Robots as cognitive tools

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is by its very nature synthetic, its motto is “Understanding by building”. In the early days of artificial intelligence the focus was on abstract thinking and problem solving. These phenomena could be naturally mapped onto algorithms, which is why originally AI was considered to be part of computer science and the tool was computer programming. Over time, it turned out that this view was too limited to understand natural forms of intelligence and that embodiment must be taken into account. As a consequence the focus changed to systems that are able to autonomously interact with their environment and the main tool became the robot. The “developmental robotics” approach incorporates the major implications of embodiment with regard to what has been and can potentially be learned about human cognition by employing robots as cognitive tools. The use of “robots as cognitive tools” is illustrated in a number of case studies by discussing the major implications of embodiment, which are of a dynamical and information theoretic nature.