Speculations
on Language and Intelligence - by Dr. D. Dennett
Visit the
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and investigate the different behaviors
of their small mobile robots. These simple systems are capable of seemingly very
"complex" actions. How much cognitive equipment is really necessary for the
animal behavior we observe?
Animated
vehicles. In his wonderful little book
Vehicles:
Experiments in Synthetic Psychology, V. Braitenberg describes a series of thought
experiments in which ``vehicles'' with very simple internal structures behave in unexpectedly
complex ways. He describes simple control mechanisms that generate behaviors that, if we
did not already know
the principles behind the vehicles' operation, we might call
aggression, love, foresight and even optimism. Braitenberg gives this as evidence for the
`law of uphill analysis and downhill invention,'' meaning that it is much more difficult
to try to guess internal structure just from the observation of behavior than it is to
create the structure that gives the behavior.
Learn
more about working humanoid robots.
What does it take to
model a complex animal like human being? More downhill invention.
Semi-Intelligent Life on other
planets - Rovers explore Mars
on their own. The practical
application of recent animal and machine intelligence research.