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Vincent C. Müller

Publications and source records attributed to Vincent C. Müller.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

VBVR-Pro: A Scalable and Verifiable Suite for Native Visual Reasoning

Native visual reasoning treats visual generation as the medium of reasoning itself: visual states (i.e. images and videos) are not merely inputs to be understood or outputs to be rendered, but first-class substrates for problem solving beyond language. Yet progress remains bottlenecked by the lack of scalable training tasks, reliable feedback, and controlled comparisons across generative substrates. In this work, we introduce VBVR-Pro, a closed-loop testbed that makes native visual reasoning through generation trainable, verifiable, optimizable, and experimentally controllable. 1) Task scaling. VBVR-Pro turns visual reasoning into a controlled task space of 300 procedurally generated tasks. Models trained on VBVR-Pro show strong transfer beyond the proposed suite across seven external visual reasoning benchmarks such as RISE-Video, MME-CoF-Pro, and BabyVision. 2) Verifiable rewards. VBVR-Pro provides verifiable reward scorers for task-grounded evaluation. Through a systematic study of leading MLLMs as judges, we identify recurring failure modes of the prevalent VLM-as-a-judge paradigm. In contrast, the proposed scorers are grounded in deterministic, task-specific rules, achieve fine-grained alignment with human judgments. Importantly, they serve as reliable reward signals for large-scale multi-task reinforcement learning and demonstrate stronger post-RL performance across visual reasoning tasks. 3) Mechanism study. VBVR-Pro enables controlled modality studies across more than 30 image, video, and interleaved generators. Our analysis shows that video generation remains strongest for tasks requiring persistent spatiotemporal state tracking, while interleaved generation provides a compute-efficient alternative. Critically, ablations and probing suggest the presence of vision-native trajectories that are crucial to visual reasoning. We release all data, models, scorers, and code.

cs.CV

Deep opacity and AI: A threat to XAI and to privacy protection mechanisms

It is known that big data analytics and AI pose a threat to privacy, and that some of this is due to some kind of "black box problem" in AI. I explain how this becomes a problem in the context of justification for judgments and actions. Furthermore, I suggest distinguishing three kinds of opacity: 1) the subjects do not know what the system does ("shallow opacity"), 2) the analysts do not know what the system does ("standard black box opacity"), or 3) the analysts cannot possibly know what the system might do ("deep opacity"). If the agents, data subjects as well as analytics experts, operate under opacity, then these agents cannot provide justifications for judgments that are necessary to protect privacy, e.g., they cannot give "informed consent", or guarantee "anonymity". It follows from these points that agents in big data analytics and AI often cannot make the judgments needed to protect privacy. So I conclude that big data analytics makes the privacy problems worse and the remedies less effective. As a positive note, I provide a brief outlook on technical ways to handle this situation.

cs.CY

Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a digital technology that will be of major importance for the development of humanity in the near future. AI has raised fundamental questions about what we should do with such systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risks they involve and how we can control these. - After the background to the field (1), this article introduces the main debates (2), first on ethical issues that arise with AI systems as objects, i.e. tools made and used by humans; here, the main sections are privacy (2.1), manipulation (2.2), opacity (2.3), bias (2.4), autonomy & responsibility (2.6) and the singularity (2.7). Then we look at AI systems as subjects, i.e. when ethics is for the AI systems themselves in machine ethics (2.8.) and artificial moral agency (2.9). Finally we look at future developments and the concept of AI (3). For each section within these themes, we provide a general explanation of the ethical issues, we outline existing positions and arguments, then we analyse how this plays out with current technologies and finally what policy consequences may be drawn.

cs.CY

AI as IA: The use and abuse of artificial intelligence (AI) for human enhancement through intellectual augmentation (IA)

This paper offers an overview of the prospects and ethics of using AI to achieve human enhancement, and more broadly what we call intellectual augmentation (IA). After explaining the central notions of human enhancement, IA, and AI, we discuss the state of the art in terms of the main technologies for IA, with or without brain-computer interfaces. Given this picture, we discuss potential ethical problems, namely inadequate performance, safety, coercion and manipulation, privacy, cognitive liberty, authenticity, and fairness in more detail. We conclude that while there are very significant technical hurdles to real human enhancement through AI, and significant ethical problems, there are also significant benefits that may realistically be achieved in ways that are consonant with a rights-based ethics as well. We also highlight the specific concerns that apply particularly to applications of AI for "sheer" IA (more realistic in the near term), and to enhancement applications, respectively.

cs.CY

The history of digital ethics

Digital ethics, also known as computer ethics or information ethics, is now a lively field that draws a lot of attention, but how did it come about and what were the developments that lead to its existence? What are the traditions, the concerns, the technological and social developments that pushed digital ethics? How did ethical issues change with digitalisation of human life? How did the traditional discipline of philosophy respond? The article provides an overview, proposing historical epochs: 'pre-modernity' prior to digital computation over data, via the 'modernity' of digital data processing to our present 'post-modernity' when not only the data is digital, but our lives themselves are largely digital. In each section, the situation in technology and society is sketched, and then the developments in digital ethics are explained. Finally, a brief outlook is provided.

cs.CY

Future progress in artificial intelligence: A survey of expert opinion

There is, in some quarters, concern about high-level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high-level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time-frame, which risks they see with that development, and how fast they see these developing. We thus designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts in 2012/2013. The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high-level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be 'bad' or 'extremely bad' for humanity.

cs.CY

Pancomputationalism: Theory or metaphor?

The theory that all processes in the universe are computational is attractive in its promise to provide an understandable theory of everything. I want to suggest here that this pancomputationalism is not sufficiently clear on which problem it is trying to solve, and how. I propose two interpretations of pancomputationalism as a theory: I) the world is a computer and II) the world can be described as a computer. The first implies a thesis of supervenience of the physical over computation and is thus reduced ad absurdum. The second is underdetermined by the world, and thus equally unsuccessful as theory. Finally, I suggest that pancomputationalism as metaphor can be useful.

cs.OH

Which symbol grounding problem should we try to solve?

Floridi and Taddeo propose a condition of "zero semantic commitment" for solutions to the grounding problem, and a solution to it. I argue briefly that their condition cannot be fulfilled, not even by their own solution. After a look at Luc Steels' very different competing suggestion, I suggest that we need to re-think what the problem is and what role the 'goals' in a system play in formulating the problem. On the basis of a proper understanding of computing, I come to the conclusion that the only sensible grounding problem is how we can explain and re-produce the behavioral ability and function of meaning in artificial computational agents

cs.CL

Challenges for artificial cognitive systems

The declared goal of this paper is to fill this gap: "... cognitive systems research needs questions or challenges that define progress. The challenges are not (yet more) predictions of the future, but a guideline to what are the aims and what would constitute progress." -- the quotation being from the project description of EUCogII, the project for the European Network for Cognitive Systems within which this formulation of the 'challenges' was originally developed (http://www.eucognition.org). So, we stick out our neck and formulate the challenges for artificial cognitive systems. These challenges are articulated in terms of a definition of what a cognitive system is: a system that learns from experience and uses its acquired knowledge (both declarative and practical) in a flexible manner to achieve its own goals.

cs.AI

On the Possibilities of Hypercomputing Supertasks

This paper investigates the view that digital hypercomputing is a good reason for rejection or re-interpretation of the Church-Turing thesis. After suggestion that such re-interpretation is historically problematic and often involves attack on a straw man (the 'maximality thesis'), it discusses proposals for digital hypercomputing with Zeno-machines , i.e. computing machines that compute an infinite number of computing steps in finite time, thus performing supertasks. It argues that effective computing with Zeno-machines falls into a dilemma: either they are specified such that they do not have output states, or they are specified such that they do have output states, but involve contradiction. Repairs though non-effective methods or special rules for semi-decidable problems are sought, but not found. The paper concludes that hypercomputing supertasks are impossible in the actual world and thus no reason for rejection of the Church-Turing thesis in its traditional interpretation.

cs.LO

From Public Data to Private Information: The Case of the Supermarket

The background to this paper is that in our world of massively increasing personal digital data any control over the data about me seems illusionary - informational privacy seems a lost cause. On the other hand, the production of this digital data seems a necessary component of our present life in the industrialized world. A framework for a resolution of this apparent dilemma is provided if by the distinction between (meaningless) data and (meaningful) information. I argue that computational data processing is necessary for many present-day processes and not a breach of privacy, while collection and processing of private information is often not necessary and a breach of privacy. The problem and the sketch of its solution are illustrated in a case-study: supermarket customer cards.

cs.CY

Symbol grounding in computational systems: A paradox of intentions

The paper presents a paradoxical feature of computational systems that suggests that computationalism cannot explain symbol grounding. If the mind is a digital computer, as computationalism claims, then it can be computing either over meaningful symbols or over meaningless symbols. If it is computing over meaningful symbols its functioning presupposes the existence of meaningful symbols in the system, i.e. it implies semantic nativism. If the mind is computing over meaningless symbols, no intentional cognitive processes are available prior to symbol grounding. In this case, no symbol grounding could take place since any grounding presupposes intentional cognitive processes. So, whether computing in the mind is over meaningless or over meaningful symbols, computationalism implies semantic nativism.

cs.CL

Would you mind being watched by machines? Privacy concerns in data mining

Data mining is not an invasion of privacy because access to data is only by machines, not by people: this is the argument that is investigated here. The current importance of this problem is developed in a case study of data mining in the USA for counterterrorism and other surveillance purposes. After a clarification of the relevant nature of privacy, it is argued that access by machines cannot warrant the access to further information, since the analysis will have to be made either by humans or by machines that understand. It concludes that the current data mining violates the right to privacy and should be subject to the standard legal constraints for access to private information by people.

cs.CY

Is there a future for AI without representation?

This paper investigates the prospects of AI without representation in general, and the proposals of Rodney Brooks in particular. What turns out to be characteristic of Brooks' proposal is the rejection of central control in intelligent agents; his systems has as much or as little representation as traditional AI. The traditional view that representation is necessary for intelligence presupposes that intelligence requires central control. However, much of recent cognitive science suggests that we should dispose of the image of intelligent agents as central representation processors. If this paradigm shift is achieved, Brooks' proposal for non-centralized cognition without representation appears promising for full-blown intelligent agents - though not for conscious agents and thus not for human-like AI.

cs.AI

Some information is too dangerous to be on the internet

This paper investigates a problem about freedom of information. Although freedom of information is generally considered desirable, there are a number of areas where there is substantial agreement that freedom of information should be limited. After a certain ordering of the landscape, I argue that we need to add the category of 'dangerous' information and that this category has gained a new quality in the context of current information technology, specifically the Internet. This category includes information the use of which would be morally wrong as well as some of what may be called 'corrupting' information. Some such information should not be spread at all and some should be very limited in its spread.

cs.CY

There must be encapsulated nonconceptual content in vision

In this paper I want to propose an argument to support Jerry Fodor's thesis (Fodor 1983) that input systems are modular and thus informationally encapsulated. The argument starts with the suggestion that there is a "grounding problem" in perception, i. e. that there is a problem in explaining how perception that can yield a visual experience is possible, how sensation can become meaningful perception of something for the subject. Given that visual experience is actually possible, this invites a transcendental argument that explains the conditions of its possibility. I propose that one of these conditions is the existence of a visual module in Fodor's sense that allows the step from sensation to object-identifying perception, thus enabling visual experience. It seems to follow that there is informationally encapsulated nonconceptual content in visual perception.

q-bio.NC

Deictic Codes, Demonstratives, and Reference: A Step Toward Solving the Grounding Problem

In this paper we address the issue of grounding for experiential concepts. Given that perceptual demonstratives are a basic form of such concepts, we examine ways of fixing the referents of such demonstratives. To avoid 'encodingism', that is, relating representations to representations, we postulate that the process of reference fixing must be bottom-up and nonconceptual, so that it can break the circle of conceptual content and touch the world. For that purpose, an appropriate causal relation between representations and the world is needed. We claim that this relation is provided by spatial and object-centered attention that leads to the formation of object files through the function of deictic acts. This entire causal process takes place at a pre-conceptual level, meeting the requirement for a solution to the grounding problem. Finally we claim that our account captures fundamental insights in Putnam's and Kripke's work on "new" reference.

cs.CL

Einleitung [Introduction]

Hilary Putnam's biography and philosophical development reflect the history of Anglo-Saxon philosophy over the last 40 years. Putnam has influenced this history significantly for almost as long. In this introduction, the main aim is to present the context in which Putnam stands and from which his philosophical contributions can be understood. In the context of a sketch of Putnam's philosophical development, a preliminary historical classification of his work will also be attempted, even if this is not the place for a comprehensive critique or presentation: The introduction must remain at a fairly elementary level and of course cannot replace a reading of the texts. Since Putnam's work is certainly part of a rapprochement between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, the introduction to the texts translated here should finally make clear what Putnam has to offer non-analytically oriented readers. Hilary Putnams Biographie und philosophische Entwicklung spiegeln die Geschichte der angelsächsischen Philosophie in den letzten 40 Jahren. Beinahe ebenso lange hat Putnam diese Geschichte wesentlich beeinflußt. In der vorliegenden Einleitung soll vor allem der Kontext dargestellt werden, in dem Putnam steht und aus dem heraus verständlich wird, was er philosophisch zu sagen hat. Im Rahmen einer Skizze von Putnams philosophischer Entwicklung soll zudem eine vorläufige philosophiehistorische Einordnung versucht werden, auch wenn hier nicht der Ort für eine umfassende Kritik oder Darstellung sein kann: Die Einleitung muß auf recht elementarem Niveau bleiben und kann eine Lektüre der Texte natürlich nicht ersetzen. Da Putnams Werk sicherlich Teil einer Annäherung von 'analytischer' und 'kontinentaler' Philosophie ist, soll bei der Einführung in die hier übersetzten Texte schließlich deutlich werden, was Putnam nicht analytisch orientierten Lesern zu bieten hat.

physics.hist-ph