Greetings, Singularitarians,

This week, we were honored to announce the Alpha release of our framework for AGI and beyond, OpenCog Hyperon. This release introduces foundational components, including the MeTTa (Meta Type Talk) language interpreter and the Distributed Atomspace (DAS). This marks a pivotal milestone in which the core semantics of OpenCog Hyperon are stabilized, and they are primed for further exploration.

On April 30th, 2024, the SingularityNET core AGI team hosted a spacial episode of our ‘SingularityNET’s Technical Tuesdays’ series to discuss the release of Hyperon Alpha. To watch the announcement and learn more about the differences between OpenCog Classic and Hyperon, MeTTa’s capabilities, DAS, and how to get involved (as well as hear about early applications and what comes next!), watch the full episode:

At this stage, Hyperon’s foundational components, namely the MeTTa language for cognitive computations and DAS, have been implemented in their initial, basic forms, firmly bound together and poised for utilization by other AI research labs, startups, AGI researchers, students, and systems, across a spectrum of initiatives.

The OpenCog Hyperon Alpha launch represents a stable foundation in our development process, allowing us to invite the broader open source development community to engage with and contribute to the further building of MeTTa for AGI, both through open-source contributions and through the SingularityNET Deep Funding program.

For nearly a year, the MeTTa language semantics have remained stable. The initial version of the Minimal MeTTa interpreter has been developed, tested, and shown satisfactory performance, particularly in cases involving MeTTa-Motto and Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System (NARS).

Development includes the DAS, complete with a user guide and fundamental components, integrating DAS with MeTTa, and conducting initial tests with BioAtomspace on DAS. Additionally, basic reasoning components such as PLN, forward and backward chainers, and alternative reasoning in NARS have been implemented.

The launch of metta-lang.dev signifies a significant development for the MeTTa programming language. This website represents a comprehensive hub for everything MeTTa, providing developers with access to crucial documentation and informative tutorials. As the website is continually updated and expanded, it becomes the definitive resource for developers who want to learn and keep pace with the evolving MeTTa language.

The larger picture of how MeTTa, DAS, and the overall vision of OpenCog Hyperon fit together can be found at hyperon.opencog.org.

This package of releases signals not only the readiness of the core components of OpenCog Hyperon; it also heralds a new phase of collaborative innovation and application within the realm of artificial general intelligence.

Exploring the Architecture of OpenCog Hyperon: MeTTa and DAS

OpenCog Hyperon is the premier software framework set to redefine the landscape of cognitive architectures and the development of AGI. It is an open-source platform where different AI strategies and methods are optimized in a neural-symbolic framework. OpenCog Hyperon and the MeTTa language allow for the seamless interoperation of currently siloed AI processes, such as evolutionary learning systems, different types of inference and logic, machine learning and neural networks, and other AI approaches can collaborate on a shared knowledge store (the DAS).

At its core are the Distributed Atomspace (DAS), a dynamic metagraph brimming with nodes and links, engineered to encapsulate intricate knowledge structures, and MeTTa, a programming language seamlessly integrated into the fabric of the Atomspace. MeTTa, a departure from conventional approaches, manifests as sub-metagraphs, housing procedures that orchestrate the metamorphosis of the Atomspace.

DAS: The Distributed Atomspace for Knowledge Storage & Representation

In the context of OpenCog Hyperon, the Atomspace Metagraph serves as a knowledge representation system, storing facts, rules, relationships, and even sub-graphs in the form of atoms (nodes) and links between them.

The Atomspace Metagraph is a weighted labeled graph-like structure used by Hyperon to represent and store data. Atomspace is a flexible and dynamic knowledge repository, which enables Hyperon to organize and access a variety of knowledge of various types (declarative, linguistic, mathematical, procedural, attentional, goal-related, sensory, motoric, emotional, intuitive, etc.)

Atomspace lives in RAM for use in real-time cognitive processing, and also lives on disk and in distributed form across multiple machines, thanks to the Distributed Atomspace implementation, and is being optimized to work on both centralized infrastructure (e.g. a server farm) or distributed infrastructure (e.g. NuNet or HyperCycle nodes).

The Distributed AtomSpace (DAS) allows this knowledge base to be distributed efficiently across multiple machines, with intelligent local caching based on attention mechanisms, enabling large-scale processing of data and knowledge.

MeTTa: The Cognitive Catalyst

MeTTa (Meta Type Talk) is a novel programming language designed specifically to meet the needs of AGI. It is intended both for humans to script portions of AGI cognitive processes, and for the programming activity of AGI-related learning and reasoning algorithms themselves. MeTTa programs organically combine elements of functional, logical, and probabilistic programming providing a synergetic framework for representing declarative and procedural knowledge. Each MeTTa program is represented as a subgraph of an Atomspace metagraph, and carries out its business centrally by querying and rewriting portions of Atomspaces.

It handles highly abstract constructs like run-time self-modifying code simply and naturally but is also designed for efficiency both in running its own natively implemented AGI-related algorithms, and in interfacing with external processes invoking non-OpenCog AI algorithms such as deep neural nets or SAT solvers.

“MeTTa is unique in its ability to write introspective and self-modifying programs, which can be crucial for recursive self-improvement of AGI. It is like a modeling clay robot that can sculpt itself.” — Dr. Alexey Potapov, Chief AGI Officer at SingularityNET

While MeTTa takes inspiration from OpenCog Classic’s Atomese, it has evolved into a distinct language for cognitive computations with unique properties. Unlike conventional programming languages, MeTTa embraces very different AI strategies. It is designed to serve two purposes: allowing humans to script portions of AGI cognitive processes, and enabling AGI-related learning and reasoning algorithms to engage in their programming activities.

Learn More About OpenCog Hyperon Alpha & Experiment in the Playground

The OpenCog Hyperon Alpha launch includes a MeTTa packages management and deployment system and useful packages and extensions themselves, tutorials, examples of Hyperon applications to practical use cases, including bio-AI and involving DAS and MeTTa-Motto, and AI libraries in MeTTa.

The Alpha version of MeTTa presents developers with a multi-paradigm language designed for declarative and functional computations over knowledge (meta)graphs.

MeTTa, combined within the Atomspace of the OpenCog software ecosystem, offers a unique blend of factual knowledge representation and rule-based reasoning capabilities.

It empowers developers to craft intricate models of knowledge and reasoning. Featuring four distinct types of atoms — Symbol, Expression, Variable, and Grounded — MeTTa enables the representation of a wide array of concepts, processes, and relationships, facilitating the development of sophisticated AI applications.

MeTTa’s role as a catalyst for cognitive programming is further enhanced by its seamless integration with DAS, offering developers a comprehensive toolkit for exploring the frontiers of AGI research.

The Hyperon Alpha Launch initiative marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Hyperon and MeTTa, signaling a new phase of development and collaboration within the AGI community. It’s also a notable achievement for the entire Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) Alliance — by providing a robust framework for collaborative innovation within the AGI community, Hyperon aligns with the Alliance’s vision of accelerating the development of decentralized, beneficial AGI.

By harnessing the power of Hyperon and MeTTa, we can collectively work towards building a more benevolent and intelligent future — one where AGI serves as a force for positive change in the world.

With the Hyperon Alpha Launch, we invite developers and researchers alike to join hands in shaping the future of artificial general intelligence.

Are you ready to join us and help shape the future of artificial general intelligence?

To learn more and get started, visit the MeTTa website and explore the Hyperon GitHub repository. For a broader overview of Hyperon visit the OpenCog Hyperon website.

Dive into the Alpha release of MeTTa and Distributed Atomspace, and be part of the collaborative innovation that will redefine the landscape of AGI research. Stay tuned for detailed articles exploring the semantics and features of MeTTa and DAS that will help you, the developer, dive deeper into the world of OpenCog Hyperon.

We would also like to extend an invitation to join our Hyperon development team’s MeTTa study group. The next meeting will be announced as soon as it is scheduled and you can register to receive notifications on the link below.

We would like to open this meeting up to our community and others who are interested in learning more about MeTTa to provide the opportunity to hear directly from the development team on what they are currently working on in the ongoing development of MeTTa.

To register your interest to join the meetings, please complete this form.

With active study groups, in-depth tutorials and demos coming in the upcoming weeks and months, a MeTTa playground primed for exploration, we are inviting developers to join us on this exciting adventure; a programming language created for the needs of AGI is now available, and we’re moving closer and closer to making AGI a reality.

Equipped with the tools of today and the vision of tomorrow, together, let’s build a future where AGI is truly beneficial to all sentient beings.