Learning with ANIMA

The paper develops a semi-formal model of learning which modifies the traditional paradigm of artificial neural networks, implementing deep learning by means of a key insight borrowed from the works of Marvin Minsky: the so-called Principle of Non-Compromise. The principle provides a learning mechanism which states that conflicts in the processing of data to be integrated are a mark of unreliability or irrelevance; hence, lower-level conflicts should lead to higher-level weight-adjustments. This internal mechanism augments the external mechanism of weight adjustment by back-propagation, which is typical for the standard models of machine learning. The text is structured as follows: (§1) opens the discussion by providing an informal overview of real-world decision-making and learning; (§2) sketches a typology of decision architectures: the individualistic approach of classical decision theory, the general aggregation mechanism of social choice theory, the local aggregation mechanism of agent-based modeling, and the intermediate hierarchical model of Marvin Minsky's “Society of Mind”; (§3) sketches the general outline of ANIMA – a new model of decision-making and learning that borrows insights from Minsky's informal exposition; (§4) is the bulk of the paper; it provides a discussion of a toy exemplification of ANIMA which lets us see the Principle of Non-Compromise at work; (§5) lists some possible scenarios for the evolution of a model of this kind; (§6) is the closing section; it discusses some important differences between the way ANIMA was construed here and the typical formal rendering of learning by means of artificial neural networks and deep learning.