Universal Semantic Communication I

Is it possible for two intelligent beings to communicate meaningfully, without any common language or background? This question has interest on its own, but is especially relevant in the context of modern computational infrastructures where an increase in the diversity of computers is making the task of inter-computer interaction increasingly burdensome. Computers spend a substantial amount of time updating their software to increase their knowledge of other computing devices. In turn, for any pair of communicating devices, one has to design software that enables the two to talk to each other. Is it possible instead to let the two computing entities use their intelligence (universality as computers) to learn each others’ behavior and attain a common understanding? What is“common understanding?” We explore this question in this paper. To formalize this problem, we suggest that one should study the “goal of communication:” why are the two entities interacting with each other, ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: ECCC
• Authors: Brendan Juba, Madhu Sudan
• Keywords: Common Understanding, Computers, ECCC 2007, Modern Computational Infrastructures