In the realm of multi-agent systems, establishing social self-awareness in agents stands as a critical challenge within the broader scope of artificial general intelligence research. Addressing this challenge, in this paper, we draw upon Tomasello’s social self-awareness theory as a foundational framework, and employ Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System (NARS), an artificial general intelligence model, to simulate analogical and recursive reasoning methods used by socially embodied agents. In this paper, we assume that an agent can possess sensorimotor capabilities and physical common sense, it explores the process of constructing a “core self” through embodied reasoning. On this basis, we explore deeper into the construction process of social self-awareness. As a result, we clarify how agents generate common knowledge about themselves through recursive reasoning regarding the mental states of others and communication dynamics. Following this initial step, metaphors are generated utilizing analogical reasoning, intertwining public knowledge with these metaphors to facilitate mutual comprehension between humans and machines. This paper delves into the simulation of perspective representation and recursive reasoning within social embodied agents, employing NARS — an overarching artificial intelligence platform. The experimental results substantiate the viability of constructing a social self-agent within a machine framework grounded in embodied reasoning.

Keywords:

References

Chalmers, D. J. [1996] The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Oxford University Press). Google Scholar
Chella, A. and Manzotti, R. [2009] Machine consciousness: A manifesto for robotics, Int. J. Mach. Conscious. 01(01), 33–51. Link, Google Scholar
Clark, A. [2021] Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind (Oxford University Press). Google Scholar
Dehaene, S. and Changeux, J. P. [2011] Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing, Neuron 70(2), 200–227. Crossref, Google Scholar
Gibbs, Jr., R. W. [1989] Book review: Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Am. J. Psychol. 102(2), 271–276. Crossref, Google Scholar
Gillespie-Smith, K., Ballantyne, C., Branigan, H. P., Turk, D. J. and Cunningham, S. J. [2018] The I in autism: Severity and social functioning in autism are related to self- processing, Br. J. Dev. Psychol. 36(1), 127–141. Crossref, Google Scholar
Graziano, A. [1993] Consciousness and the Social Brain (Oxford University Press). Google Scholar
Jackson, F. [1986] What Mary didn’t know, J. Philos. 83(5), 291–295. Crossref, Google Scholar
Liu, K. and Sun, C. [2023] Seeing like a human: The embodied development of active vision in an artificial general intelligence system, Comput. Sci. Math. Forum 8(1), 44. Google Scholar
Minsky, M. [1988] Society of Mind (Simon & Schuster). Google Scholar
Parr, P., Pezzulo, G. and Friston, K. J. [2022] Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain, and Behavior (The MIT Press). Crossref, Google Scholar
Pettit, P. [1980] Motion blindness and the knowledge argument, in P. Ludlow, Y. Nagasawa & D. Stoljar (eds.), There’s Something about Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument (The MIT Press, Cambridge), pp. 105–142. Google Scholar
Seth, A. [2021] Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (Penguin). Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. [2001] Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (Harvard University Press). Google Scholar
Tononi, G., Boly, M., Massimini, M. and Koch, C. [2016] Integrated information theory: From consciousness to its physical substrate, Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 17, 450–461. Crossref, Google Scholar
Wang, P. [2007] “ From NARS to a thinking machine”, in Proc. Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute Workshop (Montreal, Canada), pp. 1–18. Google Scholar
Wang, P. and Hammer, P. [2018] “ Perception from an AGI perspective”, in Proc. 11th Int. Conf. Artificial General Intelligence (Prague, Czech Republic), pp. 1–10. Crossref, Google Scholar
Wang, P., Hahm, C. and Hammer, P. [2022] A model of unified perception and cognition, Front. Artif. Intell. 5, 806403. Crossref, Google Scholar
Wang, P., Li, X. and Hammer, P. [2018] Self in NARS, an AGI system, Front. Robot. AI 5, 20. Crossref, Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. [2009] Philosophical Investigations (Basil Blackwell). Google Scholar
Xu, Y. [2013] Mind, Language and Machine: A Dialogue between Wittgenstein’s Philosophy and the Science of Artificial Intelligence (People’s Publishing House) (in Chinese). Google Scholar