There is some philosophical context here that perhaps everyone reading this is not aware of.
It has been argued that people have an innate Theory of Mind. They use it to theorize about perhaps the most important thing we theorize about: other people.
So if someone drinks water, we surmise that they were thirsty (desire) and had the belief that drinking water would quench the thirst.
There is one big debate on whether people have a set of rules that they look up (unconsciously), or if they have a little "human simulator" where they throw in the action and out comes a belief/desire configuration. This is characterized as the debate between the "Theory Theory vs Simulation Theory").
Some theorists believe that autism is a disorder of this mechanism. Stated another way, some theorists believe that autists don't have a Theory of Mind. Consider this: in order to follow your gaze I would have to believe that you will look in a certain direction only if you are a person who would not want to look off in some random direction, and that you would look at something that is interesting or noteworthy.
Anyway, if these scientists can produce a successful model that doesn't rely in explicit rules or a theory -- a neural net -- then others might look for evidence of this sort of computation in the brain. Alternatively, they could demonstrate that this model essentially encodes a set of rules, or perhaps they could collapse the debate into a hybrid theory.
It might be a disorder, but that doesn't mean they don't have one. After all, it takes a lot more work to develop a theory of mind about someone who's not like you (as people with autism have to do every day) than to assume everyone you meet is like you (like most people can get away with most days).
The theory is controversial, and there are many details that are argued about. I certainly don't have a view as to which is correct, but I do think the debate is complicated by the definition of "autism." I do agree with people who believe it is a cluster of underlying conditions with some overlapping symptoms that are bundled under the same umbrella.
I actually talk about it all the time. One time I was in a car with a good sample set of children and only those over a certain age answered correctly. So interesting.
I agree, and they explicitly state this as one of their three goals (" is an important step forward for developing multi-agent AI systems, for building intermediating technology for machine-human interaction, and for advancing the progress on interpretable AI.")
However, I think this will be even more valuable in human-computer interactions (their second goal).
Consider: if you just had a fight with a lover, and then had a bad day at work, and Alexa recommends that you watch a Black Mirror, it might be awful timing. In fact, as humans, we know if someone walks in panting, and frowning, and slams their hands on the desk, we shouldn't crack a joke. I think there was some research out of Google X about how much more useful robots seemed if they gave out signs of what they were doing (appeared frustrated if they couldn't complete a task etc).
It has been argued that people have an innate Theory of Mind. They use it to theorize about perhaps the most important thing we theorize about: other people.
So if someone drinks water, we surmise that they were thirsty (desire) and had the belief that drinking water would quench the thirst.
There is one big debate on whether people have a set of rules that they look up (unconsciously), or if they have a little "human simulator" where they throw in the action and out comes a belief/desire configuration. This is characterized as the debate between the "Theory Theory vs Simulation Theory").
Some theorists believe that autism is a disorder of this mechanism. Stated another way, some theorists believe that autists don't have a Theory of Mind. Consider this: in order to follow your gaze I would have to believe that you will look in a certain direction only if you are a person who would not want to look off in some random direction, and that you would look at something that is interesting or noteworthy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
Anyway, if these scientists can produce a successful model that doesn't rely in explicit rules or a theory -- a neural net -- then others might look for evidence of this sort of computation in the brain. Alternatively, they could demonstrate that this model essentially encodes a set of rules, or perhaps they could collapse the debate into a hybrid theory.