Through a glass, darkly: Approximations, hacks, and workarounds in intuitive physics and imagination

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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing

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68,800

Published on June 18, 2024 9:44:14 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtOtNtaj3GY

Duration: 37:09

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Tomer Ullman (Harvard University)
https://simons.berkeley.edu/talks/tomer-ullman-harvard-university-2024-06-05
Understanding Lower-Level Intelligence from AI, Psychology, and Neuroscience Perspectives

People can handle everyday interactions with everyday objects with remarkable ease. One current model of human 'intuitive physics' supposes that people are carrying out a mental simulation, moving objects in the mind step by step. While successful in many cases, even the people who back it recognize that humans can't be running a perfect simulation. In this talk, I will consider some bounds and approximations that might go into an imperfect mental simulation, computational models that capture them, and behavioral studies that probe them.