Transcendent Personal Device
Blueprint of a Recipe
Bertrand du Castel, Austin, Texas
Amended February 27, 2009
Amended February 27, 2009
Computer Theology: Intelligent Design of the World Wide Web (Bertrand du Castel and Timothy M. Jurgensen, Midori Press, 2008) defines Transcendent Personal Devices as computers that represent humans on digital networks across the entirety of their cognitive prowess. Here is a recipe to build one. References are at the end. This article has been prompted by a personal question by Merlin Donald, whom we thank here for having triggered this reflection.
Chassis
The Transcendent Personal Device assists its bearer in electronic transactions. It can take a variety of physical forms, but is perhaps most generically categorized in a form akin to a cellular telephone comprising a secure core and a trusted intelligence. Operationally, it needs a computer equivalent of a sensori-motor system, a limbic system, and a prefrontal cortex. Of course it needs more, but these are fundamental parts that provide the central ingredients of the recipe.
Sensori-motor system
This is the system that allows the Transcendent Personal Device to transfer its owner's human capabilities to the digital realm. Let's provide two examples.
A communication system to translate human communication to computer communication. For example, a voice analysis module, and a voice generation module. There are existing, commercial systems performing both functions, and in everyday use, for example in automatic voice-answering phone-based automatic receptionists. Admittedly, they competence is yet limited, but they provide a good starting point. Academia has more sophisticated systems in the making.
Perhaps a vision system allowing to carry to the computer network observations of the environment akin to what the owner of the Transcendent Personal Devices sees, and more. Examples of such systems are now pervasive; witness the sophisticated vision capabilities of the vehicles that can cross mountains without a driver. To complement vision, graphical displays are now getting very powerful, either in two or three dimensions, allowing the Transcendent Personal Device to carry back vision to its owner.
Taking human senses and motional capabilities one by one, it is very easy to extend this list of capabilities of the Transcendent Personal Device.
A Bayesian network is an apparatus that allows to assign confidence on elements of information that depend on the confidence assigned to other elements. Therefore, it is possible for the Transcendent Personal Device to use context to gauge the value of its input. If, say, a noise has been heard repeatedly for months, perhaps it is less important that a new one that comes impromptu. The confidence in the signification of the noise is altered by prior evaluations.
A stochastic grammar is an apparatus that allows assigning probabilities to vocal input. Depending on previous utterance, it is possible to predict what should come next, therefore allowing to prepare for a timely answer, or simply, prepare for a better understanding, in, say, a noisy situation. Combined, a Bayesian network plus a stochastic grammar allow to get meaning out of speech in a most efficient way.
On the output side, every piece of action can be evaluated for success before being actually effected. The Transcendent Personal Device doesn't need to entirely trust the outcome of its internal processing. It has the means to evaluate this outcome against, say, prior experience, again a possible application of Bayesian networks.
An ontology can organize concepts in a way that leads to inferences that are guaranteed to proceed in a finite amount of time thanks to using description logic. A Transcendent Personal Device implementing such logic can accumulate knowledge that can henceforth be drawn upon.
The use of threads in computers can parallel simultaneous computation in the neural circuits of the brain, allowing pursuing multiple hypotheses at once that can then be evaluated by the limbic system as to adequacy for usage by the sensori-motor system.
Although a rough sketch of the capabilities needed for an achieved Transcendent Personal Device, the combination of analogs to the human sensori-motor, limbic, and prefrontal cortex capabilities shows the path towards elaboration of a complete representation of humans on the World Wide Web. However, the Transcendent Personal Device needs to be fed for providing utility.
The role of mirror neurons as facilitator of human mimesis has been established as providing means for humans (and other animals) to make internal simulation of external interactions. This facility can be implemented in a Transcendent Personal Device; an early form of it is in the implementation of network protocols, where one computer maintains a state machine mirroring the other computer in order to anticipate and respond to its whims.
While this is advanced research, the concept of minimum description length, which provides a metrics for measuring the potential information content of sets of data, has been used for building up robots that self-define new interaction modes with their environment, a form of concept elaboration.
Moving one level up, the establishment of such spatial and other concepts forms a basis for further elaboration through the mechanism of metaphor. By comparing new situations with old ones and leaving some margin in the exactitude of the match, new behaviors can be developed that are henceforth subject to evaluation by measuring the reactions that they develop when presented to the outside (or to the inside when internal evaluation mechanisms like the limbic system are triggered). Elaboration of metaphors provides for building up new concepts in Transcendent Personal Devices and henceforth new capabilities, that as this point should be called cognitive.
Communication entails interactions, that can be conducted between humans and their Transcendent Personal Devices, as well as between Transcendent Personal Devices and other computers, and between Transcendent Personal Devices themselves representing their various owners. Such interactions have been well codified via agent technology that is today commercially available.
Authentication, authorization, and access (or accounting). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_protocol
Identity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_identity (a more comprehensive description is in Computer Theology, pp. 304-313. encompassing differential and experiential identities)
Agents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_agent
XML descriptions:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xml
Semantic web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_web
Public key authorities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_key_infrastructure
Bertrand du Castel is Schlumberger Fellow. Head of Research for the smart card division of Schlumberger, and then Axalto (now Gemalto) from 1996 to 2006, he received the 2005 Visionary Award of Card Technology Magazine for the Java card. Bertrand is author with Tim Jurgensen of Computer Theology: Intelligent Design of the World Wide Web (Midori Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-09801821-1-8). Bertrand has an engineer diploma from Ecole Polytechnique and a PhD in theoretical computer science from the University of Paris.
Perhaps a vision system allowing to carry to the computer network observations of the environment akin to what the owner of the Transcendent Personal Devices sees, and more. Examples of such systems are now pervasive; witness the sophisticated vision capabilities of the vehicles that can cross mountains without a driver. To complement vision, graphical displays are now getting very powerful, either in two or three dimensions, allowing the Transcendent Personal Device to carry back vision to its owner.
Taking human senses and motional capabilities one by one, it is very easy to extend this list of capabilities of the Transcendent Personal Device.
Limbic system
For humans, the limbic system is the center of the emotions. This forms a major element of our assignment of trust to any other component of our management of in-going and out-going information. Whether we trust our sensori-motor system depends on the mediation of our limbic system, and similarly, the Transcendent Personal Device can carry evaluation functions on all of its components. Let's give two examples.A Bayesian network is an apparatus that allows to assign confidence on elements of information that depend on the confidence assigned to other elements. Therefore, it is possible for the Transcendent Personal Device to use context to gauge the value of its input. If, say, a noise has been heard repeatedly for months, perhaps it is less important that a new one that comes impromptu. The confidence in the signification of the noise is altered by prior evaluations.
A stochastic grammar is an apparatus that allows assigning probabilities to vocal input. Depending on previous utterance, it is possible to predict what should come next, therefore allowing to prepare for a timely answer, or simply, prepare for a better understanding, in, say, a noisy situation. Combined, a Bayesian network plus a stochastic grammar allow to get meaning out of speech in a most efficient way.
On the output side, every piece of action can be evaluated for success before being actually effected. The Transcendent Personal Device doesn't need to entirely trust the outcome of its internal processing. It has the means to evaluate this outcome against, say, prior experience, again a possible application of Bayesian networks.
Prefrontal cortex
Our prefrontal cortex contains symbolic information that allows us to build deductive and inductive engines deriving action from observations in a hierarchical manner. The more we learn and organize, the deeper our reflection and capability to intervene in new situations. Let's give two examples of similar capabilities in a Transcendent Personal Device.
An ontology can organize concepts in a way that leads to inferences that are guaranteed to proceed in a finite amount of time thanks to using description logic. A Transcendent Personal Device implementing such logic can accumulate knowledge that can henceforth be drawn upon.
The use of threads in computers can parallel simultaneous computation in the neural circuits of the brain, allowing pursuing multiple hypotheses at once that can then be evaluated by the limbic system as to adequacy for usage by the sensori-motor system.
Although a rough sketch of the capabilities needed for an achieved Transcendent Personal Device, the combination of analogs to the human sensori-motor, limbic, and prefrontal cortex capabilities shows the path towards elaboration of a complete representation of humans on the World Wide Web. However, the Transcendent Personal Device needs to be fed for providing utility.
Provisioning
Provisioning a computer means providing it with the means of reflection and action. Human education from birth to adulthood and beyond is a form of provisioning that can be emulated by the Transcendent Personal Device.Early life
Just like babies provision their emotional system with early recognition of their care taker (usually the mother) via evaluation of face features and later on through interactions with their environment, Transcendent Personal Device can learn to read emotion in human face and render it, as has been now proven in academia. Interaction with the environment followed by the constitution of learning can also be achieved by the Transcendent Personal Device through genetic algorithms or more generally via artificial life concepts.The role of mirror neurons as facilitator of human mimesis has been established as providing means for humans (and other animals) to make internal simulation of external interactions. This facility can be implemented in a Transcendent Personal Device; an early form of it is in the implementation of network protocols, where one computer maintains a state machine mirroring the other computer in order to anticipate and respond to its whims.
Concept elaboration
While deductive logic (making conclusions from a body of facts) is readily provided by the anatomical and physiological means provisioned in both humans and computers, Transcendent Personal Devices must also show a capability for building up new concepts, a human capability that is distinctive of humans in scale if not in nature.While this is advanced research, the concept of minimum description length, which provides a metrics for measuring the potential information content of sets of data, has been used for building up robots that self-define new interaction modes with their environment, a form of concept elaboration.
Moving one level up, the establishment of such spatial and other concepts forms a basis for further elaboration through the mechanism of metaphor. By comparing new situations with old ones and leaving some margin in the exactitude of the match, new behaviors can be developed that are henceforth subject to evaluation by measuring the reactions that they develop when presented to the outside (or to the inside when internal evaluation mechanisms like the limbic system are triggered). Elaboration of metaphors provides for building up new concepts in Transcendent Personal Devices and henceforth new capabilities, that as this point should be called cognitive.
Social integration
The Transcendent Personal Device must integrate not only with the computers that form part of the overall network, but also to the subset made of other Transcendent Personal Devices representing their owners. This requires the capability to identify and communicate with computers in general and Transcendent Personal Devices in particular in ways that preserve the security and privacy of each to a determined extent.Communication
Communication requires authentication, authorization, and access. Actually, those capabilities are better formalized in some respects in computer land than in human endeavors. For example, the concept of identity is well-implemented and ready to use in the Transcendent Personal Devices. Interactions based on identity ensue.Communication entails interactions, that can be conducted between humans and their Transcendent Personal Devices, as well as between Transcendent Personal Devices and other computers, and between Transcendent Personal Devices themselves representing their various owners. Such interactions have been well codified via agent technology that is today commercially available.
Policy
Codified interactions amount to policy elaboration. There are multiple policy definitions on the World Wide Web in the form of XML descriptions elaborated by entities ranging from government bodies, commercial entities, other organizations and institutions, and private initiative.
While they are barely organized as a whole pending initiatives like the Semantic Web, all the components exist today to form the basis of policies that Transcendent Personal Devices can subscribe to and elaborate on. The Semantic Web proposes to assemble ontologies in a distributed manner to codify the common knowledge forming the basis of a given policy infrastructure.
While they are barely organized as a whole pending initiatives like the Semantic Web, all the components exist today to form the basis of policies that Transcendent Personal Devices can subscribe to and elaborate on. The Semantic Web proposes to assemble ontologies in a distributed manner to codify the common knowledge forming the basis of a given policy infrastructure.
Trust
Policies, and the interactions they are subjected to, as subject to evaluation by trust. A policy may or may not be subscribed to depending on the trust infrastructure that human confer to that policy infrastructure. Similarly, Transcendent Personal Devices must assign trust to interactions before and after conducting them. For example, a computer must ascertain whether another computer is hostile before granting it access to privileged channels.
Today, trust is very well defined in a computer through a hierarchy of public key authorities that can vouch for each other. Transcendent Personal Devices can be granted rights by these authorities, just as humans inherit rights from their participation to societies in various functions and privileges. Trust can also be derived from observations of processes. The continuation of processes over period of times can offer high-level of trust in the predictability of their occurrence in part or whole.
Whether coming from hierarchy or process, trust ultimately derives from an ultimate hierarchy and an ultimate process, which is where religion intervenes in the build-up of the Transcendent Personal Device.
Today, trust is very well defined in a computer through a hierarchy of public key authorities that can vouch for each other. Transcendent Personal Devices can be granted rights by these authorities, just as humans inherit rights from their participation to societies in various functions and privileges. Trust can also be derived from observations of processes. The continuation of processes over period of times can offer high-level of trust in the predictability of their occurrence in part or whole.
Whether coming from hierarchy or process, trust ultimately derives from an ultimate hierarchy and an ultimate process, which is where religion intervenes in the build-up of the Transcendent Personal Device.
Religion
Following Computer Theology, a religion is a system of trust provisioned by ecstasy and sustained by ritual.
Structure of metaphors: Bertrand du Castel and Timothy M. Jurgensen. Computer Theology: Intelligent Design of the World Wide Web; pp. 281-285. Midori Press, 2008Ecstasy
Ecstasy is that state where the mind is detached enough from both its sensori-motor and limbic systems evaluations so that the prefrontal cortex can be remodeled. While various levels of ecstasy can be invoked depending on the importance of the remodeling, the temporary detachment allows to establish new links, remove old ones, or reinforce or diminish existing ones without affecting the functioning of the overall system while the transformations are in transit.
A Transcendent Personal Device can experience ecstasy as an elaboration of today's ecstatic states of a computer, for example when an operating system is amended or replaced, creating a transitory state where applications can't function. At the end of the ecstatic states, some applications still function without modification while some may be amended, with their own ecstatic experience.
We're some ways from finding in the Transcendent Personal Device and its peer assembly in the World Wide Web an equivalent of human societies matching the prowess of humankind. However, all the components exist today that allow that evolution, and the growth of computer networks should irremediably lead to a melding of human and computer capabilities reaching the highest societal achievements.
A Transcendent Personal Device can experience ecstasy as an elaboration of today's ecstatic states of a computer, for example when an operating system is amended or replaced, creating a transitory state where applications can't function. At the end of the ecstatic states, some applications still function without modification while some may be amended, with their own ecstatic experience.
Rituals
In order for human societies to build compacts of trust, modifications through ecstasy must be synchronized, which is achieved through rituals of various importance and construction. Today such a ritual for Transcendent Personal Devices can be observed when they boot up or join the network. A set of ritualized transactions occur that provision the Transcendent Personal Device for further interaction.We're some ways from finding in the Transcendent Personal Device and its peer assembly in the World Wide Web an equivalent of human societies matching the prowess of humankind. However, all the components exist today that allow that evolution, and the growth of computer networks should irremediably lead to a melding of human and computer capabilities reaching the highest societal achievements.
References
Our book is a comparative description of human societies and computer networks presenting in elaborated details the evolution of computer towards Transcendent Personal Devices; most of the concepts listed here are organized in the book, in addition to explanations of how Transcendent Personal Devices can build their experience through mechanisms listed in details, ranging from learning heuristics to the development of communal understanding:Computer Theology: Intelligent Design of the World Wide Web
Bertrand du Castel and Timothy M. Jurgensen
Midori Press, 2008 ISBN 978-09801821-1-8
The authors have familiarity, to some or to large extent, with all the domains mentioned in this article. Amongst others, we refer below to several Wikipedia articles after having reviewed them and concluded that they introduced the topics in a way conducive to a good understanding of our article. Naturally, Wikipedia should only be considered as an entry point for investigation of any subject in depth.
Voice analysis/generation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_processing
Computer vision: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_vision
Computer graphics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_graphics
Bayesian network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_network
Stochastic grammar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_grammar
Ontology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science)
Description logic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_logic
Thread: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(computer_science)
Emotions: Emotion recognizing method, sensibility creating method, device, and software: European Patent EP1318505
Face evaluation: Nicolaas Noosterhog and Alexander Todorov. The functional basis of face evaluation. Communicated by Charles G. Gross, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, June 12, 2008 (received for review March 20, 2008), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Emotion rendering: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kismet_(robot)
Emotional system: Brain Emotional Learning Based Intelligent Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BELBIC
Genetic algorithms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
Artificial life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_life
Network protocol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_protocol
Minimum description length: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_description_length
Self-definition: Ralf Der, Frank Güttler, Nihat Ay (2008). Predictive information and emergent cooperativity in a chain of mobile robots. In S. Bullock, J. Noble, R. A. Watson, and M. A. Bedau (Eds.) Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Artificial Life, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Voice analysis/generation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_processing
Computer vision: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_vision
Computer graphics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_graphics
Bayesian network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_network
Stochastic grammar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_grammar
Ontology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science)
Description logic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_logic
Thread: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(computer_science)
Emotions: Emotion recognizing method, sensibility creating method, device, and software: European Patent EP1318505
Face evaluation: Nicolaas Noosterhog and Alexander Todorov. The functional basis of face evaluation. Communicated by Charles G. Gross, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, June 12, 2008 (received for review March 20, 2008), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Emotion rendering: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kismet_(robot)
Emotional system: Brain Emotional Learning Based Intelligent Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BELBIC
Genetic algorithms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
Artificial life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_life
Network protocol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_protocol
Minimum description length: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_description_length
Self-definition: Ralf Der, Frank Güttler, Nihat Ay (2008). Predictive information and emergent cooperativity in a chain of mobile robots. In S. Bullock, J. Noble, R. A. Watson, and M. A. Bedau (Eds.) Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Artificial Life, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Authentication, authorization, and access (or accounting). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_protocol
Identity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_identity (a more comprehensive description is in Computer Theology, pp. 304-313. encompassing differential and experiential identities)
Agents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_agent
XML descriptions:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xml
Semantic web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_web
Public key authorities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_key_infrastructure
Bertrand du Castel is Schlumberger Fellow. Head of Research for the smart card division of Schlumberger, and then Axalto (now Gemalto) from 1996 to 2006, he received the 2005 Visionary Award of Card Technology Magazine for the Java card. Bertrand is author with Tim Jurgensen of Computer Theology: Intelligent Design of the World Wide Web (Midori Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-09801821-1-8). Bertrand has an engineer diploma from Ecole Polytechnique and a PhD in theoretical computer science from the University of Paris.
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