Cognitive Architectures for Robot Agents Current Capabilities, Future Enhancements and Prospects for Collaborative Development CONTENT WELCOME
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Cognitive Architectures for Robot Agents Current Capabilities, Future Enhancements and Prospects for Collaborative Development CONTENT WELCOME WELCOME 3 From March 22 to March 28, 2020, researchers from PANEL DISCUSSIONS 4 Europe, the United States and various countries around the globe met in a virtual venue to discuss Learning and Adaptation in the Minimalist Cognitive Architecture 4 the current capabilities and future prospects of cog- Understanding Human Cognition through Modelling the Human Brain 7 nitive architectures. Developmental Cognitive Robotics as a Gateway to a More Natural HRI 10 As we are building increasingly powerful AI systems PRESENTATION SUMMARIES 14 and robot agents, we also feel more pressure to im- Minimalist Cognitive Architectures 14 prove the orchestration of representations and com- Collaborating on Architectures: Challenges and Perspectives 15 putation processes required for achieving competent agency. Probably one of the biggest lessons we have Cognitive Architectures for Assistive Robot Agents 16 learned over the last 30 to 50 years is the role that ArmarX – A Robot Cognitive Architecture 17 actions play in intelligent agency. In the beginning, Affective Architecture: Pain, Empathy, and Ethics 18 many considered actions to be atomic entities that Cognitive Robotics and Control 19 can be modeled in a fairly simple way. We tried to Circuits for Intelligence 20 realize competent agency through reasoning about The LIDA Cognitive Architecture – An Introduction with Robotics Applications 21 these action models. Clarion: A comprehensive, Integrative Cognitive Architecture 22 I think this view has shifted significantly. Many of us The workshop showcased the huge potential and The DIARC Architecture for Autonomous Interactive Robots 23 feel that the key to competent agency can be found large synergies that we can unlock if we work to- The Soar Cognitive Architecture: Current and Future Capabilities 24 inside the actions. One essential aspect and open gether on these topics. While the TransAIR project Mechanisms of Human Cognition in Interaction 25 research challenge is understanding the reasoning concludes with the publication of this workshop do- Neurorobotics: Connecting the Brain, Body and Environment 26 and decision-making which is needed to translate cumentation, please keep the workshop’s inspiring Developmental Robotics – Language Learning, Trust and Theory of Mind 27 under-determined action tasks, such as “put the and collaborative spirit alive. We tried to capture it A Social Perspective on Cognitive Architectures 28 coffee on the table,” into body motions that achieve on the following pages. the desired effect and avoid the unwanted ones. AI AND ROBOTICS IN BREMEN 29 In this workshop, we saw a number of different ap- Prof. Michael Beetz proaches and perspectives. We had lively exchanges Initiator and project director of TransAIR and head of SUPPORT 30 in the Q&A sessions and particularly during panel the Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IAI) at the Uni- discussions, where audience members weren’t shy versity of Bremen. IMPRINT 31 to ask challenging questions. Despite some diver- ging views, a number of common themes emerged, including concepts such as artificial episodic memo- ry, internal simulation, and hybrid symbolic or sub- symbolic reasoning. 3 PANEL DISCUSSIONS IQ TESTS FOR ROBOTS UNIQUE ARCHITECTURES Nevertheless, new architectures will emerge without The future of minimal cognitive architectures for Learning and Adaptation in the Minimalist Cognitive Architecture a doubt, while existing architectures will be further robotics should be shaped by one guiding question. developed, raising the question how different ar- “What is unique or what is different about manipula- chitectures can be compared with one another. “We tion tasks that we need to take into account?” This, One of the main ideas discussed during the Trans- HUMANS AS A MODEL don‘t know what it means for one thing to be more hopes John Laird, would lead to architectures that AIR Workshop on Cognitive Architectures for Robot intelligent than the other,” said Yiannis Aloimonos, are different from cognitive architectures that are Agents is the concept of minimal cognitive architec- But to what extent should cognitive architectures “and it would be an interesting question to do this in used outside of robotics. Today, robots are often not tures. What should or shouldn’t be a component of for robotic agents mimic human cognition? In what a technical sense, to establish some complex hierar- good at analyzing given tasks in order to determine a minimal cognitive architecture is a question that regard do they need to differ significantly? These chy for intelligence.” Ron Sun suggested a system the necessary steps and capabilities needed. A lot of led to a lively debate on the virtual podium. Diffe- questions proved to be surprisingly controversial as analogous to IQ tests. There was a broad consen- work has to be done on that, according to John Laird. rent approaches were favored by the various experts they set the theme for the rest of the discussion. sus that it would be useful to give different robots on the panel, which eventually led some to declare the same task, a “complex, open-ended task,” as The trade-off between abstracting from the indivi- themselves maximalists as opposed to minimalists. “Many things, we cannot just map from cognitive sci- Tamim Asfour noted, ideally expressed not in code dual system and taking into account different forms ence to technical systems”, said Tamim Asfour. He but in natural language, and then not only evaluate of embodiments was briefly discussed, including The unifying goal of all panelists: “create cognitive added that it might not always be useful to copy bio- their execution but also question them about their the relationship between episodic memory and the agents that are capable of understanding the effects logy: “In robotics we can maybe do things in a much actions. A robot, said Matthias Scheutz, “should be body. “A cognitive architecture for a robot cannot be of their own actions on the environment”, as host better way than how it’s done in biology.” John Laird able to talk about what it‘s doing, maybe while it‘s separated from sensory motor loops which actually Ana Tanevska phrased it. Trying to “explain human suggested to differentiate between a robot perfor- doing it give you an assessment of where it‘s doing, describe interaction with the world,” said Tamim As- behavior computationally” is how John Laird descri- ming a specialized task and a more general artifici- what it‘s doing next, maybe how likely it is that it will four, and Matthias Scheutz emphasized the import- bed the motivation for his research, which led him al intelligence. “As we go to more general systems, succeed.” ance of “the human level of timing and the human le- to explore “how you build computational systems then I would expect that there will be an overlap.” vel of expectations,” which have to be met by a robot that have all that capability.” Matthias Scheutz has For a system that performs tasks similar to how It seems like for Sean Kugele, robots verbalizing that interacts with people. been intrigued by a similar quest, creating a cogniti- humans do them, Laird said it is an open question their “thoughts” is too far out. He shared that he is ve architecture that allows to “really control robots whether or not the robot’s reasoning will also be si- concerned about “too much focus on human-level in real time.” Ron Sun uses computational psycholo- milar to the way humans do it. intelligence.” Instead, Kugele favors to first “build gy to understand the human mental processes and systems that can solve the simpler tasks and then structures. work on these higher-level cognitive abilities.” Ad- NO BIOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS ding language capabilities to a system so that it can express its own state would raise the benchmark Alternative architectures have one big disadvan- substantially beyond basic functionalities. tage, however: there is nothing to model them after. “Human and animal intelligence is the only one we really know,” said Yiannis Aloimonos. “We should really strive to design our robots according to prin- ciples that follow this kind of intelligence.” The na- tural evolution of intelligence might have left many pathways unexplored, though, as Matthias Scheutz reminded the panelists and the audience: in nature, a cognitive architecture has to be fully functional and operational anytime – including during steps towards the next design iteration. “We don‘t have those constraints on our agents. And as a result, we might be able to have very different designs that would not be biologically viable, but much better at certain tasks.” This widens the field of possible architectures worth exploring. Something that John Laird agreed is ne- cessary and not happening enough. Perhaps becau- se “it takes a huge amount of work to develop each of these cognitive architectures.” 4 5 Understanding Human Cognition through Modelling the Human Brain Panelists did not shy away from big questions when SIMULATING THE BRAIN the relationship between the human brain and cog- nitive models was discussed during the workshop. A At the same time, there are unanswered questions fruitful discussion around the role of the body, mea- about software as well. Even though it is possible to sures of intelligence and intentionality developed. simulate the brain on a certain level, “we don’t know which kind of algorithm the brain is using,” Tomaso Host Maria Hedblom kicked the panel off by getting Poggio said. down to the foundations of the field: “Will it be pos- sible to accurately model human cognition with com- Even if these problems could be solved someday, the putational means?” From an engineering perspecti- body and the brain of a robot will not be exactly like ve, Kazuhiko Kawamura didn’t see an obvious way a human’s.