Quine AI

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Normally, we imagine an AI as something like this:

Input data -> Modelling -> Choice of optimal response -> Output data

I propose a simpler design:

Data <-> Modelling

Specifically, an automaton capable of actions having a model of the world (including itself), and some prior beliefs about how things such as itself behave:

This is related to my work on image restoration.

The automaton also has a simple device that monitors this self modelling and acts out one of the scenarios for what the machine might do next. There is no attempt to choose an optimal behaviour, it just conforms to how it estimates that it will act. It acts to avoid pain, etc, only because it has a prior belief that it will do so.

Thus the self-model is the self. One less entity, and entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

This seems to have properties we associate with consciousness: consciousness of self, quining. It also fits with the idea of "flow" states, where one stops thinking of oneself as separate from the system of which you are a part.




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