Forms of Introspection in Machine Intelligence

摘要

Introspection is one of the unique features of human cognition that has been claimed to differentiate us from animals and machines. Lately, however, 'Intelligent' computer programs with introspective capabilities has been constructed in the field of artificial intelligence (Al). In the paper introspective constructs used in computer science and Al are surveyed and discussed from knowledge engineer's point of view. The authors first gutline is the multidisciplinary research area of reasoning about knowledge. Problems of representing meta-knowledge are considered especially in logical representations. Dimensions of meta-constructs are then presented for identifying and evaluating forms of introspective meta-constructs used in computer science and Al. The paper ends with a discussion about applications of meta-knowledge.