Discussion of Human-Like Cognitive Architecture Diagrams

104 5 A Generic Architecture of Human-Like Cognition left as implicit emergent phenomena. For instance, creativity is obviously very important to intelligence, but, there is no "creativity" box in any of these diagrams — because in our view, and the view of the cognitive theorists whose work we’ve directly drawn on here, creativity is best viewed as a process emergent from other processes that are explicitly included in the diagrams. 5.4 Interpretation and Application of the Integrative Diagram A tongue-partly-in-cheek definition of a biological pathway is "a subnetwork of a biological network, that fits on a single journal page." Cognitive architecture diagrams have a similar property — they are crude abstractions of complex structures and dynamics, sculpted in ac- cordance with the size of the printed page, and the tolerance of the human eye for absorbing diagrams, and the tolerance of the human author for making diagrams. However, sometimes constraints — even arbitrary ones — are useful for guiding creative ef- forts, due to the fact that they force choices. Creating an architecture for human-like general intelligence that fits in a few (okay, seven) fairly compact diagrams, requires one to make many choices about what features and relationships are most essential. In constructing the integrative diagram, we have sought to make these choices, not purely according to our own tastes in cog- nitive theory or AGI system design, but according to a sort of blend of the taste and judgment of a number of scientists whose views we respect, and who seem to have fairly compatible, complementary perspectives. What is the use of a cognitive architecture diagram like this? It can help to give newcomers to the field a basic idea about what is known and suspected about the nature of human-like general intelligence. Also, it could potentially be used as a tool for cross-correlating different AGI architectures. If everyone who authored an AGI architecture would explain how their archi- tecture accounts for each of the structures and processes identified in the integrative diagram, this would give a means of relating the various AGI designs to each other. The integrative diagram could also be used to help connect AGI and cognitive psychology to neuroscience in a more systematic way. In the case of LIDA, a fairly careful correspondence has been drawn up between the LIDA diagram nodes and links and various neural structures and processes [F B08]. Similar knowledge exists for the rest of the integrative diagram, though not organized in such a systematic fashion. A systematic curation of links between the nodes and links in the integrative diagram and current neuroscience knowledge, would constitute an interesting first approximation of the holistic cognitive behavior of the human brain. Finally (and harking forward to later chapters), the big omission in the integrative diagram is dynamics. Structure alone will only get you so far, and you could build an AGI system with reasonable-looking things in each of the integrative diagram’s boxes, interrelating according to the given arrows, and yet still fail to make a viable AGI system. Given the limitations the real world places on computing resources, it’s not enough to have adequate representations and algorithms in all the boxes, communicating together properly and capable doing the right things given sufficient resources. Rather, one needs to have all the boxes filled in properly with structures and processes that, when they act together using feasible computing resources, will yield appropriately intelligent behaviors via their cooperative activity. And this has to do with the complex interactive dynamics of all the processes in all the different boxes — which is HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013020