The Philosophy of AI

Author(s):  
Susan Ella George

As we shall see, the “theology of technology” can help inform the philosophical underpinnings of AI. We start with elucidating the idea of computation, and describe the idea of Turing machine computation. Its equivalence with Post systems and the lambda calculus are explained, and the way that these systems may be regarded as “rule based” and “generative” are brought out. All the equivalent formal models define enumerable languages. However, as Turing’s original definition demonstrated, there are definable numbers that are not computable, that is, a computer could not be used to write some numbers down, yet they exist. The presence of “unsolvable” computational problems also reveals the limitations of Turing machines, and suggests the current limits of computation. While the “intuitive” understanding of computation is one of “step-by-step” algorithmic procedure, it will be hard to conceive of any other computational model.

2001 ◽  
Vol 11 (02n03) ◽  
pp. 353-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEFAN D. BRUDA ◽  
SELIM G. AKL

We assume the multitape real-time Turing machine as a formal model for parallel real-time computation. Then, we show that, for any positive integer k, there is at least one language Lk which is accepted by a k-tape real-Turing machine, but cannot be accepted by a (k - 1)-tape real-time Turing machine. It follows therefore that the languages accepted by real-time Turing machines form an infinite hierarchy with respect to the number of tapes used. Although this result was previously obtained elsewhere, our proof is considerably shorter, and explicitly builds the languages Lk. The ability of the real-time Turing machine to model practical real-time and/or parallel computations is open to debate. Nevertheless, our result shows how a complexity theory based on a formal model can draw interesting results that are of more general nature than those derived from examples. Thus, we hope to offer a motivation for looking into realistic parallel real-time models of computation.


Author(s):  
Guglielmo Tamburrini

Turing machines are abstract computing devices, named after Alan Mathison Turing. A Turing machine operates on a potentially infinite tape uniformly divided into squares, and is capable of entering only a finite number of distinct internal configurations. Each square may contain a symbol from a finite alphabet. The machine can scan one square at a time and perform, depending on the content of the scanned square and its own internal configuration, one of the following operations: print or erase a symbol on the scanned square or move on to scan either one of the immediately adjacent squares. These elementary operations are possibly accompanied by a change of internal configuration. Turing argued that the class of functions calculable by means of an algorithmic procedure (a mechanical, stepwise, deterministic procedure) is to be identified with the class of functions computable by Turing machines. The epistemological significance of Turing machines and related mathematical results hinges upon this identification, which later became known as Turing’s thesis; an equivalent claim, Church’s thesis, had been advanced independently by Alonzo Church. Most crucially, mathematical results stating that certain functions cannot be computed by any Turing machine are interpreted, by Turing’s thesis, as establishing absolute limitations of computing agents.


Author(s):  
Susan Ella George

This chapter discusses a new conception of computation. The conception is one of constraints rather than rules. In contrast to the rule-based approach of Turing machines, Post systems and lambda calculus, the constraint-based approach “models” the constraints in operation in the system, and between the system and the environment. There are similarities with Putnam’s idea that “everything is computation” because (1) computation must be “situated” in a profound way, embedded in its environment, but, there is also (2) a move away from the intuitive idea of “algorithm” as a step-by-step procedure, modellling the behaviour of the system in its environment, requiring a mapping of the abstract “algorithm” states to the physical states of “reality.”


2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 1193-1203 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.D. Welch

AbstractWe characterise explicitly the decidable predicates on integers of Infinite Time Turing machines, in terms of admissibility theory and the constructible hierarchy. We do this by pinning down ζ, the least ordinal not the length of any eventual output of an Infinite Time Turing machine (halting or otherwise); using this the Infinite Time Turing Degrees are considered, and it is shown how the jump operator coincides with the production of mastercodes for the constructible hierarchy; further that the natural ordinals associated with the jump operator satisfy a Spector criterion, and correspond to the Lζ-stables. It also implies that the machines devised are “Σ2 Complete” amongst all such other possible machines. It is shown that least upper bounds of an “eventual jump” hierarchy exist on an initial segment.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026327642110485
Author(s):  
Luciana Parisi

What is algorithmic thought? It is not possible to address this question without first reflecting on how the Universal Turing Machine transformed symbolic logic and brought to a halt the universality of mathematical formalism and the biocentric speciation of thought. The article draws on Sylvia Wynter’s discussion of the sociogenic principle to argue that both neurocognitive and formal models of automated cognition constitute the epistemological explanations of the origin of the human and of human sapience. Wynter’s argument will be related to Gilbert Simondon’s reflections on ‘technical mentality’ to consider how socio-techno-genic assemblages can challenge the biocentricism and the formalism of modern epistemology. This article turns to ludic logic as one possible example of techno-semiotic languages as a speculative overturning of sociogenic programming. Algorithmic rules become technique-signs coinciding not with classic formalism but with interactive localities without re-originating the universality of colonial and patriarchal cosmogony.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (04) ◽  
pp. 527-538
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Madejski ◽  
Andrzej Szepietowski

Two-dimensional general row jumping finite automata were recently introduced as an interesting computational model for accepting two-dimensional languages. These automata are nondeterministic. They guess an order in which rows of the input array are read and they jump to the next row only after reading all symbols in the previous row. In each row, they choose, also nondeterministically, an order in which segments of the row are read. In this paper, we study the membership problem for these automata. We show that each general row jumping finite automaton can be simulated by a nondeterministic Turing machine with space bounded by the logarithm. This means that the fixed membership problems for such automata are in NL, and so in P. On the other hand, we show that the uniform membership problem is NP-complete.


Author(s):  
KATSUSHI INOUE ◽  
ITSUO SAKURAMOTO ◽  
MAKOTO SAKAMOTO ◽  
ITSUO TAKANAMI

This paper deals with two topics concerning two-dimensional automata operating in parallel. We first investigate a relationship between the accepting powers of two-dimensional alternating finite automata (2-AFAs) and nondeterministic bottom-up pyramid cellular acceptors (NUPCAs), and show that Ω ( diameter × log diameter ) time is necessary for NUPCAs to simulate 2-AFAs. We then investigate space complexity of two-dimensional alternating Turing machines (2-ATMs) operating in small space, and show that if L (n) is a two-dimensionally space-constructible function such that lim n → ∞ L (n)/ loglog n > 1 and L (n) ≤ log n, and L′ (n) is a function satisfying L′ (n) =o (L(n)), then there exists a set accepted by some strongly L (n) space-bounded two-dimensional deterministic Turing machine, but not accepted by any weakly L′ (n) space-bounded 2-ATM, and thus there exists a rich space hierarchy for weakly S (n) space-bounded 2-ATMs with loglog n ≤ S (n) ≤ log n.


Author(s):  
Abel Molina ◽  
John Watrous

Yao's 1995 publication ‘Quantum circuit complexity’ in Proceedings of the 34th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science , pp. 352–361, proved that quantum Turing machines and quantum circuits are polynomially equivalent computational models: t ≥ n steps of a quantum Turing machine running on an input of length n can be simulated by a uniformly generated family of quantum circuits with size quadratic in t , and a polynomial-time uniformly generated family of quantum circuits can be simulated by a quantum Turing machine running in polynomial time. We revisit the simulation of quantum Turing machines with uniformly generated quantum circuits, which is the more challenging of the two simulation tasks, and present a variation on the simulation method employed by Yao together with an analysis of it. This analysis reveals that the simulation of quantum Turing machines can be performed by quantum circuits having depth linear in t , rather than quadratic depth, and can be extended to variants of quantum Turing machines, such as ones having multi-dimensional tapes. Our analysis is based on an extension of method described by Arright, Nesme and Werner in 2011 in Journal of Computer and System Sciences 77 , 372–378. ( doi:10.1016/j.jcss.2010.05.004 ), that allows for the localization of causal unitary evolutions.


Author(s):  
TOKIO OKAZAKI ◽  
KATSUSHI INOUE ◽  
AKIRA ITO ◽  
YUE WANG

This paper investigates closure property of the classes of sets accepted by space-bounded two-dimensional alternating Turing machines (2-atm's) and space-bounded two-dimensional alternating pushdown automata (2-apda's), and space-bounded two-dimensional alternating counter automata (2-aca's). Let L(m, n): N2 → N (N denotes the set of all positive integers) be a function with two variables m (= the number of rows of input tapes) and n (= the number of columns of input tapes). We show that (i) for any function f(m) = o( log m) (resp. f(m) = o( log m/ log log m)) and any monotonic nondecreasing function g(n) space-constructible by a two-dimensional Turing machine (2-Tm) (resp. two-dimensional pushdown automaton (2-pda)), the class of sets accepted by L(m,n) space-bounded 2-atm's (2-apda's) is not closed under row catenation, row + or projection, and (ii) for any function f(m) = o(m/ log ) (resp. for any function f(m) such that log f(m) = o( log m)) and any monotonic nondecreasing function g(n) space-constructible by a two-dimensional counter automaton (2-ca), the class of sets accepted by L(m, n) space-bounded 2-aca's is not closed under row catenation, row + or projection, where L(m, n) = f(m) + g(n) (resp. L(m, n) = f(m) × g(n)).


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