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From Small to Large Models: The era of Massive Data Flow (MDF) 

Takashi Ikegami  
University of Tokyo

A synthesized world model in a modern-day computer is much richer than the models of 20 years ago. Now, a great deal of data can be acquired in various fields, and the world presented by the data becomes much richer than artificial ones. Analysis and synthesis on the vast real-time dimension of the data as well as massive data flow of long time scale have become possible. This is what we call the era of Massive Data Flow (MDF).

We used the term MDF to imply a large dataset required to analyze and a large generative model required to understand real world complexity. We noticed that the absence of adequate theories and methods of MDF were striking as well as the lack of epistemology accounts for the MDF in science. MDF revealed to us that small model approaches do not work well, and we were required to develop new ways of analysis and concepts of larger model approaches.

For example, the Web is one of the most complex artificial systems that we know. We analyzed Web dynamics as a larger model, comparing it to small size models, such as neural networks, to understand “ What is life? ” in terms of information flow, default mode network, bursting behavior, etc. In other words, we examined the maximalistic model/thinking for life by creating a larger model. By extending models of artificial life into the MDF world, we can argue for what types of new technology and concepts we can develop to understand life in the artificial and real world. 

Objective Meaning

Alan Costall
University of Portsmouth

Psychologists, when they have not simply ignored objects and places, have largely taken ‘their’ meaning for granted. For example, we are certainly impressed when a child pretends that a pen is a rocket, but we simply take for granted that even a very young child knows what this thing really is, namely, a pen. Such meaning is impersonal, and, in this sense, objective.

However, such ‘canonical affordances,’ although embodied in particular objects, are also socially constituted. They are not simply there. In this session, I want to explore the ways in which canonical affordances have created a ‘world’ of objective meaning, how this might provide a crucial basis for the development and sustaining of communication, and how such stabilized, objectivized meanings somehow survive the remarkable degree of ‘play’ they also afford.

TBA

A Mathematical Theory Of Cognitive Ascription

Simon McGregor
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Cognitive scientists' attempts to formulate a universally accepted definition of cognition have continued fruitlessly for decades. I demonstrate that a mathematical definition of what it is for an embodied system to *appear* cognitive, to a particular theorist, is relatively straightforward to formulate, using a framework of Bayesian probability. Some simple desiderata are shown to imply descriptions with an internalist cognitivist structure, and arguments from first principles motivate the use of a Bayesian formalism. The resulting theory invites a distinctive perspective on cognition: Dennettian in some respects, but with a central formal role for sensorimotor contingencies, and inspirations taken from Friston's free-energy framework in cognitive neuroscience.

Distorted Body Representations in Healthy Adults

Matt Longo
Birbeck University 

Misperceptions and delusions about one's own body are characteristic of numerous psychiatric and neurological conditions. Such phenomena have long fascinated researchers, in large part because of their sheer strangeness. Our body is so ubiquitous in our perceptual experience and so intimately known to us, it is difficult to imagine not having accurate knowledge of it. In this talk, I will discuss several recent experiments that have shown, in striking contrast to this intuition, that our brain maintains highly distorted representations of the body, used for perceptual tasks including position sense and tactile size perception.

Autonomous Vehicles don’t need to solve the Trolley Problem: but maybe we do.

Blay Whitby 
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There has been a good deal of attention recently to the question of whether autonomous vehicles will have to be programmed to take action deliberately to kill one individual in order to save several.  This is a robotic version of a much discussed philosophical thought experiment which has become known as 'The Trolley Problem'. 

I shall argue that present technology does not allow autonomous vehicles to take decisions at the required level. On the other hand, there is no evidence that human drivers can reliably take such decisions. However, by requiring such a high level of decision-making from autonomous vehicles or using it as an excuse to delay their introduction we, as humans, are effectively making the wrong choice in the trolley problem. Introducing autonomous vehicles would almost certainly vastly reduce road traffic casualties. Ethically, we should choose this option.

Towards an Ethical Robot: internal models, consequences and ethical acton selection

Alan Winfield  
University of the West of England

If robots are to be trusted, especially when interacting with humans, then they will need to be more than just safe. In this talk I will outline the potential of robots capable of modelling and therefore predicting the consequences of both their own actions and the actions of other dynamic actors in their environment. I will show that with the addition of an ‘ethical’ action selection mechanism a robot can sometimes choose actions that compromise its own safety in order to prevent a second robot - acting as a proxy human - from coming to harm. An implementation with both e-puck and NAO mobile robots provides a proof of principle by showing that a robot can, in real time, model and act upon the consequences of both its own and others’ actions. I argue that this work moves us towards robots that are ethical as well as safe.

Individuating the Senses of Taste and Smell

Keith Wilson
University of Glasgow

In an influential paper, Paul Rozin (1982) suggests that humans have not one, but two senses of smell: (1) orthonasal olfaction, which involves inhaling odourants through the nose to create what is traditionally thought of as an olfactory or ‘smell’ experience; and (2) retronasal olfaction, which involves the detection of odourants originating from the mouth and throat, typically while eating, combining with our sense of taste to create flavour experiences (aka ‘taste’). In this paper, I consider how best to understand Rozin’s claim, and what notion, or notions, of a ‘sense’ are in play here. In particular, I argue that Gibson’s distinction between sensory and perceptual modalities can help us make sense of this apparent duality, with implications for how we individuate the senses and multisensory experience more generally.

The Future in the Brain

Paul Burgess
University College London

Our mental life is composed of processing related to either the past, present, or future. For instance, episodic and semantic memory concern the past, and areas of cognition such as motor skills, language, conditioning, procedural learning etc represent the products of past learning. And "the present" in our brains is represented by our sensory processes, and aspects related to our current consciousness such as working memory. But arguably the thing that separates humans most from other animals is the degree to which our mental space is devoted to considering the future. Without this degree of "future thinking", and the ability to carry out the plans we devise and imagine, humans would have achieved very little, and we would have little hope for changing our future. So it is perhaps curious that it is only quite recently that researchers have started to study how the future is represented in the brain. However, this is now one of the fastest-moving topics within cognitive neuroscience, and this presentation will cover what we have discovered recently about how our brain enables us to create and carry out future intentions, and what the future is for future thinking. In particular our investigations have led us to a part of the brain (Area 10) that has good claim to be the region that most distinguishes us from other animals, and that has presented cognitive neuroscientists with a particularly curious scientific conundrum with lessons for all of us who try to map mental processes onto brain structure.

When is Optimism Good for You?

Lisa Bortolotti
University of Birmingham

Three forms of the optimism bias are commonly identified in the psychological literature: (1) the illusion of control is an exaggerated belief in our capacity to control independent, external events; (2) self-enhancement is the perception of ourselves as more positive than is the case (“I am more talented than the average person”); and (3) unrealistic optimism is the perception that our future will be largely positive and will yield progress. The standard view is that the optimism bias gives rise to beliefs that are epistemically irrational but psychologically beneficial. In the paper I reject the view that, in general, realistic cognitions negatively affect wellbeing, whereas optimistic ones contribute to it. Rather, I suggest that those forms of optimism that do not hinder but promote the agent’s capacity to engage with her physical and social environment have both psychological and epistemic benefits.

Busting Out: Predictive Brains for Embodied Minds

Why I'm Not a Cyborg

Kathleen Richardson
University College London

It is over 30 years since feminist theoretician Donna Haraway published her Cyborg Manifesto writing ‘A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction’.* It is not just feminists who made use of the cyborg imagery, posthumanists, transhumanists and robotic scientists all point to the cyborg age - 'We're all cyborgs now!’ they declare. As people are connected with old and new technologies have we really lost the capacity to formulate an argument for what it means to be human? In this talk I will explore these issues by drawing on anthropology and robotics.