Autonomy: Life and being

Williams, MA

Autonomy: Life and being

Williams, MA

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Publication Type:: Conference Proceeding
Citation:: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 2010, 6291 LNAI pp. 137 - 147
Issue Date:: 2010-11-08

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Williams, MA https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1047-0503	en_US
dc.date.issued	2010-11-08	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 2010, 6291 LNAI pp. 137 - 147	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	3642152791	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	9783642152795	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0302-9743	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/16211
dc.description.abstract	This paper uses robot experience to explore key concepts of autonomy, life and being. Unfortunately, there are no widely accepted definitions of autonomy, life or being. Using a new cognitive agent architecture we argue that autonomy is a key ingredient for both life and being, and set about exploring autonomy as a concept and a capability. Some schools of thought regard autonomy as the key characteristic that distinguishes a system from an agent; agents are systems with autonomy, but rarely is a definition of autonomy provided. Living entities are autonomous systems, and autonomy is vital to life. Intelligence presupposes autonomy too; what would it mean for a system to be intelligent but not exhibit any form of genuine autonomy. Our philosophical, scientific and legal understanding of autonomy and its implications is immature and as a result progress towards designing, building, managing, exploiting and regulating autonomous systems is retarded. In response we put forward a framework for exploring autonomy as a concept and capability based on a new cognitive architecture. Using this architecture tools and benchmarks can be developed to analyze and study autonomy in its own right as a means to further our understanding of autonomous systems, life and being. This endeavor would lead to important practical benefits for autonomous systems design and help determine the legal status of autonomous systems. It is only with a new enabling understanding of autonomy that the dream of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life can be realized. We argue that designing systems with genuine autonomy capabilities can be achieved by focusing on agent experiences of being rather than attempting to encode human experiences as symbolic knowledge and know-how in the artificial agents we build. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1007/978-3-642-15280-1_15	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Artificial Intelligence & Image Processing	en_US
dc.title	Autonomy: Life and being	en_US
dc.type	Conference Proceeding
utslib.citation.volume	6291 LNAI	en_US
utslib.for	0801 Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing	en_US
dc.location.activity	Belfast, Northern Ireland	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Computer Science
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CAI - Centre for Artificial Intelligence
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	6291 LNAI	en_US

Abstract:

This paper uses robot experience to explore key concepts of autonomy, life and being. Unfortunately, there are no widely accepted definitions of autonomy, life or being. Using a new cognitive agent architecture we argue that autonomy is a key ingredient for both life and being, and set about exploring autonomy as a concept and a capability. Some schools of thought regard autonomy as the key characteristic that distinguishes a system from an agent; agents are systems with autonomy, but rarely is a definition of autonomy provided. Living entities are autonomous systems, and autonomy is vital to life. Intelligence presupposes autonomy too; what would it mean for a system to be intelligent but not exhibit any form of genuine autonomy. Our philosophical, scientific and legal understanding of autonomy and its implications is immature and as a result progress towards designing, building, managing, exploiting and regulating autonomous systems is retarded. In response we put forward a framework for exploring autonomy as a concept and capability based on a new cognitive architecture. Using this architecture tools and benchmarks can be developed to analyze and study autonomy in its own right as a means to further our understanding of autonomous systems, life and being. This endeavor would lead to important practical benefits for autonomous systems design and help determine the legal status of autonomous systems. It is only with a new enabling understanding of autonomy that the dream of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life can be realized. We argue that designing systems with genuine autonomy capabilities can be achieved by focusing on agent experiences of being rather than attempting to encode human experiences as symbolic knowledge and know-how in the artificial agents we build. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/16211