A key aspect of human intelligence is the ability to infer abstract rules directly from high-dimensional sensory data, and to do so given only a limited amount of training experience. Deep neural network algorithms have proven to be a powerful tool for learning directly from high-dimensional data, but currently lack this capacity for data-efficient induction of abstract rules, leading some to argue that symbol-processing mechanisms will be necessary to account for this capacity. In this work, we take a step toward bridging this gap by introducing the Emergent Symbol Binding Network (ESBN), a recurrent network augmented with an external memory that enables a form of variable-binding and indirection. This binding mechanism allows symbol-like representations to emerge through the learning process without the need to explicitly incorporate symbol-processing machinery, enabling the ESBN to learn rules in a manner that is abstracted away from the particular entities to which those rules apply. Across a series of tasks, we show that this architecture displays nearly perfect generalization of learned rules to novel entities given only a limited number of training examples, and outperforms a number of other competitive neural network architectures.
Recent advances in methods focused on the grounding problem have resulted in techniques that can be used to construct a symbolic language associated with a specific domain. Inspired by how humans communicate complex ideas through language, we developed a generalized Symbolic Semantic ($\text{S}^2$) framework for interpretable segmentation. Unlike adversarial models (e.g., GANs), we explicitly model cooperation between two agents, a Sender and a Receiver, that must cooperate to achieve a common goal. The Sender receives information from a high layer of a segmentation network and generates a sym…
This paper describes a computational model of multiagent multimodal categorization that realizes emergent communication. We clarify whether the computational model can reproduce the following functions in a symbol emergence system, comprising two agents with different sensory modalities playing a naming game. (1) Function for forming a shared lexical system that comprises perceptual categories and corresponding signs, formed by agents through individual learning and semiotic communication between agents. (2) Function to improve the categorization accuracy in an agent via semiotic communication…
Google Research（谷歌研究院）；Istituto Dalle Molle di studi sull’intelligenza artificiale (IDSIA)（达莱莫莱人工智能研究所（IDSIA））；Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI)（瑞士意大利语区大学（USI））；Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana (SUPSI)（瑞士意大利语区应用科学大学（SUPSI））
Contemporary neural networks still fall short of human-level generalization, which extends far beyond our direct experiences. In this paper, we argue that the underlying cause for this shortcoming is their inability to dynamically and flexibly bind information that is distributed throughout the network. This binding problem affects their capacity to acquire a compositional understanding of the world in terms of symbol-like entities (like objects), which is crucial for generalizing in predictable and systematic ways. To address this issue, we propose a unifying framework that revolves around fo…
Emergent Language Symbolic Autoencoder (ELSA) with Weak Supervision to Model Hierarchical Brain Networks
Johns Hopkins University（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学）；Microsoft Health AI（微软健康人工智能）；Johns Hopkins School of Medicine（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学医学院）；Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare, Johns Hopkins University（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学马龙医疗工程中心）
Constructive studies on symbol emergence systems seek to investigate computational models that can better explain human language evolution, the creation of symbol systems, and the construction of internal representations. This study provides a new model for emergent communication, which is based on a probabilistic generative model (PGM) instead of a discriminative model based on deep reinforcement learning. We define the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) naming game by generalizing previously proposed models. It is not a referential game with explicit feedback, as assumed by many emergent communication…
Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）；University of California, Los Angeles（加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校）
Human intelligence is characterized by a remarkable ability to infer abstract rules from experience and apply these rules to novel domains. As such, designing neural network algorithms with this capacity is an important step toward the development of deep learning systems with more human-like intelligence. However, doing so is a major outstanding challenge, one that some argue will require neural networks to use explicit symbol-processing mechanisms. In this work, we focus on neural networks' capacity for arbitrary role-filler binding, the ability to associate abstract "roles" to context-speci…
Neural networks promote a distributed representation with no clear place for symbols. Despite this, we propose that symbols are manufactured simply by training a sparse random noise as a self-sustaining attractor in a feedback spiking neural network. This way, we can generate many of what we shall call prime attractors, and the networks that support them are like registers holding a symbolic value, and we call them registers. Like symbols, prime attractors are atomic and devoid of any internal structure. Moreover, the winner-take-all mechanism naturally implemented by spiking neurons enables r…
Indiana University（印第安纳大学）；Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência（古尔本基安科学研究所）
We present a method to eliminate redundancy in the transition tables of Boolean automata: schema redescription with two symbols. One symbol is used to capture redundancy of individual input variables, and another to capture permutability in sets of input variables: fully characterizing the canalization present in Boolean functions. Two-symbol schemata explain aspects of the behaviour of automata networks that the characterization of their emergent patterns does not capture. We use our method to compare two well-known cellular automata for the density classification task: the human engineered C…
Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) methods find optimal policies for agents that operate in the presence of other learning agents. Central to achieving this is how the agents coordinate. One way to coordinate is by learning to communicate with each other. Can the agents develop a language while learning to perform a common task? In this paper, we formulate and study a MARL problem where cooperative agents are connected to each other via a fixed underlying network. These agents can communicate along the edges of this network by exchanging discrete symbols. However, the semantics of these…
Facebook AI（Facebook人工智能）；MILA（蒙特利尔学习算法研究所）；Facebook AI Research（Facebook人工智能研究院）
A promising approach for teaching artificial agents to use natural language involves using human-in-the-loop training. However, recent work suggests that current machine learning methods are too data inefficient to be trained in this way from scratch. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between two categories of learning signals with the ultimate goal of improving sample efficiency: imitating human language data via supervised learning, and maximizing reward in a simulated multi-agent environment via self-play (as done in emergent communication), and introduce the term supervised se…
Humans use language to collectively execute abstract strategies besides using it as a referential tool for identifying physical entities. Recently, multiple attempts at replicating the process of emergence of language in artificial agents have been made. While existing approaches study emergent languages as referential tools, in this paper, we study their role in discovering and implementing strategies. We formulate the problem using a voting game where two candidate agents contest in an election with the goal of convincing population members (other agents), that are connected to each other vi…
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；State Key Lab of Processors, Institute of Computing Technolgy, CAS（中国科学院计算技术研究所处理器国家重点实验室）；Cambricon Technologies（寒武纪科技）；Shanghai Innovation Center for Processor Technologies（上海处理器技术创新中心）；Intelligent Software Research Center, Institute of Software, CAS（中国科学院软件研究所智能软件研究中心）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）
