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Artificial Intelligensia and the Search for Meaning

Artificial Intelligensia and the Search for Meaning. Khurshid Ahmad, Chair of Computer Science Trinity College, Dublin, IRELAND 14 th June 2013. Knowledge and Meaning.

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Artificial Intelligensia and the Search for Meaning

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  1. Artificial Intelligensia and the Search for Meaning Khurshid Ahmad, Chair of Computer Science Trinity College, Dublin, IRELAND 14th June 2013

  2. Knowledge and Meaning The key challenge in artificial intelligence, and indeed across computing, is to be able to understand the subjective use of language and other semiotic systems in areas of business, governance, heritage, science and technology. Subjective use of language has been studied under various umbrellas: knowledge acquisition in decision support, sentiment analysis in finance, digital heritage, requirements analysis. In computing a rational approach to problem solving, exemplified in formal methods, for example, has had to encounter the same problem as in other areas like compliance in governance, behaviour of financial markets, uncertainty in medical decision making and others.

  3. Knowledge and Meaning My search for meaning is a random walk through various areas of human enterprise: 1. decision making in life critical services (water); 2. assessment of affective contents of texts; 3. indexing of large collections of images (art collections, biological cells, forensics). This I have achieved through being involved in building systems for: a. information extraction systems (terms, ontology) b. image classification systems based on neural nets forecasting systems based on fuzzy aggregation

  4. Knowledge and Meaning My search for meaning is a random walk through various areas of human enterprise with the help of a large number of colleagues including Carl Vogel, Arthur Hughes, Tim Fernando and RozennDahyot of SCSS; Dermot Kelleher (now at Imperial College) and Tony Davies of the Trinity Medical School; Colm Kearney (now at MonashUni) and Brian Lucey of the Business School, and Andrea Zemankova (Slovak Academy of Sciences). My colleagues, Daniel Isemann, DaraJavaherian, Stephen Kelly, Xiubo Zhang and Aaron Gerow, have been helpful with their intellectual skills and programming knowledge.

  5. Knowledge and Meaning Language is prolific: in a space of 500 years we have moved from hot metal presses to a world of instant communication as in digital librarires, blogs, twitter.. The subjective use of language, incorporating hedging and qualifiers, metaphors and similes, creativity and oxymorons, selective use of information, censoring and advocacy, helps and hinders. Language expands to incorporate new realities, alternative behaviours, new explanations, exorcising myths and fears, … Language is highly parsimonious and ambiguous, when compared to other semes

  6. Knowledge and Meaning Knowledge about and of persons, places, things, and events is disseminated in language on a consensual basis. This consensus is reflected in the preferential usage of words in a language, preferential usage of visual signs in images/pictures/scenes. The consensus is recorded in the archives of a specialist domain The archive has to be randomly sampled to find statistically significant usage of key symbols. These symbols are then used to generate higher level knowledge atoms: interpretation of texts, images/scenes, time series.

  7. Knowledge and Meaning: The number seme Human beings have developed complex systems of communications and it is the interaction between these systems that appears to help in the creation, storage, usage and deletion of knowledge. Number systems have been involving over many millennia: The Niliticmeasurments of land and water, The Hindu numerals (with a ZERO), rational numbers, fractional numbers, imaginary and transcendental numbers. Then we had ‘ordered’ collections of numbers – time series invented in Japanese rice markets (candlesticks) in the 14th century, and now econometrics. The description of numbers in words and pictures is key to an understanding of our world;

  8. Knowledge and Meaning: The number seme The description of numbers in words and pictures is key to an understanding of our world. APPLE Inc., share trading on NYSE together with the volatility in prices. Japanese candlestick patterns show when the opening price was less than closing price (RED) and vice versa (GREEN). TEN minute trading sequences shown for June 2013;

  9. Knowledge and Meaning: Visual Semes SMASH! Your head twists around at speed, your eyes catch splinters of porcelain skidding across the floor, and you see a furry black tail disappearing under the cupboard. Your cat just spent one of its lives, and cost you your favourite vase. For the rapid orienting behaviour that allowed you to catch a glimpse of the culprit red-pawed, you can thank your superior colliculi. N.Holmes, C.Spence (2005)Multisensory Integration: Space, Time and SuperadditivityCurrent Biology, Volume 15, Issue 18, Pages R762-R764

  10. Interaction in visual processing Natural Scene Categories Revealed in Distributed Patterns of Activity in the Human Brain –within and across the visual system Human subjects are extremely efficient at categorizing natural scenes, despite the fact that different classes of natural scenes often share similar image statistics. (Walther et al 2009:10573) Dirk B. Walther, Eamon Caddigan, and Li Fei-Fei, and Diane M. Beck (2009) Natural Scene Categories Revealed in Distributed Patterns of Activity in the Human Brain. The Journal of Neuroscience, August 26, 2009 • Vol. 29(34) pp 10573–10581

  11. Interaction in visual processing Natural Scene Categories Revealed in Distributed Patterns of Activity in the Human Brain Dirk B. Walther, Eamon Caddigan, and Li Fei-Fei, and Diane M. Beck (2009) Natural Scene Categories Revealed in Distributed Patterns of Activity in the Human Brain. The Journal of Neuroscience, August 26, 2009 • Vol. 29(34) pp 10573–10581

  12. Knowledge and Meaning • How do the semes relate to the mind and/or brain • What do we do with the various semes (linguistic, visual, tactile)? • What is the nature of meaning? • How are a sequence of semes (words, shapes/ colours/textures) organised into meaningful whole (sentences, pictures)? • What are the meanings of the parts of sentences, pictures, sculptures? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_language

  13. Knowledge and Meaning: A multi-sensory world Our brain, and perhaps that of a collective of people, generates its own projections of a given ‘reality’: accentuating, (censuring, ignoring) what we (do not) want to see/hear/know

  14. Emergence of knowledge and modes of communication Multisensory Processing

  15. Knowledge and Meaning Agencement Problems in finance and business are amongst the hardest problems to be solved on computer systems: Economic actors can be viewed as nodes in a socio-technical network or agencements– a network comprising human beings, computer systems, including algorithms, heuristics, communication devices. Hardie, Iain and Mackenzie, Donald. (2007) Assembling an Economic Actor: The Agencement of a Hedge Fund,” Sociological ReviewVol 55 (No. 1), pp 57-80.

  16. Words, Works and Worlds: Hermeneutics and LSP Interpertament Texts are responses to previous texts and the texts are then responded to in turn and the cycle continues Teubert, Wolfgang (2003). Writing, hermenutics and corpus linguistics. Logos and LanguageVol.IV (no. 2) pp 1-17.

  17. Knowledge and Meaning Continual regulatory change of financial institutions is the order of the day and will be so for some time to come. Post 2008 regulatory change has resulted in a deluge of legislation, procedures, compliance schemes, from a host of organisations. All change is accompanied by a change in ontology – what there is – and language is a key device to rub out the old and bring in the new. We have been building tools for dealing with ontological change in a range of disciplines, from anthropology to environmental engineering, and from bacteriology and immunology to nuclear physics and nano technology. And, now finance

  18. Knowledge and Meaning: Terminology, slang and jargon, special language, a ‘slither’ of general language Language for General Purposes Language for Special Purposes Terminology

  19. Knowledge and Meaning: Terminology, slang and jargon, special language, a ‘slither’ of general language Language for General Purposes (Exploratory work carried out by computer scientists) Language for Special Purposes (Experimental Ontologies, exploring logic and formal reasoning in science) Terminology (MedicalOntologies)

  20. Knowledge and Meaning

  21. Knowledge and Meaning Rocksteady: A scaling affect analysis system that can be used, in conjunction with quantitative information, like equity/commodity prices, polling results, can be used to analyse and forecast changes in the prices/polls. The systems acquires text through RSS feeds, collates a corpus and time stamps documents, and then carries out text analysis. It uses an ontologically organised dictionary that comprises affect on the one hand and domain specific terms on the other. The results can be aggregated at different time scales.

  22. Knowledge and Meaning

  23. Knowledge and Meaning Project Slándáil aims to build and test a prototype system managing disaster emergencies by fusing information available in different modalities in social media with due regard to ethical and factual data provenance. The prototype will cover three major EU languages: English comprehensively, and German and Italian to a limited extent..

  24. Knowledge and Meaning The Ùraigh Project strategy is to design a software system which can store and process big data (c. 10 TB per week) coming out of a noisy data stream. Work involves cell biologists, grid computing, statistics.

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  29. The emergence of knowledge

  30. The emergence of knowledge

  31. The emergence of knowledge: Fact and Fiction Murray Gell-Mann found that the eightfold way could really best be explained by a particle, undiscovered as yet, that had three parts (hadrons), each holding a fraction of a charge. He called them "quarks" with a nod to James Joyce, whose novel Finnegan's Wake contains the passage: "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" Fractional charge seemed an outrageous suggestion at first, but proof came for his theoretical quarks in 1974.

  32. Knowledge and Meaning: Fact and Fiction "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" Fractional charge seemed an outrageous suggestion at first, but proof came for his theoretical quarks in 1974. The European Council for Nuclear Research is currently spending 3,320 Million Swiss Francs ( 1.32 CH FR= 1 US $) for building the Large Hadron Collider to look for the elusive, the permanently confined quarks. The European Investment Bank is investing Euro 300 Million in the ‘enterprise’

  33. We spoke and wrote slowly- c. 1930

  34. We spoke and wrote slowly- c. 2008? July 2008: The positive emotion accompanying sub-prime mortgage http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Subprime_Mortgage_Offer.jpeg/300px-Subprime_Mortgage_Offer.jpeg

  35. We spoke and wrote slowly- c. 2011?

  36. We spoke and wrote slowly- c. 2011? http://bioportal.bioontology.org/ontologies/42280/?p=terms&conceptid=10025650

  37. We spoke and wrote slowly- c. 2011? http://bioportal.bioontology.org/ontologies/42280/?p=terms&conceptid=10025650

  38. Knowledge and Meaning: Roots of Rationalism What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. Ideal Language 1.1 One name for every simple 1.1.1 A name is simple symbol in the sense that it has no parts which are symbols themselves 1.1.2 Nothing which is not simple will have a simple symbol 1.2 Never the same name for two simples 1.3 The symbol for the whole will be “complex” containing the symbol for the parts 1.4 What is complex in the world is a fact. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1922/1971). TractatusLogico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

  39. Our ever changing world – Do theories change and, if so, why? The history of any discipline shows major changes in the discipline over a period of time. The underpinning theories in a discipline appear to change as well. In physics, we have moved from an indivisible atom (c. 1900) to a divisible atom (c. 1920) comprising elementary particles (protons and neutrons, c. 1935 ). The elementary particles, it turns out, are in themselves comprise quarks (c. 1970’s) …… There are two major theories of this change: First, new theories appear through a process of iterative refinement – a gradual process. Second, theories appear when suddenly anomalies in existing theories are discovered and are discarded.

  40. Our ever changing world– Do theories change and, if so, why?Iterative Refinement Karl Popper tried to build a purely deductive approach to science [and econometrics]. For Popper ‘all scientific discussions start with a problem (P1), to which we offer some sort of tentative solution – a tentative theory (TT); this theory is then criticized, in an attempt at error elimination (EE); and as in the case of dialectic, this process renews itself: the theory and its critical revision to new problems (P2)’ (Redman 1994:69). P1 TT  EE  P2 It is possible, suggested Karl Popper, that science could start anywhere. Popper has influenced the development of econometrics. Austrian born philosopher and logician; held chair at LSE. Born 1902, died 1994. Redman, Deborah, A. (1994). Karl Popper’s Theory of Science and Econometrics: The Rise and Decline of Social Engineering. Journal of Economic Issues. Vol 28 (No. 1)., pp 67-99

  41. Our ever changing world– Do theories change and, if so, why?Paradigm Shifts Paradigm Shifts: What is paradigm shift anyway? A research paradigm (Kuhn 1970) was defined originally by Kuhn to 'suggest that some accepted example of actual scientific practice - examples which include law, theory, application and instrumentation together - provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research' (1970: 10). American philosopher and sociologist of science; held chairs at Princeton and MIT. Born 1922, died 1996 KUHN, T. S.(1970).The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press.

  42. Our ever changing world – Do theories change and, if so, why? Theories are refined incrementally and in some instances there is a paradigm shift of revolutionary proportions.

  43. Our ever changing world – Do theories change and, if so, why? Theories are refined incrementally and in some instances there is a paradigm shift of revolutionary proportions.

  44. Our ever changing world – Do theories change and, if so, why?

  45. Knowledge and Meaning: Language and other disciplines Bertrand Russell’s Introduction to Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1922/1971). TractatusLogico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

  46. Knowledge and Meaning: Language and other disciplines Ahmad, Khurshid. (2013). MEANING AND ONTLOGICAL COMMITMENT: A SURVEY OF THE USE OF THE TERM ‘SEMANTIC PRIMITIVE’ (In preparation).

  47. Knowledge and Meaning: Language and other disciplines Ahmad, Khurshid. (2013). MEANING AND ONTLOGICAL COMMITMENT: A SURVEY OF THE USE OF THE TERM ‘SEMANTIC PRIMITIVE’ (In preparation).

  48. Knowledge and Meaning: Limits of Rationality Bechtel, William. (1988). Philosophy of Mind - An Overview for Cognitive Science. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

  49. Knowledge and Meaning: Language and other disciplines Bechtel, William. (1988). Philosophy of Mind - An Overview for Cognitive Science. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

  50. Language and Meaning What you see/hear/touch is what you get? Perception of sound/orthography & cognition of language! • Language can be viewed as 'a communicative process based on knowledge. Generally when humans use language, the producer and comprehender are processing information, making use of their knowledge of the language and of the topics of conversation. Language is a process of communication between intelligent active processors, in which both the producer and the comprehender(s) perform complex cognitive tasks. Winograd, Terry. (1983). Language as a Cognitive Process. Wokingham: Addison-Wesley Inc.,

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