Re: Brain protocol

[Nigel Gilbert]

For an example of a simulation toolkit which has already gone some way down
this road (and which would be interesting, I think, for anyone thinking of
building a model including 'intelligent' agents) see the description of
'sim_agent', a "toolkit for building simulated intelligent agents (and
objects) with various architectures" by Aaron Sloman and colleagues at
<http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/cog_affect/sim_agent>.  For more general
information about this work, see
<http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/cog_affect/COGAFF-PROJECT.html>.  The
toolkit is written in the programming language POP-11, but the principles
may still be interesting.

Nigel Gilbert

PS I have no connection with the project mentioned above!


>>        Then, let's think of it. I would, for starters, propose a
>>single function,
>>-(float*) feel: (float*);
>>
>>        This would be the basic function, to feed an information
>>vector to the brain, and return an "action" vector.
>>
>>        Comments, ideas, criticism anyone?
>
>It would help to know what you expect the "brain" of an agent to do.  What
>I want is for my agents to listen for other agents to tell them things and
>then to act on what they're told.  So, I'd almost go for something like
>
>-(void) heard: (char *) ;
>
>Except, that instead of a (char *) maybe there'd be some structure to the
>communication, like lists of atoms, or even KQML constructs (not that I
>know KQML).  Any actions taken would be done directly by other message
>sends in the brain, so maybe there'd be some protocol for that end too; one
>clear candidate would be "say".  I could also see connections for memory
>and learning, to make it easier to test the effects of different
>algorithms.
>
>In other words, I guess I want something like Shoam's agents in Agent
>Oriented Programming, and the brain protocol would encapsulate the
>connections between the messages received and the messages sent in
>response.
>
>Kevin


____________________________________________________________________
Prof G. Nigel Gilbert, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey
  Guildford GU2 5XH, UK. Tel: +44 1483 259173 Fax: +44 1483 306290