A Developmental Approach to Intelligence

In this paper we present a developmental approach toward creating intelligent systems. Although embracing an emergent paradigm, we also propose an architecture such that symbols have their proper place. To explore this methodology, we are developing our system on real robots. Robotic approaches usually invoke the so-called “symbol grounding problem” (Harnad 1990). However, our developmental approach bypasses the problem by generating the symbols. Thus, in a sense, the symbols are inherently grounded to the physical objects they designate. We argue that a general theory of intelligence that takes a top-down perspective will be inherently in-