Here we are at part five (or is it 50?) of our series on training Artificial Intelligence how to work with symbols, how to recognize and interpret them. Today, we are going to continue to wrestle with whether or not the method of training AI to do this should be based on agreed upon cultural standards or a universal standard. The truth is this, it is a difficult topic to contend with. Normally, it would definitely be preferable to go with a truly universal standard of interpretation. However, it has to be admitted that interpreting symbols presents unique challenges in that regard. This is because much of the meaning in nearly any symbol is dependent on the local culture. It also depends greatly on one’s view within that culture.
Look back on the swastika that we discussed some time ago. Pretty much everyone agrees that what the Nazis stood for is evil and that the swastika is a symbol of all that evil. Yet, the Nazis didn’t regard their actions as evil, they regarded themselves as the good guys. Then there is the fact that before the Nazis appropriated the symbol, the swastika was a benign symbol in multiple eastern religions. The point is, this one symbol has at least three very separate meanings that depend on personal understanding and knowledge of context to understand.
Or take a hand gesture, another subject we’ve touched on before. In this case, consider a salute. The Nazis salute with an arm extended at a 45 degree angle. Americans salute with the upper arm parallel to the ground with the forearm bent to bring the fingertips to the corner of the right eye. Other cultures may salute with a bow, or a closed fist over the heart. To many outside of a given culture, a particular salute will likely mean nothing. Go to some secluded Amazon tribe and they won’t recognize any of those particular gestures.
Take another, the ever popular middle finger. Most in the western world will recognize its meaning right away. The same meaning was once conveyed in the plays of Shakespeare by the biting of one’s thumb. Other gestures convey the same meaning in other ways. However, a Mongolian tribe is likely to be wondering why you want them to see your middle finger. Perhaps they’ll think something is wrong with it or you just have a very strange way of pointing.
Now, it might seem at first that all of these different gestures and that fact any given culture might not know of one or any of them should be a silver bullet to any thought of establishing an objective standard for interpreting symbols. However, I would argue that is too superficial. Instead of looking at the gesture, the symbol itself, look at the concept it symbolizes. In the case of a salute, it conveys respect and it does so regardless of the particular gesture being used. In the case of the middle finger, it conveys anger and active disrespect. Again, it does this independent of the particular gesture being used. By digging past the appearance of the symbol to the ideas that it is meant to convey we reach something much more like a universal standard. When we see these symbols in a context we understand, we know what they mean because we have learned to associate them with other symbols like body language and tone of voice. We’ve learned this unconsciously through years of observation. When we see a gesture we don’t recognize, we pay attention to those other elements of body language, tone of voice, environmental context to get to the concept behind the gesture.
AI will have to be taught to do the same. It will have to learn what we mentioned last time, how to recognize the universal concept behind the local and subjective expression of it. Once we can figure out how to clear that hurdle, we will have really gotten somewhere with actually making AI as intelligent as it is artificial.
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