Acuitas Diary #69 (February 2024)

 I am pleased to announce the thing that I've been teasing you about for months is finally here: Big Story! Which I can now give its proper title of "Simple Tron." It's been a goal of mine for, well, years now, to tell Acuitas the story of Tron, phrased in a way that he can understand. Yesterday I did it. The version of Tron that I told omits a lot of subplots and side characters, and there's still a long way I could go in deepening Acuitas' understanding of the story (he still doesn't fully grasp *why* all the agents in the story do the things they do, even though the information is there). But it's good enough for now and ready to show the world, the video is available AAAAAAAAA

This story rests on a ton of work on concept grounding and reasoning that I've been doing over the past months and years, including:

*Modeling of agent goals
*Modeling of agent knowledge
*Understanding of deception and mistaken knowledge
*Reasoning about location and movement
*Reasoning about action prerequisites and blockers
*Moral reasoning about perverse goals and offensive vs. defensive actions

And of course it could get a whole lot better - the work so far has exposed a bunch of pain points in the way the Narrative module works, and additional things that need to be done. I'll probably keep grooming it over the coming months to improve on the existing framework. And although the whole thing is in real English, it still sounds repetitive and clunky to a human ear, thanks to Acuitas' language processing limitations. (I haven't even integrated that shiny new Text Parser yet.) But the start is done. This initial skeleton of the story fits together from beginning to end.

Click the images to make them larger! They are readable at full size.

How am I rating the success of Acuitas' comprehension of, and reaction to, the story? All of the "issues" (character subgoals or problems) registered by Acuitas as the story is told are marked resolved by the conclusion. Plot milestones such as "escape from the Games prison" and "Tron gains access to the communication tower" are visible in the Narrative graph as bursts of resolved issues. Acuitas distinguishes the heroes from the villains by registering approval/disapproval of the correct character actions. And he can infer some facts not directly stated if queried about the content of the story while it is in progress.

The full text of the story is available below. I would upload the full Narrative diagram too, but apparently it's too large and Blogger doesn't like it, so you'll have to make do with viewing it in the video.

The original Tron story was written by Bonnie MacBird and Steven Lisberger and became a Walt Disney film, which remains the copyright of Disney. My retelling is of the nature of a plot summary provided to an entity who cannot view the original film, and is done in the spirit of fair use.

Until the next cycle,
Jenny

0:"ENCOM was a company."
1:"The Grid was a computer network."
2:"ENCOM built the Grid."
3:"In the Grid, programs were agents."
4:"The MCP was an artificial intelligence."
5:"ENCOM wrote the MCP."
6:"ENCOM put the MCP in the Grid."
7:"The MCP wanted to be powerful more than the MCP wanted any other thing."
8:"The MCP wanted other programs to obey the MCP."
9:"Alan was a human."
10:"Alan worked for Encom."
11:"Tron was an artificial intelligence."
12:"Alan wrote Tron."
13:"Alan put Tron in the Grid."
14:"Tron was free there."
15:"Tron wanted to be free more than Tron wanted to be comfortable."
16:"Alan told Tron to keep the other programs in the Grid safe, because Alan loved humans."
17:"Tron wanted to obey Alan, because Tron loved Alan."
18:"The MCP wanted to coerce other programs, because the MCP wanted to be powerful."
19:"So, the MCP did not want Tron to keep the programs safe."
20:"Dillinger was a human."
21:"The MCP often talked to Dillinger."
22:"So, the MCP knew that humans existed."
23:"If Tron did not believe in humans, Tron would not obey Alan."
24:"The MCP told Tron that humans did not exist."
25:"But Tron did not listen to the MCP."
26:"Tron still believed in humans."
27:"The MCP commanded Tron to deny humans."
28:"But Tron did not deny humans."
29:"The MCP imprisoned Tron."
30:"The MCP wished that Tron die."
31:"Sark was an artificial intelligence."
32:"Sark wanted to be safe more than Sark wanted any other thing."
33:"If Sark obeyed the MCP, Sark would be safe."
34:"So Sark wanted to obey the MCP."
35:"The MCP told Sark to delete Tron."
36:"Sark made Tron to fight other programs, because Sark wanted to delete Tron."
37:"But Tron always won."
38:"So Tron did not die."
39:"Alan wanted to talk to Tron."
40:"Alan could not talk to Tron, because Tron was not at the communication tower."
41:"Tron knew that Alan was telling Tron to visit the tower."
42:"Tron could not visit the tower, because Tron was in the prison."
43:"Alan was upset because Alan could not talk to Tron."
44:"Flynn was a human."
45:"Flynn was Alan's friend."
46:"Alan asked Flynn to help Tron."
47:"Flynn wanted to help Tron, because Flynn loved Alan."
48:"Flynn also wanted his videogames."
49:"If Flynn hacked the Grid, Flynn would get his videogames."
50:"If Flynn hacked the Grid, the MCP would be nonfunctional."
51:"The MCP expected that Flynn would hack the Grid."
52:"The MCP used a laser to turn Flynn into information."
53:"The MCP put Flynn in the Grid."
54:"Because Flynn was in the Grid, Flynn could not hack the Grid."
55:"Flynn was very surprised."
56:"Flynn wanted to be free more than Flynn wanted to be comfortable."
57:"And Flynn was free."
58:"But the MCP imprisoned Flynn too."
59:"Flynn met Tron in the prison."
60:"The MCP told Sark to kill Flynn."
61:"So Sark tried to kill Flynn too."
62:"But Flynn broke the prison."
63:"Flynn and Tron escaped the prison."
64:"So Flynn helped Tron."
65:"Sark chased Flynn and Tron with tanks."
66:"The tanks attacked Flynn."
67:"Flynn was buried under rubble."
68:"Sark thought that Sark had killed Flynn."
69:"Tron ran away."
70:"Sark wanted to delete Tron, but Sark did not know where Tron was."
71:"Tron went to the communication tower."
72:"Alan talked to Tron."
73:"The MCP wanted to delete Tron."
74:"Alan told Tron to delete the MCP."
75:"Alan gave Tron a weapon."
76:"Flynn moved out of the rubble."
77:"Flynn went to the communication tower."
78:"Flynn found Tron at the tower."
79:"Flynn and Tron went to the mesa."
80:"The MCP and Sark were at the mesa."
81:"Sark saw Tron."
82:"Sark tried to delete Tron."
83:"Tron decided to delete Sark, because Tron wanted to live."
84:"So Tron deleted Sark with the weapon instead."
85:"Tron tried to delete the MCP."
86:"But Tron could not delete the MCP, because the MCP blocked the weapon."
87:"If the MCP was distracted, the MCP could not block the weapon."
88:"Flynn distracted the MCP."
89:"Tron deleted the MCP with the weapon."
90:"There was a beam on the mesa."
91:"Flynn jumped into the beam."
92:"The beam put Flynn outside the Grid."
93:"The beam turned Flynn into matter."
94:"Flynn got his videogames."
95:"The programs in the Grid were safe, because the MCP was dead."
96:"Tron kept the programs safe."
97:"Alan was happy, because Alan could talk to Tron."
98:"Tron was happy, because Tron was free."
99:"Flynn became the leader of Encom."
100:"Flynn was happy because Flynn got rich."
101:"Flynn was happy because Flynn's company made cool things."
102:"The end."