皮尔士符号学及其对人工智能发展的启示

Peirce's Semiotics and Its Inspiration to the Development of AI

皮尔士将符号理解为符号化三元关系中的一元。通过阐述符号、对象和解释项之间的互动,他将思维过程转译为符号化过程,并认为所有思维皆为符号,甚至人也只是一种根据推理规则的符号。一方面,皮尔士的符号学表明了人类思维的人造性;另一方面,则因其主张人类具有机器不具备的高阶自控能力而体现出人机分野。皮尔士的符号学不仅为发展人工智能奠定了理论基础,而且划定了实践界限。其符号学本身兼顾科学精神和人文关怀的内在平衡,可视为指导人工智能未来发展的基本准则。

According to C.S.Peirce,sign is a factor of the ternary relation of semiosis.By elaborating the interactions among sign,object and interpreter,Peirce translates the process of thinking into semiosis,and thinks that all thoughts are signs and even human being is just a semiotic development in accordance with inference rules.On one hand,his semiotics indicates that human thinking is artificial;On the other hand,it reflects the division between human and machine by claiming that man has a high-level self-control that machine lacks.His semiotics not only lays the theoretical foundation for the development of AI,but also establishes its practical limits.The intrinsic balance between scientific spirit and humanistic concern,as embedded in his semiotics,can be treated as the basic maxim for guiding the future development of AI.