Interactive self-reflection and its architecture based on cellular automata

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel concept ofinteractive self-reflection (ISR), and claims its importance and necessity for implementingautonomy. Concretely, ISR includes three elements that (a) precisely recognize the current situation by determining the boundary between self and others, (b) appropriately detect or produce the required information according to a sense of values, and (c) autonomously generate both the goal and the evaluation criteria. To address these issues on ISR, we implement an ISR architecture based on cellular automata, and investigate its adaptation ability as one aspect of autonomy. Through intensive simulations, we reveal the following implications: (1) the ISR architecture provides a high level of adaptability that cannot be obtained by either adaptation to the environment or adaptation from the environment; (2) the adaptability of the architecture is supported by appropriate interaction control between adaptation to the environment and adaptation from the environment.