Presentation at the ATR institute in Keihanna, Japan about Enactment as a possible direction for artificial consciousness.

1. Designing Conscious Robots
Is enactment the solution?
Ben Salem
Industrial Design
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
on loan to Nirvana Technology Inc. to work on domestic robots
b.i.salem@tue.nl
polywork.com/~bsalem

2. Overview 44 slides
• Conscious Robots
• Is enactment the solution
• Modelling Volition, Emotions and Consciousness
• Is free will an illusion?
• Functional Neuro-Anatomy of the brain
• Inspiration for some design and control
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

3. Contents
• Introduction
• What are Emotions
• What is Volition
• Understanding Consciousness
• Modelling the Brain
• MiniMe
• Mollycuddle
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

4. • Department of Industrial Design
• 80 Staff since 2000/2001
• 3yrs Bachelor Degree, 2yrs Master Degree
• Two Research groups and growing
• User Centred Engineering
• Designed Intelligence
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

5. Vision
• To understand ourselves and achieve higher
spirituality and harmony with the aid of
technology
In fact, harmony is the life and real meaning of a true community or an organisation
The teaching of Buddha
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

6. Holistic Approach
The tuna fish syndrome
Picture from the Internet
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

7. Why Holistic?
High specifications leads to specialisation
High Specialisation leads to lack of adaptability
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

8. The most adaptive and subjective system we
know is ourselves.
Picture from the Internet
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

9. Volition
No matter how high one’s aspiration may be, it must be attained step by step
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

10. A linear model
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

11. Benjamin Libet
in 1979 reveals a substantial delay--the "mind time"--before any
awareness affects how we view our mental activities.
If all conscious awarenesses are preceded by unconscious processes,
as Libet observes, we are forced to conclude that unconscious
processes initiate our conscious experiences. Freely voluntary acts are
found to be initiated unconsciously before an awareness of wanting to act-
-a discovery with profound ramifications for our understanding of free will.
Libet, B., Wright, E. W., Feinstein, B. & Pearl, D. K. (1979). Brain 102,
193
Pictures from the Internet
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

12. © By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

13. • Sensor systems deliver information at 11Mbps
• Our consciousness bandwidth is 16bps
• Where’s all the data gone?
Frank Tallis, Hidden Minds: A History of the Unconscious (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2002)
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

14. Emotions
She was attempting to control her emotions
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

15. © By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

16. © By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

17. © By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

18. © By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

19. Functional Neuro-Anatomy
1st Doomite Robot: Humans are so stupid!
2nd Doomite Robot: That's because their brains are analogue instead of digital.
From Voltron: Defender of the universe, Wikiquote
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

20. Limbic System
Picture from the Internet
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

21. Amygdala
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

22. Amygdala
• Plays a key role in emotions
• Seat of fear and pleasure assessment
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

23. Hippocampus
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

24. Hippocampus Indirect
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

25. Hippocampus
• Plays a role in memory and navigation
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

26. Hypothalamus
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

27. Hypothalamus
• Connects to the endocrine system and release
neurohormones
• Involved in the regulation of body temperature,
hunger, thirst and circadian cycles.
• Part of the Control of emotions and sexual
activity
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

28. Awakeness
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

29. Other Structures
• Thalamus:
Relay station
• Brainstem:
Respiration, cardiac rhythm, route of communication between
brain and spinal cord
• Cerebelum:
Major sensorimotor structure that play an important role in the
regulation an planning of movements.
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

30. Emotional brain circuits
Unfortunately shows only the direct projections, neuro-modulators effects are not showable!
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

31. Time-scale of (emotions)
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

32. Ilyia Prigogine
• Stationary states of complex
systems far from equilibrium
• Leads to stability of higher order
• Similar fashion to emergent
properties
Picture from the Internet
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

33. • Scientific laws describe an “idealised stable
world that is quite different from the unstable,
evolving world which we live in”
• Science has to connect the two opposite views
of a deterministic world and of an arbitrary
world of pure chance.
Ilyia Prigogine, The End of Certainty (New York: The Free Press, 1997)
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

34. Francisco J. Varela
• Map the neural substrates of
consciousness
• at the level of large-scale, emergent and
transient dynamical patterns of brain
activity (rather than at the level of
particular circuits or classes of
neurones)
• Suggests that the processes crucial for
consciousness cut across the brain–
body–world divisions, rather than being
brain-bound neural events.
Picture from the Internet
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

35. The Reason for enacting
• Is a disembodied brain a possibility?
• Is a brainless body a possibility?
The termite syndrome
Pictures from the Internet
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

36. Projects
If knowledge can create problems,
it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Isaac Asimov
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

37. Well Planned Progress?
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

38. MiniMe
• Bottom-up Approach
• Work on joint control
• Top-Down Approach
• Modelling volition, emotions and now CS!
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

39. © By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

40. Anatomy of the knee joint
Picture from the Internet
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

41. Three types of motor units
• S. Slow-twitch, FR. Fast-twitch, fatigue-resistant and, FF. Fast-
twitch, fatiguable.
• Muscles can operate under 3 modes:
1. small amount of force for prolonged period
2. Moderate amount of force sustainable for moderate amount of time
3. Large amount of force for brief periods.
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

42. Biomimetic joint control
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

43. Mimicking 3 muscle fibres
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

44. Mollycoddle
• Pampered and overprotected toy
• Empathy,
• 1st year students and now I’m coaching a 3rd year student for
his final project
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

45. Cuddle
* Appealing shape & colours
* Clear affordance
* Social relevance
* Simple interaction
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

46. Mikko
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005

47. Questions?
© By Ben Salem Presentation at ATR 13th September 2005