Searle, Intentionality, and the Future of Classifier Systems

Il inois Genetic Algorithms LaboratoryDepartment of General EngineeringUniversity of Il inois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801.Searle, Intentionality, and theFuture of Classifier SystemsDavid E. GoldbergIllinois Genetic Algorithms LaboratoryUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801deg@uiuc.edu1980 v. NowRemember thinking how cool LCSswere.Just apply them to gas pipelinesand voila, al AI problems ofWestern Civilization would besolved.Started to ask John for examplesof successful application.Found out that I was in themiddle of an interesting idea, nota working computer program.John H. Holland (b. 1929)RoadmapAre we happy with LCSs?What’s Searle got to do with it.Revisiting the Chinese room.Art Burkes had it right.Designing a conscious computer.Searlean program for LCSs:–Computational consciousness not impossible.–From consciousness to intentionality.–Intentionality and beyond.What are we missing?What should we do?Are We Happy With LCSs? Have made progress:– Increasingly competent, solve hard problemsquickly reliably and accurately.– Principled manner. But don’t seem very intelligent:– Do what we tel them.– Not autonomous in any serious sense.– Our discussions are largely technical.– Are we focused on right problems?What’s Searle Got to Do With It?Mill Prof of Philosophy of Berkeley.Philosopher of language and mind.Early work took off from Austin’s work onspeech acts.Searle is Darth Vader of artificialintelligence.Notorious Chinese Room argument hasalways puzzled me.In many ways, Searle is high philosophicalpriest of emergence.John R. Searle (b. 1932)Rejects dualism & materialism.Couldn’t understand how he could misspossibility of more than mere systacticaltranslation.The Chinese Room ArgumentStrong AI is not possible on a computer.Monolingual English speaker in a room with–Chinese writing (story)–2nd Chinese symbols (questions)–Instructions in English for relating first set of symbolsto second.–3rd set of Chinese symbols (answers)English speaker does not understand Chinese evenif answers are indistinguishable from those ofChinese speaker.Cracks in the Chinese Room Mind, Language & Society,Basic Books, 1998, p. 53. “When I say that the brainis a biological organ andconsciousness a biologicalprocess, I do not, of course,say or imply that it wouldbe impossible to produce anartificial brain out ofnonbiological materials.”More Searle“The heart is also a biological organ, and thepumping of blood a biological process, but it ispossible to build an artificial heart that pumpsblood. There is no reason, in principle, why wecould not similarly make an artificial brain thatcauses consciousness.”Searle was complaining about direct approach tointel igence.Without consciousness and intentionality therecannot be intel igence.How do we create an intel igent, conscious being?Arthur Burks Had Interesting Take Robots and FreeMinds, University ofMichigan, 1986. “Tonight I willadvocate the thesis: AFINITEDETERMINISTICAUTOMATON CANPERFORM ALLNATURAL HUMANFUNCTIONS.”Chapter 5: Evolution and Intentionality “The course of biological evolution from cellsto Homo sapiens has been a gradualdevelopment of intentional systems fromdirect-response systems.” “The [intentional] system contains a model ofits present status in relation to its goal andregularly updates that model on the basis ofthe information it receives. Finally, it decideswhat to do after consulting a strategy, whichhas value assessments attached in to variousalternative courses of action.”