Answers.Body: <p>To my knowledge, this is very  much an open research issue.</p>
  
  <p>Here is a paper by Prof Leslie Smith, an acknowledged expert on neuromorphic perceptual coding, which explains the importance of the notion of perceptual time for Artificial General Intelligence and sketches an architecture from which a notion of 'now' might emerge: <a href="http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~lss/recentpapers/perctime.pdf" rel="nofollow">Perceptual Time</a>.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2016-08-03T07:00:16.047Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2016-08-03T07:00:16.047Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: NietzscheanAI
Body: <p>I am interested in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence" rel="nofollow">emergence</a> of properties in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model#Theory" rel="nofollow">agents</a>, and, more generally in robotics.</p>
  
  <p>I was wondering if there is work on the emergence of time-related concepts, on the low-level representation of notions like <em>before</em> and <em>after</em>. I know, for example, that there is work on the emergence of <a href="http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Kohonen_network" rel="nofollow">spatial representation</a> (similar to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-nearest_neighbors_algorithm" rel="nofollow">knn</a>), or even <a href="https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/129415/files/Mitrietal_1.pdf" rel="nofollow">communication</a>* but time seems to be a tricky concept. </p>
  
  <p>This has everything to do with the <em>platform</em>, i.e. the way that the representation would be coded in. We tend to favour ways that have some meaning or somehow mimic natural, well, yes, human structures, like the brain. I am not a neuroscientist and do not know that the sense of time <em>looks like</em> in humans, or if it is even present in other living beings.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Is there some work on the (emergence of the) representation of <em>time</em> in artificial agents?</strong></p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>*I remember watching a really cool... Actually creepy video from these robots but cannot find it anymore. Does anyone have the link at hand?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-09-03T01:22:43.057Z
Comments.Text: I don't understand the question. Time is just the perception of change. How can a thinking thing do anything _other_ than perceive change? A recognition of a "rate of change" seems to be implicit in all things that deal with change, right?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Doxosophoi
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-09-03T21:14:59.073Z
Comments.Text: @Doxosophoi I agree with the perception of change only partially: If I see a photo of two cakes and then another one with only one cake, I wouldn't know which one was first (or if they are the same cakes at all).
Comments.UserDisplayName: Luis
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-09-03T21:50:49.170Z
Comments.Text: @Luis We feed cake pictures to agents in chronological order. Otherwise our cake-bots will never learn to bake cakes. In what sense is time not implicit in any given interactive agent?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Doxosophoi
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-09-03T21:58:09.523Z
Comments.Text: @Doxosophoi Yes, but it is not *emergent*. I am asking about robots or AI-things which kind of... *Come to the idea*  by themselves, with no previous human intervention ;)
Comments.UserDisplayName: Luis
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-09-03T22:10:42.997Z
Comments.Text: @Luis Humans use words a lot to express their ideas and opinions. But, just because an agent may not have the word to articulate "time," that does not mean that the agent lacks opinions about the future, with respect to the present, which implies _some_ understanding of time. But yeah, if you want the _word_ "time" to emerge, then you'd need a system in which salient contexts are emergently given names, like a culture of talking agents.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Doxosophoi
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-08-03T06:43:19.990Z
Comments.Text: The title is a bit confusing. Could you rephrase it? Also, do you mean explicit or implicit representation of time? Digging memory, but there is work around that! (I first thought about branching-time logic, but it is not emergent).
Comments.UserDisplayName: Eric Platon
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-08-05T14:51:44.813Z
Comments.Text: @EricPlaton I wanted to rephrase, but am short of inspiration :P Got any suggestions?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Luis
Tags: <knowledge-representation><time><embodied-cognition>
Title: Are there emergent models of time in robots?
UserDisplayName: Luis
ThreadText: # Are there emergent models of time in robots?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2016-08-03)
  
  I am interested in the [emergence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence) of properties in [agents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model#Theory), and, more generally in robotics.
  
  I was wondering if there is work on the emergence of time-related concepts, on the low-level representation of notions like *before* and *after*. I know, for example, that there is work on the emergence of [spatial representation](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Kohonen_network) (similar to [knn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-nearest_neighbors_algorithm)), or even [communication](https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/129415/files/Mitrietal_1.pdf)\* but time seems to be a tricky concept.
  
  This has everything to do with the *platform*, i.e. the way that the representation would be coded in. We tend to favour ways that have some meaning or somehow mimic natural, well, yes, human structures, like the brain. I am not a neuroscientist and do not know that the sense of time *looks like* in humans, or if it is even present in other living beings.
  
  **Is there some work on the (emergence of the) representation of *time* in artificial agents?**
  
  ---
  
  \*I remember watching a really cool... Actually creepy video from these robots but cannot find it anymore. Does anyone have the link at hand?
  
  **Tags:** knowledge-representation, time, embodied-cognition
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: The title is a bit confusing. Could you rephrase it? Also, do you mean explicit or implicit representation of time? Digging memory, but there is work around that! (I first thought about branching-time logic, but it is not emergent).  
  > **username_0**: @EricPlaton I wanted to rephrase, but am short of inspiration :P Got any suggestions?  
  > **username_1**: I don't understand the question. Time is just the perception of change. How can a thinking thing do anything _other_ than perceive change? A recognition of a "rate of change" seems to be implicit in all things that deal with change, right?  
  > **username_0**: @Doxosophoi I agree with the perception of change only partially: If I see a photo of two cakes and then another one with only one cake, I wouldn't know which one was first (or if they are the same cakes at all).  
  > **username_1**: @Luis We feed cake pictures to agents in chronological order. Otherwise our cake-bots will never learn to bake cakes. In what sense is time not implicit in any given interactive agent?  
  > **username_0**: @Doxosophoi Yes, but it is not *emergent*. I am asking about robots or AI-things which kind of... *Come to the idea*  by themselves, with no previous human intervention ;)  
  > **username_1**: @Luis Humans use words a lot to express their ideas and opinions. But, just because an agent may not have the word to articulate "time," that does not mean that the agent lacks opinions about the future, with respect to the present, which implies _some_ understanding of time. But yeah, if you want the _word_ "time" to emerge, then you'd need a system in which salient contexts are emergently given names, like a culture of talking agents.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_3 on 2016-08-03. Score: 3
  
  To my knowledge, this is very much an open research issue.
  
  Here is a paper by Prof Leslie Smith, an acknowledged expert on neuromorphic perceptual coding, which explains the importance of the notion of perceptual time for Artificial General Intelligence and sketches an architecture from which a notion of 'now' might emerge: [Perceptual Time](http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~lss/recentpapers/perctime.pdf).
  
  
  ---
  
  