Soundbites

Homer says:

• The underlying thesis of this work is that AI component research and computer hardware have in fact progressed to the point where it is now possible, by a resolute effort, to construct a complete integrated agent.
• An episodic memory was included in the agent architecture because this seems to be an essential ingredient for machine consciousness.
• Like an athlete in the decathlon, an agent should be able to earn points for its performance in each cognitive event, without having to beat all of the narrower systems in their one specialty event. (In fact, the idea of an "AI decathlon" as an organized event, like the computer chess competitions, seems worth pursuing by someone with organizational skills.) [Note: for a discussion of this, see Benchmarks and Test Beds in this document.]
• There is simply no good reason why the powerful tool of simulation should be denied to AI researchers.
• To build a large, complex AI system in finite time, simplicity can be more valuable than intricate theoretical elegance.
• The excitement of experimenting with a real AI agent has been moderated by the sometimes tedious labor of building and extending it.