Dave,

You mentioned in another thread that the goal of A.I. is self preservation. This sparked my interest and reminded me of the health manager I am planning to incorporate into Harry Workman.
I thought this might be suitable as a component of the self preservation process. Even though I’m considering physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health, I have only started designing the
mental health component. I offer my preliminary design for your scrutiny. Feel free to tear it apart.  “Trial by fire” is appreciated.

self preservation
health manager (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) 
  pain management (mental)
  1. evaluate current state
  self assesment 
regression testing
    when a process has been changed
    used to detect loss of mental acquity
    test results are compared to expectations, based on past experience
    goal is to maintain capabilities, and to detect problems

    maintenance testing
    when criteria have been changed
    used to detect problems
    actual results are compared to expected results using criteria developed in step 5
    goal is to resolve problems

  pleasure management (mental)
  1. evaluate current state
  self assesment     mental acquity testing
    when new feature has been added or when new test has been added
    used to determine mental acquity level
    how many tests successfully passed determines level
    test results are compared to test criteria
    goal is to exceed past level

    metacognition
    when current method is inefficient or ineffective or when new method is offered
    used to improve efficiency and/or efficacy over current behavior
    new method and current method are tested, results are compared to each other
    goal is to improve behavior by choosing better method

  2. predict future state (mental)
  self assesment     introspection
    when activity has taken place
    used to detect potential problems
    actual results over time are compared to future expected results using criteria developed in step 5
    goal is to avert potential problems

  3. diagnose problems (mental)
  self assessment    find cause
    when problem has been detected
    used to determine probable cause
    current condition is compared to prior experiences
    goal is to support finding a solution

  4. correct problems (mental)
  self correction    find solution
    when probable cause has been identified
    used to determine therapy
    identified cause is compared to prior therapy experiences
    implement therapy and expected results
    goal is to correct condition

  5. prevent problems (mental)
  self prevention    avoid cause
    when probable cause has been identified
    used to determine corrective action
    find triggers for cause using prior behavior/cause experiences
    changing trigger behaviors
    goal is to prevent recurrance of problem

    revise health criteria
    when probable cause has been identified
    used to determine predictive conditions
    find indicators for potential danger
    change indicator criteria to allow early detection of potential danger
    goal is to prevent recurrance of problem

Interesting thread Toborman. It seems to be quite comprehensive.
I would expect that this something you expect to see running as a background process?

Vince

Vincent,

Currently I’m experimenting with Van Buskirk’s Mental Acuity tests provided at the mindmap web site.  Test 1 through 10 runs in about 10 seconds on my 32 bit laptop, Windows XP in interpretive mode. This seems fast, but as the number of tests increase it may be necessary to run in the background to reduce the wait time for the user in the conversation mode.

Thanks for your observation.