Abstract
For a computational system to be intelligent, it should be able to perform, at least, basic deductions. Nonetheless, since deductions are, in some sense, equivalent to tautologies, it seems that they do not provide new information. In order to analyze this problem, the present article proposes a measure of the degree of semantic informativity of valid deductions. Concepts of coherency and relevancy, displayed in terms of insertions and deletions on databases, are used to define semantic informativity. In this way, the article shows that a solution to the problem about informativity of deductions provides a heuristic principle to improve the deductive power of computational systems.
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In Araújo (2014), we do an analysis of informational complexity similar to the one presented here about coherency, but these two concepts are different. In further works, we will examine the relation between them.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Viviane Beraldo de Araújo for her support, to Luciano Floridi for his comments on my talk given at PT-AI2013, and to Pedro Carrasqueira for his comments and to an anonymous referee for his (her) criticism on a previous version of this paper. This work was supported by São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) [2011/07781-2].
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de Araújo, A.B. (2016). Semantic Information and Artificial Intelligence. In: Müller, V.C. (eds) Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence. Synthese Library, vol 376. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26485-1_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26485-1_9
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