Why zombies cannot write significant source code: The Knowledge Game and the art of computer programming

This article analyses the knowledge needed to understand a computer program within the philosophy of information. L. Floridi's method of levels of abstraction is applied to the relation between an ideal programmer and a modern computer seen together as an informational organism. The results obtained by the mental experiment known as the Knowledge Game are applied to this relation, so to explain what a programmer should know in order to program a modern computer. In particular, this analysis clearly shows why non-conscious agents have no hopes to write significant programs. Two main objections are then presented and attacked by corresponding counterobjections.     

Properties of Hybrid Systems—A Computer Science Perspective

The paper formalizes and classifies important properties of hybrid, i.e. mixed discrete and continuous, systems from a computer science point of view. General proof methods for some of these properties are also provided and applied to an example. For the central properties stability and attraction the vital role topology plays in their definition is made obvious and paralleles to invariance and persistence properties from the computer science domain are drawn. In the context of proof methods conditions are identified under which Liapunov functions define Galois connections. This relates a control theory method of abstraction to an abstraction technique which is usually applied in computer science. As a whole the paper promotes a deeper understanding of hybrid systems by computer scientists.     

On Floridi’s Method of Levels of Abstraction

Abstraction is arguably one of the most important methods in modern science in analysing and understanding complex phenomena. In his book The Philosophy of Information, Floridi (The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011) presents the method of levels of abstraction as the main method of the Philosophy of Information. His discussion of abstraction as a method seems inspired by the formal methods and frameworks of computer science, in which abstraction is operationalised extensively in programming languages and design methodologies. Is it really clear what we should understand by levels of abstraction? How should they be specified? We will argue that levels of abstraction should be augmented with annotations, in order to express semantic information for them and reconcile the method of level of abstraction (LoA’s) with other approaches. We discuss the extended method when applied e.g. to the analysis of abstract machines. This will lead to an example in which the number of LoA’s is unbounded.     

EFFICIENT ABSTRACTION SELECTION IN REINFORCEMENT LEARNING

This article addresses reinforcement learning problems based on factored Markov decision processes (MDPs) in which the agent must choose among a set of candidate abstractions, each build up from a different combination of state components. We present and evaluate a new approach that can perform effective abstraction selection that is more resource‐efficient and/or more general than existing approaches. The core of the approach is to make selection of an abstraction part of the learning agent's decision‐making process by augmenting the agent's action space with internal actions that select the abstraction it uses. We prove that under certain conditions this approach results in a derived MDP whose solution yields both the optimal abstraction for the original MDP and the optimal policy under that abstraction. We examine our approach in three domains of increasing complexity: contextual bandit problems, episodic MDPs, and general MDPs with context‐specific structure. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Why Taddeo and Floridi did not solve the symbol grounding problem

The symbol grounding problem (SGP), which remains difficult for AI and philosophy of information, was recently scrutinised by Taddeo and Floridi (Solving the symbol grounding problem: A critical review of fifteen years of research. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 17, 419–445, 2005; A praxical solution of the symbol grounding problem. Minds and machines, 17, 369–389, doi:10.1007/s11023-007-9081-32005, 2007). However, their own solution to SGP, underwritten by Action-based Semantics, although different from other solutions, does not seem to be satisfactory. Moreover, it does not satisfy the authors' principle, which they dub ‘Zero Semantic Commitment Condition’. In this paper, Taddeo and Floridi's solution is criticised in particular because of the excessively liberal relationship between symbols and internal states of agents, which is conceived in terms of levels of abstraction. Also, the notion of action seems to be seriously defective in their theory. Due to the lack of the possibility of symbols to misrepresent, the grounded symbols remain useless for the cognitive system itself, and it is unclear why they should be grounded in the first place, as the role of grounded symbols is not specified by the proposed solution. At the same time, it is probably one of the best-developed attempts to solve SGP and shows that naturalised semantics can benefit from taking artificial intelligence seriously.     

An Information Continuum Conjecture

Turing tersely mentioned a notion of ``cultural search'' while otherwise deeply engaged in the design and operations of one of the earliest computers. His idea situated the individual squarely within a collaborative intellectual environment, but did he mean to suggest this in the form of a general information system? In the same writing Turing forecast mechanizations of proofs and outlined genetical searches, much later implemented in cellular automata. The conjecture explores the networked data-information-knowledge continuum as the subject of Turing's notions of search and intelligence, using analogous models from library systems theory. Floridi's philosophy of information is posed as a potential guide to applied information services design of the Turing type. The initial problem is to identify a minimal set of assumptions from Turing's essay beyond the general context of computing. This set will form a bridge to an analogous set of principles in library systems models by eliciting supporting evidence in the literature relating the two. Finally it will be shown how Floridi's philosophy of information more fully encompasses Turing's insight in view of the conjecture.

     

Abstraction in Computer Science

We characterize abstraction in computer science by first comparing the fundamental nature of computer science with that of its cousin mathematics. We consider their primary products, use of formalism, and abstraction objectives, and find that the two disciplines are sharply distinguished. Mathematics, being primarily concerned with developing inference structures, has information neglect as its abstraction objective. Computer science, being primarily concerned with developing interaction patterns, has information hiding as its abstraction objective. We show that abstraction through information hiding is a primary factor in computer science progress and success through an examination of the ubiquitous role of information hiding in programming languages, operating systems, network architecture, and design patterns.     

Programming by successive refinement of data abstractions

The Model Programming Language implements a form of data abstraction that has been used in a large programming project, the Demos Operating System. The use of the abstraction mechanism suggests a particular programming style that has evolved over an extensive period of gaining experience with the language. The programming style and Model's approach to data abstraction are both documented here using an example designed to illustrate several of the more important issues. The goal of the paper is to demonstrate a programming style and an approach to data abstraction in a programming language that has proved useful in a significant systems programming application.     

面向未解释程序的合作验证方法

未解释程序的验证问题通常是不可判定的,但是最近有研究发现,存在一类满足coherence性质的未解释程序,其验证问题是可判定的,并且计算复杂度为PSPACE完全的.在这个结果的基础上,一个针对一般未解释程序验证的基于路径抽象的反例抽象精化（CEGAR）框架被提出,并展现了良好的验证效率.即使如此,对未解释程序的验证工作依然需要多次迭代,特别是利用该方法在针对多个程序验证时,不同的程序之间的验证过程是彼此独立的,存在验证开销巨大的问题.本文发现被验证的程序之间较为相似时,不可行路径的抽象模型可以在不同的程序之间复用.因此,本文提出了一个合作验证的框架,收集在验证过程中不可行路径的抽象模型,并在对新程序进行验证时,用已保存的抽象模型对程序进行精化,提前删减一些已验证的程序路径,从而提高验证效率.此外,本文通过对验证过程中的状态信息进行精简,对现有的基于状态等价的路径抽象方法进行优化,以进一步提升其泛化能力.本文对合作验证的框架以及路径抽象的优化方法进行了实现,并在两个具有代表性的程序集上分别取得了2.70x和1.49x的加速.     

Expert-novice knowledge of computer programming at different levels of abstraction

Computer programming knowledge can be classified into five levels of abstraction: objective, conceptual, functional, logical, and physical. An experiment was carried out to determine whether the mastering of knowledge at different levels of abstraction changed with the level of skill. Ten experts and ten novices in C computer programming participated in the experiment. The subjects' knowledge at the five levels of abstraction was tested through 20 multiple-choice questions. The experimental results indicated that knowledge differences between experts and novices at an abstract level or a concrete level depended on what abstract or concrete knowledge was implied. Experts had better abstract knowledge than novices at the conceptual and functional levels but not at the objective level. Experts had better concrete knowledge than novices at the physical level but not at the logical level. The classification of computer programming knowledge in levels of abstraction and the experimental results helped in clarifying a general finding from previous studies that experts had better abstract knowledge than novices.     

Reactive Modules

We present a formal model for concurrent systems. The model represents synchronous and asynchronous components in a uniform framework that supports compositional (assume-guarantee) and hierarchical (stepwise-refinement) design and verification. While synchronous models are based on a notion of atomic computation step, and asynchronous models remove that notion by introducing stuttering, our model is based on a flexible notion of what constitutes a computation step: by applying an abstraction operator to a system, arbitrarily many consecutive steps can be collapsed into a single step. The abstraction operator, which may turn an asynchronous system into a synchronous one, allows us to describe systems at various levels of temporal detail. For describing systems at various levels of spatial detail, we use a hiding operator that may turn a synchronous system into an asynchronous one. We illustrate the model with diverse examples from synchronous circuits, asynchronous shared-memory programs, and synchronous message-passing protocols.     

The Method of Levels of Abstraction

The use of “levels of abstraction” in philosophical analysis (levelism) has recently come under attack. In this paper, I argue that a refined version of epistemological levelism should be retained as a fundamental method, called the method of levels of abstraction. After a brief introduction, in section “Some Definitions and Preliminary Examples” the nature and applicability of the epistemological method of levels of abstraction is clarified. In section “A Classic Application of the Method of Abstraction”, the philosophical fruitfulness of the new method is shown by using Kant’s classic discussion of the “antinomies of pure reason” as an example. In section “The Philosophy of the Method of Abstraction”, the method is further specified and supported by distinguishing it from three other forms of “levelism”: (i) levels of organisation; (ii) levels of explanation and (iii) conceptual schemes. In that context, the problems of relativism and antirealism are also briefly addressed. The conclusion discusses some of the work that lies ahead, two potential limitations of the method and some results that have already been obtained by applying the method to some long-standing philosophical problems.

基于数据融合多传感器的分布式入侵检测系统研究

提出了一个新的概念——发展计算机空间态势估计的分布式融合系统及信息抽象分布级别和逻辑抽象层次的知识。在此基础上给出了一个多传感器入侵检测数据融合的合作模型,系统能分析各类信息,有高精确的入侵检测、高效的决策、资源消耗低。系统的容错性和合作能力也有所提高。     

Automatic personalized video abstraction for sports videos using metadata

Video abstraction is defined as creating a video abstract which includes only important information in the original video streams. There are two general types of video abstracts, namely the dynamic and static ones. The dynamic video abstract is a 3-dimensional representation created by temporally arranging important scenes while the static video abstract is a 2-dimensional representation created by spatially arranging only keyframes of important scenes. In this paper, we propose a unified method of automatically creating these two types of video abstracts considering the semantic content targeting especially on broadcasted sports videos. For both types of video abstracts, the proposed method firstly determines the significance of scenes. A play scene, which corresponds to a play, is considered as a scene unit of sports videos, and the significance of every play scene is determined based on the play ranks, the time the play occurred, and the number of replays. This information is extracted from the metadata, which describes the semantic content of videos and enables us to consider not only the types of plays but also their influence on the game. In addition, user’s preferences are considered to personalize the video abstracts. For dynamic video abstracts, we propose three approaches for selecting the play scenes of the highest significance: the basic criterion, the greedy criterion, and the play-cut criterion. For static video abstracts, we also propose an effective display style where a user can easily access target scenes from a list of keyframes by tracing the tree structures of sports games. We experimentally verified the effectiveness of our method by comparing our results with man-made video abstracts as well as by conducting questionnaires.

一个面向C和Fortran数值程序的静态分析工具

程序的正确性验证一直以来都是计算机科学中的一个挑战性问题,抽象解释理论为程序静态分析提供了一个通用框架,可以在编译时自动地推导程序的动态性质。基于抽象解释的数值程序分析可以自动推导程序中数值变量间的不变式关系,这对于编译优化、程序错误检查至关重要。本文建立并实现了一个面向C和Fortran程序并支持过程间分析的数值程序分析框架和工具,C或Fortran源程序经过预处理后转化为具有统一格式的中间表示形式,然后基于该中间表示抽取与源程序语义等价的语义等式,最后在该语义等式上进行不动点迭代计算从而得到程序不变式。在此基础上,本文还对数组等复杂语法结构进行了建模和抽象。实验结果表明,该工具具有较高的可扩展性、精度,并能够处理大部分因数组的使用而带来的程序分析上的问题。     

Bisimulation equivalence of differential-algebraic systems

In this paper, the notion of bisimulation relation for linear input-state-output systems is extended to general linear differential-algebraic (DAE) systems. Geometric control theory is used to derive a linear-algebraic characterisation of bisimulation relations, and an algorithm for computing the maximal bisimulation relation between two linear DAE systems. The general definition is specialised to the case where the matrix pencil sE ? A is regular. Furthermore, by developing a one-sided version of bisimulation, characterisations of simulation and abstraction are obtained.     

On the Morality of Artificial Agents

Artificial agents (AAs), particularly but not only those in Cyberspace, extend the class of entities that can be involved in moral situations. For they can be conceived of as moral patients (as entities that can be acted upon for good or evil) and also as moral agents (as entities that can perform actions, again for good or evil). In this paper, we clarify the concept of agent and go on to separate the concerns of morality and responsibility of agents (most interestingly for us, of AAs). We conclude that there is substantial and important scope, particularly in Computer Ethics, for the concept of moral agent not necessarily exhibiting free will, mental states or responsibility. This complements the more traditional approach, common at least since Montaigne and Descartes, which considers whether or not (artificial) agents have mental states, feelings, emotions and so on. By focussing directly on mind-less morality we are able to avoid that question and also many of the concerns of Artificial Intelligence. A vital component in our approach is the Method of Abstraction for analysing the level of abstraction (LoA) at which an agent is considered to act. The LoA is determined by the way in which one chooses to describe, analyse and discuss a system and its context. The Method of Abstraction is explained in terms of an interface or set of features or observables at a given LoA. Agenthood, and in particular moral agenthood, depends on a LoA. Our guidelines for agenthood are: interactivity (response to stimulus by change of state), autonomy (ability to change state without stimulus) and adaptability (ability to change the transition rules by which state is changed) at a given LoA. Morality may be thought of as a threshold defined on the observables in the interface determining the LoA under consideration. An agent is morally good if its actions all respect that threshold; and it is morally evil if some action violates it. That view is particularly informative when the agent constitutes a software or digital system, and the observables are numerical. Finally we review the consequences for Computer Ethics of our approach. In conclusion, this approach facilitates the discussion of the morality of agents not only in Cyberspace but also in the biosphere, where animals can be considered moral agents without their having to display free will, emotions or mental states, and in social contexts, where systems like organizations can play the role of moral agents. The primary cost of this facility is the extension of the class of agents and moral agents to embrace AAs.     

Multi‐scale navigation of large trace data: A survey

Dynamic analysis through execution traces is frequently used to analyze the runtime behavior of software systems. However, tracing long running executions generates voluminous data, which are complicated to analyze and manage. Extracting interesting performance or correctness characteristics out of large traces of data from several processes and threads is a challenging task. Trace abstraction and visualization are potential solutions to alleviate this challenge. Several efforts have been made over the years in many subfields of computer science for trace data collection, maintenance, analysis, and visualization. Many analyses start with an inspection of an overview of the trace, before digging deeper and studying more focused and detailed data. These techniques are common and well supported in geographical information systems, automatically adjusting the level of details depending on the scale. However, most trace visualization tools operate at a single level of representation, which are not adequate to support multilevel analysis. Sophisticated techniques and heuristics are needed to address this problem. Multi‐scale (multilevel) visualization with support for zoom and focus operations is an effective way to enable this kind of analysis. Considerable research and several surveys are proposed in the literature in the field of trace visualization. However, multi‐scale visualization has yet received little attention. In this paper, we provide a survey and methodological structure for categorizing tools and techniques aiming at multi‐scale abstraction and visualization of execution trace data and discuss the requirements and challenges faced to be able to meet evolving user demands.     

视频摘要技术综述

目的 类似于文本摘要,视频摘要是对视频内容的总结。为了合理地评估视频摘要领域的研究进展,正确导向视频摘要的继续研究,本文归纳总结视频摘要技术的主要研究方法和显著性成果,对视频摘要技术进行综述。方法 依据视频摘要的两个主要生成步骤:视频内容分析和摘要生成分别介绍视频摘要的主要研究方法。同时,分析了近5年视频摘要领域的研究状况,对视频摘要发展的新趋势:实时视频摘要和多视角视频摘要进行了阐述。最后,还对视频摘要的评价系统进行了分类总结。结果 对视频摘要进行综述,对摘要中的语义获取难题提出了2种指导性建议。并依据分析结果,展望了视频摘要技术未来的发展方向。结论 视频摘要技术作为视频内容理解的重要组成部分,有较大研究价值。而目前,视频摘要在视频语义表达和摘要评价系统方面并不精确完善,还需进一步的深入研究。