Towards general spatial intelligence

The goal of General Spatial Intelligence is to present a unified theory to support the various aspects of spatial experience, whether physical or cognitive. We acknowledge the fact that GIScience has to assume a particular worldview, resulting from specific positions regarding metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, mind, language, cognition and representation. Implicit positions regarding these domains may allow solutions to isolated problems but often hamper a more encompassing approach. We argue that explicitly defining a worldview allows the grounding and derivation of multi-modal models, establishing precise problems, allowing falsifiability. We present an example of such a theory founded on process metaphysics, where the ontological elements are called differences. We show that a worldview has implications regarding the nature of space and, in the case of the chosen metaphysical layer, favours a model of space as true spacetime, i.e. four-dimensionality. Finally we illustrate the approach using a scenario from psychology and AI based planning

Asymptotically Unambitious Artificial General Intelligence

General intelligence, the ability to solve arbitrary solvable problems, is supposed by many to be artificially constructible. Narrow intelligence, the ability to solve a given particularly difficult problem, has seen impressive recent development. Notable examples include self-driving cars, Go engines, image classifiers, and translators. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) presents dangers that narrow intelligence does not: if something smarter than us across every domain were indifferent to our concerns, it would be an existential threat to humanity, just as we threaten many species despite no ill will. Even the theory of how to maintain the alignment of an AGI's goals with our own has proven highly elusive. We present the first algorithm we are aware of for asymptotically unambitious AGI, where "unambitiousness" includes not seeking arbitrary power. Thus, we identify an exception to the Instrumental Convergence Thesis, which is roughly that by default, an AGI would seek power, including over us.Comment: 9 pages with 5 figures; 10 page Appendix with 2 figure

Self-Regulating Artificial General Intelligence

Here we examine the paperclip apocalypse concern for artificial general intelligence (or AGI) whereby a superintelligent AI with a simple goal (ie., producing paperclips) accumulates power so that all resources are devoted towards that simple goal and are unavailable for any other use. We provide conditions under which a paper apocalypse can arise but also show that, under certain architectures for recursive self-improvement of AIs, that a paperclip AI may refrain from allowing power capabilities to be developed. The reason is that such developments pose the same control problem for the AI as they do for humans (over AIs) and hence, threaten to deprive it of resources for its primary goal

A Critique of Emotional Intelligence (Book Review)

A review of: A Critique of Emotional Intelligence. What Are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed? edited by Kevin R Murphy, 2006. This book written by psychologists describes the development of EI in the 1990s, and regards Goleman's work as a populist bandwagon. Chapters focus on the non-measurability of emotional intelligence, concluding that since it cannot be securely measured, it ought not to be described as an intelligence. It regards general intelligence (g) as the best predicter of potential, against Goleman's subtitle. Nevertheless, emotional maturity remains a not insignificant aspect of general personality

A Formal Measure of Machine Intelligence

A fundamental problem in artificial intelligence is that nobody really knows what intelligence is. The problem is especially acute when we need to consider artificial systems which are significantly different to humans. In this paper we approach this problem in the following way: We take a number of well known informal definitions of human intelligence that have been given by experts, and extract their essential features. These are then mathematically formalised to produce a general measure of intelligence for arbitrary machines. We believe that this measure formally captures the concept of machine intelligence in the broadest reasonable sense.Comment: 8 two-column page

Aspects of Sex Differences: Social Intelligence vs. Creative Intelligence

In this article, we argue that there is an essential difference between social intelligence and creative intelligence, and that they have their foundation in human sexuality. For sex differences, we refer to the vast psychological, neurological, and cognitive science research where problem-solving, verbal skills, logical reasoning, and other topics are dealt with. Intelligence tests suggest that, on average, neither sex has more general intelligence than the other. Though people are equals in general intelligence, they are different in special forms of intelligence such as social intelligence and creative intelligence, the former dominant in women, the latter dominant in men. The dominance of creative intelligence in men needs to be explained. The focus of our research is on the strictly anthropological aspects, and consequently our explanation for this fact is based on the male-female polarity in the mating systems. Sexual dimorphism does not only regard bodily differences but implies different forms of sex life. Sex researchers distinguish between two levels of sexual intercourse: procreative sex and recreational sex, and to these we would add “creative sex.” On all three levels, there is a behavioral difference between men and women, including the subjective experience. These differences are as well attributed to culture as genetically founded in nature. Sexual reproduction is only possible if females cooperate. Their biological inheritance makes females play a decisive role in mate choice. Recreational sex for the purpose of pleasure rather than reproduction results from female extended sexual activity. Creative sex, on the contrary, is a specifically male performance of sexuality. We identify creative sex with eroticism. Eroticism evolved through the transformation of the sexual drive into a mental state of expectation and fantasizing. Hence, sex differences (that nowadays are covered up by cultural egalitarianism) continue to be the evolutionary origin of the difference between social and creative intelligence