pmpj0811

AGI Roadmap: Thinking with Prepositions

In the ghost309.pl AI we have introduced a new group of transfer-variables designated as $px1 and $px2 and $px3 so that the EnNounPhrase() module may detect linkage from a candidate-noun to a preposition and inspect immediately the flag-panel of the indicated preposition in order to latch onto $px1 as the conceptual time-point of the object of the preposition. Then in the EnPrep() English-preposition module we plan to use the briefly immutable $px1 time-point value to fetch the object of the preposition from memory and speak it as part of an idea being recalled from memory. We were trying to use other variables for the same purpose but they were not immutable; they were loaded with transient values during the though-process of the ghost.pl AGI. So now let us go back into EnPrep() and code the fetching of the direct object of the preposition. We did so, and it worked the first time. We had the following conversation with the ghost.pl AGI Mind.

Human: john writes books for money
Ghost: THE STUDENTS READ THE BOOKS

Human:
Ghost: I AM AN ANDRU

Human: what does john write
Ghost: THE JOHN WRITES THE BOOKS FOR THE MONEY.

We should explain that the ghost.pl AGI knows only that "students read books", not John's books in particular. Mentioning books to the AGI causes it to recall its knowledge that "students read books". When we query the AGI with the input of "what does john write", the SpreadAct() spreading-activation module inhibits the interrogative prounoun "what" while activating the concepts of "john" and "write". The response embedded in conceptual memory includes the linkage from the concept of "books" to the prepositional phrase "for money". The EnArticle() module for the English articles "a" and "the" inserts articles somewhat haphazardly within the output of the ghost.pl AGI.

The new AI functionality of a machine intelligence thinking and conversing with prepositional phrases became possible when we recently expanded the conceptual flag-panel from fifteen associative tags to twenty-one associative tags, including new flags for the control of noun-declensions in Latin or Russian and for thinking with such parts of speech as adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions. As we build up the ability to think with these linguistic components, each mid-AGI Mind becomes capable of more and more complex or complicated thought. As we make progress on the AGI RoadMap towards Artificial General Intelligence, we approach a point where Darwinian survival of the fittest comes into play, because among multiple enterprises working on AGI, some will go down the right path and some will enter roads where all hope must be abandoned.

pmpj0912

Ask the first working artificial intelligence what it thinks.

Houston, we have a problem. The ghost.pl AI Mind in freely available -- download it now -- Strawberry Perl Five -- is not properly answering the question of "what do you think". The JSAI (JavaScript Artificial Intelligence) easily answers the same question with "I THINK THAT I HELP KIDS". So what is the Perl AI doing wrong that the JavaScript AI is doing right?

The problem seems to lie in the SpreadAct() module. We notice one potential problem right away. SpreadAct() in Perl is still using "$t-12" as a rough approximation for when to start a backwards search for previous knowledge about the subject-noun $qv1psi of a what-query, whereas the JSAI uses the more exact $tpu for the same search. So let us start using the penultimate time $tpu, which excludes the current-most input, and see if there is any improvement. There is no improvement, so we test further for both $qvipsi and $qv2psi, which are the subject-noun and the associated verb conveyed in the what-query.

SpreadAct() easily responds correctly to what-queries for which there is an answer ready in the knowledge base (KB), such as "I AM A PERSON" in response to "what are you". However, when we ask "what think you" or "what do you think", there is no pre-set answer, and the AI is supposed to generate a response starting with "I THINK" followed by the conjunction "that" and a statement of whatever the AI Mind is currently thinking.

From diagnostic messages we learn that program-flow is not quickly transiting from SpreadAct() to EnThink(). The AI must be searching through the entire MindBoot() sequence and not finding any matches. When the program-flow does indeed pass through EnThink() to Indicative() to EnNounPhrase(), there are no pre-set subjects or verbs, but rather there are concepts highly activated by the SpreadAct() module. So EnNounPhrase() must find the highly activated pronoun 701=I in order to start the sentence "I THINK..." in response to "what do you think".

Now we discover that the JavaScript version of EnNounPhrase() has special code for a topical response to "what-think" queries. In the course of AI evolution, it may be time now to go beyond such a hard-coded response and instead to let the activated "think" concept play its unsteered, unpredetermined role, which will happen not in EnNounPhrase() but in EnVerbPhrase().

It is possible that EnNounPhrase() finds the activated subject 701=I but then unwarrantedly calls the SpreadAct() module. However, it turns out that EnVerbPhrase() is making the unwarranted call to the SpreadAct() module, which we now prevent by letting it proceed only if there is no what-query being processed as evidenced by a $whatcon flag set to zero.

The early part of EnVerbPhrase() in the JavaScript AI has some special code for dealing with "what-think" queries. In the ghost.pl AI, let us try to insert some similar code but without it being geared specifically to the verb "think". We would like to enable responses to any generic verb of having an idea, such as "think" or "know" or "fear" or "imagine" or "suspect" and so forth.

By bringing some code from the JavaScript EnVerbPhrase() into the Perl EnVerbPhrase, but with slight changes in favor of generality, we get the ghost.pl AI to respond "I THINK". Next we need to generate the conjunction "that". But first let us remark that the AI also says "I KNOW" when we ask it "what do you know", so the attempt at generality is paying off. Let us try "what do you suspect". It even says "I SUSPECT". It also works with "what do you fear". We ask it "what do you suppose" and it answers "I SUPPOSE".

We still have a problem, Houston, because EnVerbPhrase() is calling EnNounPhrase() for a direct object instead of returning to Indicative() as a prelude to calling the ConJoin() module to say "I THINK THAT...." We set up some conditional testing to end that problem.

mfpj0907

Updating the EnArticle module for inserting English articles.

Today we update the EnArticle module for English articles in the MindForth first working artificial intelligence. We previously did the update somewhat unsatisfactorily in the ghost.pl AI in Perl, and then much more successfully in the tutorial JavaScript AI. We anticipate no problems in the MindForth update. As an initial test, we enter "you have a book" and after much unrelated thinking, the AI outputs "I HAVE BOOK" without inserting an article.

We trigger an inference by entering "anna is woman". In broken English, the AskUser module responds, "DO ANNA HAS THE CHILD", which lets us see that EnArticle has been called. We reply "no". MindForth opines, "ANNA DOES NOT HAVE CHILD".

We discover that the EnNounPhrase module of recent versions has not been calling the EnArticle module, so we correct that situation. We also notice that the input of a noun and its transit through InStantiate do not involve a call to EnArticle, so we insert into InStantiate some code to make EnArticle aware of the noun being encountered.

jmpj0906

Improving EnArticle mind-module in first working artificial intelligence

The JavaScript artificial intelligence (JSAI) is not reliably transferring the usx values from InStantiate() to the EnArticle() module for inserting an English article into a thought, so we must debug the first working artificial intelligence in troubleshooting mode. We quickly see that the EnNounPhrase() module is calling EnArticle() for direct objects but not for all nouns in general. We also notice that we need to have EnNounPhrase() transfer the usx value.

We encounter and fix some other problems where the nphrnum value is not being set, as required for EnArticle() to decide between using "a" or "the".

Although we get the usx value to be transferred to the us1 value, we need a way to test usx not against a simultaneous value of us1 but rather against a recent value of us1. One solution may be to delay the transfer of usx by first testing in the EnArticle() module for equality between usx and us1 before we actually pass the noun-concept value of usx to us1. In that way, we will be testing usx against old, i.e., recent, values of the us1- us7 variables and not against the current value, which would automatically be equal. Then after the test for equality, we pass the actual, current value of usx.

We now have a JavaScript AI that works even better than the ghost.pl AI in Perl -- until we update the Perl AI. The JSAI now uses "a" or "the" rather sensibly, except when it now says "YOU ARE A MAGIC", because the default article for a non-plural noun is the indefinite article "a". Btw (by the way), today at a Starbucks store in Seattle WA USA we bought a green Starbucks gift card that says "You'Re MagicAL", because it reminds us of a similar idea in the AI MindBoot() sequence.

jmpj0605

Mentifex re-organizes the Strong AI SpreadAct() module.

In the 5jun18A.html JavaScript AI Mind we would like to re-organize the SpreadAct() mind-module for spreading activation. It should have special cases at the top and default normal operation at the bottom. The special cases include responding to what-queries and what-think queries, such as "what do you think". Whereas JavaScript lets you escape from a loop with the "break" statement, JavaScript also lets you escape from a subroutine or mind-module with the "return" statement that causes program-flow to abandon the rest of the mind-module code and return to the supervenient module. So in SpreadAct() we may put the special-test cases at the top and with the inclusion of a "return" statement so that program-flow will execute the special test and then return immediately to the calling module without executing the rest of SpreadAct().

When we run the JSAI without input, we notice that at first a chain of thought ensues based solely on conceptual activations and without making use of the SpreadAct() module. The AI says, "I HELP KIDS" and then "KIDS MAKE ROBOTS" and "ROBOTS NEED ME". As AI Mind maintainers we would like to make sure that SpreadAct() gets called to maintain chains of thought, not only so that the AI keeps on thinking but also so that the maturing AI Mind will gradually become able to follow chains of thought in all available directions, not just from direct objects to related ideas but also backwards from direct objects to related subjects or from verbs to related subjects and objects.

In the EnNounPhrase() module we insert a line of code to turn each direct object into an actpsior concept-to-be-activated in the default operation at the bottom of the SpreadAct() module. We observe that the artificial Mind begins to follow associative chains of thought much more reliably than before, when only haphazard activation was operating. In the special test-cases of the SpreadAct() module we insert the "return" statement in order to perform only the special case and to skip the treatment of a direct object as a point of departure into a chain of thought. Then we observe something strange when we ask the AI "what do you think", after the initial output of "I HELP KIDS". The AI responds to our query with "I THINK THAT KIDS MAKE ROBOTS", which is the idea engendered by the initial thought of "I HELP KIDS" where "KIDS" as a direct object becomes the actpsi going into SpreadAct(). So the beastie really is telling us what is currently on its mind, whereas previously it would answer, "I THINK THAT I AM A PERSON". When we delay entering our question a little, the AI responds "I THINK THAT ROBOTS NEED ME".

jmpj0525

Preventing wrong grammatical number for a predicate nominative.

In the 25may18A.html version of the JavaScript AI Mind we wish to correct a problem where the AI erroneously says "I AM A ROBOTS". The wrong grammatical number for "ROBOT" results when the AI software is searching backwards through time for the concept of "ROBOT" and finds an engram in the plural number. We hope to fix the problem by requiring that the EnVerbPhrase() module, before fetching the predicate nominative of an intransitive verb of being, shall set the "REQuired NUMber" numreq variable to the same value as the number of the subject of the be-verb, so that the EnNounPhrase() module may find the right concept for the predicate nominative and then also find (or create) the English word of the concept with the proper inflectional ending for the required number. Since the numreq value shall be of service during one pass through the EnNounPhrase() module, we may safely zero out the numreq value at the end of EnNounPhrase().

pmpj0831

Moving towards a Mind-in-a-Box

Recap: Since 2017-06-19 and the ghost209.pl Perlmind version, the ghost.pl artificial intelligence (AI) begins thinking initially in Russian and then in English after any non-Cyrillic input, so as to demonstrate to all users that the Russian mindset is built into the AI. Once a user with no Cyrillic keyboard causes the AI to switch its thinking away from Russian and into English, it is difficult to see any thinking in Russian again. Russian remains important for us in our development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) because we need both English and Russian to demonstrate our work on Machine Translation by Artificial Intelligence. We encourage Russian-language AI enthusiasts to experiment with the Russian-thinking ghost.pl and to develop the Perl AI codebase further along multiple branches of AI evolution. We have some evidence that the Russian-language AI community is waking up to the emergence of ghost.pl Strong AI from a recent perusal of the "Stats" (statistics) here on the Cyborg weblog. We see that about one third of our hundreds of weekly visitors are coming from Russia without a referring website. We vouchsafe to assume that news of an AI that thinks in Russian "out of the box" may have gone viral in Russian-speaking countries over the past ten weeks and may have caused the recent uptick in visits from Russia with love for Russian AI. Now we wish to improve the ghost.pl AI under a new rubric -- Mind-in-a-Box. Since we do not (yet :-) have a robot for enlarging the AI Mind into a sensorimotor being, our ghost.pl AI remains trapped inside a server or a host computer as a Mind trapped in a box, able to communicate with other minds and perhaps able to flit across the Web in metempsychosis but not yet able to go forth and multiply across the Earth as robotic beings. Still, the idea of an AI Mind-in-a-Box, which we broached in the Neuroscience SubReddit on 2017-07-28, may appeal not only to Russian AI enthusiasts but also and with Pavlovian salivation to AI tinkerers in general. Let the Meme go viral that Mentifex invites any Perl shop to install an immortal, proto-conscious, polyglot AI within the motherboard confines of the humblest DOS-machine or the grandest supercomputer.

As we release the Mind-in-a-Box ghost.pl code, let us stub in the EnArticle() module for the English articles "a" and the". After we enter one or more Roman characters to switch the AI from Russian thought to English thought, it is unsettling to see the Ghost AI assert, "I AM PERSON". The EnNounPhrase() module needs to call EnArticle() so that the boxmind may say whether it is "a person" or "the person". We place the module for English articles subsequent to the Speech() module in accordance with the governing lay-out of the MindForth AI, because location of a subroutine matters in Forth but not in Perl. We use the $unk variable to preserve the value of $aud during any call from EnNounPhrase() to EnArticle().