1 The Logical Depth of Reasoning About Other Minds: A Pep TalkErnest Davis New York University ACS 2017

2 Claim Reasoning about other minds, in understanding text or video, requires constructing representations and using knowledge of considerable logical depth.

3 Examples The Godfather: Horse’s head sceneBergen, Louder than Words, Clever Bears Winnie the Pooh: Plan to Capture Baby Roo The Miracle Worker: Water scene Sense and Sensibility: Chap. 35 Duck Soup: Mirror scene Then I’ll talk about the state of the art.

4 The Godfather Horse’s head sceneThe viewer understands that: Hagen has arranged for the horse to be decapitated and the head to be placed in the bed. Hagen is communicating to Woltz: That he can kill Woltz That he will kill Woltz if Woltz does not hire Fontane. Woltz understand the communication when he sees the head. Hagen knows that Woltz will understand.

5 Question answering What is the horse’s head doing in the bed?Who killed the horse? Does Woltz know who killed the horse? Does Woltz expect to find a horse’s head in the bed? Why didn’t Hagen just kill Woltz?

6 Alternate scenes: Woltz wakes up and finds A dead fish in his bed.A threatening phone message from Hagen The horse, alive and well, in the bedroom Hagen wakes up and finds a dead fish in his bed. Woltz and Hagen wake up together in bed.

7 Bergen, Louder than WordsSailors who encountered polar bears in the nineteenth century reported seeing polar bears do something quite clever to increase their chances of [eating a seal]. According to these early reports, as the bear sneaks upon its prey, it sometimes covers its muzzle with its paw, which allows it to go more or less undetected. Apparently, the polar bear hides its nose.

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9 The bear believes that if it approaches the seal with nose uncovered the seal may see its black nose so the seal is likely to know it is coming and the seal will flee and the bear will not be able to catch it whereas … 3 epistemic operators, a hypothetical, six causal relations, two implications, three negations, and three occurrences of “will be able”

10 PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROOGeneral Remarks. Kanga runs faster than any of Us, even Me. More General Remarks. Kanga never takes her eye off Baby Roo, except when he’s safely buttoned in her pocket. Therefore. If we are to capture Baby Roo, we must get a Long Start because Kanga runs faster than any of Us, even Me (see 1.)

11 PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROOA Thought. If Roo had jumped out of Kanga’s pocket and Piglet had jumped in, Kanga wouldn’t know the difference, because Piglet is a Very Small Animal. Like Roo. But Kanga would have to be looking the other way first, so as not to see Piglet jumping in. See 2.

12 PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROOAnother thought. But if Pooh were talking to her very excitedly, she might look the other way for a moment. And then I could run away with Roo. Quickly And Kanga wouldn’t discover the difference until Afterwards.

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14 PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROORabbit, Pooh, and Piglet are forming a joint plan to distract Kanga’s attention so that they can substitute Piglet for Roo so that Kanga will not notice that Roo is gone so that Rabbit can run off with Roo.

15 The Miracle Worker

16 The Miracle Worker Helen Keller realizes that the pattern her teacher is pressing on her hand means water. She generalizes that other things have other corresponding patterns. She demands to know the patterns for pump, ground, father, mother, and teacher by running to them. Sullivan teaches them as she asks.

17 The Miracle Worker The viewer needs to reason about Language MeaningUnderstanding Perception Learning at a quite abstract level.

18 Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility, Chap 35

19 Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility, Chap 35

20 Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility, Chap 35

21 Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility, Chap 35

22 "What can bring her [Lucy] here so often"What can bring her [Lucy] here so often?" said Marianne, on her leaving them. "Could not she see that we wanted her gone!—how teazing to Edward!" "Why so?—we were all his friends, and Lucy has been the longest known to him of any. It is but natural that he should like to see her as well as ourselves." Marianne looked at her steadily, and said, "You know, Elinor, that this is a kind of talking which I cannot bear.”

23 Duck Soup

24 Duck Soup The user needs to understand Perception False beliefDeception Unmasking deception The user must understand that this is impossible.

25 State of the art as regards examplesSubstantial parts of the specific content can be represented. By no means all. Closest to a full representation: Polar bear (simple goal structure). Furthest: Sense and Sensibility Representation for background knowledge is much more sketchy. Collecting the background knowledge is even less advanced.

26 State of the art as regards domainWell understood: Idealized theories of knowledge, perception, communication, including dynamic theories. Plans Somewhat understood: Beliefs, desires, intentions

27 State of the art as regards domainChallenging Realistic representations of cognitive processes (reasoning, learning etc..) Typical assumptions about people (what can you expect different kinds of people to know) Social interactions at all levels

28 Take away These, or simpler situations, are good problems to work on.(No more muddy children, cheating husbands, Mr. P and Mr. S etc.) Sentence2vec is not going to cut it. The structure and interactions are richer than that.