The Problem of Meaning in AI and Robotics: Still with Us after All These Years

April 3, 2019 at 10:37 am (Publications)
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Fittingly published in the 10-year anniversary of the publication of “enactive AI“, here is a critical retrospective piece that at the same time marks a significant departure into new, largely unexplored directions. Exciting times!

The Problem of Meaning in AI and Robotics: Still with Us after All These Years

Tom Froese and Shigeru Taguchi

In this essay we critically evaluate the progress that has been made in solving the problem of meaning in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. We remain skeptical about solutions based on deep neural networks and cognitive robotics, which in our opinion do not fundamentally address the problem. We agree with the enactive approach to cognitive science that things appear as intrinsically meaningful for living beings because of their precarious existence as adaptive autopoietic individuals. But this approach inherits the problem of failing to account for how meaning as such could make a difference for an agent’s behavior. In a nutshell, if life and mind are identified with physically deterministic phenomena, then there is no conceptual room for meaning to play a role in its own right. We argue that this impotence of meaning can be addressed by revising the concept of nature such that the macroscopic scale of the living can be characterized by physical indeterminacy. We consider the implications of this revision of the mind-body relationship for synthetic approaches.

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Is there room for intrinsic normativity in a synthetic system?

June 28, 2018 at 9:30 am (Presentations)
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I was invited to give a keynote talk at the workshop “The Synthetic Approach to Biology and the Cognitive Sciences (SA-BCS 2018): Developing an Epistemology for the Synthetic Sciences of Life and Cognition“, which will take place as part of ALIFE 2018 in Tokyo on July 25.

Here are the title and abstract of my contribution:

Is there room for intrinsic normativity in a synthetic system?

Tom Froese

Enactivism rejects the standard hypothesis of cognitive science, according to which all cognition involves the unconscious manipulation of mental representations, and instead replaces it with a dynamical systems account. And yet enactivism also resists purely dynamical approaches that see no role for any kind of subjectivity, because it appeals to the role of our lived phenomenology and claims that living beings behave with respect to intrinsic norms directed at maintaining their self-produced viability. So far, this middle way seems to be philosophically unsatisfactory: at best it allows us to claim that acting in accordance with experience or norms just is identical to a certain kind of dynamic pattern. But this turns subjectivity into a mysterious difference that makes no difference with respect to the unfolding of those patterns, which remain completely determined by the dynamical laws alone. This calls for deeper epistemological reflection about how it could be possible for subjectivity to play a role in an objective world, while avoiding a regression to the untenable positions of either representationalism or eliminativism. This debate has implications for the synthetic method, especially regarding longstanding discussions about the relative merits of software, hardware, and wetware.

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A dynamical approach to the phenomenology of body memory

March 27, 2018 at 6:01 pm (Publications)
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A special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies is in the final stages of preparation, following on from last year’s conference on the “Formation of Embodied Memory” in Heidelberg.

I teamed up with my old colleague Eduardo to put together the following article:

A dynamical approach to the phenomenology of body memory: Past interactions can shape present capacities without neuroplasticity

Tom Froese and Eduardo J. Izquierdo

Body memory comprises the acquired dispositions that constitute an individual’s present capacities and experiences. Phenomenological accounts of body memory describe its effects using dynamical metaphors: it is conceived of as curvatures in an agent-environment relational field, leading to attracting and repelling forces that shape ongoing sensorimotor interaction. This relational perspective stands in tension with traditional cognitive science, which conceives of the underlying basis of memory in representational-internal terms: it is the encoding and storing of informational content via structural changes inside the brain. We propose that this tension can be resolved by replacing the traditional approach with the dynamical approach to cognitive science. Specifically, we present three of our simulation models of embodied cognition that can help us to rethink the basis of several types of body memory. The upshot is that, at least in principle, there is no need to explain their basis in terms of content or to restrict their basis to neuroplasticity alone. Instead these models support the perspective developed by phenomenology: body memory is a relational property of a whole brain-body-environment system that emerges out of its history of interactions.

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Keynote at From Animals to Animats 15 (SAB 2018)

January 19, 2018 at 10:54 am (Events, Presentations)
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I will be a keynote speaker at FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS 15: The 15th International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB 2018), which will take place 14-17 August 2018, in Frankfurt, Germany, and is organized by the International Society for Adaptive Behavior (ISAB).

Here is my title and abstract:

Searching for the conditions of genuine intersubjectivity: From robotics to HCI

Tom Froese

Many our most valued experiences are experiences that we share with others. Yet the basis for this sense of we-ness remains mysterious. Could it really be possible that two people share one and the same experience? How so? Two lines of research are providing important insights. First, complex systems analyses of social robotics and agent-based models have demonstrated that there is nothing mysterious about the possibility of cognitive activity being distributed in a multi-agent system. Second, experimental investigations of real-time embodied social interaction mediated by human-computer interfaces demonstrate that co-regulation of interaction dynamics makes a difference to experience. This formal and empirical research on social interaction supports the possibility of genuine intersubjectivity: we can directly participate in the unfolding of each other’s experience.

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Is there room for normativity in a dynamical world?

November 14, 2017 at 1:36 pm (Presentations)
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Tomorrow at 2pm I will be giving an online talk for the ENactive Seminars Online (ENSO) Series. Here are the title and abstract:

Is there room for normativity in a dynamical world?

Enactivism rejects the standard working hypothesis of cognitive science, according to which all cognition involves the unconscious manipulation of mental representations, and replaces it with a dynamical systems account. And yet enactivism resists other, purely dynamical approaches that see no role for any kind of subjectivity, because it appeals to the role of our lived phenomenology and claims that living beings behave with respect to norms directed at maintaining their viability.

So far, this middle way seems to be philosophically unsatisfactory: at best it allows us to claim that acting in accordance with experience or norms just is a certain kind of dynamic pattern. But this turns subjectivity into a mysterious difference that makes no difference as such with respect to the unfolding of those patterns, which is completely determined by the dynamics alone.

This calls for deeper philosophical reflection about how it is possible for subjectivity to play a role in an objective world while avoiding a regression to the untenable positions of either representationalism or eliminativism.

Watch the seminar live: http://www.ensoseminars.com/presentations/past17/

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International Colloquium of Philosophy and Psychiatry

August 17, 2017 at 3:26 pm (Presentations)
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I have been invited as a plenary speaker to the International Colloquium of Philosophy and Psychiatry, which will take place August 31 – September 2 in Bogota, Colombia. The title and abstract of my talk are as follows:

Integrating phenomenology and systems theory: The case of embodied memory

I will give an introduction to dynamical systems analysis and use it to formalize and ground the phenomenology of embodied memory. Three kinds of extra- neural processes will be considered: 1) physiological dynamics, 2) movement dynamics, and 2) social interaction dynamics. Their potential to serve as forms of memory will be illustrated on the basis of three simple agent-based models. These computational thought experiments help to demonstrate the problems faced by a purely brain-based account of the self and its capacities. They also support the adoption of a broader notion of psychopathology that takes into account the cognitive effects of undergoing changes in one’s body and in one’s relationship to the spatial and social environment.

COLOQUIO INTERNACIONAL DE FILOSOFÍA Y PSIQUIATRÍA

Download the full program

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