group. One of the key ideas involved in this project is explicit integration of subsymbolic and

12 1 Introduction group. One of the key ideas involved in this project is explicit integration of subsymbolic and more symbolic subsystems. For instance, one can use a purely subsymbolic, hierarchical pattern recognition network for vision processing, and then link its internal structures into the nodes and links in the AtomSpace that represent concepts. So the subsymbolic and symbolic systems can work harmoniously and productively together, a notion we will review in more detail in Chapter 26. 1.9 Language Learning One of the subtler aspects of our current approach to teaching CogPrime is language learning. Three relatively crisp and simple approaches to language learning would be: e Build a language processing system using hand-coded grammatical rules, based on linguistic theory; e Train a language processing system using supervised, unsupervised or semisupervised learn- ing, based on computational linguistics; e Have an AI system learn language via experience, based on imitation and reinforcement and experimentation, without any built-in distinction between linguistic behaviors and other behaviors. While the third approach is conceptually appealing, our current approach in CogPrime (de- scribed in a series of chapters in Part 2) is none of the above, but rather a combination of the above. OpenCog contains a natural language processing system built using a combination of the rule-based and statistical approaches, which has reasonably adequate functionality; and our plan is to use it as an initial condition for ongoing adaptive improvement based on embodied communicative experience. 1.10 AGI Ethics When discussing AGI work with the general public, ethical concerns often arise. Science fic- tion films like the Terminator series have raised public awareness of the possible dangers of advanced AGI systems without correspondingly advanced ethics. Non-profit organizations like the Singularity Institute for AI ( (http://singinst.org) have arisen specifically to raise attention about, and foster research on, these potential dangers. Our main focus here is on how to create AGI, not how to teach an AGI human ethical principles. However, we will address the latter issue explicitly in Chapter 12, and we do think it’s important to emphasize that AGI ethics has been at the center of the design process throughout the conception and development of CogPrime and OpenCog. Broadly speaking there are (at least) two major threats related to advanced AGI. One is that people might use AGIs for bad ends; and the other is that, even if an AGI is made with the best intentions, it might reprogram itself in a way that causes it to do something terrible. If it’s smarter than us, we might be watching it carefully while it does this, and have no idea what’s going on. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012928