The Sensitive Semantic Machine, called Sense Machine for short, is at the core of a system with artificial semantic intelligence that can be used as a basis for any kind of simple conversation between human beings and machines.
The Sense Machine would be able to identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and participles based on their content.
Additional elements of artificial intelligence (AI), such as recognising and understanding grammar, time (and tense), subordinate clauses and how they function, semantic networks related to an overarching concept, negation, active/passive voice, qualities and quantities, protagonists and antagonists are not within the scope of the Sense Machine, but will be required for AI to be able to the full range of semantic clues in human language.
The Problem
The extent of human language, even just the massive amount of words that exist to denote a tremendous number of processes and concepts, may make the task of classifying and understanding language seem impossible.
Nonetheless, developmental psychology can be used to reduce significantly the number of categories into which processes and concepts can be sorted.
Just as our decimal number system using only 10 digits to describe vast ranges of numbers, the Sense Machine can sort linguistic concepts into some core psychological aspects.
In contrast to the number system, where each digit represents just a single value, the core psychological aspects embody the meaning of linguistic concepts.
So, the question is:
what occupies human thought, what do they talk about, what do they want?
And psychology gives the answer: people have instinctual needs that develop in phases during childhood. (cf. Freud[1], Erikson[2], Schultz-Hencke[3], etc. )
These basic instinctual needs become differentiated over the course of childhood development into diverse needs and interests, with such development guided by education and society.
So what results in the adult human can probably be best called "motives".
Motives are parts of the original basic instinctual needs of the human. These include processes and behaviours that the individual person may not necessarily see as desirable. For example, acting out of duty or performing tasks the person considers distasteful. (Even apparently meaningless messing about or wasting time has psychological motives.)For every action, in the broadest sense of the word (including conversations that appear to have no particular purpose), there is a motive.
For a good reason the detective always asks: what was the motive?
Motives are the key focus of the Sense Machine. It assigns concepts and processes to the motives with which they are associated and then asks whether the goal has been achieved.
Humans engage in such classification processes as a normal and everyday part of conversation, even if we are unaware of it. It is so obvious a part of human communication that we rarely make explicit enquiries as to the motive behind what is being said. It is only when one person fails to discern the motive of another's speech that we ask: "What are you talking about?"
Understanding one's interlocutors is not only possible with major, pressing problems of the day (keywords: empathy, mirror neurons), but is also central to the many little details of day-to-day life.
To understand human actions and desires, Sense Machine first attempts to identify the motive and then the degrees to which the motive has been realised. If realising the motive triggers a positive (complementary) reaction from the environment or a negative reaction (counter-reaction).
If the process is complex, the various things that follow one after another until a goal is reached are called a chain of motives. Each link of a chain may exist in a positive or negative context which will have to be recognised to understand the current state or problem of the protagonist (the human actor at the centre of the action).
After this brief overview of the issues, the first question that must be answered is how psychology can help us reduce the massive number of motives , to allow a clear and decisive picture to be made out of all the chaos?
The answer:
The Parentela.
Parentela is Latin for "blood relatives" and is used here to denote in a more general sense inter-relationships.
- In this case a Latin term was chosen to underline the importance of this concept.
among words, especially verbs and concepts are inter-related on the basis of their psychological significance and which share common origins (as members of a family tree do).
The parentela is not related to the roots of words from a linguistic perspective, but rather the meaning attached to a desire, a concept, an action or a piece of information in terms of how it relates to a basic psychological instinct.
The relationships are replicated in the realisation of motives:
In addition, there are cross-references not shown in these simple diagrams that cut across the base instincts, motives and objects.
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An example:
A young man gets into a red sports car just as he notices an attractive woman on the pavement. The young man revs the engine at full throttle and races away with the tires screeching away.
Every person seems to know intuitively what this is all about:
1. Young man sees young woman.
2. Young man drives sports car.
3. Sports car is red
4. Young man goes full throttle.
Sense Machine recognizes the following:
1. Possible sexual attraction between man and woman. Context: Attraction
2. Vehicle for high speed. Context: Vehicle
3. Colour represents arousal, excitement. Context: Colour choice indicates emotional tendency.
4. Protagonist drives fast. Context: Movement
Sense Machine also detects the same parentela for all four details:
basic instinct towards sexual reproduction
In other words, the young man has four individual motives:
1. He is attracted to the young woman and wants to react.
2. He has a car that drives very fast.
3. He chose the colour red.
4. He drives very fast.
Three of the motives are realised: the first, however, has not (yet) achieved its goal.
If one looks at the whole as a chain of motives, the end point of the chain has probably not yet been reached. Either he does not currently have a sexual partner or he has is not fully satisfied in fulfilling this instinct.
This example also demonstrates the effects of our technological civilization well; whereas earlier, a man might have had to demonstrate physical prowess, he can now acquire technical aids.
(In this example, other possibilities, such as wit, charm, etc. are excluded.)
So, how we can establish the relationships and inter-relationships between the base instincts and the several motives? This is done with the help of the
heteronomous,
concentric,
options for realizationautonomous,
concentric,
options for realizationautonomous,
ex-centric,
options for realization
heteronomous,
ex-centric
options for realizationOral instinctual goals
Anal instinctual goals
Genital instinctual goals
Urethral [4] instinctual goals
Intentional instinctual goals
On the left side are the labels for the five types of basic instinctual goals as they develop in the phases of childhood.
The column headings refer to the psychological dimensions of behaviours, i.e. who or what determines the behaviour and whom or what is the centre (or focus) of the behaviour.
These psychological dimensions allow human behaviours to be classified according to their essential psychological content, which is the second and actually most important aspect of the matrix.
(autonomous = self-determined, heteronomous = not self-determined; concentric = self-focused, ex-centric = focused on something/someone else) [5]
(Detailed explanation under: The Dimensioning Psychology Behind the Sense Machine.)
This dimensioning psychology is used to classify all sorts of behaviours. Every normal activities, such as dreaming, talking, walking, working, information gathering can be classified according to these dimensions as, for example, wishing, forcing, battling, striving, recognising.By definition, this table includes the whole range of human behaviour, because behaviour is either autonomous or heteronomous, either ex-centric or concentric.
It is assumed that there are no purely random human behaviours, i.e. neither autonomous nor heteronomous.
A behaviour can also only be concentric or ex-centric (blends are classified according to the focus).
The entire Overall Basic Matrix includes every conceivable option, divided into four distinct categories.
The five basic instinctual goals should be similarly understood. They encompass every conceivable instinctual goal, i.e. every basic instinctual goal includes an entire bundle of closely-related instincts.
Thus the Overall Basic Matrix is by definition all-encompassing. Each element of the matrix represents a large amount of content.
Reducing the Overall Basic Matrix
There are several ways to reduce the scope of the basic matrix.
For example, one can opt to include aspects from a given perspective (or context), such as only interpersonal behaviour or motives of a particular type.
In doing so, all five aspects of the basic instinctual goals can be covered, which will make this matrix dimensionally congruent with the Overall Basic Matrix, because this smaller matrix is a subset of the larger, Overall Basic Matrix.
Such a context, for example, could be that the matrix only includes those activities related to material things (wanting to have …, controlling…, aspiring…, seeking… something material). Thus actions related to to something material is the context or perspective of this matrix.-
In a Combination Basic Matrix, a superordinate motive is combined with other motives that should be satisfied concomitantly.
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The individual elements of the matrix differ in their properties by their position in the table. They are options for realization, i.e. ways of realising one or, in combination, two instinctual goals and are related to the context.Either the context itself constitutes a (single) instinctual goal or the context overlaps all five aspects of basic instinctual goals with a particular (partial) aspect.
In any case, the five rows are in relation to the five aspects of basic instinctual goals in the Overall Basic Matrix and the four columns are inter-related to all the other four columns in the other matrices.These correlations on two levels are a consequence of the parentela.
Because the computer only has to analyse any subject against a 5 x 4 matrix, with just 20 concepts total, it is easy for the computer to evaluate the language it is processing. e. The schema is always the same and the parentela allows motives to be assigned to the basic instinctual goals.By referencing the basic instinct to which a matrix of motives belongs, the computer can always determine which goal is being addressed. By classifying the concepts by options for realization (the columns), it can recognise which options are available to realise the goal.
By combining the matrix, a rigid system suitable for computer logic, with any number of motives, the system gains a lot of flexibility.
It can happen that not every element of the matrix contains content. Some things simply do not exist, a fact which does not detract from the overall classification, but increases its flexibility.
It is also conceivable to use a larger matrix (by increasing the number of dimensions), with more rows or more columns or both. The advantage of this relatively small matrix is that it remains straightforward and synchronously structured as the phases of childhood development, which are also synchronous with the underlying aspects of human behaviour. On the other hand, the absolute freedom in the number of motives increases the abilities of the Sense Machine tremendously.
Wherever there are gaps in the matrix, these can be closed by a sub-matrix structured according to a special perspective (or context).
Even humans develop their understanding of the world from the simplest basic building blocks.
These building blocks are not just simply piled up, higher and higher; rather, the individual building blocks fit into other blocks or they differentiate themselves and collapse to hundreds of tiny blocks.
This process of a few larger blocks or aspects differentiating themselves and then being broken down into ever smaller blocks of information is imitated by Sense Machine.
The psychological dimensions of the Sense Machine does not participate in scholarly discussions [6] about the actual number of motives. It assumes that any behaviour that can lead to any goal in the broadest sense is driven by a motive, provided it can be classified according to the dimensions in the Overall Basic Matrix and this includes the whole range of human behaviour by definition (see above).
The functioning of the Sense Machine is purely based on psychological dimensions, but it is not able to interrogate these motives like a human psychologist, with the exception of establishing cross-associations (as explained below).
Sense Machine can properly classify normal human processes; it does not need to understand complex contexts, such as those discussed in psychotherapy.
Sense Machine understands those processes that every human is able to understand readily, often intuitively or even unconsciously, without even having to think about them.
Therein lies the problem of AI trying to determine meaning: so far, only to understand processes which the human already readily interprets, but, upon closer examination, really knows very little about.
Outlook
Sense Machine will not be able to compete with the sophistication of human intelligence for many years after it is completed, but it will have an advantage that only a computer could have.
Due to the cross-relations that exist in two levels, it can start making connections between things that are similar, i.e. cross-associations.
It can thus transfer certain motives and methods a user has revealed to other aspects of the user's life. For example, wishes for interpersonal contact can be transferred to the material realm and vice versa.
This would allow Sense Machine to make statistical evaluations about which transfers are most desirable and which are unique. After longer conversations with a person, Sense Machine will be able to recognise that person's likes and dislikes and transfer these to other areas of that person's life.
That would then be an area of communication where it would be at an advantage over humans.
With this particular trait, an AI with a Sense Machine at its core could function as a personal assistant and conversation partner for a user.
[1] Freud, oral, anal, phallic stage
[2] Erikson, Childhood and Society
[3] Schultz-Hencke Lehrbuch der analytischen Psychotherapie
[4] Urethral within the meaning of power phase, as described by Erikson et al.
[5] Lüscher, Die Methode der strukturellen Funktionspsychologie
[6] cf. Reiss Profile, basic motives in McClelland, Barbuto, Scholl and many others