Strasser A. (2018) Social Cognition and Artificial Agents. In: Müller, V. (ed.) Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence 2017. PT-AI 2017. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics (SAPERE), 44, 106-114, Berlin, Springer., 2018
Standard notions in philosophy of mind have a tendency to characterize socio-cognitive abilities ... more Standard notions in philosophy of mind have a tendency to characterize socio-cognitive abilities as if they were unique to sophisticated human beings. However, assuming that it is likely that we are soon going to share a large part of our social lives with various kinds of artificial agents, it is important to develop a conceptual framework providing notions that are able to account for various types of social agents. Recent minimal approaches to socio-cognitive abilities such as mindreading and commitment present a promising starting point from which one can expand the field of application not only to infants and non-human animals but also to artificial agents. Developing a minimal approach to the socio-cognitive ability of acting jointly, I present a foundation for future discussions about the question of how our conception of sociality can be expanded to artificial agents.
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Zu diesem Zwecke wird in dieser Arbeit der programmatische Vorschlag einer Bedeutungstheorie von Donald Davidson vorgestellt. Dazu ist es notwendig, sich mit der Wahrheitstheorie Tarskis zu beschäftigen. Interessant ist nun, welche Erkenntnisse unabhängig von Tarski in dieser Bedeutungstheorie enthalten sind. Hier kann man zum einen die These der Unerforschlichkeit der Referenz und zum anderen das Prinzip der Nachsicht nennen.
Durch die Voraussetzung des Prinzips der Nachsicht, nämlich größtmögliche Übereinstimmung zwischen Interpret und Sprecher anzunehmen, ist es einem Interpreten möglich, in die Interdependenzbeziehung zwischen Überzeugung und Bedeutung einzudringen. So kann der radikale Interpret erste Interpretationshypothesen aufstellen, die er später mit einem bedeutungsholistischen Ansatz auf logische Konsistenz in bezug auf die faktische Menge aller seiner Interpretationshypothesen überprüfen kann."
Papers by Anna Strasser
To argue for this claim I will clarify the conditions that a possible participant of a collective action necessarily has to fulfill. In the case of collective actions, it is not primarily intentionality that matters, but social abilities that play a crucial role, since social cognition enables participants of a collective action to successfully interact.
I will argue that successful interaction requires that we are able to anticipate the behavior of others, and to coordinate with them. However, it may not require higher-order representational abilities - including joint attention, theory of mind and theory of emotion.
The behavior of artificial systems may be interpreted as if they are able to ‘read’ social hints and behave in such a way that we tend to treat them as if they had mental or even emotional states. This leads to cases of collective agency where it is at least extremely counter-intuitive to describe the participating artificial system as merely a tool. In this paper I will argue for a position showing that less demanding conditions like pure goal-directedness plus certain social and cognitive abilities may be sufficient to participate in a collective action.
There are two main subjects relevant to this debate. Firstly, the conceptual question: What notion of self-consciousness should be under discussion regarding infants? In other words: how minimal can a feasible notion of self-consciousness be? Positions in this debate vary from presuming innate abilities such as the postulation of pre-reflexive self-consciousness (cp. Frank 1991) and the claim that language has to be developed and the right use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ has to be proven (cp. Castaneda 1966). Claiming that self-ascription abilities are an essential condition for all notions of self-consciousness, I begin by analyzing self-ascription abilities using the terminology of the sense of ownership, the sense of agency, and the sense of authorship. Equipped with this clarification, I suggest a minimal notion of self-consciousness that may serve as a foundation of a broader notion of self-consciousness. Secondly, the epistemological question: How can we know when ascribing self-consciousness is justified? This question is combined with an additional problem concerning the ascription of self-consciousness to infants. Infants show impressive behavior that seems to be tied to self-consciousness, but in some cases there are convincing alternative explanations for such behavior. Such alternatives do not refer to self-consciousness and still provide satisfying explanations. Finally, I will discuss several paradigmatic cases regarding the question of whether the ascription of self-consciousness is justifi ed in such cases.
Zu diesem Zwecke wird in dieser Arbeit der programmatische Vorschlag einer Bedeutungstheorie von Donald Davidson vorgestellt. Dazu ist es notwendig, sich mit der Wahrheitstheorie Tarskis zu beschäftigen. Interessant ist nun, welche Erkenntnisse unabhängig von Tarski in dieser Bedeutungstheorie enthalten sind. Hier kann man zum einen die These der Unerforschlichkeit der Referenz und zum anderen das Prinzip der Nachsicht nennen.
Durch die Voraussetzung des Prinzips der Nachsicht, nämlich größtmögliche Übereinstimmung zwischen Interpret und Sprecher anzunehmen, ist es einem Interpreten möglich, in die Interdependenzbeziehung zwischen Überzeugung und Bedeutung einzudringen. So kann der radikale Interpret erste Interpretationshypothesen aufstellen, die er später mit einem bedeutungsholistischen Ansatz auf logische Konsistenz in bezug auf die faktische Menge aller seiner Interpretationshypothesen überprüfen kann."
To argue for this claim I will clarify the conditions that a possible participant of a collective action necessarily has to fulfill. In the case of collective actions, it is not primarily intentionality that matters, but social abilities that play a crucial role, since social cognition enables participants of a collective action to successfully interact.
I will argue that successful interaction requires that we are able to anticipate the behavior of others, and to coordinate with them. However, it may not require higher-order representational abilities - including joint attention, theory of mind and theory of emotion.
The behavior of artificial systems may be interpreted as if they are able to ‘read’ social hints and behave in such a way that we tend to treat them as if they had mental or even emotional states. This leads to cases of collective agency where it is at least extremely counter-intuitive to describe the participating artificial system as merely a tool. In this paper I will argue for a position showing that less demanding conditions like pure goal-directedness plus certain social and cognitive abilities may be sufficient to participate in a collective action.
There are two main subjects relevant to this debate. Firstly, the conceptual question: What notion of self-consciousness should be under discussion regarding infants? In other words: how minimal can a feasible notion of self-consciousness be? Positions in this debate vary from presuming innate abilities such as the postulation of pre-reflexive self-consciousness (cp. Frank 1991) and the claim that language has to be developed and the right use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ has to be proven (cp. Castaneda 1966). Claiming that self-ascription abilities are an essential condition for all notions of self-consciousness, I begin by analyzing self-ascription abilities using the terminology of the sense of ownership, the sense of agency, and the sense of authorship. Equipped with this clarification, I suggest a minimal notion of self-consciousness that may serve as a foundation of a broader notion of self-consciousness. Secondly, the epistemological question: How can we know when ascribing self-consciousness is justified? This question is combined with an additional problem concerning the ascription of self-consciousness to infants. Infants show impressive behavior that seems to be tied to self-consciousness, but in some cases there are convincing alternative explanations for such behavior. Such alternatives do not refer to self-consciousness and still provide satisfying explanations. Finally, I will discuss several paradigmatic cases regarding the question of whether the ascription of self-consciousness is justifi ed in such cases.
Soon we will share a large part of our social life with various kinds of artificial agents. Due to our ability to connect emotionally not only with living beings but also with inanimate objects, reducing human-machine interactions exclusively to pure tool-use already conflicts with our experiences.
Arguing that we need notions to capture cases in between mere tool-use and social interactions, I suggest that certain human-machine interactions may constitute a new type of social interactions.
Exploring potential negative impacts that our behavior towards artificial agents can have on interpersonal behavior, I argue that human-machine interactions take on a moral dimension. If we cannot preclude the risk of a transfer of critical behavioral patterns, we should regulate the behavior before it can be transferred.
In meinem Vortrag will ich untersuchen, inwiefern sich Interaktionen mit Robotern oder anderen künstlichen Systemen von bloßem Werkzeuggebrauch hin zu echten sozialen Interaktionen entwickeln können. Dabei werden drei Fragen im Vordergrund stehen:
1. Können Roboter und andere künstliche Agenten soziale Agenten sein?
2. Ist unser Begriff von Sozialität zu restriktiv?
3. Wie sollen wir Roboter und andere künstliche Agenten behandeln?
Ausgehend von der Beobachtung, dass z.B. eine gemeinsame Handlung mit einem Roboter sich nicht auf bloßen Werkzeuggebrauch reduzieren lässt, aber wir trotzdem Schwierigkeiten haben, sie als eine echte soziale Interaktion zu verstehen, werde ich dafür argumentieren, dass auch künstliche Agenten soziale Fähigkeiten haben können. Jedoch gibt es bis jetzt für solche Fähigkeiten in der Philosophie keine Begrifflichkeit. Ein Grund dafür liegt in der Tatsache, dass unsere Begrifflichkeiten für Sozialität sehr restriktiv sind, was sich z.B. in Bedingungen wie ‚lebendig sein‘ oder ‚leidensfähig sein‘ ausdrückt. Deswegen können nichtlebendige Entitäten von vorne herein nicht erfasst werden. An dieser Stelle werde ich Sie in die philosophische Werkstatt entführen und zeigen, wie man sogenannte minimale Begriffe konstruieren kann, die auch soziale Fähigkeiten von Robotern und anderen künstlichen Systeme miteinschließen können. Mithilfe solcher Begriffe könnte man die Begrifflichkeit von Sozialität erweitern.
Begreift man Roboter und andere künstliche Agenten als einen neuen Typus von sozialen Agent ist es naheliegend auch über soziale Normen, die das Verhalten gegenüber solchen sozialen Agenten regeln, nachzudenken. Aber auch wenn man die Auffassung vertritt, dass nichtlebendige Entitäten grundsätzlich keine sozialen Eigenschaften haben können, also wenn man künstliche Agenten nicht als einen neuen Typus von sozialen Agenten auffassen will, stellt sich die Frage, ob es sinnvoll wäre, soziale Normen zu entwickeln, die unser Verhalten gegenüber Robotern und anderen künstlichen Agenten regeln.
Im letzten Teil des Vortrages werde ich Mensch-Maschinen-Interaktionen untersuchen, bei denen moralisch kritische Verhaltensweisen eingeübt werden, die dann auch gegenüber Mitmenschen angewandt werden. Hier werde ich argumentieren, dass Verhaltensweisen gegenüber Robotern und anderen künstlichen Agenten, die auf zwischenmenschliche Interaktionen transferiert werden, eine moralische Dimension bekommen können. Daraus folgere ich, dass es für bestimmte Arten von Mensch-Maschinen-Interaktionen gute Gründe gibt, sie mithilfe sozialer Normen zu regulieren, bevor sie zu unmoralischen Verhaltensweisen gegenüber Menschen führen.
Dr. Anna Strasser
Scientific Coordinator (Postdoctoral program)
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin
www.mind-and-brain.de
Abstract
There are many theories and positions about psychopathological phenomena in schizophrenic patients but nevertheless the pathologies are still not well understood. To foster the understanding of delusions it will be helpful to bring together the different perspectives that we find in philosophy, neurosciences, and psychiatry. However, even within those disciplines, there are different perspectives: For example, in psychiatry one is confronted with research about diagnostic manuals, about therapeutic psychoanalytical as well as about pharmacological treatment. In philosophy we have approaches using phenomenological methods as well as theories following the constraints of analytic philosophy of mind or cognitive science. All approaches use different methods and ask different underlying research questions.
In this talk, I want to focus on two questions concerning delusions: First, how is it possible to develop delusions? And second, why is it so hard to get rid of them? For these purposes, I will discuss the two-factor theory by Max Coltheart (Coltheart et al. 2000; Coltheart et al. 2011). This theory gives a first answer to the above questions. The question, how is it possible to develop delusions, is explained by the claim that this is to be seen as a quite rational response to abnormal experiences. Having an abnormal experience is the starting point of a delusion and the abnormal experience is caused by an impairment of the brain. The second question, why is it so hard to get rid of them, is then explained by a cognitive impairment, which again is caused by another impairment of the brain.
In this talk, I will question whether these two factors sufficiently explain the formation of delusions. The additional and maybe essential role of features like a general uncertainty, emotional influences, moods, desires as well as the ability to control shifting attention will be discussed.
References:
Max Coltheart & Martin Davies (eds.) (2000). Pathologies of Belief. Blackwell Publisher.
Max Coltheart, Robyn Langdon, and Ryan McKay (2011). Delusional Belief. In: Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2011. 62:271–98.
In this three-day workshop we will try to clarify the concept of reciprocity and to explore for the first time how the notion of reciprocity can be used to illuminate debates in adjacent fields of cognitive science. In the process we hope to provide answers to a number of important questions such as:
What kinds of reciprocity are involved in different forms of communication and joint action?
How does reciprocity interact with knowledge, learning, and cognitive development?
What can we learn from studying social interaction in non-human primates and humans with psychiatric disorders that involve dysfunctional social interaction?
What role does reciprocity have in social interaction impairments?
How can reciprocity be studied with neuroscientific methods?
This symposium will be organized around six distinct but closely related sessions, each devoted to the role of reciprocity in social cognition:
(1) Intentional communication
(2) Neuroscience of dialogue
(3) Socio-cognitive disorders
(4) Social exchange: insights from computational neuroscience
(5) Perspective-taking
(6) Joint action
In a two-day symposium at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain of Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin, in cooperation with the Department of Neurology at the Max Planck Institut for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Leipzig), we will examine the complex relationship between neuroscience and society from different perspectives. It is more urgent than ever to understand their modes of interaction and to reach consensus positions on the future role of neuroscience in society. Some of the questions that will guide our symposium are: What are the expectations of society regarding relevant neuroscientific progress? How do the media cover neuroscience findings? Are researchers perhaps forced to publicly oversell their results in an increasingly competitive research environment? What can be done to reform neuroscientific research practices in order to increase the outcome of truly relevant data, e.g. in biological psychiatry? Do we need to rethink the publication process of scientific data, encourage more replication studies and improve the feasibility of publishing negative findings?
The workshop will be organized around these questions, with two keynote lectures and five short talks. There will also be six specialized working groups dedicated to these questions, each working group panel headed by two experts in the field.
A summary of the outcome of each working group will be given to the other participants in the afternoon of day two. Following the Mind the Brain! symposium, the outcome of our meeting will be presented to a broader audience in a public lecture as well as in a press conference.
In the winter semester 2014/2015, the Current Issues seminar will be dedicated to philosophical questions. The audience will be interdisciplinary.
This seminar is organized by Lena Kästner, Richard Moore and Anna Strasser.
Recent work in philosophy of mind and metaphysics has yielded a number of new theoretical models of the experience of passage of time, duration, and timing of events. At the same time, research in neuroscience has been uncovering the neural mechanisms that underlie time perception and consciousness. This workshop will bridge these common strands in the work of philosophers and neuroscientists. For example, by bringing neurobiological models of temporal perception to bear on theorizing about the content of conscious experience of time and vice versa. We will also discuss subjective distortions of time, which may be useful in testing the viability of such models.
We will also focus on the relationship between world time and subjective time. A collaborative and interdisciplinary dialogue will generate a more comprehensive understanding of the role of time in conscious experience that can bear directly on issues of concern to the public. Among these are explanations of folk psychological metaphors such as ‘time flying when we are having fun,’ but also a better understanding of symptoms of depression, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, and even ageing, all of which manifest altered sense of subjective time.