[Tyler]

Robots Who Grow up to be Mathematicians
     

A NewScientist
article summarizes a new paper by philosopher and AI expert Aaron
Sloman that appears in Artificial
Intelligence journal. Sloman has been working on understanding how
children develop mathematical understanding and believes it should be
possible to create a robot designed to work the same way. He notes,
"humans brains don't work by magic, so whatever it is they do should be
doable by machine." To figure out how to do it by machine, Sloman has
been identifying exactly which capabilities a child's brain uses to
grasp mathematical ideas. He sites numerous examples where simple
empirical childhood experiences spark understanding of specific
mathematical principles; playing with cups teaches the brain
transitivity and topology. For more on Sloman's work, check out his
webpage on toddler
theorems.
   

http://robots.net/article/2778.html