This book was written by over twenty researchers from a variety of fields, ranging from artificial intelligence and robotics to linguistics and cognitive science, as well as diverse disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. The book is divided into six parts.
Part I: Foundations of Symbol Emergence Systems
Part II: Symbol Emergence in Robotics
Part III: Cognitive Development in the Environment
Part IV: Embodiment, Mind, and Consciousness
Part V: Dynamics of Culture, Norms, and Language
Part VI: Symbol Emergence Systems and Beyond
With the qualitative transformation triggered by generative AI based on large language models, we have entered a new era in the environment surrounding language. This book will inspire readers to strive for a more panoramic and systemic understanding of symbols and language. The aim is not only to design AI and robots that can engage with language more appropriately, but also to shape a society that can coexist meaningfully with these emerging entities. This book is suitable for anyone interested in such a transdisciplinary approach.
Tadahiro Taniguchi is a Professor at the Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, and an Affiliate Professor at the Research Organization of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering from Kyoto University in 2006. Over the past two decades, he has made foundational contributions to the interdisciplinary study of cognition, language, and robotics. He proposed the concept of symbol emergence systems, which addresses how symbols arise and evolve through embodied interaction, social communication, and learning. He is also recognized as a pioneer in the field of symbol emergence in robotics, which combines developmental robotics, machine learning, and cognitive science to explore the emergence of meaning and communication in intelligent systems. Taniguchi has authored and edited numerous publications on machine learning, cognitive robotics, emergent communication, and artificial intelligence. He has received multiple academic awards from societies such as the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ), and the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE). He currently serves as Chair of the IEEE CIS Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, contributing to international leadership in the field.