Marvin Minsky "The Emotion Machine": Chapter 3 "How to use emotions"

The father of artificial intelligence is thinking about how to make a machine that would be proud of us . Marvin Minsky was a rather tough scientist and the fact that he explored the theme of feelings and emotions with his “scalpel of knowledge”, which makes us human, is quite interesting and useful. The book is an excellent example of how to use the “ITish approach” to try to comprehend the “human”: values, ideals, love, pain, common sense.

§3-8. Emotion Exploitation

Whatever you try to do yourself, your brain may have completely different plans.
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I tried to work on technical theory, but I constantly fell asleep. Then I imagined that my opponent, Professor Challenger, was going to develop the exact same technique. This caused a surge of vicious disappointment, which blocked for a few moments the desire to sleep, allowing me to continue working.

In fact, Challenger did not do anything like this: he worked in a completely different field. But he was also a close friend of mine, and we recently argued. So he was a great candidate when I needed an object to get angry with. Now let's make a theory why the above trick worked.

A resource called Job represented one of my main goals.
Another resource called Son tried to seize control, but then Fantasy appeared.
She caused a mixture of Anger , Annoyance, Disappointment and Fear.
Somehow, this had the effect of disrupting the process of falling asleep.

This sequence of steps created a state that opposed the desire to sleep, and thus returned my mind to its “working” state. We can see that this use of fantasy has a “double negative” effect: by using one system, we can turn off another system.

Everyone uses these tricks to counteract disappointment, boredom, pain, or sleep. In this example, I used anger to maintain working condition, however, the same technique could be used if someone was behind the race, or tried to lift too heavy a load. By causing anger and irritation, we can sometimes resist weakness and pain.

It should be noted that such a "self-control" requires extremely careful application. A short annoyance may be enough to stop the Sleep - this annoyance can be fleeting and you can't even find out that something has happened. However, if you are not angry enough, it will not have any effect, and if you become angry too much, then you will completely forget what you would like to do if you surrender to anger.
Here is another example of how the mind “exploits” one emotion to suppress another, thus allowing you to achieve a desired goal that you could not achieve directly.

Celia is trying to follow a diet. When she sees a big, delicious chocolate cake, she is overwhelmed with the desire to eat it. But when she remembers her friend Miss Perfect-Body, which looks great in a new bathing suit, Celia’s desire to be like her keeps Celia from eating the cake.

What is the role of fantasy? Celia's procedure for maintaining a diet does not directly affect the suppression of its insatiable appetite. However, the emotion we call Disgust is designed to exercise such control and, somehow, Celia learned to evoke this emotion in a similar way when she begins to think about her forms. When this emotion triggers her image in her own head, Celia reduces the desire to eat a cake. But there are big risks in this strategy: if Celia’s envy becomes too strong and causes depression, she can begin to absorb the cakes in large quantities.

Why do fantasies exhibit such effects on us, although we know that they are not real? Undoubtedly, this can be the result of the fact that each section of our mind can see only a small number of other sections of the mind, each of which lives in its own reality. We never see the world directly - this is another misconception that is supported by the Inner Self. Instead, although some parts of your mind react directly to the signals transmitted by your sensors, more parts of the mind base their decisions on the information they receive from others. internal brain structures.

For example, when you sit at a table opposite a friend, you assume that he still has back and legs, because you use your old memories and models to present this information. None of these body parts is in your immediate field of vision, but you can still “see” what they are. It is fantasy that provides this connection with reality. In the chapter Imagination and Simulation, we will see how machines can use similar things.

Student: I know that we all have a fantasy, but why did such a strange form of thinking come about? Why can't we understand something using perfectly rational approaches?

My answer will be quite simple - there is no rational approach. The very concept of "rational" is another fantasy - the one that our thinking is always based on pure, isolated logical reasoning. Sometimes it seems “irrational” that when solving a problem, emotions are involved. Our culture teaches us that emotions and thinking are two different things. But this concept does not make sense at all, if we consider it from the point of view of the Work: when a process cannot control the resource that is necessary for the work of this process, it will look like an appearance of an obstacle from the point of view of the Work. As for using other agents to do the Work, using Anger to turn off Sleep is similar to using a stick to access an object that you cannot reach out to. Regardless of the observer, from the outside it will seem to everyone that using such a strategy involves “emotions”: however, for the Work this action will be nothing but another way of achieving its goal. We constantly use fantasy in the course of our daily life, and we all, to one degree or another, use similar tricks for “self-control”.

In order not to sleep, you can use a precise amount of a stimulant. You can pinch yourself to cause pain; you can take an uncomfortable position, or begin to breathe deeply, or sit with your mouth open. You can move to a noisier place or start doing some exercises. You can force yourself to feel anger or fear of imagining that you have failed.

Most of our daily life is based on a similar kind of activity. It is usually assumed that it is you who choose what they will do. But often these activities stem from small areas of your mind that are trying to somehow change the environment around you. We have to imagine fictional things every time we solve a geometric problem or plan a future vacation. We use fantasy whenever we try to anticipate what things we may need in the near future. And in order to change any situation, we need to imagine what will happen to it after the changes made.

Student: Again, I agree that we constantly do such things, but again, I can not understand why we are doing this. Why Work simply can not turn off the Dream, but must use various indirect methods of influence on it? Why should we lie to ourselves, introducing illusions and fantasies instead of forcing our mind to directly do what we want? Why does the Work have no other improved connections?

One of the answers to this question seems quite obvious: the direct execution of the Work will be too dangerous. If Work could simply shut down Hunger, we would be in danger of starving to death. If Work could directly activate Anger, we would be able to find ourselves constantly with someone fighting. If Work could simply turn off Sleep, we would very quickly have worn out our existing body. That's why it's so scary for us to hold our breath and it's so hard not to fall asleep - or to control the amount of food you eat. The few animals that can do this live long enough to bring their descendants into the world. Consequently, our brain evolved in such a way that our mind could not interfere with the work of critical systems that help us survive. Consequently, we can interfere in these processes only through a trick and various tricks. We can not directly suppress the desire to sleep, but we invented tricks that can delay sleep, using various indirect methods.

For example, in the above example, Work had no direct effect on Sleep, but she understood that Anger could delay Sleep. And although Work has no direct way to activate Anger, she knows that there are some fantasies that can arouse Anger. Thus, the Work can somehow activate the fantasy that activates the Anger that suppresses Sleep, and the Work can again take up the necessary resources and get to work.

Student: Your theory breeds many more questions than it answers. How did the Works succeed in assimilating a similar trick? How exactly does it make these fantasies appear? How are memories caught up with fantasy? How can fantasy make you angry? How does anger suppress sleep? And why do we need to sleep at all? Considering how much time is spent on sleep, and all the inconveniences that it brings, why did it develop at all?

Chapter 5-8 “Simulation” will discuss how machines can have fantasies.
In chapter §6-2.2. “Remembrance”, how we will be remembered will be discussed, and in chapter 9-2.1 “Self Control” it will be discussed how “Work” can learn to use the above described trick. As for the question of why we need to sleep, it is very strange that we know so little about it. Recent studies show that sleep plays an extremely important role in how we learn, but it is clear that sleep serves other purposes. The following principle is common in evolution: as soon as a new function appears, other systems also begin to develop ways to use this new function. Thus, when the first form of sleep appeared, many functions were immediately found for it, perhaps sleep was used to restore spent resources, repair damaged organs, or perhaps to present various things without any external risk. Thus, we will not be able to find only one cause of sleep - as well as for any other mental activity.

Student: But how then does Anger suppress Sleep?

This action should involve ancient machinery. We are born with a huge number of embedded systems that help us identify hazards, failures and many other types of emergencies. These “alarms” have their connections with other resources, for example, “Emotionally Called”, which were discussed earlier in chapter §1-6, which, in turn, can generate huge cascades of using internal resources - which causes anger, anxiety, fear or pain, which may be more important than all existing priorities.

Student: You did not say how Anger works.

One theory says that the state we call “Anger” suppresses most of our thinking-related resources — this way we become less “intelligent.” Because of this, we make hasty decisions, and thus become subject to perceived higher risks. It is tempting to think about a person in anger as unstable and unpredictable. However, paradoxically, people in anger become more predictable than normal, and this can have positive effects: if you become angry and a threat is expressed, your opponent may feel that you do not change your position because you are no longer “rational”. The effectiveness of seeming threats depends on the presence of opponents who can really attack you. If you force yourself to believe that you are in danger, it will help you start expressing it through emotions, which will cause your opponent to start feeling the same feeling!

Critic: Not all kinds of anger can cause hasty decisions. When Charles suddenly became furious and hit someone who taunted him, his decisions were quick and he took a high risk. But when Joan was in a chronic rage because of the destruction of tropical forests, she became much more thoughtful and consistent when collecting money for their salvation.

Our adult emotions continue to evolve into increasingly intricate mechanisms. As we grow, we can train our emotional states and modify their external manifestations, to such an extent that they will no longer have anything in common with the emotions of children.

Physiologist: Anger is not just a state of mind. It also boosts your muscle tone, fills you with energy, and speeds up your reaction time. This state involves not only the brain, but also the body.

Definitely, Anger involves many physiological functions. It can affect your heartbeat, blood pressure, breathing, and sweating. However, if we stick to the concept of the Resource Cloud, then there is nothing special about these manifestations - the body is just another resource that can be used. (And quite a few similar effects will occur if you simply hold your breath). It is easy to understand why these systems have evolved: Anger helps us prepare for certain emergencies, such as fighting, protection and intimidation. However, we should not associate these effects with how Anger changes our way of thinking. It is quite true that Anger is associated with the above described somatic effects, but they are very far from similar manifestations of other emotions. [See §§Application]

For the translation, thanks to Stanislav Sukhanitsky

about the author

Marvin Lee Minsky (Eng. Marvin Lee Minsky; August 9, 1927 - January 24, 2016) - American scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, co-founder of the Laboratory of artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [ Wikipedia ]

Interesting Facts:

• Minsky was a friend of critic Harold Bloom from Yale University (Yale University), who spoke of him as “sinister Marvin Minsky”.
• Isaac Asimov described Minsky as one of two people who are smarter than himself; the second, in his opinion, was Karl Sagan.
• Marvin is a robot with artificial intelligence from the cycle of Douglas Adams novels Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film).
• Minsky has a contract to freeze his brain after death in order to be “resurrected” in the future.
• In honor of Minsk named the dog of the protagonist in the movie Tron: Legacy. [ Wikipedia ]

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