Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!im4u!rutgers!ames!ptsfa!ihnp4!twitch!homxb!houdi!marty1 From: marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: The symbol grounding problem Message-ID: <1206@houdi.UUCP> Date: Sat, 4-Jul-87 22:47:25 EDT Article-I.D.: houdi.1206 Posted: Sat Jul 4 22:47:25 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 5-Jul-87 06:36:35 EDT References: <764@mind.UUCP> <768@mind.UUCP> <770@mind.UUCP> <6174@diamond.BBN.COM> <605@gec-mi-at.co.uk> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel Lines: 51 Keywords: symbols, grounding, red, herring, blind Summary: A seeing-eye robot would need symbol grounding. Xref: mnetor comp.ai:626 comp.cog-eng:190 In article <605@gec-mi-at.co.uk>, adam@gec-mi-at.co.uk (Adam Quantrill) writes: > It seems to me that the Symbol Grounding problem is a red herring. As one who was drawn into a problem that is not my own, let me try answering that disinterestedly. To begin with, a "red herring" is something drawn across the trail that distracts the pursuer from the real goal. Would Adam tell us what his real goal is? Actually, my own real goal, from which I was distracted by the symbol grounding problem, was an expert system that would (like Adam's last example) ground its symbols only in terminal I/O. But that's a red herring in the symbol grounding problem. > ..... If I > took a partially self-learning program and data (P & D) that had learnt from a > computer with 'sense organs', and ran it on a computer without, would the > program's output become symbolically ungrounded? No, because the symbolic data was (were?) learned from sensory data to begin with - like a sighted person who became blind. > Similarily, if I myself wrote P & D without running it on a computer at all, > [and came] up with identical > P & D by analysis. Does that make the original P & D running on the com- > puter with 'sense organs' symbolically ungrounded? No, as long as the original program learned its symbolic data from its own sensory data, not by having them defined by a person in terms of his or her sensory data. > A computer can always interact via the keyboard & terminal screen, (if > those are the only 'sense organs'), grounding its internal symbols via people > who react to the output, and provide further stimulus. That's less challenging and less useful than true symbol grounding. One problem that requires symbol grounding (more useful and less ambitious than the Total Turing Test) is a seeing-eye robot: a machine with artificial vision that could guide a blind person by giving and taking verbal instructions. It might use a Braille keyboard instead of speech, but the "terminal I/O" must be "grounded" in visual data from, and constructive interaction with, the tangible world. The robot could learn words for its visual data by talking to people who could see, but it would still have to relate the verbal symbols to visual data, and give meaning to the symbols in terms of its ultimate goal (keeping the blind person out of trouble). M. B. Brilliant Marty AT&T-BL HO 3D-520 (201)-949-1858 Holmdel, NJ 07733 ihnp4!houdiem oh t.