The Problem of Meaning in AI and Robotics: Still with Us after All These Years

Bibliographic Details
Title: The Problem of Meaning in AI and Robotics: Still with Us after All These Years
Authors: Tom Froese, Shigeru Taguchi
Source: Philosophies, Vol 4, Iss 2, Pp 14-0 (2019)
Publisher Information: MDPI AG, 2019.
Publication Year: 2019
Collection: LCC:Logic
LCC:Philosophy (General)
Subject Terms: mind-body problem, 4E cognition, cognitive robotics, artificial life, minimal cognition, dynamical approach, enactive approach, complex systems, Logic, BC1-199, Philosophy (General), B1-5802
More Details: In this essay we critically evaluate the progress that has been made in solving the problem of meaning in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. We remain skeptical about solutions based on deep neural networks and cognitive robotics, which in our opinion do not fundamentally address the problem. We agree with the enactive approach to cognitive science that things appear as intrinsically meaningful for living beings because of their precarious existence as adaptive autopoietic individuals. But this approach inherits the problem of failing to account for how meaning as such could make a difference for an agent’s behavior. In a nutshell, if life and mind are identified with physically deterministic phenomena, then there is no conceptual room for meaning to play a role in its own right. We argue that this impotence of meaning can be addressed by revising the concept of nature such that the macroscopic scale of the living can be characterized by physical indeterminacy. We consider the implications of this revision of the mind-body relationship for synthetic approaches.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 2409-9287
Relation: https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/4/2/14; https://doaj.org/toc/2409-9287
DOI: 10.3390/philosophies4020014
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/135fe8c742a34ac99eb9c4552592ed35
Accession Number: edsdoj.135fe8c742a34ac99eb9c4552592ed35
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:24099287
DOI:10.3390/philosophies4020014
Published in:Philosophies
Language:English