This post attempts to separate a certain phenomenon from a certain very common model that we use to understand that phenomenon. The model is the “agent model” in which intelligent systems operate according to an unchanging algorithm. In order to make sense of their being an unchanging algorithm at the heart of each “agent”, we suppose that this algorithm exchanges inputs and outputs with the environment via communication channels known as “observations” and “actions”.
This post really is my central critique of contemporary artificial intelligence discourse. That critique is: any unexamined views that we use to understand ourselves are likely to enter the design of AI systems that we build. This is because if we think that deep down we really are “agents”, then we naturally conclude that any similar intelligent entity would have that same basic nature. In this way we take what was once an approximate description (“humans are somewhat roughly like agents in certain cases”) and make it a reality (by building AI systems that actually are designed as agents, and which take over the world).
In fact the agent model is a very effective abstraction. It is precisely because it so effective that we have forgotten the distinction between the model and the reality. It is as if we had so much success in modelling our refrigerator as an ideal heat pump that we forgot that there even is a distinction between real-world refrigerators and the abstraction of an ideal heat pump.
I have the sense that a great deal of follow-up work is needed on this idea. I would like to write detailed critiques of many of the popular approaches to AI design, exploring ways in which over-use of the agent model is a stumbling block for those approaches. I would also like to explore the notion of goals and beliefs in a similar light to this post: what exactly is the model we’re using when we talk about goals and beliefs, and what is the phenomenon we’re trying to explain with those models?
This post attempts to separate a certain phenomenon from a certain very common model that we use to understand that phenomenon. The model is the “agent model” in which intelligent systems operate according to an unchanging algorithm. In order to make sense of their being an unchanging algorithm at the heart of each “agent”, we suppose that this algorithm exchanges inputs and outputs with the environment via communication channels known as “observations” and “actions”.
This post really is my central critique of contemporary artificial intelligence discourse. That critique is: any unexamined views that we use to understand ourselves are likely to enter the design of AI systems that we build. This is because if we think that deep down we really are “agents”, then we naturally conclude that any similar intelligent entity would have that same basic nature. In this way we take what was once an approximate description (“humans are somewhat roughly like agents in certain cases”) and make it a reality (by building AI systems that actually are designed as agents, and which take over the world).
In fact the agent model is a very effective abstraction. It is precisely because it so effective that we have forgotten the distinction between the model and the reality. It is as if we had so much success in modelling our refrigerator as an ideal heat pump that we forgot that there even is a distinction between real-world refrigerators and the abstraction of an ideal heat pump.
I have the sense that a great deal of follow-up work is needed on this idea. I would like to write detailed critiques of many of the popular approaches to AI design, exploring ways in which over-use of the agent model is a stumbling block for those approaches. I would also like to explore the notion of goals and beliefs in a similar light to this post: what exactly is the model we’re using when we talk about goals and beliefs, and what is the phenomenon we’re trying to explain with those models?