A Consciousness Based Architecture for a Functioning Mind

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A Consciousness Based Architecture for a
Functioning Mind

• Stan Franklin
• and the
• Conscious Software Research Group
• Institute for Intelligent Systems
• University of Memphis

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The Conscious Software Research Group

• Stan Franklin
• Art Graesser
• Sri Satish Ambati
• Ashraf Anwar
• Myles Bogner
• Arpad Kelemen
• Ravikumar Kondadadi
• Lee McCauley
• Irina Makkaveeva

• Aregahegn Negatu
• Uma Ramamurthy
• Alexei Stoliartchouk
• Zhouhua Zhang
• Scott Dodson
• Gurumoorthy Nagasubramanian
• Brent Olde
• Hongjun Song
• Yun Wan
• former member off to better things

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Autonomous Agent

• An autonomous agent is a system
• situated within and a part of an
  environment
• that senses that environment
• and acts on it,
• over time,
• in pursuit of its own agenda
• so as to effect what it senses in
  the future.

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Examples
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Global Workspace Theory

• A psychological theory of consciousness
• The nervous system is a distributed parallel
  system with many different
  specialized processors
• Global workspace contains a coalition of
  processors
• Broadcasts globally to all other processors
• Recruit other processors needed for any degree
  of novel or problematic
  situation
• Explains limited capacity and seriality

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Contexts at work
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Why a Conscious Agent?

• Flesh out the theory with detailed architecture
  and mechanisms
• Hypotheses for cognitive scientists and
  neuroscientists
• Produce flexible, adaptive, human-like software
• Want smart agents?
• Model them after humans.

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IDA an Intelligent Distribution Agent
Read personnel data Check job requisition
list Adhere to Navy policies Choose jobs to offer
members Negotiate with members Write orders
Telephone
Detailer
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Modules and Mechanisms

• PerceptionCopycat ArchitectureHofstadter
• Action SelectionBehavior NetMaes
• Associative MemorySparse Distributed
  MemoryKanerva
• Episodic MemoryCase-based Memory
• EmotionsPandemonium TheoryJackson
• MetacognitionFuzzy Classifier SystemsHolland,
  Zadeh
• LearningCopycat Architecture, Case-based
  Reasoning
• Constraint SatisfactionLinear Functional
• Language GenerationPandemonium Theory
• DeliberationPandemonium Theory
• Consciousness Pandemonium Theory

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IDAs Architecture
Metacognition
Database Perception
Linear Functional
Deliberation
Negotiation
Write Orders
Behavior Net
Conceptual Behavioral Learning
Consciousness
Perception
Associative Memory
Episodic Memory
Emotions
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Levels of abstraction

• High level
• behaviors
• message type nodes
• emotions
• metacognitive actions
• etc.
• Low level
• codelets

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Codelets

• Small pieces of code each performing a simple,
  specialized task
• Acts as a demon, always watching for a chance to
  act
• Most subserve some high level entity, e.g.
• behavior
• slipnet node
• metacognitive action
• Some codelets work on their own, e.g.
• watching for incoming mail
• checking for time and place conflicts
• Codelets do almost all the work
• IDA is a multi-agent system

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Perception via a Slipnet
Norfolk
nor
NRFK
norfolk
Norfolk
. . .
San Diego
Jacksonville
Miami
location
information request
preference
acceptance
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Associative Memory
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Coalitions and Consciousness

• Coalition manager
• Spotlight manager
• Broadcast mechanism

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Behavior Net in Action
Behavior net
Work Space
Stands
Side lines
Playing field
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A Behavior Stream
Activation from drive
Send an acknowledgement
Compose an acknowledgment
Find an email address
Find and move a template
From the Sidelines
Activation from the environment, external or
internal
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Deliberation

• Faced with a goal or problem
• Imagine possible plans or solutions
• Scenarios
• Routes
• Internal virtual realityDawkins
• Evaluate them
• Using reason
• Using emotions
• Choose among them

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IDAs Deliberation

• Create scenes
• May require objects, actors, concepts, relations,
  frames
• Organized around events
• Build scenarios as sequences of scenes
• Choose between scenarios, discarding some
• Using Barsalous perceptual symbol systems as a
  guide

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Consciousness in Action
Focus
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Metacognition

• Thinking about thinking
• What Sloman calls meta-management
• Influences action selection strategies
• More or less opportunistic, thoughtful or
  goal-oriented
• Influences resource allocation
• Fuzzy classifier system

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Learning

• Associative learning via pandemonium theory
• Associative learning via sparse distributed
  memory
• Perceptual learning via case-based reasoning
• Behavioral learning via case-based reasoning
• Metacognitive learning via classifiers

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Modeling Cognition

• Situated (embodied) cognitionVarela, Thompson
  Roach
• Perceptual symbol systemsBarsalou
• Memory via actionsGlenberg
• Global workspace theoryBaars
• Cognitive architectureSloman

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Slomans Architecture
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Web and Email Addresses

• Stan Franklin stan.franklin_at_memphis.eduwww.msc
  i.memphis.edu/franklin
• Conscious Software Research Group
  www.msci.memphis.edu/csrg
• CMattie Projectwww.msci.memphis.edu/cmattie
• IDA Projectwww.msci.memphis.edu/ida