The Talking Heads Experiment: Origins Of Words And Meanings PDF
Preview The Talking Heads Experiment: Origins Of Words And Meanings
The Talking Heads experiment Origins of words and meanings Luc Steels language Computational Models of Language science press Evolution 1 ComputationalModelsofLanguageEvolution Editors: LucSteels,RemivanTrijp Inthisseries: 1. Steels,Luc. TheTalkingHeadsexperiment: Originsofwordsandmeanings. 2. Vogt,Paul. Howmobilerobotscanself-organizeavocabulary. 3. Bleys,Joris. Languagestrategiesforthedomainofcolour. 4. vanTrijp,Remi. Theevolutionofcasegrammar. 5. Spranger,Michael. Theevolutionofgroundedspatiallanguage. The Talking Heads experiment Origins of words and meanings Luc Steels language science press LucSteels.2015.TheTalkingHeadsexperiment:Originsofwordsandmeanings (ComputationalModelsofLanguageEvolution1).Berlin:LanguageSciencePress. Thistitlecanbedownloadedat: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/49 ©2015,LucSteels PublishedundertheCreativeCommonsAttribution4.0Licence(CCBY4.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN:978-3-944675-42-8 Coverandconceptofdesign:UlrikeHarbort Typesetting:FelixKopecky,SebastianNordhoff Proofreading:MartinHilpert,FelixKopecky,PeterPetré,DanielaSchröder Fonts:LinuxLibertine,Arimo Typesettingsoftware:XƎLATEX LanguageSciencePress HabelschwerdterAllee45 14195Berlin,Germany langsci-press.org StorageandcataloguingdonebyFUBerlin Language Science Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs forexternalorthird-partyInternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,anddoesnot guaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables and other factual information given in thisworkarecorrectatthetimeoffirstpublicationbutLanguageSciencePressdoesnot guaranteetheaccuracyofsuchinformationthereafter. For my daughter Lenie Preface IsetuptheTalkingHeadsexperimentwithagroupofbrilliantstudentsandcollaborators attheendofthenineteennineties.Itwasintendedtobethefirstlarge-scale,open-ended experimentintheemergenceofasharedsetofgroundedconceptsandavocabularyfor expressing these concepts by a population of autonomous agents. Inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein, the experiment took the form of a series of language games, more con- cretely games of reference about a “world” made up of geometric figures pasted on a whiteboardandobservablebytheagentsthroughpan-tiltcameras.Iwantedtodemon- stratewiththisexperimentearlierbreakthroughsinthestudyoflanguageoriginsand testwhethertheywouldholdforlarge-scalepopulationsandopen-endedenvironments. Ialsowantedtofindouthowhumanswouldinteractwiththeseagents.Sowemadeit suchthathumanusers,afterlogginginthroughtheInternet,couldteachnewwordsto agentsorusethewordstheylearnedfromtheagentstoplaytheirownlanguagegames. In1999,theexperimentwentliveinthecontextofanexhibitioncalledLaboratorium organisedinAntwerp(Belgium)byHans-UlrichObristandBarbaraVanderlinden.After afirstexperimentalrunfrom27June1999to3October1999,theexperimentwasrepeated aspartofanewexhibitioncalledN01SEorganisedinCambridgeandLondon(UK)by Adam Lowe and Simon Schaffer from 22 January to 26 March 2000, with additional installationsatthePalaisdelaDécouverteinParisandseveralotherplaces. At the occasion of the 1999 Laboratorium exhibition, the draft of a book was pub- lishedthatdescribedtheexperimentandtheunderlyingtheoreticalassumptionsincon- siderable detail. For many reasons, not at least that work continued at great speed on other exciting experiments, the original “pre-edition” of the book never made it to a fullyfinishedofficiallypublishedwork,andcirculatedonlyasan“underground”edition. ThiswasdisappointingbecausetheTalkingHeadsexperimentwasanimportantbreak- through.Moreovertheexperimentcontainedthefirstinklingsofmechanismsthatsince thenhavebeenworkedout,enhancedandtestedinmanyexperimentswhichreplicated the original results and further enhanced them. The present volume is intended to fill thisgap. PartIofthisbookcontainstheoriginalTalkingHeadsvolumewhichhasbeenonly slightlyeditedtocorrectforminormistakes.Itisamiraclethattheoriginalsourcefiles survivedandthatthefigurescouldbereconstructed. PartIIofthisbookcontainsaddi- tionalunpublishedbackgroundmaterial,reportsondifferentaspectsoftheexperiment, includingitsscientificresults,andabriefoverviewoffurtherdevelopmentsinlanguage evolutionresearchthattookplaceonthebasisoftheexperiment. DozensofpeopleworkedontheTalkingHeads.Theinitialresearchstartedin1997at theArtificialIntelligenceLaboratoryoftheFreeUniversityofBrussels(VUB)fundedby a“Geconcentreerdeonderzoeksactie”(GOA)oftheBelgiangovernment.JorisVanLoov- erenworkedcloselywithmeonafirstprototypethatwasdemonstratedin1997,using an active vision system custom-built by Tony Belpaeme and segmentation algorithms implementedbyDannyvanTieghem. EdwindeJongdidthefirsttheoreticalinvestiga- tionsoftheunderlyingsemioticdynamics. Oncetheinitiativeforapublicinstallation wastaken,themainhubbecametheSonyComputerScienceLaboratoryinParis,where IworkedtogetherintenselywithFrédéricKaplanandAngusMcIntyre,withadditional contributionsfortheteleportationinfrastructurebySilvèreTajanandAlexisAgahi.The AILaboratoryoftheVUBremainedasecondhubwhereimportantcontributionswere mademostnotablybyJorisVanLooveren,TonyBelpaeme,HolgerKennandMarioCam- panella.ToallofthemIamgratefulthatwewereabletocreatesuchanextremelyexcit- ingexperimentthatstimulatedmanythousandsofpeopletothinkaboutlanguageand itsoriginsinnewways. I also thank the curators of the Laboratorium Exhibition in Antwerp (Hans-Ulrich ObristandBarbaraVanderlinden)andthemembersofitscuratingboard(BrunoLatour andCarstenHöller),thecuratorsoftheN01SEexhibitioninLondon(AdamLoweandSi- monSchaffer),artistOlafurEliasson,withwhomIcollaboratedontheLookintotheBox pieceattheMuséd’artModerneinParis,artistAnne-MieVanKerckhovenforcollabora- tionsfortheChromosophylaboratoryinAachenandthemanyorganisersandhelping handswhomadetheotherinstallationspossible. SylviaSpruckWrigleyhashelpedto improvethe1999pre-edition(nowPartIofthebook)underconsiderabletimepressure andMarleenWynantswascrucialinthelastphasesofthispublicationwithcomments, professionaladvice,photographs,andsupport. PartIIofthebookdiscusseswhathappenedaftertheTalkingHeadsexperiment.Our researchwentthroughvariousboomandbustcycles.Inthegoodyearstherewasmoney tohirenewpeopleandpushtheresearchforwards,butthenbadyearswouldcomeand theteamdisintegratedagainduetolackofresources.Thismadeprogresslesssubstantial thanitcouldhavebeenbuthadtheadvantagesthatwavesofnewyoungpeoplewere given a chance to contribute. The first wave started working after the Talking Heads experiments were finished. At Sony CSL there was first exciting work by Pierre-Yves OudeyerandFredericKaplanpursuingtheoriginsofturntakingandsymbolusagewith theaiborobots,thusexploringevenearlierstagesintheoriginsoflanguage. Thanks to the FP6 ECAgents project and the FP7 ALEAR projects of the European Commission, a new team could be formed around 2004, which included Joris Bleys, Joachim De Beule, Bart de Vylder, and Jelle Zuidema at the VUB in Brussels. Mean- while, we got access through the Sony Computer Science Laboratory to the QRIO hu- manoidrobotsthankstoMasahiroFujitaandHidekiShimomura. Anewteamformed inPariswhichincludedNancyChang,KatyaGerasimova,MartinLoetzsch,VanessaMi- celli, Michael Spranger, Simon Pauw and Remi Van Trijp. I thank them all for major contributionstotheexperimentsreportedinthesecondpartofthebook. Ialsothank StefanoNolfiforcoordinatingtheECAgentsprojectwithafirmhandandManfredHild and his team for creating the new humanoid myon robot that we used in later experi- ments. vi In2008/2009IwasafellowattheWissenschaftskolleginBerlin,whichwasanideal environmenttoreflectonourresearchprogramandhowwecouldproceed.Manynew ideascameoutofthatyear,inparticular,arealisationthatforseveralofthekeypuzzles weweretryingtosolve,inspirationcouldbefoundinevolutionarybiology,andthisled toanewpathwhichonlynowisbeginningtobeexplored.Itisgoodtoknowthataftera majorcollapseinfundingaround2009,thereisagainateamofyoungpeopleassembling topushresearchonlanguagegamesfurther.TheyincludeEmiliaGarciaCasademontin Barcelona,MiquelCornudellaandPaulVanEeckeinParis,andYanaKnightinBrussels. Financingremainsprecariousbutthefutureisintheirhands! The present new edition is not only special because of the historical significance of theTalkingHeadsexperimentbutalsobecauseitisthefirstoneinanewseries“Compu- tationalModelsofLanguageEvolution”publishedbytheLanguageSciencePress. The intentionofthisseriesistomakeavailablethroughOpenAccessin-depthmodelsoflan- guageevolutionthathavebeenvalidatedusingagent-basedcomputationalsimulations. IamgratefultoMartinHaspelmathandStefanMüller(theeditorsoftheLanguageSci- encePress)formakingitpossibletopublishinOpenAccessresearchresultswhichdo notquitefitinthestandardmode.IthankMariaFerrerBonnetforhelpinthefinalstage ofadaptingbibliographies.AndIamgratefultoICREAfortimetocreatearevisedand extended version of the Talking Heads Book and to the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva inBarcelonaforprovidingsuchanexcellentworkingenvironment. Ithankinaddition Remi van Trijp for his help in making this series a reality and Annemie Maes for her encouragementinthefinalstretchestofinishthisbook. Barcelona,October2014. vii
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