the self beyond humans

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Sanz / The Self Beyond Humans RU, May 16, 2013

The Self Beyond Humans

Universidad Politcnica de MadridAutonomous Systems Laboratory

Ricardo Sanz

Reykjavik UniversityMay 16, 2013


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Idea

A prospective analysis of the theory and technology ofself-awareness beyond the anthropomorphic harnesses

of today's robotics.

Speculative,

visionary; probably wrong.


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There are many research trends that point toward a technology of robot selfhood. Formany reasons, we humans are pursuing the development of selves for robots to equip themwith human-like sophisticated competences. Self and self-awareness constitute one of thecornerstones of consciousness, a whimsically peculiar aspect of our humanhood. Manyattempts to artificial selves are based on the shallow replication of biological behavioraltraits, but a true engineering technology of robot selves cannot be based but on a rigoroustheory of consciousness beyond humans. Humans are the best ground truth we have, thebest example to inspect and imitate, but anthropomorphism is a procrustean path that shallbe followed with care.

A scientific, general theory of consciousness should be much more than just somescientific progress towards understanding how consciousness can emerge form the activityof neurons and their interactions. While it is clear that human brains are the best source

of information about consciousness, the construction of a universal, general theory ofconsciousness is strongly hampered by the almost absolute and obviously excessive focuson human brain, human cognition and human neurophysiology. Human brains are not theonly systems to consider in this analysis; a general theory should also address at least themany other systems of interest: all kinds of animals, machines and even social groups.

In this talk we will address the emergence of a theoretical framework for Self BeyondHumans. This theoretical framework shall eventually lead to technological assets for robotselfhood to enable them to properly operate in ecological, medical, technical and economic

terms in a variety of circumstances. A positive theory of self shall be centered on systemfunctional architecture, sidetracking philosophical discussions on the nature of 'content andself' and leveraging the value of concrete topologies and measurements.

Future robots will have selves that may be enormously alien to humans; but, in a veryprecise sense, they will be quite similar to ours but with a deeper, purer essence, devoid ofall that noise produced by biological evolution.


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Picasso 1906



Shutterstock 2011



Towards Robo-Self

There are many research trends that point towards a

technology of robot selfhood.

For many reasons, we humans are pursuing the

development of selves for robots to equip them withhuman-like sophisticated competences.

Self and self-awareness constitute one of the

cornerstones of consciousness, a whimsically peculiaraspect of our humanhood.

However, technological selfhood needs a clearer stance.



Four Aspects of Consciousness

1. Knowingthe world

2. Experiencingthe world

3.

Knowing others minds

4. Having a self



CONTENT

A Rationale for Machine Selves

A Brief History of the Self

Self for Machines

The Anthropomorphic Trap




My Stance

Im not a philosopher, nor a psychologist nor alinguist

Im a systems engineer

This implies that I will not attempt to provide acomplete recension of all that has been said about self

I will offer only a personal, limited perspective, useful

for what I want to say concerning real worldmachines

This vision may have other implications, however



A MINI History of the Self

What is self?



Origins of Self

Early 1600s in the philosophy of Rene Descartes.Cogito Ergo Sum.

In his pre-secularisation age, he concluded that God

must have given us all a Cogito.

This theory offers an image of human self as animmaterial, fixed, unitary thing that we areborn with, and that stays with us throughout our lives

and even beyond.

This model has produced a huge impact on the waythat we think about ourselves at least in occident.


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Each one of us isthe special one.


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Beyond Descartes

Hundred years later, materialist, empiricistphilosophers (Hume, LaMettrie, Diderot, ) argue

that the human mind is a product of experience,a material thing made of brain matter, not an

immaterial, fixed unitary thing that we are born with.

Hofstadter describes it as that special kind of subtlepattern that grows as we live and learn and that he

calls a strange loop.

Others say: a class of being, a unique percept, a focus,a mirror, everything that is, nothing but a mirage, ...


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I in the Mirror

The mirror test, Gallup 1970


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Categories of Biological Self

Core-Self: A transient entity; recreated for eachobject with which the brain interacts.

Proto-Self: A representation of core self in a second

order neural map (an image).

Autobiographic Self: Permanent dispositional

records of core-self experiences.

Damasio 2007


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A BIG problem

Cognitive science does not have a clear grasp of theissue of consciousness and self; less of its brain

architecture.

Too many scattered foci on biological self-awareness from the different disciplines:

Psychology

Neuroscience

Philosophy

Anthropology

Sociology

...


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What is self ?

Self a person's essential being that distinguishes them from others.

Self the core agent of reflexive perception and reflexive action.

Uniqueness & Reflection


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A Brief Rationalefor Machine Selves

Why do we need machine selves?


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Do They Need Selves ?


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Self for Machines?

There are many reasons for building selvesfor machines: science, show business,

economy, technical, pure hubris,

The dictionary reading pinpoints the maintwo:

Self - a person's essential being that distinguishesthem from others !Uniqueness

Self - the object of introspection or reflexiveaction !Reflection

This last can be leveraged in achievingresilient performance in machines.


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Robot Uniqueness

By constructive principle, robot uniqueness can only bea contingent property.

A robot self cannot provide genuine uniqueness.

All robo-personscan be replicated.


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Reflection and Robust Autonomy

Reflection can provide resilience for autonomoussystems

Lets see how


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Two classes of problems

Run-time problems

What shall the controller do to handle disturbances?

Construction-time problems

How to design and build such controller?


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Two knowledge batteries

operation

knowledge

engineering#

knowledge


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Increasing resilience

Make better things (problem avoidance)

Make robust things (problem tolerance)

Passive (Masking)

!

Transparent, simple, fast, cost, deteriorating

Active (Controlling)

!Cheap, complex, flexible, overhead, adaptable

Controllers do also suffer faults, errors and failures


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Increasing Controller resilience

One way: Make passive-robust controllers

Other way: Control the controller

Monitor, diagnose, modify the controller

Second level controllers:

Nested controllers

Adaptive controllers

Fault-tolerant controllers

... self-aware controllers?


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The Self-loop


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Self for Robots

What is a robot self?


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From Humans to Robots

Most attempts to artificial selves for robots are

based on the shallow replication of human biological/behavioral traits (e.g. Damasios).

Humans are the best ground truth about selfhoodthat we have, the best example to inspect and

imitate

However, anthropomorphism is a procrustean path

that shall be followed with care.


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Self for Robots in the Movies


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Qbo passes the mirror test


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Self-Configuring Robots

"The key is for robots to create a model of themselvesto figure out what is working and not working in order

to adapt.

The robot learns to walk by trial and error,using sensory feedback from itssensors and using model-based

#

simulations the robot figures

out how its body is and how to#

use it to move.

Bongard 2006


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Beyond (unreal) Robots

Are there any other machine selves?


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Industrial Robots

V h l


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Vehicles

M R


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Mars Rovers

Ai l


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Airplanes

Ch i l Pl


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Chemical Plants

U ili i


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Utilities

M M hi S lf


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Many Machines are Self-aware

Ducati 2006

Autonomic Properties for


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p

Software Systems

Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration ofcomponents;

Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction

of faults;

Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring andcontrol of resources to ensure the optimal functioningwith respect to the defined requirements;

Self-Protection: Proactive identification andprotection from arbitrary attacks.

Kephart 2002


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The AnthropomorphicTrap

Why build human-like minds?

Anthropomorphism


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Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is attribution ofhuman form or other characteristics to

anything other than a human being.

Examples include ascribing humangoals, drives or emotions to animalsor even to forces of nature, such ashurricanes or earthquakes.

As we will se later, this may bewrong, but may also be right,

eventually.

Seven Fallacies for Self


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Seven Fallacies for Self

The BrainFallacy

The EvolutionFallacy

The OntogenyFallacy

The QualiaFallacy

The SocialFallacy

The BodyFallacy

The WholenessFallacy

The Brain Fallacy


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The Brain Fallacy

Consciousness Needs Brains

A levels and modules trap


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A levels and modules trap

The Evolution Fallacy


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The Evolution Fallacy

Mind Needs Evolution

The Ontogeny Fallacy


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The Ontogeny Fallacy

Mind NeedsDevelopment

The Qualia Fallacy


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The Qualia Fallacy

Qualia shall be Human Qualia

The Social Fallacy


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The Social Fallacy

Socialization is a need for consciousness emergence

The Body fallacy


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The Body fallacy

Having a body is neccessary

Cylon Evolution


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Cylon Evolution

A human body?

The Wholeness Fallacy


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The Wholeness Fallacy

Genuine Agents shall be Whole Humans

In the trap


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Sanz / The Self Beyond Humans

RU, May 16, 2013

In the trap

Many researches in the study of self, consciousnessand cognition are trapped in the biologism trap.

Robots shall be created in the image and likeness of

Human.

Why does the Robonaut

look like a PowerRanger?

Platform Gap


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Platform Gap

At the technology level

Platform Gap


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At the architecture level

Platform Gap


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At the system level

HBP Neurorobotics Roadmap


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Escaping the Trap


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p g p

A scientific, general theory of consciousnessshould be much more than just some scientificprogress towards understanding how consciousnesscan emerge form the activity of neurons and theirinteractions.

While human brains are the best source ofinformation about consciousness, the construction ofa general theory of consciousness is stronglyhampered by the almost absolute andobviously excessive focus on human brain,

human cognition and human neurophysiology.

A general theory should also address at least the

many other systems of interest: all kinds of animals,machines and even social groups.


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Can we escape the trap?

A New Framework


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We need a new theoretical framework forbuilding selves beyond humans.

This framework shall eventually lead to technological

assets for robot selfhood to enable them to properlyoperate in ecological, technical and economic terms

in a variety of circumstances.

A positive theory of self shall be centered on system

functional architecture, sidetrackingphilosophical discussions on the nature of 'contentand self' and leveraging the value of concrete

topologies and measurements.

Beware the technology mismatch


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A General Self Strategy


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We need a methodology for extracting universal,domain neutral, architectural organizations

from the analysis of biological selfhood.

This will render a set of design principlesand design

patternsoriented towards the construction ofbetter, more robust machines.

Bio-inspiration cannot be a one step process; we must

build solid theories of self first, departing fromconceptions inspired in natural systems, being general

and supporting our designs of artificial agents.

Build theories first


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Theory of Self

The Self-building loop


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Self-aware systems know how they workThey can use this knowledge to act

A single problem set


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operation

knowledge

engineering#

knowledge

Bridging the gap


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System-environment

knowledge

Self-engineering Systems

(predictable autopioetic)

The agent models the world


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Models are not just photographs.They are functionallyequivalentdynamical systems.

CraikRosen

Agent access to Self


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Leverage model-based engineeringof the system

Use theengineering models

as run-timeself-models

The agent becomesself-aware

The Actionable Self Model


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The agent builds a functional

model of itself that is:

Fully integrated

Continously updated

Actionable

This very self model is ath thesame time the cause and the

effect of the agent actions

Actionable self-model

The Model-based Self-loop


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The causal closure of the model-based controlleroffers a way of bounding recursion in metacontrol.

Architecture and Self


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The system self-modelsshall essentially capture the

system architecture

Architecture encompasses the set of significant designdecisionsabout the organization of a system

Structureas elements and their interfaces by which asystem is composed

Behavioras specified in collaborations among those

elements

Compositionof these structural and behavioral elements

into larger subsystems

Relation to environment and mission and the architectural

stylethat guides this organization

Universal Design Principles


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The application of the generalization doctrine to theanalysis of the architectural problem of a general

self-aware system has lead us to the formulation ofseveral design principles.

These principles can be used in two ways:

For the construction of reusable assets for a product

line approach to robust autonomous systems.

As theoretical analyses of natural cognition,

consciousness and selfhood.

Principles


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Model-based cognition: A cognitive systemexploits models of other systems, of self, in their

interaction with them.

Model isomorphism: An embodied, situated,

cognitive system is as good performer as it is able tokeep its models isomorphic to realities.

Anticipatory behavior: Agents maximise timely

performance by means of anticipatory (predictive)models.

Principles


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Unified cognitive action generation: Agentsgenerate action based on an integrated, scalable,

unified model of task, environment and self in searchfor global performance maximisation.

Model-driven perception: Perception isrealized as the continuous update of the integratedmodels used by the agent by means of real-time

sensorial information.

Principles


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System awareness: An aware system iscontinuously perceiving and generating meaning -

future value- from the continuously updated models.

System self-awareness: A self-aware system is

continuously generating meanings from continuouslyupdated self-models in a model-based cognitivecontrol architecture.

Note that we use a precise definition of

meaning and understanding

Self and Beyond


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Robot selves will transcendcurrent conceptions of the self:

Unique

Inmaterial

Fixed

Unitary

Localised

Atomic

Examples of Future Selves


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Autonomous vehicles

Battlefield agents

Telecom networks and terminals

Smart grids

The Right Anthropomorphism


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Anthropomorphism as attribution ofhuman characteristics to anything other

than a human being may be right.

This is especially relevant concerning#

cognitive capabilities because humans#

are the biggest cognitive powerthat we know so far.

However, to avoid being misledwe must throw the water out

without throwing the baby.

The Baby vs the Water


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Keep the baby

Core properties of self:

Reflection

Persistence

Growth

Dynamicity

Cohesion

Actionability

Ontogeny/Phylogeny

Throw out the water

Inessential properties

Neurality

Unicity

Localization

Socialization

Uniqueness

All the metaphysicalremainders: eternal,

transcendental, etc

What is self ?


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Self a person's essential being that distinguishes them from others.

Self the core agent of reflexive perception and

reflexive action.

Self the unification of the subject and the object.

Self-Aware

A S


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Autonomous Systems

Emotion and Function


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ECL and MC as architecture ofmorphofunctionality in emotion Herrera 2013

Overall View of OM


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Hernandez 2013

Conclusions


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The machines of the future will have deep andheterogeneous selves to support them in the provision

of robust autonomy.

These selves will leverage reflective, actionablemodels.

These selves will not be unique,unified nor localised.

They will be federable,plastic and fully alien to us.

Coda


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Sanz /


RU May 16 2013

Future machines will have selves that may beenormously alien to humans; but, in a very precise

sense, they will be quite similar to ours, exhibiting a

deeper, purer essence, devoid of all that irrelevant

noise produced by biological evolution.

The Self Beyond [email protected]

the self beyond humans

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