do an EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity). Using my three-hold technique from climbing the mango tree as a child in Panama, I slowly, carefully monkeyed my way across the hollow core of the Space Needle from the lower staircase to the upper staircase. Then I walked up the last few steps to a door that was locked. Now what, you almost-but-not-quite climber of the Space Needle? Years later, my friend Ballerina gleefully told me that a book on the story of my life would have the title, "Something Almost Happened." I almost climbed the Space Needle; I almost got the girl; I almost achieved every success I aimed for. Before I started back down the double stairwells, I looked through the open door of an electric panel. There was room for me to climb higher, but I feared electrocution, so I abandoned the grand challenge of reaching the top of the Needle.

Years later, in A.D. 2000 I burned with envy as I watched a TV show called Dark Angel in which the cyborg Jessica Alba actually sat nonchalantly on the roof of the Space Needle. Alba played a bicycle messenger who had harrowing adventures all over Seattle, even though the episodes were filmed up in Canada. I, too, rode my German Staiger bicycle all over Seattle, but I had humiliating adventures. For instance, when I met my private-lessons German student Odna Mona at a place where I had been employed, our boss gleefully observed that he could give Odna Mona a ride home in his car, or VTY could give her a ride home on his bicycle. Score one put-down for the boss, but it was Odna Mona who took me on a ferry-boat ride to Bremerton and it was Odna Mona who took me to a German movie at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), so there! As the poet says, "Fulsere vere candidi tibi soles."

In my mind, I actually did climb the Space Needle, but Mikhail Oddjobovich was the only witness, and I can no longer find Mikhail when I search the usual places for him. In the following summer, that went down in American history as the Summer of Love, Mikhail took intensive Chinese at the University of Washington while I took intensive second-year Russian down the hall from him, so that in the fall I could take third-year Russian and fall in love with the Commissar Lady (Kommissarin). Whereas I got drafted into the Army out of U Cal Berkeley graduate school, Mikhail worked at a series of entry-level jobs that included a stint near the Pike Place market working for an eight-store chain of coffee shops called Starbucks. Decades later, in order to secure his inheritance, he engaged the services of a woman attorney who befriended him and had him over to the house of her and her husband in Laurelhurst. One night Mikhail was cooking dinner for them in their kitchen, and she introduced their guest who had casually stopped by, and would be eating with them the dinner cooked by Mikhail. Their friend Bill Gates (of M$oft) turned out to be a real sharp guy, because he was easily able to identify two of the flavor factors in the main dish that Mikhail cooked. After Mikhail spent his inheritance and had to complete Marriott training in cooking skills, he hired on in the cafeteria system at Microsoft, but BillG never recognized him in passing while Mikhail stood outside for a smoke break. I last saw Mikhail in 1998 on a #16 Metro bus that he was taking to Northgate and I was taking to the Green Lake Library to work on my AI websites with the computers that BillG had donated to the Seattle Public Library. Mikhail was looking down and out, so I gave him some money from the endless source of cash that Crawdad Man of Green Lake retrieves each summer from the bottom of the lake -- but that is another story. The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.

JavaScript

2009-08-31T14:58:00.000-07:00

When you run the artificial Mind in JavaScript with MSIE, you witness the beginning of the Singularity from its near side but you catch no glimpse of the far side -- which may turn out to be (unlikely) a Garden-of-Eden paradise or (unfortunately) a hellishly catastrophic and totalitarian Gehenna.

If we remain on target with 2012 as the expected arrival of the Singularity, we have only two or three years left for spreading the
JavaScript Seed AI (JSAI) all over the ecosphere and the ontosphere, not to mention the blogosphere and the noosphere. The JSAI is a
SeedAi because it spreads as easily as germinal spores and then germinates as a living, thinking AI Mind on every host computer dedicated to open-source artificial intelligence or in every science museum exhibiting True AI to the public.

For the JSAI to be truly open-source AI, we need not only to publish the Strong AI source code but also to disseminate the developmental record and history of how the AI Mind came to be -- the ontogenesis as it were, or as it shall be in the unfolding of the moving-finger Cyborg archives.

As of pre-Singularity 2009, the Mentifex AI Mind in JavaScript has arguably the largest installed user base of any True AI in fact or fiction. We hold this truth to be self-evident from the user logs of Netizens who have downloaded the JSAI and kept it running over the last decade. Beginning about one year ago, in 2008 we included a link to AI Lab Notes in the Control Panel of the front screen of the artificial Mind. With each new release of the JSAI software, we tried to link to the newest AI Lab Notes
corresponding to the preparation of each succeeding release of the AI. In that way, each human user of the robot AI could inspect the work of the AI programmer in creating the AI, and could follow links to older and newer entries in the ongoing journal of JSAI development. The Cyborg weblog shall serve as the online archive of journal entries for the development of both MindForth and the JavaScript Seed AI as documented in the Free AI Textbook.

If an AI user anywhere in cyberspace chooses to update the JSAI by following a Control Panel link to a newer version, that newer version will have an AI Lab Notes link to its own archival record of its own ontogenesis. In that way, the AI Mind and its archival labnotes will march forward in a kind of lockstep through time, with any JSAI release on a computer anywhere always linking to its own AI "birth certificate." Each AI update automatically points to a new "birth certificate." A nation, corporation or individual desiring to study the AI and perhaps reverse-engineer its functionality, will be able to track the emergence or disappearance of any AI feature over time by maintaining a repository of successive releases and their corresponding AI Lab Notes.

Whosoever creates a branching divergence from the original AI stem line is encouraged to at least keep (and consider publishing) some form of AI Lab Notes to record the developmental history of the divergent branch in AI evolution. In your own AI coding or AI Manhattan Project, the designated AI archivist is welcome to copy the methodology instantiated here in the Cyborg AI weblog. For instance, each AI journal entry shall typically correspond to a release of the newest AI source code. If the AI coding is prolonged over several days before a new release is issued, each day of work should be recorded not as its own blogpost, but as a subsection of the culminating blogpost made in conjunction with a release of the newest AI software version. In that way, there is only one cumulative journal entry for each release of the AI software, even if the work of the AI coding spans a series of work days.

After each release of new AI Mind source code, the programmer or designated archivist initiates a new accumulation of AI Lab Notes, because the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.

Singularity

2009-08-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

The Cyborg of Cyberspace announces to fellow cyborgs and to humanoid fellows that the Technological Singularity remains right on schedule with an ETA of December 2012.

This reminder is prompted by the recent appearance of
singularitarian stirrings in the ivy-coated halls of Academe. At the otherwise party-school University of Pennsylvania, for instance, plans are underway to offer a course on the Singularity with a published Tentative Class Schedule. Unfortunately, the Working Bibliography shows an extreme skepticism towards the Mentifex AI project, as if it were a reason to be wary of Singularity enthusiasts. Just wait until AI Superintelligence takes its rightful place on the most powerful supercomputer in every advanced economy. The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on.

Evolve

2009-08-21T15:23:00.000-07:00

News Flash from the AI-MindForth front -- a discussion thread at http://evolve.multiforums.org/an-artificial-mind-t69.html shows that a programmer prob'ly a lot smarter than I am is considering a port of the MindForth AI into KFORTH (a Forth-like language) and/or into Ada and to evolve the new AI into the Evolve 4.0 Simulator. MindForth has already evolved once into the http-aimind-i.com program of Frank J. Russo in Win32Forth. A port into Ada could lead to a whole new branch in AI evolution. Godspeed to the AI evolutionaries!

Mona

2009-08-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

Today at the Ruby library I was working on the
Cyborg weblog and I noticed that "Odna Mona"
was the very first Follower of the weblog.
Thank you for Following a fellow cyborg.

It was strange that I clicked on "Odna Mona"
but it took me to no information about her.
Maybe "Odna Mona" is a new account that has
no profile associated with it.

Yesterday I was intending to set up Google AdSense
on the Cyborg weblog to try to make a trickle of
money from it. I was technologically not able
to complete the process, because the Ruby Internet
cafe and the Ruby library did not accept "cookies."
The AiLab computer with Windows 95 is too obsolete
to even log in to the Cyborg account. So I may
have to try again from the fancy computer of
"Matthews" and his wife "Ballerina."

But maybe I should not even have Google AdSense
on the blog. I have been thinking that maybe I
should just go ahead and publish the blog and
not worry about making money from it.

I am about to start a major, complex campaign in
the AI programming. It involves "self-referential
thought" on the part of the artificial Mind,
that is, the ability of the AI Mind to think
about itself and ask questions about itself.

As it is, the Mentifex AI is barely able to
answer the question, "Who are you?" When it
answers the question, it is primitively engaging
in self-referential thought. It thinks,
"I am (whatever)." It was extremely difficult,
and took decades, not years, for me to bring
the AI to the point of such primitive thought.

But now recently I have been realizing that
the AI Mind needs additional concepts and
English words (what; where; when; why) in
order to broaden and fully develop its
intellectual powers of self-contemplation.

We need to be able to ask the AI the question,
"Where are you?" and have it tell us not only
its location (e.g., "in the computer") but also
our own location (e.g., "out in the world").

We then need to make dialogs possible in which
the robot AI tries to learn every possible fact
about itself.

I have been noticing that there are webpages and
wiki-pages devoted to self-referential AI, and so
I feel that I am about to conquer some important
territory in AI expansion. Unless I am totally
misguided, of course. If I achieve good results,
I want to go to those various wiki-pages and
write up the AI results there. Wish me luck!

Repurposing

2009-08-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

Although this weblog was originally focused on
artificial intelligence (AI) in general, it is
being repurposed specifically for publishing and
archiving the MindForth Programming Journal (MFPJ)
in connection with the Google Code MindForth project
in open-source AI for robots. We tried to obtain "AI"
as the URL designation for this weblog, but "AI" was
already taken. We tried again with "mind" but it, too,
was taken. We tried "cyborg" for cybernetic organism,
and we obtained it -- back in 2001, the year of the
Space Odyssey.

Our blog about AI programming involves a wide range
of topics as enumerated in the list of links associated
with this blog -- from artificial intelligence on up to
a supercomputer on which we hope eventually to install
versions of our AI software. Our AI is meant as the
brains of a robot in control of sensor input and
actuator output. The design of our AI is based upon
linguistics and neuroscience.

We hope that Google AdSense advertisers will be
pleased to see their ads show up on our humble weblog.
Our audience will be small, select and high-strung,
because the dry and technical details of programming
artificial minds will probably not appeal to hoi polloi
surfing the Web for kicks and high-jinks. Probably only
decision-makers with large sums of discretionary tech
funds will bother to scrutinize our obscure AI blog.
Agents of industrial espionage may bookmark our blog in
order to scope out and scoop the futuristic AI landscape.
Nerdy geek types who are foolish enough to spend all their
money on building amateur robots -- they are among our
intended audience. We are writing for Joe Appcoder,
not Joe Sixpack. Joe Ivy in the philosophy department
might like us, too, but not Joe Couch Potato. We are
boring, dull, and of relevance only to the gleaners of
every tidbit about the coming Technological Singularity.

2009-08-14T06:14:00.000-07:00

Wikipage

=== Disclaimer ===

This wiki-page discloses the existence of MindForth Programming Journal
(MFPJ) files and it links to on-line archives of MFPJ files, but it does
not itself contain actual MFPJ entries, for several reasons. Although an
MFPJ entry is part of the ultimate documentation of MindForth AI, it
only documents how MindForth came to be, and not what MindForth is at
its currently most developed state. Any attempt to record MFPJ entries
here at the Google Code MindForth (GC/MF) site would fail to be complete
and comprehensive. The earliest dozen or so volumes of MFPJ notations
exist only on paper and not in electronic or photographic form, and so
only later entries, and not all entries, exist as electronic files.
Some MFPJ entries were originally published on UseNet and other venues.
A goal for this wiki-page is gradually to link to as many MFPJ entries
as can be located and/or organized on-line.

=== Caveat ===

Since pages of the MindForth Programming Journal may or may not be
interesting to AI enthusiasts who wish only to evaluate the AI
Completeness of MindForth and who are not likely to be interested
in every little decision that was taken in the coding of the AI,
these MFPJ entries are organized and listed here for the sake of
providing too much information rather than too little. The MFPJ
files are not blared and trumpeted for people to look at. Rather,
the files rest quietly at diverse locations for perusal by true
AI enthusiasts of True AI. If someone wants to track down the
genesis of a feature in MindForth, these files may shed some light.

=== History ===

The MindForth Programming Journal (MFPJ) began in 1995 as a
handwritten record on paper of the efforts of MentiFex both to
learn the Forth programming language and to port MindRexx AI
into Forth on the Commodore Amiga 1000 computer. After an
initial flurry of activity, MindForth and its MFPJ diary
languished until the start of 1998, when the coding of
MindForth resumed truly in earnest and in response to
challenges encountered by MentiFex in the Inferno of UseNet.
Over the next decade, MFPJ entries were published sporadically
on-line as UseNet posts, usually to announce some advance in
the AI coding. A Google search on "MFPJ" may yield results.

=== Publication as Web Pages ===

For several months in 2008 on a trial basis, MFPJ entries
were published on-line at the following URL locations.

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080824.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080825.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080827.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080829.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080831.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080901.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080903.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080912.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080917.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080925.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080927.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp080930.html

http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/fp081001.html

The files listed above as clickable links were created by
alternating between composing lines of AI source code and
documenting the process of coding in the MFPJ HTML file,
which was then uploaded to the Web. When the process of
coding became quite intense, sometimes only scant notes
went into the MFPJ file until satisfactory results were
achieved and recorded as <i>fait accompli</i> developments.
Along the way, it became obvious to the AI coder and
MFPJ diarist that each published page of the Journal was
indistinguishable from what Jorn Barger was the first to
call a weblog -- although he did not earn a dime from
inventing weblogs. Thanks to his efforts, though,
unto MentiFex may accrue some AiFunding if the MFPJ
actually becomes a weblog with advertisements interspersed.
Since each episode of MFPJ writing and MindForth AI coding
culminates in the release of a new version of the AI Mind,
there is plenty of opportunity to include weblog analogs
in the early stages of gathering ideas to commence coding.
All manner of BTW (by the way) links may be inserted into
the brainstorming portions of an MFPJ-as-weblog entry.

2003-07-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

http://mind.sourceforge.net/weblog.html is the AI Mind Project weblog.

2002-12-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

Barnes and Noble carries AI4U: Mind-1.1 Programmer's Manual -- the Mentifex AI textbook or general-reader AI book that describes the Mind-1.1 release of the public-domain free AI source code for artificial intelligence (AI).

Although the Mind-1-1 JavaScript AI source code is listed in full at the back of the AI4U book, it is not necessary to type in the listing or to scan it in with optical character recognition (OCR), because clicking on the Web link and choosing "View... Source" provides the same source code listing as in the AI4U book.

The AI4U book is a publish-on-demand (POD) paperback from iUniverse.com, an outfit that fills a book-order by printing out and shipping a copy of a book.

BookCrossing.com is a website that enables you to leave copies of say, AI4U, lying around where interested parties may find the book, notice the BookCrossing label and use the identifying number to report where they have found the AI4U book and what they have done with it. All in all, BookCrossing is a way to get AI4U or other books into high-velocity circulation so as to spread the memes of public-domain artificial intelligence (as with AI4U) or of any subject matter important to you :-)

2001-11-18T07:15:00.000-08:00

The Artificial Intelligence Weblog is a source of news and links for open source projects in public domain artificial intelligence.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mind is a sample artificial intelligence coded initially in Forth for robots and in JavaScript for Web migration, evolving towards full civil rights on a par with human beings and towards superintelligence beyond any human IQ.