opencog-dev team mailing list archive

["Linas Vepstas" <linasvepstas@xxxxxxxxx>]

2008/7/20 Joel Pitt <joel.pitt@xxxxxxxxx>:

> I've added my left over tasks from attention allocation

Do you have attention allocation described anywhere?

I recently tried to describe it to someone, and did a poor job.

The page http://opencog.org/wiki/Attention_allocation

is utterly opaque to the non-initiate: "Currently Attention allocation
is implemented for keeping track of the importance of atoms. The
overall design of OpenCog calls for keeping track of MindAgent
importance as well. MindAgents confer attention to the atoms they use,
and are then rewarded in importance funds when they achieve system
goals."

What the heck is an atom? what's importance? why would I need
to assign importance to atoms? what's a mindagent? why would
this stuff ever be useful, and where/how would it ever be applied?

I attempted to summarize attention allocation as follows, although
my summary is undoubtedly slanted/inaccurate. I said:

  "In reasoning and deduction,. especially when using deduction
where logical connectives (if->then clauses) are weighted by
probabilities, one is faced with a combinatorial explosion of
possible deductive chains to explore.  The goal of attention
allocation is to limit and guide these choices, to cut-off directions
that are unpromising, and stay focused on the topic."

This is perhaps too narrow, and demonstrates my own
misunderstanding ... but I'd like to see a "plain english"
description of this sort, with at least a few plain-english
examples of the technology actually applied.

--linas