From egocentric systems to systems allowing for Theory of Mind and mutualism

Cruse, H; Schilling, M

Zusammenfassung

Simple artificial agents representing more or less elaboratedBraitenberg vehicles, usually adopt an egocentric view. Oneexample is Walknet, a biologically inspired neural networkcontrolling hexapod walking. Here we show how such acontroller can be expanded to be able to interpret observedbehaviours that are performed by other individuals, i.e. thesystem shows properties of a mirror system. This allows tofurther expand the network to become an "allocentric" systemthat might implement subjective feelings which could beattributed to other individuals, i.e. the system implements aTheory of Mind. As a last expansion we introduce a two-bodymodel, or we-model, which may allow for mutualism.Application of we-models allows for what often has been calledthe third person's view. The different steps proposed can beinterpreted as corresponding to an evolutionary development.