Cognitive Systems Quotes

“Many AI researchers today claim that their systems are cognitively inspired (in particular inspired by the popular System 1/System 2 distinction introduced by Daniel Kahneman in his dual-process theory) just because their decision-making mechanisms couple both fast routines and slow decision-making strategies.

This is a clear example (one of the many in the field) of the misconceptions that have been raised by the shallow ascription of labels coming from the cognitive vocabulary to the behavior and/or design of such systems.

Unfortunately, it is not sufficient to just implement “fast” and “slow” mechanisms in an artificial system to claim any kind of cognitive inspiration or of cognitive plausibility.
To make one of these claims, in fact, one should build and integrate algorithms in a way that is much more constrained with respect to such a generic and shallow description of how an intelligent system (natural or artificial) works (note: the book Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) was written for a popular audience and therefore contains obvious oversimplifications of the dual-process theory of reasoning. Unfortunately, many people in AI have considered the book as a scientific publication ignoring the actual scientific papers laying down the theory).

For example, one should consider "how” such fast or slow mechanisms are built, how they interact between them (both within the System 1/System 2 components and between them), how they evolve over time (e.g. System 2 mechanisms can be “automatized” and become System 1 routines) etc.

In Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds, the distinction between these “shallow” and “constrained” systems is made clear by introducing the “functional” and “structural” design approaches and by exploring the different explanatory roles that such design perspectives put in place.”
― Antonio Lieto

“The abstract concepts at the center of our oldest cognitive systems constitute a primordial 'blessing of abstraction,' counter to long-standing intuitions concerning what is learned or innate, and what is unique to our species or shared by other animals. For millennia, thinkers have supposed that knowledge begins with modality-specific sensations and culminates in abstract concepts only late in ontogeny and phylogeny. Multidisciplinary research in the developmental cognitive sciences turns this assumption on its head. Although we do not routinely articulate our abstract concepts, they are foundations for learning about things, places, and events at all ages and in a wide range of species. Ancient cognitive systems capture properties of the world that apply to all the diverse environments in which these creatures live.”
― Elizabeth S. Spelke, What Babies Know: Core Knowledge and Composition Volume 1