Do implementations (preferably open source) of the "Society of Mind" model exist

Question

I have been fascinated by Minsky's "Society of the Mind" for now close to two decades. However, I just realized that I have not come across any general implementation of the model (and preferable an implementation that is accessible and in the open source).

I recently ran into this article by Push Sing (now tragically deceased, student of Minsky), http://web.media.mit.edu/~push/ExaminingSOM.html where he also notes that such an implementation does not exist.

I wonder if someone knows differently and if such a project or corpus of software does exist.

Note: I am aware of SOAR, ACT-R, Cyc, etc.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I think that Minsky's "Society of the Mind" model is more literature and aspirational than an actual model. It has lots of systems, information flows and controls, but there isn't anything that you could implement without doing a lot of invention. Once you put it all together, you'd have a big data flow network, but you wouldn't have any data, so you would then need to fill it with representations of facts, concepts, connections, and so on. Then you would need to figure some way of having inputs and outputs that are understandable.

Let's say you built it --- what then? There is no obvious way to test it. It's unlikely that you would suddenly get consciousness pouring out. The only way to drive new action would be to feed new input, but it's unclear what sort of output would result. Minsky would probably smile and say that the same is true of a human baby. But at least with children we have a good idea that they will being to exhibit some kind of intelligence beyond stimulus response.

Still, if you have the time, why not give it a try?