Rethinking Grounding

• The grounding problem is, generally speaking, the problem of causally connecting an artificial agent with its environment such that the agent's (internal) mechanisms and behaviour can be intrinsic and meaningful to itself, rather than dependent on an external designer or observer. This paper briefly reviews Searle's and Harnad's analyses of the grounding problem are and evaluates cognitivist and enactivist approaches to solving it. It is argued that, although the two categories of grounding approaches differ in their nature and the problems they have to face, both, so far, fail to provide fully grounded systems. Further it is argued here that the reason the problem is somewhat underestimated lies in the notions of situatedness and embodiment in modern AI, which goes beyond purely computational systems, but fails to acknowledge the historically grounded nature of the relation between living systems and their environments.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Computer and systems science

Data- och systemvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

rap (subject category)