Theory of Cognitive Relativity: A Promising Paradigm for True AI

TL;DR

The paper proposes the Theory of Cognitive Relativity as a new paradigm for achieving true AI, emphasizing principles that could lead to artificial general intelligence and consciousness beyond brain-like models.

Contribution

It introduces the Theory of Cognitive Relativity, outlining fundamental principles for understanding and developing true AI and consciousness, diverging from traditional brain-like approaches.

Findings

Principle of World's Relativity constrains subjective perception.

Principle of Symbol's Relativity allows diverse symbol systems.

Thought experiments highlight importance for scientific theory of mind.

Abstract

The rise of deep learning has brought artificial intelligence (AI) to the forefront. The ultimate goal of AI is to realize machines with human mind and consciousness, but existing achievements mainly simulate intelligent behavior on computer platforms. These achievements all belong to weak AI rather than strong AI. How to achieve strong AI is not known yet in the field of intelligence science. Currently, this field is calling for a new paradigm, especially Theory of Cognitive Relativity (TCR). The TCR aims to summarize a simple and elegant set of first principles about the nature of intelligence, at least including the Principle of World's Relativity and the Principle of Symbol's Relativity. The Principle of World's Relativity states that the subjective world an intelligent agent can observe is strongly constrained by the way it perceives the objective world. The Principle of Symbol's Relativity states that an intelligent agent can use any physical symbol system to express what it observes in its subjective world. The two principles are derived from scientific facts and life experience. Thought experiments show that they are important to understand high-level intelligence and necessary to establish a scientific theory of mind and consciousness. Rather than brain-like intelligence, the TCR indeed advocates a promising change in direction to realize true AI, i.e. artificial general intelligence or artificial consciousness, particularly different from humans' and animals'. Furthermore, a TCR creed has been presented and extended to reveal the secrets of consciousness and to guide realization of conscious machines. In the sense that true AI could be diversely implemented in a brain-different way, the TCR would probably drive an intelligence revolution in combination with some additional first principles.