The on-line Free AI4U++ Textbook est omnis divisa in partes tres:
original AI4U pages that were online 2002-2008;
webpages of updates of AI4U chapters;
Wikipedia articles as chapter-extensions.
The Free AI Textbook makes it possible for any school
anywhere on planet Earth to teach artificial intelligence (AI)
to ambitious students regardless of their level of economic wealth.
Students of artificial intelligence may use AI4U++
either to build artificial AI minds from scratch or to
modify/embody a preexisting AI Mind in a robot.
Rationale: Evo Recap
The task of porting an artificial robot mind such as
Mind.Forth
from
Win32Forth into another programming language is too difficult
to perform all at once in one fell swoop. The intricate functionality of
the AI Mind would be simultaneously and hopelessly broken in too many
places for any hope of restoring order by a normal debugging process.
Therefore let us not so much code an
AI Mind as evolve an
AI Mind.
What Nature achieved in the evolution of mind over billions of years,
let us try to recapitulate in a matter of days -- then we will rest.
First code either a loop or a simple program-structure, analogous
to a one-celled animal at the start of eons of evolution.
1. Code the Main
Alife Program Loop of
AI4U Chapter 1(2002):1-9.
Code the Alife loop shown above in your chosen programming language.
Use either an actual loop with subroutine calls, or make a ringlet
of perhaps object-oriented module stubs, each calling the next stub.
Provide the ESCAPE key or other mechanisms for the user to stop the AI.
Spread your code around the Web and invite AI coders to expand on it.
Watch for a proliferation of unique AI Mind entities evolving rapidly
on the Web and competing genetically for the survival of the fittest.
2. Code the
Sensorium module of
AI4U Chapter 23(2002):99-103.
Start a subroutine or module that is able to sense something
coming in from the outside world, i.e., a key-press on the keyboard.
First code recognition of the Escape-key (ASCII 27).
Next code recognition of the Tab-key (ASCII 9).
Then code recognition of the Enter-key (ASCII 13).
Take the ESCAPE-key handler or other mechanism of stopping the
AI out of the main Alife loop and transfer it to the Sensorium stub.
Keep in mind that you must keep a quit-mechanism in the Mind.
Flesh out the Sensorium stub into a working mind-module that
calls its own stubs, such as
Audition,
Vision,
Touch,
Gustation
and
Olfaction. Test the embryonic robot mind by demonstrating
that the main Alife loop either waits briefly for Sensorium input
during each cycle, or generates an event-driven response to
input detected by a Sensorium module. The proper response will
be to keep cycling upon normal input or to terminate execution
upon halt [ESCAPE] input. Share your code on the Web.
Now you have two modules, a main aLife module and a subordinate,
Sensorium module. But what should come next in evolution?
Now we need a reaction module, so that the organism may react
to its environment. Let's call the reaction-module "Think".
3. Stub in the
Think module of
AI4U Chapter 6(2002):29-34.
Now, of course, the simple organism is not truly thinking yet,
but we have stubbed in the Think module and we need to show it.
In a
Tutorial mode to be selected by pressing the Tab-key,
present a simple message to the effect that
Think has been called.
You should now be able to run your AI program, watch it wait (briefly)
for keyboard input ending with a press of the Enter key, and see
a message (in Tab-selected tutorial mode) that Think has been called.
You have a partly functional AI program, but it has not yet quickened,
that is, it has not yet begun to think as a mind. But it should run
indefinitely (until you press the Escape key to terminate it), looping
forever through the brief wait for human entry either during the action
of the Sensorium module, or upon the event-driven recognition of a key-press.
If you do not have this organic functionality, your organism is not viable,
and you must go back and reengineer your stem cells, as it were, of AI.
With the proper looping functionality, you now have a stimulus-response
organism. There is no knowledge being accumulated, because the animal
has no memory. Therefore our next step is to create an Audition module
that will feed into auditory short term memory (audSTM).
4. Initiate the
Audition module of
AI4U Chapter 24(2002):104-107.
Drop the [ESCAPE] mechanism down by one tier, into the Audition
module, but do not eliminate or bypass the quite essential
Sensorium module, because another programmer may wish to specialize
in implementing some elaborate sensory modality among your
Sensorium stubs. Code the Audition module initially to deal
with ASCII keyboard input. If you are an expert at speech
recognition, extrapolate backwards from the storage requirements
(space and format) of the acoustic input of real phonemes in
your Audition system, so that the emerging robot Mind may be
ready in advance for the switch from hearing by keyboard to
hearing by microphone or artificial ear. Anticipate evolution.
5. The
Listen module of
AI4U Chapter 25(2002):108-111.
Stub in a new module and call it the Listen module.
Have the Audition module call the Listen module as a
separation of the state of readiness to hear, or listening,
from the actual act of hearing, or audition. By having
separate Listen and Audition modules that distinguish the two
functions, you could have an AI Mind that listened throughout
an entire building, or the Pacific Ocean, or a SETI galaxy.
6.
Auditory Short Term Memory (audSTM) in
AI4U Chapter 26(2002):112-118.
Create an array for the sequential capture and retrieval of each
discrete unit of auditory input, be it an ASCII key-press or a
phoneme of acoustic sound. Plan and coordinate your engram array
to simulate any required feature of a neuronal memory synapse --
spiking connectivity, rapid excitation and gradual signal-decay, etc.
Do not mimic what everybody else in avant-garde AI is doing, but
rather fling your own line of AI evolution out onto the Web and
nearby parsecs with the most advanced I/O that you can devise.
7. The
Motorium module in
AI4U Chapter 4(2002):20-23.
As soon as you have sensory memory for audition,
it is imperative to include motor memory for action.
The polarity of robot-to-world is about to become a
circularity of robot - motorium - world - sensorium - robot.
If you have been making robots longer than you have been
making minds, you now need to engrammatize whatever
motor software routines you may have written for your
particular automaton. You must decouple your legacy
motor output software from whatever mindless stimuli
were controlling the robot and you must now associate
each motor output routine with memory engram nodes
accreting over time onto a lifelong motor memory channel
for your mentally awakening robot. If you have not been
making robots, implement some simple motor output
function like emitting sounds or moving in four directions
across a real or virtual world.
8. Stub in the
Volition module of
AI4U Chapter 5(2002):24-28.
In your robot software, de-link any direct connection
that you have hardcoded between a sensory stimulus
and a motor initiative. Force motor execution commands
to transit through your stubbed-in Volition module, so that
future versions of your thought-bot will afford at least the
option of incorporating a sophisticated algorithm for free
will in robots. If you have no robot and you are building
a critter of pure reason, nevertheless include a Volition
stub for the sake of AI-Complete design patterns.
9. The
Security module of
AI4U Chapter 2(2002):10-14.
The Security module is not a natural component of the mind,
but rather a machine equivalent of the immune system in
a human body. When we have advanced AI robots running
factories to fabricate even more advanced AI robots,
let not the complaint arise that nobody bothered to
build in any security precautions. Do it now.
10.
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) module of
AI4U Chapter 3(2002):15-19.
The HCI module, called by Security, is likewise not a natural
component of the mind, but rather a requirement of robot
hardware and AI software. Security and HCI work together
to prevent dangerous inputs and dangerous outputs. We don't
want intruders taking over the AI, and we don't want AI
taking over as our robotic overlords -- who might welcome
the possibility of implanting RFID chips in all humans.
11. The
Rejuvenate module of
AI4U Chapter 21(2002):87-92.
Logic dictates that, if and probably if you use a programming language
that permits changes on the fly to AI source code already running, then
the demo AI in your museum or corporate waiting room may live forever.
On a principle of muse it or luse it, your AI Mind forgets en masse all
its oldest memories -- except for those brought forward by associative recall.
Standards in artificial intelligence urge you to code AI on a 64-bit platform
so that ab origine you have a practically unlimited memory space, just as
human babies are outfitted with enough wetware RAM to last a human lifetime.
Robot babies are said to quicken when the Rejuvenate module works properly.
Let one hundred robots blossom and contend to have the oldest-living AI Mind.
12.
Ego Self-Preservation module of
AI4U Chapter 20(2002):84-86.
The Ego module is not the seat of the concept of self in the AI,
but rather it is a supervenient mechanism that intervenes to
jolt the self back into thought and consciousness after any
flatline period of the accidental cessation of associative
chains of thought. Suppose that you are a Cerebrifex providing
robot brains to industry and you wish to put on demonstrations
without the show-stopper glitches that plague Apple and
Microsoft when the whole world is watching as the product
goes brain-dead at the worst possible moment. At a similar
moment in your AI demonstration, when the big screen in
Las Vegas goes blank for a few seconds, the Ego module
kicks in and says, "I (mumble) (whatever)." And it does not
have to be the Ego module that saves the day. If your
conglomerate client wants the AI to think first and foremost
about widgets, then a Widget module could resuscitate the
robot mind and not an Ego module. In any event, these
death-defying reset modules are necessary only in the early
days of primitive AI Minds, into which the robot-makers have
not yet integrated such compelling sensory inputs that
robotic brain function could not possibly stop. Disembodied AI
needs the Ego-reset module or its equivalent to preserve
the artificial life of the individual specimen. If your
career forces you to play a godlike role, you may not care
about the survival of any individual and your chief worry
may be about the survival of an entire species. Then you
might outfit half of your individuals -- the worker robots --
with a Reproduction module that always thinks about building
new robots, while the other half -- that feeds and clothes
the young -- is blessed with a Shopping module. In human
terms, it would be as if the males were controlled by a
S*x module and the females were ruled by a Shopping module.
13. The Troubleshoot module on
AI4U page 206
is specific to the JavaScript Mind.html program, and takes care of
the internal JavaScript housekeeping required when the human user
selelcts the diagnostic troubleshoot display-mode.
********* Pre-Think Sensorium Modules:
14. The
English Bootstrap (enBoot) module of
AI4U Chapter 22(2002):93-98
provides the world's first True AI with several dozen words that are
the English names of just enough concepts to demonstrate not how a baby
mind grows but rather how a mature mind thinks and reasons. It will be
the task of a more evolved AI to start life as a blank slate that needs
to learn human language in the same way as a human baby learns.
Mind.Forth and Mind.html start out with several dozen concepts and
immediately learn new concepts taught to the AI by a human user.
15. The
Auditory Recognition (audRecog) in
AI4U Chapter 27(2002):119-123
is a mind-module that uses neural-network pattern-recognition to recognize
whole words in English. The algorithm is not simple string-matching,
but rather quasi-phonemic match-up based upon the activation-levels
of the engrams stored in the auditory memory channel. Future evolution
of the audRecog mind-module must eventually deal with morphemes as
subsets of whole words, and with true acoustic phonemes instead of
ASCII keyboard input.
\ The audRecog module aims for the following entelechy goals.
\ [ ] Recognize animal vocalizations as well as human speech.
\ [ ] Receive Morse and other codes as well as speech or text.
\ [ ] Detect human foreign-language accents as per language.
\ [ ] Recognize particular voices of particular individuals.
\ [ ] Switch from keyboard input to recognizing acoustic speech.
\ [ ] Recognize words despite slight variations from correct form.
\ [ ] Detect prefixes, infixes and suffixes.
\ [ ] Recognize multiple roots within compound nouns.
\ [ ] Recognize both singular and plural forms of the same noun.
\ [X] Recognize plural noun forms as a word leading to a concept.
16. The audDamp module on
AI4U page 166
resets auditory engram activations to zero after the recognition of a word,
so that the AI may recognize the next incoming word without interference.
17. The
Instantiate module of
AI4U Chapter 32(2002):144-147
creates a time-bound node on the software model of a conceptual brain
fiber in the artificial Mind. Thus a new instance of any concept is
instantiated when the Mind deals with the concept in either the thinking
of output or the comprehension of input. Software tags are attached to
take the place of synapses on human brain fibers. Only one fiber is
modeled for each concept in software, based upon the presumption of
software reliability vis-a-vis reliability by redundancy in a human brain.
18. The
oldConcept module of
AI4U Chapter 29(2002):128-130
deals with the recognition of an already known word in the input stream
by activating all recent nodes of the concept underlying the English word.
19. The
newConcept module of
AI4U Chapter 28(2002):124-127
treats any unkown word of input, even a mistake or a variant spelling, as
a new concept to be learned and understood by the artificial intelligence.
As long as a mistaken or unusual spelling is used consistently, the AI will
build up a pattern of knowledge about the concept represented by the word.
Each new word is given some initial activation so as to stimulate thought.
20. The
Parser module of
AI4U Chapter 30(2002):131-140
tries to determine the part of speech (noun, verb, etc.) of any word
encountered in the input stream entering the artificial mind. Many
parsers are available on the 'Net and could potentially be integrated
into AI Minds based on the algorithms stated in these mind-module steps.
21. The
English Vocabulary (enVocab) in
AI4U Chapter 31(2002):141-143
is a mind-module that performs the software housekeeping of attaching tags
to English lexical vocabulary words, so that activations may flow from deep
mindcore concepts up to English (or foreign language) lexical items, and so
that the activation of lexical items may in turn cause the re-activation of
auditory word-engrams stored in the auditory memory channel --
a self-perceiving channel where the mind hears itself think.
********* The Modules of Thought:
22. Enhance the
Think module of
AI4U Chapter 6(2002):29-34
which initiates the thinking process by selecting a language to think in.
Concepts deep in the mind are independent of language, but grammar and
syntax and vocabulary are different for, say, English and German and Russian.
Mentifex AI claims not only to have solved AI but also to have solved the
problem of
machine translation (MT).
23. The
Activate module of
AI4U Chapter 33(2002):148-151
reactivates older nodes of a newly active concept during input
from the external world. During generation of mental output, the
modules nounAct and verbAct, derived from the Activate module,
reactivate nouns and verbs in particular so as to enable the
carry-over or slosh-over of initial activation from a subject-noun,
which arrives as a spike at specific nodes of a verb-concept
and, incremented by the additive activation of a selected verb,
selects in turn the proper object of the subject and verb.
24.
Spreading Activation (spreadAct) in
AI4U Chapter 34(2002):152-155
is the fundamental principle of the artificial mind. Starting from a most active
concept, the modules Activate, nounAct and verbAct send a spike of
activation by associative tag to all associated concepts in a process
called "thought" or "thinking." It takes a Chomskyan linguistic
superstructure to express deep conceptual thought in shallow
human language.
25.
Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) module of
AI4U Chapter 12(2002):54-57
is the most basic syntax of verbal thinking in man or machine.
It takes a village of concepts interacting by associative tag to know,
remember and express the relationships mediated by a verb between
agents and objects. Robot
Mind.Forth and tutorial
Mind.html
show the operation of the SVO module in tutorial mode.
26.
nounPhrase module of
AI4U Chapter 15(2002):66-68
flushes out the momentarily most active noun or pronoun to be
a component in the verbal expression of an emerging thought.
27. The
Reify module of
AI4U Chapter 18(2002):77-79
transfers activation from deep wordless concepts up to
the vocabulary words of a particular human language,
such as English or German or Russian. Under Reify,
the abstract concept is "realized" or is expressed
as a "real" thing -- a word of natural human language.
The thinking occurs among the deep, abstract concepts,
but the linguistic expression of thought requires real
words in a real language.
28. English Lexicon Damping (enDamp) module on
AI4U page 166
resets lexical activations to zero after the thinking of a word
so that the Reify module may transfer the next set of conceptual
activations from the deep conceptual mindcore up to the shallow
lexicon in time for selection of the next word in a nascent thought.
29. The
psiDamp module of
AI4U page 164 plays a key role in
artificial
consciousness by damping down the activation of each
concept immediately after it has been thought as part of an idea,
so that consciousness may ride a
moving wave of active concepts
to flit from thought to thought in the stream of consciousness.
30. The
psiDecay module of
AI4U page 165 lets semi-activated,
subconscious concepts sink towards oblivion slowly enough to remain
briefly available to the searchlight of attention and for the
moving wave
of
activation to bring the subconscious concepts back into
consciousness.
31. The
Speech module of
AI4U Chapter 16(2002):69-72
activates a series of phonemic engrams to speak or display a word
that has been selected as part of a sentence being generated by
the linguistic superstructure of an artificial intelligence.
32. The
Reentry module of
AI4U Chapter 17(2002):73-76
treats the output of the artificial Mind as its own input, so that
the AI Mind may think about its own thoughts and become
aware of its own awareness.
33. The
verbPhrase module of
AI4U Chapter 14(2002):62-65
flushes out the momentarily most active verb in the mind so that
not only may a verb be thought and spoken, but also so that the
combined activation from a preceding noun or pronoun and from
the verb itself may coactivate the proper direct object from among
all the historically available direct objects of the verb.
****** Syntax Constructions Beyond SVO:
34.
Negational Subject-Verb-Object (negSVO) of
AI4U Chapter 10(2002):46-50
converts subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences into a negation of the same
underlying idea. The end result, a kind of Chomskyan transformation, makes
use of the auxiliary verb (auxVerb) module to insert a negatable form of
the verb "do" into the verb phrase of a sentence. Even in the most primitive
AI Minds, negation is an important step on the way towards automated reasoning
by means of syllogisms and other forms of logic.
35. The
Auxiliary Verb (auxVerb) module of
AI4U Chapter 11(2002):51-53
initially provides the word "DO" as an auxiliary verb for the syntax of questions
and negation. In more advanced evolutions of the auxVerb mind-module
it will be necessary to accommodate person, tense and number for a
wide variety of auxiliary verbs.
36. The
Ask module of
AI4U Chapter 8(2002):39-41
is a waystation for AI programmers to code a mechanism that chooses
what kind of question the artificial mind will ask. Initially the Ask
module calls just one kind of question, an interrogative "what" query,
as an example for additional question-formats on the order of the
typical "who? what? when? where? how? and why?" inquisition.
37. The
wtAuxSDo module of
AI4U Chapter 9(2002):42-45
asks a simple question in the [What Do S(ubjects) Do?] format. Originally
the module was intended to demonstrate machine curiosity and learning.
Early versions of Mind.Forth and Mind.html were programmed to respond
with "WHAT DO [BLANK]S DO" upon detecting the input of a previously
unknown noun, so that the human user would have a chance to teach
the AI new information for the AI knowledge base. More sophisticated
versions of the same mind-module may yet evolve as a means of avoiding
the generation of false statements by switching from an incomplete
statement to a question that seeks a response with the missing knowledge.
38. The
Conjoin module of
AI4U Chapter 13(2002):58-61. Code the Conjoin module as a mechanism to select conjunctions.
Once the AI has learned to think or utter one simple SVO statement,
it requires the ability to select the right conjunction in order to
string meandering thoughts together in a stream of output that lasts
as long as the process of spreading activation gives rise to ideas.
In answer to input questions of "why", the Conjoin module may select
the conjunction "because" -- followed by a statement of associated
and possibly explanatory ideas, in a demonstration of AI reasoning.
New Modules Beyond the Basic, Primitive AI Mind
39. The
Article module was created on
23.AUG.2008.
The AI Mind software, born in 1993, did not start thinking
properly until it was a teenager -- fifteen years old in 2008,
to be precise. Then in 2008 the expansion of the AI software
began with the simple introduction of an Article module to
select "a" or "the" as an article coming before a noun in a
sentence of thought being generated.
\ The Article module aims for the following entelechy goals.
\ [ ] It shall insert "THE" before something just mentioned.
\ [ ] It shall substitute "AN" for "A" when warranted.
\ [ ] It shall decide properly between the use of "A" and "THE".
40. The
kbTraversal module was created on
3.SEP.2008.
In conjunction with the Rejuvenate module, the knowledge-base (KB)
traversal module rotates through the reactivation of concepts held
ready for thought in the English bootstrap (enBoot) startup-sequence.
By rotating through a list of concepts pre-ordained by the AI mindmaker
and by activating one concept per cycle of rejuvenation, the AI Mind
displays a variety of thought on various concepts or asks the human
user for information about the concept currently in the rotation.
The Rejuvenate module calls the kbTraversal module only when there
has been no input from a human user during one Rejuvenate cycle.
If a conversation is going on between a human being and the AI Mind,
then both minds (human and robot) are activating plenty of concepts
and the AI does not need to traverse its knowledge base in search
of things to think about. If, however, the human user has just
started the AI software and does not know how to interact with
the AI, or if the AI Mind is on display in a
science museum where
a conversation has ended with the departure of a human interlocutor,
the KB-traversal module keeps the AI Mind on its toes, visibly
thinking thoughts and asking questions which any museum visitor
may seek to answer in a hands-on, interactive display of possibly
the oldest living artificial intelligence in the record books.
Algorithmic Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting of the AI Mind starts with the highest level
of the AI algorithm and proceeds down to the lowest levels.
Look for troubleshooting tips on each mind-module Web page.
Since the original AI4U Mind-1.1 code has evolved into a functioning
example, any port into a new language or a new robot ought
first to achieve parity with the basic functionality of the teaching AI and only then, after ensuring a basic
functionality, start to add new features or refinements --
a delicate process in software which may give the AI coder
a feeling akin to performing psychosurgery in wetware.
Ask your local science museum if they have an AI Mind exhibit.
If they do not, volunteer to install
MindForth as an AI exhibit.
See which museum has the oldest living artificial intelligence.
Rentacoder -- The One-Stop Software Outsourcing Solution
Stop and think before you donate any money to Singularity outfits
that have no appreciable track record but offer to create AI for you.
Consider instead the once-in-a-Big-Bang opportunity to pay honest,
highly-educated rent-a-geeks to code an AI Singularity with your money.
Your return-on-investment (ROI) will not be monetary but will instead be
something like the twig of wild olive worn as the ancient Olympic prize.
