Researchers have developed “Eddie,” a 4-year-old child in Second Life who can reason about his own beliefs to draw conclusions in a manner that matches human children his age.

With the following experiment researchers can test the reasoning abilities of Eddie :

Person A hides an a teddy bear) in a closet in front of a child and an adult (person B). Person A then leaves the room, and person B moves the teddy bear to a new location (such as the refrigerator) while the child is still watching. The child is then asked to predict where Person A will look for the teddy bear when he gets back.

The right answer is the closet, but children age 4 and under will generally say the refrigerator because they haven’t yet formed a theory of the mind of others.

First time round Eddie’s response is consistent with that of a 4-year old child (as demonstrated in the video). But then Eddie passes the test. Which shows a software for artificial intelligence (AI) can have second-order beliefs. Eddie thus can have beliefs about the beliefs of others, enabling them to understand that other people can have beliefs different from their own. Or does it?

Video: False Belief in Second Life (cogsci.rpi.edu)

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