Class 10:
Communicating Agents

Selmer Bringsjord

Misc

• Midterms back to studio audience today
• Project 3
  • email Selim for code if you need it, his or -- if need be -- mine
  • let's take a look at Eliza now, through Ralph$\ldots$
• Practice Final: I'm working on it, will certainly be up Friday 6/18

Overview of Class

• Humans distinguished by our use of language (chimps)
• No stimulation $\rightarrow$ no (robust) language (Genie)
• Private languages and Diagrammatic Reasoning (the twins)
• Universal Grammar (examples; evidence)
• Key elements from the R&N text
• Problem 22.7
• The Symbol-Grounding Problem (robot nightmare version)

Do Apes Use Language?

• The chimps Lana, Washoe, etc. -- their abilities
• A ``problem-solving perspective"
  • Language is a problem-solving tool
  • What new problems can they now crack?

Argument 2

	(1)	If Lana (etc.) uses a natural language, then the human scientists brought her to this state from one in which she didn't use a natural language.
	(2)	If x is brought to a state of using a natural language from a state of not using a natural language, then x is capable of solving problems which would have been unsolvable in x's ``pre-language" state.
	(3)	Lana (etc.) isn't capable of solving problems which would have been unsolvable in her ``pre-language" state.
.$^\cdot$.	(4)	Lana (etc.) doesn't use a natural language.

• The Sad Case of Genie $\ldots$
• The Amazing Case of the Twins $\ldots$

Universal Grammar

• Your text: ``local" grammar
• What about grammars that cut across all societies? Are there any?
• Yes, apparently
  • e.g., compound plural nouns$\ldots$
  • Structure Dependence

• Structure Dependence (con.)
  • Crain & Nakayama (1986) had children learn Yes-No questions given data consistent with both hypotheses.
  • Children would convert John saw a whale at the beach. to What did John see at the beach? not John did what see at the beach?

Key Difficult Elements from R&N_Ralph

• Overview of Entire Process$\ldots$
• The special DCG notation
  • experiments in OTTER$\ldots$
• Semantics of ``John loves Mary":
  • What does our Eliza do?
  • And our text:
    
    $${\Large (\lambda x \mbox{{\em Loves(x,Mary))(John)}}}$$
    
    

  • Recall

    (defun make-fn2 (exp)
        (coerce `(lambda (n) ,exp) 'function))
    

    ? (funcall (make-fn2 '(+ n 1)) 7)
    8
    

• But what happens with ``Every agent smells a wumpus"? p. 675
• quasi-logical form $\ldots$

• Problem 22.7
  • Gr (A) doesn't work: no way for verb `walked' followed by adverb `slowly' and the PP `to the supermarket'
  • see to-be-scanned sheets for parses under Gr (B) and Gr (C)

The Symbol-Grounding Problem

• And the Turing Test that ignores it_Brutus