Common Sense

[Hope]

Over the months the importance or role of common sense has been alluded to here several times, and in the BBC's current Artificial Intelligence 'season' people have been talking about the need to be able to imbue robots with 'common sense' before general AI can really begin to take off.

How would folk here define 'common sense' in this context?

[Leonard James]

Common sense is presumably the ability not to do or say daft things.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus on what are daft things, so common sense becomes undefinable.

[Hope]

Common sense is presumably the ability not to do or say daft things.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus on what are daft things, so common sense becomes undefinable.

So, are you saying that, realistically, 'General AI', as opposed to 'narrow AI' is ultimately unachievable?

[jeremyp]

Common sense is presumably the ability not to do or say daft things.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus on what are daft things, so common sense becomes undefinable.

So, are you saying that, realistically, 'General AI', as opposed to 'narrow AI' is ultimately unachievable?

How did you get from the one statement to the other? 

[Udayana]

Common sense is presumably the ability not to do or say daft things.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus on what are daft things, so common sense becomes undefinable.

But haven't you just provided a definition?

[BeRational]

I would say it was the ability to predict outcomes from actions, and to know which outcomes are more desirable.

[Outrider]

I would say it was the ability to predict outcomes from actions, and to know which outcomes are more desirable.

'Common Sense' is post hoc rationalisation - typically by neurotypicals - to justify lucky guesses and culturally historical inherited stories.

O.

[Rhiannon]

AI will know to always have a hanky and its bus fare home.

[Aruntraveller]

AI will know to always have a hanky and its bus fare home.

and just in case, clean underwear.

[Leonard James]

Common sense is presumably the ability not to do or say daft things.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus on what are daft things, so common sense becomes undefinable.

But haven't you just provided a definition?

Note the word "presumably".

[Nearly Sane]

Wiki is actually quite good on this but in terms of how anyone in an AI programme used it would need to know the context.

[Harrowby Hall]

"It's common sense" means "I have no evidence at all to support my view and please do not try to enlighten me".

Common sense, innit!

I don't think that anyone would be able to instruct a robot to think like that.

[floo]

Common sense would indicate that if you drop a brick and a tiny stone together, the brick being the much heavier object would hit the ground first, but of course they hit the ground at the same time!

[Hope]

So, are you saying that, realistically, 'General AI', as opposed to 'narrow AI' is ultimately unachievable?

How did you get from the one statement to the other?

Len suggested that "Unfortunately, there is no consensus on what are daft things, so common sense becomes undefinable".  If common sense is indefinable, how do we create something or a process by which a robot could be imbued with something indefinable?  Obviously, I am taking my starting point what was said on this morning's BBC Breakfast by someone from Imperial College London - that without our having a means of imbuing common sense, a robot will not be able to be fully AI in the 'General' AI sense.

[Nearly Sane]

]Len suggested that "Unfortunately, there is no consensus on what are daft things, so common sense becomes undefinable".  If common sense is indefinable, how do we create something or a process by which a robot could be imbued with something indefinable?  Obviously, I am taking my starting point what was said on this morning's BBC Breakfast by someone from Imperial College London - that without our having a means of imbuing common sense, a robot will not be able to be fully AI in the 'General' AI sense.

Which assumes that Len and whoever it was from Imperial are talking about the same thing. I think this is unlikely - I would suggest that the initial definition in Wiki is what the person from Imperial is more likely to be talking about.

[Hope]

Which assumes that Len and whoever it was from Imperial are talking about the same thing. I think this is unlikely - I would suggest that the initial definition in Wiki is what the person from Imperial is more likely to be talking about.

Well, the context of the thread was, I thought, fairly obvious.  I realise that some posters seem to have missed that completely.  Len doesn't generally miss contexts, so I was assuming that he hadn't this time.

[ekim]

Is this robot using her commonsense in replies to questions? ... http://tinyurl.com/pjrvveu

[Hope]

ekim. could you run that URL through something like tinyurl.com or bitly.com so that it doesn't wreck the formatting of the page?  There are, I understand, some of our number for whom these long urls play havoc with their specialist software.

[ekim]

Sorry about that.  I don't know how to do what you suggest, but an easy alternative is to log on to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news   and down at the bottom of that page is the item 'Meet Erica - the robot just like a person.  Hope that helps.

[Nearly Sane]

Which assumes that Len and whoever it was from Imperial are talking about the same thing. I think this is unlikely - I would suggest that the initial definition in Wiki is what the person from Imperial is more likely to be talking about.

Well, the context of the thread was, I thought, fairly obvious.  I realise that some posters seem to have missed that completely.  Len doesn't generally miss contexts, so I was assuming that he hadn't this time.

How could Len grasp the context of an interview he hadn't seen and wasn't referred to in the OP. Indeed even after you have talked about it, how would anyone know what the Imperial wonk was meaning? Do you think he meant the not saying daft things as indicated by Len?

[Nearly Sane]

Sorry about that.  I don't know how to do what you suggest, but an easy alternative is to log on to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news   and down at the bottom of that page is the item 'Meet Erica - the robot just like a person.  Hope that helps.

Go to this link http://tinyurl.com/

Paste your long link into field and click for tinyurl.
Copy that and paste back into your post with the long url.

[ekim]

Yippee
http://tinyurl.com/pjrvveu

Thanks for that.

[Nearly Sane]

Yippee
http://tinyurl.com/pjrvveu

Thanks for that.

You need to do it for the post with the long link in it, while removing the long link, otherwise the formatting is still screwed if you view it from certain interfaces.

[ekim]

Yippee
http://tinyurl.com/pjrvveu

Thanks for that.

You need to do it for the post with the long link in it, while removing the long link, otherwise the formatting is still screwed if you view it from certain interfaces.

Have I got it right now?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Over the months the importance or role of common sense has been alluded to here several times, and in the BBC's current Artificial Intelligence 'season' people have been talking about the need to be able to imbue robots with 'common sense' before general AI can really begin to take off.

How would folk here define 'common sense' in this context?

Common sense is not science and on occasions the two have been in contradiction to each other.