Artificial Intelligence Course 2009

São José dos Campos, SP, April 09, 2009

Homework 00`

BRAINSTORM ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Fagundes, Luciano
Avaya Inc/ INPE
lfagundes@avaya.com / luciano_fagundes@yahoo.com

I. INTRODUCTION of expertise. On this cycle, it is possible to find a few

Over the last three weeks, the AI classes went from
classical to modern. The skeptical people got even more
skeptical and the romantic people got even more excited.
Based on History, AI has been a continuous cycle of
frustrations where Objectives and Expectation have been
continuously frustrated by reality. Neural networks have
been made out of geniality sparks, frustrated by one man's
opinion (Minsk) and raised from the dashes to keep
fighting an endless war. Not much seems to be written on
stone about AI, however, there are a few facts to come:
Current AI systems seems to be on one of two categories:
1) Play a magician role where computers try fooling a
human being (Turing Test); or 2) Computers are used to
classify input and generate outputs (what could be
considered intelligent because it is similar to some of the
human behaviors). Neither of those categories seems to be
on the original AI direction. The number one goal should
be “Build a thinking machine”.
success stories. However, the complexity around
accumulating and organizing the set of rules to enable the
expert systems ended-up causing another wave of
frustration to scientists.
The Present moment of AI has been marked by the
Neural Networks and their integration with the previous
methods and techniques.
When mathematicians brought to life the concept of an
artificial Neurone, the possibilities around those models
seemed end-less. A simple description of a Neuron can be
seen next.

A rough time-line for AI could be drawn starting with

Alan Turing. That was possibly the first time a person
recognized the possibility of inserting intelligence into a
machine as we know. The basic idea behind the Turing test
would be verifying experimentally if a computer brain
could mislead a human in such a way that the human
subject would not be able to distinguish if he/she was
communicating to another human or a machine. This idea
has defined the first reported method on how to qualify if a
machine could be considered intelligent or not. This
method is not unanimously accepted but it is considered
the mark that starts the AI field.
Figure 1: Artificial Neurone Model
As time goes by, the classical age of AI had the
objective of building an artificial intelligence being that On Figure 1, the artificial neuron is composed by three
would be able to interact and mimic the totality of the main parts. Dendrites, that collects input signals; a
human behavior and rational. No need to say that they got Summating and Activation function as the body; and
into a dead-lock; Since Humans are building the machines Outputs sent via the Axon. Since this is not a biology
and Humans themselves have absolutely no idea on how paper, here is what happens from the computational
their intellectual processes work, they have not been able perspective: Building a Neural Networks is, from a 20.000
to reproduced them in a computer. Getting a little closer to feet perspective, a really clever way to design a
the AI modern Age, researchers have narrowed down their mathematical function. Each of the Dendrites has an
scope. This later cycle brought to live the expert systems. associated input and a weight factor. In order to agglutinate
On this attempt, scientists were using computer to mimic the received information, the body runs a balanced
human experts solving specialized problems on their field

summation of its inputs. The input "importance" is
weighted on the equation by the factor associated to its
entry Dendrite. This way, it does not matter how many
inputs there are; the activation function will aways have a
single value as its input. The activation function could be
considered the "cell activity". The activation function is
influenced by the inputs on each synaptic and also by a
threshold value. In case the output of the activation
function reaches at least the threshold, the result of the
activation function is the outputted to the Axon and to the
next neurones connected to it.
The neurone itself is a model, the clever part is how it
can be trained to generate the required results. Assuming
that there is a set of inputs and outputs (from now on called
the "training kit”), the training of a neural networks
consists of entering input values into the network and
evaluating its outputs. If the neurone cannot match a
particular output to its input, the balance factors of the
Dendrites are adjusted until the proper combination is
found. If the network can properly match the all inputs and
outputs from the training kit, the network is considered
trained and is capable of using its "intelligence" to solve
the proposed problem. This way, a mathematical function
that matches the desired inputs and outputs has been
created. A special feature that come built-in on the neural
networks is that, after trained, just like any mathematical
function, it can extrapolate that knowledge to guess
intermediary values for inputs that were not part of the
original training kit.
Assuming that several of the Human behaviors are not
much more than action and responses (I'm hungry -> I have
to eat, I feel pain --> I have to protect myself, etc), Neural
networks have found a good fit on that area. Of course that
the Human Being, at first sight, seems to be a lot more than
just action and response. In this team opinion, the neural
network could be seen as a good step on the right direction.
I.A. Field Research
On a few exercises with on-line personalities (www.a-
i.com), it is possible to dream with a real artificial
intelligence being made. However, with a little deeper
analysis and the right questions, it is also possible to
realize that they are still just a dream.
As good as the knowledge base of such systems are,
they cannot provide context and temporal consciousness
yet. If one asks Hall about a TV show, it will promptly tell
that it loves "Seinfeld". It can tells you a lot about each
character and about his favorite, George. However, it gets
completely lost when it is asked about the last week show.
May be, this is just a matter of expanding the knowledge
base, may be not. By now, they are not more than a clever
magic trick.
Artificial Intelligence Course 2009
São José dos Campos, SP, April 09, 2009
Homework 00`
I consider myself part of the Classical thinkers of the
Artificial Intelligence. If there is a real challenge still to be
accomplished on the Artificial Intelligence, it is the
creation of a truly artificial being. This my not be
accomplished in my life time, however, this would be the
target for my research. On the next session, since this is not
a pure scientific paper (and I do not have a scientific
agenda on this area yet), I will describe the result of a
brainstorm of opinions and possibilities that could
contribute with a few more steps on the direction of
creating a truly smart computer.
II. COMPUTER FEELINGS
I still have no idea why, but Neural Networks sound
just right to me. As limited as they may be today, I do not
think that they are limited because of any internal reasons.
They seem limited because the way they have been used.
As great classifiers, their initial role should be of
composing computer sensors. Everything from vision,
tactile, hearing could take great advantage of the natural
Neural Networks capabilities.
Just like the neurone model, a single specialized
network is nothing without a proper training algorithm. On
the case of enabling a computer to think, feelings and
purpose seems to be required as the driving force behind
the scenes.
Evaluating the Human beings, it is possible to realize
that everybody is born without a purpose. When a new
baby is born, there is absolutely no clue on why he/she was
born and what his/her future will look like. Based on
external inputs, Humans are driven to find what they like
most and what they believe to be their purposes. There is
going to be a balance between the boy who has become a
doctor just because his father wanted (born with a pre-
conceived purpose) and the other boy who has become a
suicide just because he was old enough and still could not
find his purpose. Both behaviors might indicate extremes,
but the bottom line is that Humans may get just as lost as
computers if they can't find their purpose. The main
difference here is that Humans' "firmware" is designed to
make sure that Humans do not give up and keep looking
until a purpose is found.
Moving away from philosophy ground, a "clean" brain
could be compared to a neural network with specialized
areas for all sensors and memory. As describe before, the
single algorithm to be hard-coded would be one that
enables the network to look for its purpose. However, there
is a key part of this concept that is missing. Sane people do
not drive their actions only by external inputs. They use
their feelings (just like me saying that Neural Networks
sound good without knowing why) in order to validate

their actions. In this case, feelings need to be part of the
system.
Reviewing the Human feeling, they are abstract by
definition. In this case, they can be analyzed only by their
side-effects. In general, they allow people to do things that
they would not do normally. For example, a regular boy
whose main exercise is playing IPhone games on his coach
would run like crazy if he had to run away from a mad dog
on a city park. A regular guy plays a foolish role by singing
on his girlfriend's front-window just because he is in-love,
etc.
By abstracting those effects, one could propose that
feelings are internal driven actions that overrule or mislead
our common sense in order to allow humans to reach their
purposes.
Let's take a look on a small set of feelings and how
they could be represented:
Figure2 – Feeling Representation
In Figure 2, feelings overlaps with each other. The
Excited state might even bring all other states to their
balance levels in case it goes very high. In this case, the
computer firmware would be designed to train the neural
network to make sure that those "feelings" are kept as long
as possible on the balanced state.
At this point, the emotion qualifiers have been set. It is
time to enable the computer to trigger them. The initial
state of the neural network would be composed by totally
random combination of artificial neurones (or shaped by
the species evolutionary path in order to build a common
sense). A specific area could be called "talent" area. That
area would be hard-wired to the feeling counters and it
would allow minimum variation, even during training
activities. It means that outputs generated on the talent area
would have immediate effect on the feeling counters. For
example, the Hungry counter could be associated to a
sensor monitoring the computer battery level. However, if
the computer finds something that it "Likes" or that makes
it "Excited", the lack of battery would not be realized until
Artificial Intelligence Course 2009
São José dos Campos, SP, April 09, 2009
Homework 00`
it leaves the “Excitement” or “Happy” state. It would be
similar to people who spend an entire night up on a party
without realizing how tired they are going to be on the next
morning. Crazy, but reasonable.
The diversity among these artificial beings would be
dependent on the topology of the "talent" area. The talent
area would be an area with minimum supervision. In fact,
the learning process would barely have a place there.
Computers would be born with the talent just like Humans
are. From an anonymous source, I heard that a Human can
become an expert in any area; however, if he/she tryes
becoming an expert on its talent Area, he/she will certainly
become a genius. With the proposed organization, this
statement would also be true for artificial beings.
The secondary purpose of those new beings would be
getting as much information as possible in order to be
helpful to their society (do what your father tells you to
do). The primary purpose would be making sure that the
basic feelings are also satisfied (follow your feelings). The
common sense would be balancing the society needs (do
not hurt anyone...) and the internal needs (...just because it
pleases you). The talent area would be responsible by
enabling the systems to "like" special subjects. By having
their "body" functions enhanced by the talent areas, their
firmware would drive their actions to do/learn more of
whatever it is causing those feelings. This way, just like
Humans, neural networks would be able to learn anything,
however, whenever the talent area gets excited, it would be
able to learn and do things that it was not designed to.
II. FINAL COMMENTS
As science fiction as it might sound, it makes sense.
There is no intention here to state that this is the right or
wrong way to evolve the AI area, neither it is just a crazy
thought that, hopefully, nobody will care to read it. As
previously stated, this is supposed to be a brainstorm
exercise on how a smart brain could be designed.
Hopefully this paper has been able to reach some kid,
born in 10 or 15 years from now and enable them with
their technology to move one more step closer to the truly
Artificial Intelligent beings.