The relevance of Peircean semiotic to computational intelligence augmentation
© This paper is not for reproduction without permission of the author(s).
The aim of the present paper is, first, to describe the distinction of
two types of computational intelligence research as Peter Skagestad
has distinguished them: Artificial Intelligence or “AI”
and Intelligence Augmentation or “IA”; then,
second, to draw attention to a special sort of IA research, namely, computer
programming which aims at supporting, augmenting, and perfecting the critical
control of research communication and publication. Skagestad
has been especially concerned to position Peirce as
providing a theoretical basis for IA comparable to the foundational position of
Alan Turing in relation to AI, and he does this by explaining what is implicit
in Peirce’s dictum that “all thought is in signs,“ which he construes as meaning that all thought is
materially embodied, which he interprets as involving a recognition of
the importance of exosomatic embodiments of
mind. In developing Skagestad’s conception of
IA further in the direction indicated I also ground this in Peirce’s
dictum, but I do so by making explicit a different (but complementary)
implication of it, namely, that all thought is dialogical.
As an exemplary (but not prototypical) case of IA of this special sort, I use
the automated archive and server system of primary publication created by the
physicist Paul Ginsparg at Los Alamos National
Laboratory some 12 years ago, which is presently in successful use in the
fields of high energy theoretical physics and several closely associated fields
in physics, astronomy, and mathematics. I argue that a proper
understanding of the success of this system, which can be regarded as an IA application,
reveals it to be an ideal implementation of computationally assisted primary
(i.e. formal) publication. However, the interesting cases for development
of IA in this area will be those that attempt to find out and design
computational assistance for the many varieties of communicational practices
involved in research activity that precede the stage of inquiry at which formal
assertion of putative findings occurs. Interest in these less formal and
rigorous types of communicational practices has yet to develop because they
must be understood in relationship to the formal publication practices, and
these latter have been so poorly understood that there has been no conceptual
framework available for investigating these other and equally important practices
as regards their rationale and needs.
Full paper (pdf)
Full paper (html)