Creature Smarts: The Art and Architecture of a Virtual Brain

Abstract

Is it possible to build an artificial intelligence that's as clever, as adaptive and as captivating as the average dog? That's the question that drives the Synthetic Characters group at the MIT Media Lab. We draw inspiration from animal behavior, experimental biology, and the brain and cognitive sciences, and apply lessons learned from those fields to the study of artificial intelligence. While there are many research groups that focus on a particular cognitive ability, we have found it instructive to build complete systems -- creatures that can interact with each other and with human participants. Our philosophy is influenced by Daniel Dennett's theory of the intentional stance, which states that if you know a being's beliefs about its world, and you also know its desires, then you can predict that being's actions [Dennett 1987]. Thus, if a virtual creature can represent beliefs about its world, and also has a capacity for desires, th