by Walter Crismareanu
Are Robots the Answer to an Autonomous AI?
What do we consider intelligence and why can we do this?
It’s only been about a half-dozen years or so that anyone uttered the words robot and AI together, in the same sentence. Walter Crismareanu has been at it for many years now, so it’s an interesting pleasure to share his thoughts with our global readership. Thinking Along with Walter is one of those times. Hope you enjoy what he has to say as much as we have. —the Editors
The basic tools of thinking are logic, tested and debugged via imagination, and the evolution of structures from simple to complex. Principles are not ideology. High and low rest on each other. Fortuna audacet iubet —Walter Crismareanu
Walter Crismareanu is an IT expert with 40 years of international experience in Europe, Asia and the USA. He worked as senior developer, development manager, technical project leader, trainer, designer and IT architect.
He also wrote several papers and books about the new IT technology regarding machine-based logic. He is the founder and CEO of Tipalo GmbH, the Swiss company which develops the new technology. He speaks 5 languages and his main hobbies are ancient civilizations, philosophy and psychology.
“AI is still in its infancy, means it exists “only virtual” as software in some computer/cloud, but … once an AI has its own body, things will change very quickly.” —Walter Crismareanu
by Walter Crismareanu
Are robots the answer to an autonomous AI?
If we ask others, if a stone is intelligent, the answer will be NO, same answer when we look at a landscape or the sky above us. But the result could be YES, if we talk about the social life of honey bees or the result of a trained guide-dog, which leads its master.
As a 1st result, only “living things” can appreciate the intelligence of other “living things”, but only if they can express themselves with us. A kid is intelligent, but until it can talk to us, we do not know its opinion about how intelligent this child considers others around him.
As a 2nd result, only “living things” can be intelligent. Why? Because they all have something in common, namely a brain. Ergo, the brain is the location of every “living thing” = creature = biological organism with a brain as networks of neural nets.
As a 3rd result, we call the action of a living organism intelligent, if we can understand it, as the following: The organism has to make a decision in a difficult situation, while at the end the chosen possibility can be intelligent.
But in order to choose, it has to analyze the situation and predict the outcome of every variant, with its pros and cons. At the end, it will choose a variant, which we as a spectator, could understand and approve, or even learn new things.
Furthermore, the chosen variant should not have any repercussions, means no harm done to the own body. And the result should have a positive feedback, means after the action, the subject has to obtain some advantages, like getting the food or avoiding collision.
Another 4th result, is the need of a memory, which should be used, to store and retrieve new information into specialized areas of knowledge, like things about myself, things about external objects, etc. Only by comparing previous knowledge, we “know” what happened in our past.
And as a 5th result, every “sensor, actor and internal organ” should be integrated into our body as being connected to the brain as well as to the body framework, which implies there should be a “standard interface” to connect the body components with the brain.
But wait? Why is the brain so special? It is after all “only” an internal organ of a biological organism, which implies: The brain itself can NOT live outside the body, as it requires the connected body in order to perform its tasks.
Creating an AI should take the biological organism as a template for intelligence, both body and brain. Why? The brain needs the sensors to perceive the world and actors to perform some action, like locomotion, etc.
But an AI should be autonomous, this is the reason why, it needs internal organs, which contain its needs. There are physical needs, like food (=energy for AI) and mental needs, like social integration in a society.
So, the notion of intelligence is to create a “living thing”, based on the biological template. How can we achieve this? By merging robotics with AI and a little “biological logic”. General-Purpose AI: A Digital Bio-Brain with an Artificial Nervous System
Companies use the term AI, even if in fact they use statistical methods to create large databases. AI means Artificial Intelligence, but until today, there is no definition of what intelligence even is, biological or other. We urgently need to reassess the logic of biological functions in the brain, in order to translate them into corresponding technological products. If human intelligence can be digitally reproduced, then intelligence should be portable in both ways, from human to AI and back. First understand the basic principles, afterwards develop a corresponding theory about biological intelligence, at the end create a new technology, from inception to production, overcoming many obstacles