IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER; NEWS RELEVANT TO BOTH CONSCIOUSNESS
AND THE FUTURE OF AI (AND HUMANITY)
CURRENTLY VERY OUT-OF-DATE; will try to bring up-to-date soon.
SEE ALSO http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/AITopics/AINews
======================================================================
From AIAlert, Feb 14/11:
While we're probably still years or decades away from getting our very
own animatronic clones, Google's released the next best thing for the
time being. Available on the Android Market is this Androidify app,
which, as the name says for itself, lets us mere mortals craft our
very own Android mascot lookalikes. Hell, you can even slap on some
facial hair or a baby droid while you're at it. We'll say no more --
see the app in action after the break, if you're not already busy
dishing out your new avatar across the web.
February 07, 2011: Ephaptic Coupling in Brain Offers New Understanding
Mimicking the human brain may be even harder than expected. For decades
researchers have attempted to decode the inner workings of our grey
matter and much progress has been made in the area of neural networks,
but recent work by neuroscientists at Caltech are offering yet another
mechanism crucial to brain function - ephaptic coupling. It was once
thought that neural processing was performed entirely via synapses
(junction s between neurons), but now it's believed that information
is also transmitted through extracellular electric fields throughout
the brain. This epiphenomenon allows groups of neurons to influence
each other without physical connection complicating our understanding
of this remarkable machine.
CognitiveScience
======================================================================
From TechNews, Feb 2/11:
How Watson Works: A Conversation With Eric Brown, IBM Research Manager
KurzweilAI.net (01/31/11) Amara D. Angelica
IBM's deep Question Answering (DeepQA) system, codenamed Watson, will compete
against human champions in Jeopardy! tournaments in February. IBM research
manager Eric Brown says that "we're basically using Jeopardy! as a benchmark
or a challenge problem to drive the development of [DeepQA] technology, and
as a way to measure the progress of the technology." Brown says Watson can
comprehend a broad diversity of questions using open-ended natural language
and provide highly accurate answers, at least within the confines of the game.
Developing a dialogue system that facilitates more natural interaction is an
area that researchers want to investigate, especially as DeepQA is applied to
other domains, Brown says. The direction that researchers are taking DeepQA
technology in involves automatic generation of hypotheses and the compilation
of evidence to support or disprove the hypotheses, and then evaluation of the
evidence through an open, pluggable architecture of analytics, followed by
the combination and weighing of the results to assess the hypotheses and make
recommendations. Brown says IBM's initial focus for DeepQA is the medical
or health care domains. Other applications currently under consideration
include help desk, tech support, and business intelligence.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-watson-works-a-conversation-with-eric-brown-ibm-research-manager
I, Algorithm: A New Dawn for Artificial Intelligence
New Scientist (01/31/11) Anil Ananthaswamy
The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is undergoing a revival, spurred by
probabilistic programming that merges classic AI's logical principles with
the power of statistics and probability. The key to probabilistic reasoning
is a Bayesian network, a model comprised of various random factors, each
with a probability distribution that is dependent on every other factor.
Given the value of one or more factors, the network enables the inference
of all the other factors' likely values. The development of algorithms for
Bayesian networks that could use and learn from existing data began in the
mid 1990s, and these new algorithms were capable of learning models of greater
complexity and accuracy from much less data, unlike artificial neural networks.
Still, Bayesian networks are insufficient for modern AI challenges on their
own because they are incapable of building arbitrarily complex constructions
out of simple components, which is where the incorporation of logic comes in.
At the vanguard of probabilistic programming are computer languages that use
both Bayesian networks and logic programming. In addition to the development
of fast and flexible inference algorithms, researchers face the challenge of
improving AI systems' learning ability, whether from existing data or from
the real world using sensors.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927971.200-i-algorithm-a-new-dawn-for-artificial-intelligence.html
======================================================================
From TechNews, Dec 29/10:
Earth Project Aims to 'Simulate Everything'
BBC News (12/27/10) Gareth Morgan
An international research team is working on the Living Earth Simulator (LES),
a project designed to produce a system that can simulate everything happening
on Earth, with the goal of predicting human actions that shape societies as
well as environmental forces. "Many problems we have today-- including social
and economic instabilities, wars, disease spreading--are related to human
behavior, but there is apparently a serious lack of understanding regarding
how society and the economy work," says Swiss Federal Institute of Technology's
Dirk Helbing. The LES system would be able to predict the spread of diseases,
develop solutions to combat climate change, and identify signs of a financial
crisis before it takes place, Helbing says. The system would need data
concerning every activity taking place on Earth, as well as next-generation
supercomputers that can process the vast amounts of data. Although the hardware
is not available yet, much of the data is already being collected, Helbing says.
The LES team has identified more than 70 online data sources that can be key
contributors to the project. The LES project needs to create a framework that
can transform that data into models that are relevant to what is going on in
the world, which will most likely use semantic Web technologies, Helbing says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12012082
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From TechNews, Dec 28/10:
The Emotional Computer
University of Cambridge (12/23/10)
A new University of Cambridge film explores professor Peter Robinson's
research on the role of emotions in human-computer interaction. Released
on Cambridge's YouTube channel, "The Emotional Computer" shows how emotions
can be used to improve interaction between humans and computers. "We're
building emotionally intelligent computers, ones that can read my mind and
know how I feel," says Robinson, who is leading a team in the university's
computer laboratory. One system tracks features on a person's face,
calculates gestures being made and infers emotion, while a second analyzes
speech intonation to infer emotions, and a third analyzes body posture and
gestures. Research student Ian Davies is studying how to apply these
technologies to command-and-control systems. "Even in something as simple
as a car we need to know if the driver is concentrating and confused,
so that we can avoid overloading him with distractions from a mobile phone,
the radio, or a satellite navigation system," Davies says. Robinson says
computers also need to express emotion, and one team member is animating
figures to mimic a person's facial expression and another is experimenting
with a robotic head modeled after Charles Babbage to explore empathy and
rapport building.
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2010122303
Virtual Girl Can Read Nine Emotions
Business Day (New Zealand) (12/20/10) Claire Rogers
New Zealand researchers have developed Easy with Eve, an attractive avatar
for teaching math to primary school students. Easy with Eve makes use of
complex algorithms for detecting and responwing to expressions and movements,
motion-detection technology, and vision systems, and its developers believe
the technology has other applications. Unitec professor Hossein Sarrafzadeh,
who led the development of the avatar, is now working on Dr. Eve, a health
advice application. "If you have a health question then Eve will come up
on your monitor and hold a discussion with you and give you some medical
advice," Sarrafzadeh says. Unitec is assisting China Medical University
in investigating the technology's potential to detect cancer cells, and is
working with Massey University on turning Eve into an intelligent sales
agent that would distinguish between serious shoppers and browsers based
on their facial expressions and gestures. Eve is still a few years away
from being used in classrooms. "We've done some work on language translation
so hopefully in the next couple of years Eve will be able to speak and
understand different languages," Sarrafzadeh says.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/4474915/Virtual-girl-can-read-nine-emotions/
On youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG0REzjhSog
======================================================================
From akaikya@gmail.com Sun Dec 19 20:51:46 2010
Subject: interesting article
From: Emily Vukman
To: Lenhart Schubert
Hi,
This reminded me of your Machines & Consciousness class, for some reason.
http://io9.com/5708781/your-expectations-about-the-world-change-what-you-see-in-it-+-literally
Emily Vukman
http://io9.com/5708781/your-expectations-about-the-world-change-what-you-see-in-it-+-literally
Your expectations about the world change what you see in it - literally
Your expectations about the world change what you see in it - literally
Common sense holds that your brain sees an object, and then recognizes it. But a new study shows that the reality may be the reverse. Your expectations shape what you see.
There is an area of every person's brain, the fusiform face area, that is in charge of recognizing faces. When a complete stranger comes up to you in the street, greets you like an old friend, and engages you in conversation, either your fusiform face area is letting you down or theirs is letting them down. Or you're being grifted. In any case, hang on to your wallet.
It was thought that the brain processed stimuli the way large companies process orders. Neurons at the bottom of a chain of command bring in data and pass it up the line. The higher level neurons take the raw data and either match it up appropriate responses, or if more work is necessary, add a little more data and pass it higher. The brain responded to external sources of data.
A new study indicates that the brain actually processes stimuli the way large companies implement policies: from the top down. High level brain cells form an expectation of certain data, and hand it down to the lower neurons. The neurons process it dutifully, and only hand it back up if there is some kind of conflict. The response to things are, at least to a certain extent, internally driven.
In an experiment, people hooked up to an fMRI were asked to look at a series of pictures. The pictures were either of faces or of houses. If the responses of the brain were entirely externally driven, the fusiform face area would not respond to the houses the same way it did to the faces. And often, it did not. When the subjects were put in situations where they expected to see a face, however, the FFA responded to houses almost the same way it did to faces. When someone expects to see something, their brains will behave as if they did see it until they get a strong signal to behave otherwise.
Via Journal of Neuroscience.
======================================================================
From TechNews Dec 17/10:
IBM Supercomputer Set for Jeopardy Quiz Show Showdown
BBC News (12/14/10) Maggie Shiels
IBM's Watson supercomputer will be a contestant on Jeopardy on Feb. 14, 2011.
The TV quiz show will be an important test for the supercomputer, which will
mimic human intelligence by deciphering and answering questions without being
connected to the Internet. "What I see is the potential for computers to
help us with our tremendous frustration in dealing with the huge glut of
information that is doubling every year," says David Ferrucci, IBM's chief
scientist of Watson computing. "Just imagine being able to converse with
a computer in an intelligent dialogue to help you understand and leverage
all that information out there, so that people can focus on solving their
problem and not get overwhelmed by information." Question-answering systems
based on natural language could be used in health care to diagnose patients,
parse legal documents, or handle customer problems at technical support
centers. Watson will face the ultimate challenge for artificial intelligence
--analyzing subtle meanings, irony, riddles, and other complexities--
an area in which humans excel. IBM has been preparing Watson for the TV
show by having the supercomputer play against previous Jeopardy winners.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11996531
======================================================================
From TechNews Dec 1/10:
Ping Pong Robot Learns by Doing
IEEE Spectrum (11/29/10) Samuel Bouchard
Max-Planck Institute researchers are trying to create robots that can
handle uncertain situations, act more safely, and learn by doing.
The team, led by the Robot Learning Lab's Jan Peters, aims to design
robots that can learn tasks without requiring human helpers to
determine their every move. When learning a new task, the robot
breaks down the movement into simple motor behaviors, making it
easier to learn the skill. In a simulation learning experiment,
the researchers were able to teach the robot to hit a ping pong
ball on a string with a paddle in less than an hour. The same
skill took three months to program manually, according to Peters.
The researchers also tried to teach the robot to swing a ball on
a string and get it to land in a cup, which is much more difficult
than simply paddling a ball on a string. "For every new attempt,
when the robot reduces the distance by which the ball misses the
cup, the robot receives a 'reward,'" Peters says. The robot can
sink the ball for the first time after 40 to 45 trials and succeeds
every time after 90 to 95 trials, Peters says.
[The video is really quite remarkable!]
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/ping-pong-robot-learns-by-doing
Caregiver Software to Guide Mentally Impaired Patients
The Engineer (United Kingdom) (11/22/10) Siobhan Wagner
Researchers in Scotland are developing technology that helps caregivers
monitor the progress of patients with brain injuries, dementia, or mental
health conditions. The software, called Guide , is designed to verbally
prompt patients by asking questions and waiting for answers. The current
Windows-based prototype requires fitting speakers and microphones in
strategic areas in a user's home where everyday tasks take place.
Guide makes use of a voice-recognition program to decode the answer,
and the researchers have developed decision trees or protocols for
making tea, a smoothie, and moving from a wheelchair to a bed.
Although Guide is not intended to replace human caregivers, it will
help eliminate some of the mundane repetitive elements of working
with people who have difficulty with memory, sequencing everyday tasks,
and planning. "This means that carers may have to say the same things
to them repeatedly, which could be detrimental to their relationship,"
says Stirling University's Catherine Best. "Guide could take over
some of this repetitive prompting function, freeing user and carer
to have more positive social interactions. "
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/caregiver-software-to-guide-mentally-impaired-patients/1006164.article
======================================================================
From TechNews, Nov 3/10:
Robot's Space Debut 'Giant Leap for Tinmankind'
Associated Press (11/02/10) Marcia Dunn
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is sending a humanoid
robot, called Robonaut 2 (R2), to the International Space Station for the first
time. R2 is made of aluminum and nickel-based carbon fiber and has more than 350
electrical sensors throughout its body. R2 is humanoid from the waist up and
measures three feet, four inches tall and weighs 330 pounds. It can carry out
preprogrammed orders by itself, once the orders are given. The objective is to
help astronauts, not replace them, NASA says. "While it might be just a single
step for this robot, it's really a giant leap forward for tinmankind," says
NASA's Rob Ambrose. Once onboard the space station, R2 will undergo tests to
see how it performs in weightlessness when attached to a fixed pedestal.
NASA plans to send legs next year that will enable it to perform indoor chores,
and future torso and computer enhancements will allow it to take space walks.
R2 is expected to be onboard the space station until it stops operating sometime
after 2020.
http://rdmag.com/News/2010/11/Information-Tech-Robotics-Robots-space-debut-giant-leap-for-tinmankind/
Robots Are Lords of the Dance at South Korean Festival
Agence France-Presse (11/01/10)
Robots danced in competitions, played football, engaged in taekwondo matches,
ran obstacle races, and participated in a parade at the recent Robot World
in South Korea. The various tasks provided an opportunity to assess the
sensory and movement skills of the robots. Billed as the world's largest
robot festival, Robot World has drawn about 120,000 visitors and 6,000
participants for demonstrations of the latest developments in robotics
every year since its launch in 2006. This year, Robot World attracted at
least 120 companies and 8,000 contestants. Hyun Yun-Duk, a teacher from
Incheon mechanical technical high school, says the robots have improved from
a year ago. "They are now much more like human beings," Yun-Duk says.
Researchers from countries such as the United States, India, Spain, and
Japan participated in the various events.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-robots-lords-south-korean-festival.html
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From TechNews, Nov 1/10:
Robot Teachers Are the Latest E-Learning Tool
Chronicle of Higher Education (10/31/10) Jeffery R. Young
Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) researchers are building robots to pr
ovide English instruction to schoolchildren. The researchers, led by KIST's Mun Sang
Kim, are designing the robots with realistic facial features, arms that enable them to
gesture, and sensors so they can keep their distance from students. The robots can t
each either by leading students through preprogrammed exercises or by being operated r
emotely over the Internet. The researchers say the goal is to be able to build robots
that are less expensive than hiring teachers from abroad to teach English. "The role
of robots will go up steadily, and the role of human teachers will shrink," Kim says.
The brightly colored robots are about three feet tall, display facial expressions as
they speak, and have built-in speech recognition technology. The researchers have de
veloped 40 prototypes, which will be placed into service at 18 elementary schools for
a three-month pilot test.
http://chronicle.com/article/Robot-Teachers-Are-the-Latest/125102/
Robot, Object, Action!
ICT Results (10/29/10)
European researchers working on the PACO-PLUS project have developed robotic demonstra
tions to illustrate object-action complexes (OACs) as a new approach to robotic cognit
ion. OACs represent a combination of perception of and action upon any given object.
"The first thing a robot will do when it encounters an object for the first time is t
o lift it before its eyes and then rotate the object so the robot gets a look at it fr
om all angles," says PACO-PLUS project co-coordinator Tamim Asfour. The basic princip
le in the OAC concept is the idea that interaction with the environment leads to more
sophisticated strategies over time, and ultimately gives rise to intelligence. PACO-P
LUS researchers also have developed a method for teaching robots to learn from human o
bservation and human coaching.
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm?section=news&tpl=article&BrowsingType=Fea
tures&ID=91457
Three-Dimensional Maps of Brain Wiring
Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) (10/28/10)
Eindhoven University of Technology researchers have developed a software tool that con
verts magnetic resonance imaging scans to three-dimensional images, helping physicians
to study the neural connections of patients' brains. "With this new tool, you can de
termine exactly where to place the stimulation electrode in the brain," says Eindhoven
professor Bart ter Haar Romenij. "The guiding map has been improved: Because we now
see the roads on the map, we know better where to stick the needle." The researchers
say the system also could lead to new insights into neurological and psychiatric diso
rders and note that it is especially accurate in identifying intersections of nerve bu
ndles in the brain. "You can now see for the first time the spaghetti-like structures
and their connections," Ter Haar Romenij says. The tool uses as its foundation the r
ecently developed High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging (HARDI) technology. The s
oftware tool handles the processing, interpretation, and interactive visualization of
the HARDI data.
http://w3.tue.nl/en/news/news_article/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=10122&tx_ttnews[backPid]=361
&cHash=e497383d04
e=====================================================================
From TechNews, Oct 13/10:
Google on New Path, Developing Self-Driving Cars
Computerworld (10/11/10) Sharon Gaudin
Google announced that its engineers are developing technology for self-driving cars. Googl
e's system uses video cameras, radar sensors, laser-range finders, and mapping technology t
o determine the location of other cars and the basic traffic flow to navigate the road. "W
e've always been optimistic about technology's ability to advance society, which is why we
have pushed so hard to improve the capabilities of self-driving cars beyond where they are
today," says Google's Sebastian Thrun. "While this project is very much in the experimenta
l stage, it provides a glimpse of what transportation might look like in the future thanks
to advanced computer science. And that future is very exciting." Although Gartner analyst
Ray Valdes says the field of autonomous transportation could be larger than the search eng
ine business in the next 10 to 15 years, analyst Rob Enderle says the project takes away fr
om Google's focus and is "likely to be more distracting than successful."
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9190498/Google_on_new_path_developing_self_driving_c
ars
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From Naushad, concerning papers at the Conference on Semantic Computing
(ICSC 2010), sent Sep 25 20:32:00 2010:
*Tom Mitchell*
Keynote: *How Does the Brain Represent Word Meanings *
This is a very good work by Tom Mitchell with researchers from neuroscience.
They show picture and written words of concepts (or entities, like hammer,
house, etc) and takes the fMRI. Then they train on these fMRIs and test on
new people and they can identify which concepts new people were thinking!
Next they show an arbitrary word and uses distributional semantics to find
some related words (e.g. for some new food, using distributional semantics
they will find its a food, it taste good and some other concepts that
overall represents that new arbitrary word). Then they will
probabilistically combine the known fMRIs (e.g. if it had high weight for
"tasty" then fMRI for "tasty" will get higher weight). This way they predict
new arbitrary words using fMRI, sort of working towards understanding what
people are thinking seeing fMRI. Very good work and very nice presentation.
======================================================================
From vandurme@gmail.com Sat Sep 18 15:27:39 2010
Subject: How Your Brain Figures Out What It Doesn't Know
September 18, 2010 2:15 PM
by Soulskill
How Your Brain Figures Out What It Doesn't
Know
hex0D passes along an article at NPR about a study that examined the biology
behind the self-assessment of knowledge. Quoting: "We isolated a region of
the prefrontal cortex, which is right at the front of the brain and is
thought to be involved in high-level thought, conscious planning, monitoring
of our ongoing brain activity,' Fleming says. In people who were good at
assessing their own level of certainty, that region had more gray matter and
more connections to other parts of the brain, according to the study Fleming
and his colleagues published in the journal Science."
Read more of this
storyat
Slashdot.
science
- ben (from mobile)
======================================================================
From TechNews Sep 17/10:
New Supercomputer 'Sees' Well Enough to Drive a Car Someday
Yale University (09/15/10) Suzanne Taylor Muzzin
Yale University researcher Eugenio Culurciello has developed NeuFlow, a supercomputer based on
the human visual system that is embedded on a single chip. NeuFlow mimics the human visual sys
tem's neural network to quickly interpret the world around it. Culurciello says that eventuall
y it could be used to enable cars to drive themselves. "The complete system is going to be no
bigger than a wallet, so it could easily be embedded in cars and other places," he says. New Y
ork University researcher Yann LeCun developed complex algorithms that the system uses to run i
ts synthetic vision applications. Culurciello says the system is extremely efficient, using on
ly a few watts to run more than 100 billion operations per second. "One of our first prototype
s of this system is already capable of outperforming graphic processors on vision tasks," he sa
ys. The system also could be used to improve robot navigation, provide 360-degree synthetic vi
sion for soldiers in combat, or help the elderly in assisted-living situations.
http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=7752
Tiny MAVs May Someday Explore and Detect Environmental Hazards
Air Force Print News (09/14/10) Maria Callier
The next phase of high-performance micro air vehicles (MAVs) for the Air Force could involve in
sect-sized robots for monitoring and exploring hazardous environments. "We are developing a su
ite of capabilities which we hope will lead to MAVs that exceed the capabilities of existing sm
all aircraft," says Harvard University researcher Robert Wood. His team is studying how wing d
esign can impact performance for an insect-size, flapping-wing vehicle. The research also will
shape the devices' assembly, power supply, and control systems. The team is constructing wing
s and moving them at high frequencies to recreate trajectories that are similar to an insect's.
The researchers are able to measure multiple-force components, and monitor fluid flow around
the wings flapping in excess of 100 times per second. The team also is conducting high-speed s
tereoscopic motion tracking, force measurements, and flow visualization to better understand th
ese systems.
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/news/story_print.asp?id=123221248
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From TechNews Sep 15/10:
European Partnership Funds Research Toward Robot Aides for the Elderly
Technische Universitaet Muenchen (09/13/10)
A team of researchers from 20 European states, the European Union,
and several private enterprises recently launched a project aimed at
developing robots capable of serving as adaptable, interactive, and
safe assistants for older adults. The Adaptable Ambient Living
ASsistant (ALIAS) project focuses on maintaining social networks,
warding off feelings of loneliness and isolation, and increasing
activities that could protect cognitive capabilities. ALIAS, led
by the Technische Universitaet Muenchen professor Frank Wallhoff,
helps build social contacts by creating connections to people and
events in the wider world. The ALIAS mobile robots will facilitate
daily life for older adults in a variety of ways, including proactive
communication with speech recognition, video calls, Internet chat
between users, online gaming, reading aloud from newspapers, and
assisted mobility.
http://portal.mytum.de/pressestelle/pressemitteilungen/news_article.2010-09-13.8901386287
DARPA Wants to Create Brainiac Bot Tots
Wired News (09/10/10) Katie Drummond
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding
scientist Shane Mueller's efforts to expand upon the Turing test as
part of an attempt to determine the level of artificial intelligence
in bot tots. DARPA is interested in developing robots with the
capabilities of an average toddler. "There were many motivations
for this target, but one central notion is that if one could design
a system with the capabilities of a two-year-old, it might be possible
to essentially grow a three-year-old, given realistic experiences in
a simulated environment," Mueller says. DARPA's goal is for tot bots
to become super smart by learning like a human. Mueller uses a testing
schema that has categories for visual recognition, search abilities,
manual control, knowledge learning, language and concept learning,
and simple motor control. The artificial intelligence agents would
initially operate much like a toddler, but they would gradually learn
from their surroundings and an instructor, and eventually gain advanced
cognitive capabilities.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/darpa-robot-smarts/
======================================================================
From big-picture-bounces@cs.rochester.edu Fri Sep 10 16:51:11 2010
Subject: [Big-picture] Fwd: [uw-ai] Unlikely YouTube hit - robot towel
folding
This is very impressive! The video is 50X sped up (it really took 100
minutes, not 2 minutes), but this is the first thing I've seen that made me
think that robot housekeepers will exist some day. (And that is one great
looking robot!) [This Berkeley student's robot nicely folds and piles
up several previously unseen towels lying helter-skelter on a table.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy5g33S0Gzo
--
Prof. Henry Kautz
From big-picture-bounces@cs.rochester.edu Sat Sep 11 12:16:03 2010
From: Henry Kautz
To: big-picture@cs.rochester.edu
Subject: [Big-picture] Fwd: [uw-ai] Unlikely YouTube hit - robot towel
folding
FYI, more info about the towel folding robot --
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bart Selman
Date: Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 3:09 AM
Subject: Re: [uw-ai] Unlikely YouTube hit - robot towel folding
To: Henry Kautz
pretty cool indeed! that's work by pieter abeel's group. we tried to hiring
him two years ago but so did the rest of the world...
the robot you see is a PR2 by willow garage. it costs around $250K after
academic discount... our robotics folks wrote an equipment grant to try to
get an RP2... we'll see what happens.
-- bart
----------------------------------------------------------------------
======================================================================
From TechNews, Aug 27/10:
http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/26135/
MIT Builds Swimming, Oil-Eating Robots
Computerworld (08/26/10) Gaudin, Sharon
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a robot using n
anotechnology that can autonomously navigate across an ocean's surface and clean up an
oil spill. The researchers say that a fleet of 5,000 robots, called a Seaswarm, coul
d clean up a spill the size of the recent one in the Gulf of Mexico in about a month.
"Unlike traditional skimmers, Seaswarm is based on a system of small, autonomous unit
s that behave like a swarm and 'digest' the oil locally while working around the clock
without human intervention," says MIT's Carlo Ratti. Seaswarm is designed to use a c
onveyor belt covered with a thin nanowire mesh that absorbs oil. The nanomesh repels
water while absorbing 20 times its own weight in oil. A team of robots would use wire
less communications and global positioning systems to move across the ocean without bu
nching up or leaving some parts uncleaned.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9182138/MIT_builds_swimming_oil_eating_robots
======================================================================
From TechNews, Aug 25/10:
Robots Learning From Experience
ICT Results (08/24/10)
The European-based Xpero project is developing a cognitive system for robots that would enab
le them to explore the world and learn through physical experimentation. The researchers ha
ve created an algorithm that enables a robot to discover its environment by analyzing data f
rom sensors. The researchers say the robot initially does not have a way to determine the p
robable future, but with each observation it learns better hypotheses that it can use to pre
dict the effects of its actions. "It makes no distinction between previous knowledge and le
arnt knowledge," says Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University's Bjorn Kahl. "That it can re-use knowledg
e is very important. Without that there would be no incremental learning." In a recent exp
eriment, the robot started to use objects as tools. The researchers are planning a new proj
ect that will run one or two robots over several months to see how they advance.
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm?section=news&tpl=article&BrowsingType=Features&
ID=91421
======================================================================
From TechNews, Aug 18/10:
Engineering and Music: A Powerful Duet for Art and Science
National Science Foundation (08/16/10) O'Brien, Miles
The University of Rochester's Music Research Lab is developing technologies that refle
ct the expertise of musicians as well as scientists and engineers. Rochester professo
r Mark Bocko uses a computer to analyze every aspect of how a musician interacts with
an instrument to create the sound. "So, what the computer learns is how hard they wer
e blowing, the blowing pressure at every instant in time, what their mouth clamping fo
rce was on the reed, and the fingering they used," Bocko says. His data has led to im
provements in music compression. A normal compressed music file processes about 1.5 m
illion bits of data per second. However, when a musician plays an instrument, there a
re much less than 1.5 million bits of data per second being transmitted from the music
ian to the instrument, according to Bocko. He taught a computer how to play a clarine
t, and was able to compress the resulting file to about 1,000 times the size of a typi
cal MP3 file. Bocko says the technology could be used to improve videoconferencing to
eliminate video-to-audio lag, or to enable music to be played live over the Internet.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/index.jsp
======================================================================
From TechNews, Aug 11/10:
[James' PLOW and Cardiac]
Speech Recognition Systems Must Get Smarter, Professor Says
IDG News Service (08/05/10) Jackson, Joab
Most modern computerized speech-recognition systems can understand what a human says up to 98
percent of the time, yet people still get frustrated using automated phone help-desk systems
, says University of Rochester professor James Allen. He says the key to making speech-recog
nition systems less frustrating to use is giving them a deeper understanding of language and
making them more interactive. Allen has been researching ways to make these systems more lif
e-like in the way they interact with humans. The goal is to be able to "talk to a machine th
e same way we can talk to a person," he says. A program designed by Allen and his team, call
ed Plow, can learn how to carry out common tasks on a computer. "This is a system that allow
s you to essentially use dialog to train your system how to do things for you," he says. Ano
ther program designed by Allen and his research team, called Cardiac, mimics the questions a
nurse asks a patient with heart disease. The system determines what information was provided
and what is still needed. However, Allen says better two-communications between users and c
omputers is still needed.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/202692/speech_recognition_systems_must_get_smar
ter_professor_says.html
======================================================================
From TechNews, Aug 9/10:
First Robot Able to Develop and Show Emotions is Unveiled
Guardian (United Kingdom) (08/09/10) Jha, Alok
Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire and eight universities
in the United Kingdom, France, Greece, Switzerland, and Denmark have
created Nao, a robot that can develop and display emotions and form
bonds with people it meets. "We are working on non-verbal cues and
the emotions are revealed through physical postures, gestures, and
movements of the body rather than facial or verbal expression,"
says Hertfordshire professor Lola Canamero. Nao, developed by the
European Union-funded Feelix Growing project, is modeled after a
one-year-old child and is designed to learn and interpret specific
cues from humans and responding accordingly. Nao uses cameras and
sensors to determine where its human companions are looking, follow
their gaze, and memorize different people's faces. Nao also can be
programmed to have different personalities. The researchers hope
that Nao can eventually have specific medical applications. "We '
want to explore different roles--the robots will help the children
to understand their treatment, explain what they have to do," Canamero
says.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/09/nao-robot-develop-display-emotions
R2 Tweets, Too
Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada) (08/05/10) Stechyson, Natalie
NASA says Robonaut 2 (R2) is ready to become the first humanoid robot
to visit space. R2 is scheduled to land at the International Space
Station in November. On the space station, R2 will perform maintenance
tasks, small jobs that will enable human astronauts to focus on more
complex work. R2 is semi-autonomous, and will carry out programmed
tasks on its own with periodic status checks. "You can kind of think
of Robonaut as helping as a nurse would to a doctor in an operating
room," says NASA's Nicolaus Radford. R2 has started sending tweets--
generated by engineers at Johnson Space Center in Houston--about its
preparations for space, and the messages will continue when it lands
at the space station. "We want you to come along for the ride,"
Radford says of the effort to engage the public and inspire a new
generation of engineers. NASA wants to design a new version of the
robot that would be capable of living outside the space station and
performing emergency space walks.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/r2-tweets-too/article1662448/
The Anti-Crisis Project: Thinking Our Way to a Better Future
ETH Zurich (08/02/10)
A multi-disciplinary European scientific effort aims to transform
the ability to understand complicated social, economic, and
technological systems. The initiative will exploit modern computation
and information technologies (ICT) to create a more powerful science
of human systems and their interaction with global environments.
"It's time to explore social life on Earth, and everything it relates
to, in the same ambitious way that we have spent the last century or
more exploring our physical world," says ETH Zurich researcher Dirk
Helbing. The project will assemble experts in physics, computer
science, environmental science, economics, psychology, ecology,
sociology to use ICT to establish three systems on an unprecedented
scale. The Living Earth Visualator is a super-computing platform
that can simulate and visualize the world at the global scale, while
focusing on the interaction between technical, social and economic
systems. Crisis Observatories are laboratories running huge data
mining and computing systems designed to detect crises before they
occur. The Knowledge Accelerator will identify important social or
technological innovations early on and devise practical programs
to further their wide social benefit.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=82283&CultureCode=en
Artificial Intelligence Researchers Confront Sci-Fi Scenarios
New Scientist (07/29/10) No. 2719, P. 18; Campbell, MacGregor
At the recent Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
(AAAI) conference, a panel of 25 AI scientists, roboticists, and
ethical and legal scholars discussed the feasibility and ramifications
of seemingly far-fetched ideas, such as the possibility of the Internet
becoming self-aware. Currently, systems only advise or assist humans,
but the AAAI panel envisions a time when machines could have far greater
ability to make and execute decisions on their own. The panel presented
their initial findings at the International Joint Conference for
Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in July. Panel members told IJCAI that
they unanimously agreed that creating human-level AI is possible in
principle, but disagreed as to when such a breakthrough might occur,
with estimates ranging from 20 to 1,000 years. "These are potentially
powerful technologies that could be used in good ways and not so good
ways," says AAAI president Eric Horvitz.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327195.800
======================================================================
From TechNews Aug 4/10:
[This looks to me like something likely to evolve into a new kind
of telepresence technology: you talk to someone far away, and
a robot at the other end, perhaps shape-shifted to match your
appearance, projects your voice and motions, and even can transmit
tactile inputs back to you from the robot (e.g., if the robot
is hugged, you'll feel it).]
Telenoid R1: Hiroshi Ishiguro's Newest and Strangest Android
IEEE Spectrum (08/01/10) Guizzo, Erico
Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro recently demonstrated Telenoid R1, a humanoid r
obot that features a minimalistic design. Telenoid is the size of a small child, has a sof
t torso with a bald head, a doll-like face, stumps in place of limbs, and looks like an ove
rgrown fetus. Ishiguro says the goal was to design an android that could appear male or fe
male, old or young, and be easily transported. Osaka partnered with Japan's Advanced Telec
ommunications Research Institute International (ATR) to study the essential elements of rep
resenting and transmitting human-like presence. The eerie-looking Telenoid is part of a ne
w communication system that would allow an operator to sit at a computer with a Webcam and
special teleoperation software developed by ATR, and control the android for remote work, e
ducation, or elderly care applications. "If a friend speaks from the Telenoid, we can imag
ine the friend's face on the Telenoid's face," says Ishiguro, who believes people will adap
t to its unique look. "If we embrace it, we have the feeling, that we embrace the friend."
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/telenoid-r1-hiroshi-ishiguro-newest-a
nd-strangest-android
======================================================================
From lesfilo@ncf.ca Thu Jul 22 10:25:32 2010
To: "Len Schubert"
Thought of you when I came across this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/science/11robots.html?_r=2&ref=benedict_carey
[It's about robots as teachers, for autistic children or for word-
learning; one robot talked about is RUBI, a Finnish robot. There
are videos...]
======================================================================
From TechNews, July 21/10:
EU Scientists Make Virtual Reality Touchable
CORDIS News (Belgium) (07/20/10)
European researchers working on the immersive multimodal interactive
presence (IMMERSENCE) project have developed an approach to generating
virtual reality (VR) content using haptic technology that enables them
to virtually teleport real objects through cyberspace, "touch" virtual
reality, and feel the movements of a virtual dance partner. "We know
that the more senses that can be used, the more interaction, the greater
the sense of presence," says Technische Universitat Munchen researcher
Andreas Schweinberger, coordinator of the IMMERSENCE project. The
researchers, collaborating from nine universities and research centers
across Europe, developed haptic and multimodal interfaces, new signal
processing techniques, and a new method to generate VR objects from
real-world objects in real time. The latter technology uses a three-
dimensional scanner and advanced modeling system to create a virtual
representation of a real object, which can then be transmitted to
someone at a remote location. Other researchers focused on creating
human-to-human interaction in a virtual environment. "The audiovisual
aspects of VR have come a long way in recent years, so adding a sense
of touch is the next step," Schweinberger says.
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS_FP7&ACTION=D&DOC=2&CAT=NEWS&QUERY=0129efe7ed15:716f:320a3ba3&RCN=32356
Self-Sustaining Robot Has an Artificial Gut
PhysOrg.com (07/20/10)
British researchers have developed an autonomous robot with an
artificial stomach that enables it to fuel itself by eating and
excreting. Bristol Robotics Laboratory researchers designed the
robot, called Ecobot III, so that it consumes partially processed
sewage, using the nutrients within the mixture for fuel and
excreting the remains. The robot also drinks water to maintain
power generation. The meal is processed by 24 microbial fuel cells
(MFCs), which are held in a stack of two tiers in the robot's body.
Undigested matter passes via a gravity feed to a central trough
from which it is pumped back into the feeder tanks to be reprocessed
in order to extract as much of the available energy as possible.
The bacteria in the MFCs metabolize the organic mixture, producing
hydrogen atoms in the process, which help produce an electric current.
The robot has maintained itself unaided for up to seven days, but
is so far extremely inefficient, using only one percent of the
energy available within the food.
http://www.physorg.com/news198817988.html
======================================================================
From TechNews July 7/10:
New York Times (07/04/10) Harmon, Amy
Robots designed to provide companionship are making strides. Examples
include a device styled after a baby seal that responds to light, sound,
touch, and temperature, and which is being used to soothe distressed
people, such as dementia patients. The falling cost of such machines
may help lead to their wider use. Scientists have noticed that people
tend to display animus toward robots that do not follow preconceived
behavioral patterns. Some critics are concerned that the growing
popularity of personal robots will encourage the replacement of
human-human engagement. Computer scientists say such interaction
stems from a fundamental human reflex to treat objects that are
responsive to their surroundings as if they are living. "When
something responds to us, we are built for our emotions to trigger,
even when we are 110 percent certain that it is not human," notes
Stanford University professor Clifford Nass. "Which brings up the
ethical question: Should you meet the needs of people with something
that basically suckers them?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/science/05robot.html
[But so do pets, in my opinion!]
Same news in NY Times:
From New York Times July 5/10:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/science/05robot.html?pagewanted=1&hpw
A Soft Spot for Circuitry
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Styled after a baby seal, a robot that blinks and coos when petted is often therapeutic for patients with dementia.
By AMY HARMON
Published: July 4, 2010
Nothing Eileen Oldaker tried could calm her mother when she called from the nursing home, disoriented and distressed in what was likely the early stages of dementia. So Ms. Oldaker hung up, dialed the nurses' station and begged them to get Paro.
Smarter Than You Think
Robot Companions
Articles in this series are examining the recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics and their potential impact on society.
* Previous Articles in the Series >>
Multimedia
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Bonding With Paro
The Takeaway: Interview With Amy Harmon
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Making Friends With a Robot Named Bina48 (July 5, 2010)
*
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Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
A robot styled after a baby seal is is used at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington.
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
* Read All Comments (63) >>
Paro is a robot modeled after a baby harp seal. It trills and paddles when petted, blinks when the lights go up, opens its eyes at loud noises and yelps when handled roughly or held upside down. Two microprocessors under its artificial white fur adjust its behavior based on information from dozens of hidden sensors that monitor sound, light, temperature and touch. It perks up at the sound of its name, praise and, over time, the words it hears frequently.
“Oh, there's my baby," Ms. Oldaker's mother, Millie Lesek, exclaimed that night last winter when a staff member delivered the seal to her. “Here, Paro, come to me."
“Meeaakk," it replied, blinking up at her through long lashes.
Janet Walters, the staff member at Vincentian Home in Pittsburgh who recalled the incident, said she asked Mrs. Lesek if she would watch Paro for a little while.
“I need someone to baby-sit," she told her.
“Don't rush," Mrs. Lesek instructed, stroking Paro's antiseptic coat in a motion that elicited a wriggle of apparent delight. “He can stay the night with me."
After years of effort to coax empathy from circuitry, devices designed to soothe, support and keep us company are venturing out of the laboratory. Paro, its name derived from the first sounds of the words “personal robot," is one of a handful that take forms that are often odd, still primitive and yet, for at least some early users, strangely compelling.
For recovering addicts, doctors at the University of Massachusetts are testing a wearable sensor designed to discern drug cravings and send text messages with just the right blend of tough love.
For those with a hankering for a custom-built companion and $125,000 to spend, a talking robotic head can be modeled on the personality of your choice. It will smile at its own jokes and recognize familiar faces.
For dieters, a 15-inch robot with a touch-screen belly, big eyes and a female voice sits on the kitchen counter and offers encouragement after calculating their calories and exercise.
"Would you come back tomorrow to talk?" the robot coach asks hopefully at the end of each session. “It's good if we can discuss your progress every day."
Robots guided by some form of artificial intelligence now explore outer space, drop bombs, perform surgery and play soccer. Computers running artificial intelligence software handle customer service calls and beat humans at chess and, maybe, “Jeopardy!"
Machines as Companions
But building a machine that fills the basic human need for companionship has proved more difficult. Even at its edgiest, artificial intelligence cannot hold up its side of a wide-ranging conversation or, say, tell by an expression when someone is about to cry. Still, the new devices take advantage of the innate soft spot many people have for objects that seem to care -- or need someone to care for them.
Their appearances in nursing homes, schools and the occasional living room are adding fuel to science fiction fantasies of machines that people can relate to as well as rely on. And they are adding a personal dimension to a debate over what human responsibilities machines should, and should not, be allowed to undertake.
Ms. Oldaker, a part-time administrative assistant, said she was glad Paro could keep her mother company when she could not. In the months before Mrs. Lesek died in March, the robot became a fixture in the room even during her daughter's own frequent visits.
“He likes to lie on my left arm here," Mrs. Lesek would tell her daughter. “He's learned some new words," she would report.
Ms. Oldaker readily took up the game, if that is what it was.
“Here, Mom, I'll take him," she would say, boosting Paro onto her own lap when her mother's food tray arrived.
Even when their ministrations extended beyond the robot's two-hour charge, Mrs. Lesek managed to derive a kind of maternal satisfaction from the seal's sudden stillness.
“I'm the only one who can put him to sleep," Mrs. Lesek would tell her daughter when the battery ran out.
“He was very therapeutic for her, and for me too," Ms. Oldaker said. “It was nice just to see her enjoying something."
[etc. -- 2 more pages]
======================================================================
From TechNews June 30/10:
A Marriage of Origami and Robotics
Harvard University Gazette (06/28/10) Rutter, Michael Patrick
Researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
have developed self-folding "smart" sheets based on origami techniques, a development
they say could ultimately lead to programmable matter that can perform multiple tasks.
The researchers demonstrated how a single thin sheet composed of interconnected tria
ngular sections could autonomously transform itself into a boat or plane shape. Using
a concept called programmable matter by folding, the researchers envision creating sm
art cups that could adjust based upon the amount of liquid needed, or a Swiss army kni
fe-type device that could form into various tools. The sheet, a thin composite of rig
id tiles and elastomer joints with elastic polymers, is studded with motorized switche
s and flexible electronics. "Smart sheets are origami robots that will make any shape
on demand for their user," says MIT professor Daniela Rus. "A big achievement was di
scovering the theoretical foundations and universality of folding and fold planning, w
hich provide the brain and the decision-making system for the smart sheet."
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/06/a-marriage-of-origami-and-robotics/
Genetic Inspiration Could Show the Way to Revolutionize Information Technology
University of Reading (06/28/10)
A synthetic form of DNA developed by University of Reading chemists has the potential
to revolutionize the way digital information is processed and stored. The researchers
designed and synthesized short sequences of a synthetic information-bearing polymer.
Information densities that are several million times greater than current systems cou
ld be possible with synthetic polymer systems. The synthetic form of DNA would depend
on tweezer-shaped molecules to pick out information along a polymer chain. Several t
weezer molecules would bind next to one another along the chain, and read and translat
e extended, long-range, polymer-sequence information. "This type of process is parall
eled in the processing of genetic information," says Reading professor Howard Colquhou
n. "In the future, we plan to develop methods for writing new information into the po
lymer chains with the long-term aim of developing wholly synthetic information technol
ogy, working at the molecular level."
http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/releases/PR286404.aspx
======================================================================
From TechNews June 25/10:
Computers Make Strides in Recognizing Speech
New York Times (06/24/10) Lohr, Steve; Markoff, John
Artificial intelligence's (AI's) progress in speech recognition has helped the technol
ogy achieve significant mainstream acceptance. For example, the number of American do
ctors using speech software to record and transcribe accounts of patient visits and tr
eatments has more than tripled in the past three years to 150,000. Although there are
concerns that advances in AI speech recognition will eliminate jobs in call centers a
nd other venues, there also are expectations that innovations will fuel new opportunit
ies for both individuals and entrepreneurial businesses. Numerous companies are inves
ting in services that hint at the notion of machines that can act on spoken commands.
There also have been great improvements in speech recognition systems in automobiles,
with Ford Motor expanding the number of speech commands its vehicles recognize from 1
00 words to 10,000 words and phrases. Brown University professor Andries van Dam says
that AI is "getting to be very good machine intelligence. There are going to be all
sorts of errors and problems, and you need human checks and balances, but having artif
icial intelligence is way better than not having it."
How a Computer Program Became Classical Music's Hot, New Composer
Christian Science Monitor (06/17/10) Rocheleau, Matt
University of California, Santa Cruz professor David Cope has developed Emily Howell,
a music-composing program that generates its own compositions by following musical rul
es that Cope has taught it. The program is only fed music composed by an earlier prog
ram of Cope's, Experiments in Musical Intelligence. Critics say that Emily's music, w
hile impressive, lacks the ability to trigger emotional reactions in listeners. A 200
8 University of Essex study determined that the human brain has a stronger emotional r
eaction to music played by humans than by machines, even when the listener does not kn
ow the source of a performance. Cope says that Emily and other programs capable of ar
tistic creation offer an opportunity for collaboration with human artists, rather than
replacing them. "Computers are there [for us] to extend ourselves through them," he
says. "It seems so utterly natural to me. It's not like I taught a rock to compose m
usic."
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2010/0617/How-a-computer-program-became-class
ical-music-s-hot-new-composer
======================================================================
From faculty-core-request@cs.rochester.edu Thu Jun 17 12:18:35 2010
From: George Ferguson
Subject: FYI: Magazine Preview - Smarter Than You Think - I.B.M.'s Supercomputer to Chal
lenge 'Jeopardy!' Champions - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Computer-t.html
"For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have been developing what they expect will
be the world's most advanced “question answering" machine, able to understand a question
posed in everyday human elocution -- “natural language," as computer scientists call it
-- and respond with a precise, factual answer. In other words, it must do more than what
search engines like Google and Bing do, which is merely point to a document where you mi
ght find the answer. It has to pluck out the correct answer itself. Technologists have l
ong regarded this sort of artificial intelligence as a holy grail, because it would allo
w machines to converse more naturally with people, letting us ask questions instead of t
yping keywords. Software firms and university scientists have produced question-answerin
g systems for years, but these have mostly been limited to simply phrased questions. Nob
ody ever tackled “Jeopardy!" because experts assumed that even for the latest artificial
intelligence, the game was simply too hard: the clues are too puzzling and allusive, an
d the breadth of trivia is too wide."
G.
[Hallelujah -- the holy grail at last. They don't mention though that
the target to be retrieved is usually just a single nominal, preceded
by that stupid "What is" or "Who is".]
What Is IBM's Watson?
New York Times Magazine (06/14/10) Thompson, Clive
IBM artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have labored for the last three years to cr
eate a machine that can understand questions in natural language and respond quickly wit
h precise, factual answers. The result is the Watson supercomputer, which has been pitt
ed against human players in Jeopardy tournaments. Watson is the product of IBM's grand
challenge to meet the real-world necessity of precise question-answering, and key to its
development was the shift in AI research toward statistical computation of vast corpora
of documents. This shift was facilitated by the decreasing cost of computing power, an
explosion of online text generation, and the development of linguistic tools that helpe
d machines puzzle through language. Watson was fed millions of documents, and the syste
m can tackle a Jeopardy clue thousands of times concurrently using more than 100 algorit
hms simultaneously. However, creative wordplay can sometimes trip Watson up. On the ot
her hand, its lack of emotion and stress is an advantage over human players. IBM's Davi
d Ferrucci believes Watson may be modeling certain ways that the human brain processes l
anguage. IBM's John Kelly thinks that Watson's question-answering capabilities could ai
d greatly in rapid decision-making.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Computer-t.html?ref=magazine
& r
To: ferguson@cs.rochester.edu
Subject: Re: FYI: Magazine Preview - Smarter Than You Think - I.B.M.'s
Supercomputer to Challenge 'Jeopardy!' Champions - NYTimes.com
George Ferguson wrote:
> Yes interesting comment. Furthermore, do you think there's anything to
> the notion that finding the question corresponding to a (previously
> known) answer is quite different from finding the answer to a question
> that hasn't previously been answered? That is, what about a jeopardy
> question whose answer was "what is a proof of the Reimann conjecture?"
> ;-) It seems to me that this is part of the difference between
> information retrieval and AI.
I'm not quite sure I'm understanding you, but I certainly think that
answers that have to be worked out, rather than looked up, are
a more interesting subject for AI. Simple examples might be
"Is the Earth flat?", "Can you put out a fire with gasoline?",
or "What did Congress do to avert the collapse of the big banks?"
(which probably isn't answered directly in that form anywhere).
And note that the Jeopardy format rules out such questions --
you can't demand the question corresponding to "No", or
corresponding to "Congress gave billions of dollars to the
big banks".
-Len
======================================================================
From TechNews June 10/10:
Immortal Avatars: Back Up Your Brain, Never Die
New Scientist (06/07/10) Geddes, Linda
Companies such as Lifenaut are taking the initial steps toward the creation of a digital
avatar into which one's knowledge and personality can be uploaded, and that survives it
s human template's death. There are various projects underway to make representations o
f the human face that are lifelike as well as empathetic in order to aid interaction wit
h digital avatars. Another challenge is imbuing the avatar with human-like conversation
al abilities, and Lifenaut is customizing chatbot software for individuals. The Lifenau
t avatar converses using capabilities derived from the Jabberwacky chatbot, which seeks
common patterns in conversations and uses this to guarantee that its dialogue makes the
most possible sense in the context of what has just been said to it. Uploading a person
ality into the Lifenaut avatar is arduous, starting with the rating of nearly 500 statem
ents according to how accurately they reflect the individual's feelings, followed by the
construction of "memories" for the avatar by uploading diary entries, photos, videos, a
nd other material. The subject also must spend hours in conversation with other avatars
, to be mined by his or her avatar as a source of knowledge and mannerisms.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627631.100-immortal-avatars-back-up-your-brain-n
ever-die.html
======================================================================
From TechNews, May 28/10:
Social Supercomputing Is Now
ETH Zurich (05/28/10)
ETH Zurich scientists working on the FuturIcT project plan to use
the world's largest supercomputers to simulate life on Earth, including
the financial system, economies, and societies. The ETH researchers,
working under the Competence Center for Coping with Crises in Complex
Socio-Economic Systems, are analyzing huge amounts of financial data
to detect dangerous bubbles in stock and housing markets, potential
bankruptcy cascades in networks of companies, or similar vulnerabilities
in other complex networks such as communication networks or the Internet.
The FutureIcT project aims to bring different kinds of research together
to simulate the entire globe, including the diverse interactions of
social systems and of the economy with the environment. The FutureIcT
project also aims to analyze data on social, economic, and environmental
processes by augmenting the results of field studies and laboratory
experiments. "Such observatories would detect advance warning signs
of many different kinds of emerging problems, including large-scale
congestion, financial instabilities, the spreading of diseases,
environmental change, resource shortages, and social conflicts,"
says ETH's Dirk Helbing.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=76919&CultureCode=en
======================================================================
From TechNews, May 14/10:
INDUSTRY NEWS
They Walk. They Work. New DNA Robots Strut Their Tiny Stuff.
Wall Street Journal (05/13/10) Hotz, Robert Lee
Two independent research teams have generated an atomic-scale assembly
line where robots fashioned from DNA molecules can ambulate, follow
instructions, and cooperate to fabricate rudimentary products. Both
research groups focused on mobile DNA walkers with legs composed of
a string of genetic enzymes, and each appendage moves forward according
to its chemical attraction to sequences of biochemicals deposited
before it. In one project, researchers led by Columbia University
biochemist Milan Stojanovic built a molecular machine that moved on
its own along a track of chemical instructions. Meanwhile, New York
Unive rsity researchers led by chemist Nadrian Seeman integrated a
programmable DNA track and a group of mobile robotic walkers with
a series of independently controlled molecular fork lifts that can
transport parts on command, in effect creating a working nano-factory.
The robots could be programmed to put together up to eight different
shapes through the trigger of different DNA sequences.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704247904575240380352719428.html
NASA Looking to Six-Legged Robot to Build Human Outpost on Mars
Computerworld (05/12/10) Gaudin, Sharon
NASA is developing a six-legged robot that can walk or roll on wheels,
and ultimately aims to help set up a habitat on Mars for future
astronauts. The robot, called Athlete, has been a work in progress
for the past five years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says
NASA's Brian Wilcox. The robot is designed to move easily across
the various types of terrain on the moon, on Mars, or even on an
asteroid. The hexagonal machine stands about 10 feet off the ground
when its legs are fully extended. It can step over a 10-foot wall
and is designed to carry payloads of more than 14.5 tons on Mars.
"Athlete is being designed for the moon or Mars--really any
terrestrial body that has moderate gravity," says Wilcox. NASA
expects Athlete to be ready for a robotic mission to Mars by 2015.
Two or three pairs of Athlete robots should be working on Mars
before astronauts arrive there, says Wilcox. Athlete also is
designed to work alongside the 300-pound Robonaut robot that is
scheduled to be carried to the International Space Station aboard
the NASA space shuttle Discovery in September.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176655/NASA_looking_to_six_legged_robot_to_build_human_outpost_on_Mars
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TechNews, Apr 30/10:
One Billion Euros to Unleash the Power of Information
ETH Zurich (04/27/10) Schmid, Franziska
A diverse group of European scientists are planning the FuturIcT knowledge
accelerator, an effort to build a more powerful and accurate science of
human systems. The project aims to assemble expertise in all areas of
science to develop supercomputing facilities on which future policies
can be based. The project will be "one of the most profound scientific
initiatives of the 21st century," says European Complex Systems Society
president Jeffery Johnson. The recent global economic crises has led
scientists to call for a large-scale research initiative on socio-economic
and environmental issues to study the way the planet works while including
the human component. "The need is clearly intense in the social and
economic sphere, if we want to successfully avoid or mitigate similar
crises in the future," says ETH Zurich's Dick Helbing. He says the
project aims to capitalize on new scientific advances that should make
it possible to understand human systems more precisely and on a larger
scale. One of the goals is to develop a Living Earth simulator, an
experimental system that would be able to simulate global-scale systems
involving the interactions of up to 10 billion agents.
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/information_technology/1_billion_eur_unleash_power_information_a_153544.html
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TechNews, Apr 23/10:
Brains, Worms, and Computer Chips Have Striking Similarities
University of California, Santa Barbara (04/22/10) Foulsham, George; Gallessich, Gail
The human brain, computer chips, and the nervous system of a worm share
many similarities, according to a new report from an international team
of researchers. "Brains are often compared to computers, but apart from
the trivial fact that both process information using a complex pattern
of connections in a physical space, it has been unclear whether this is
more than just a metaphor," says University of California, Santa Barbara's
Danielle Bassett. The researchers uncovered novel principles that
underlie the network organizations of the human brain, computer circuits,
and a worm's nervous system. All three share two basic properties--
a Russian doll-like architecture, with the same patterns repeating over
and over again at different scales, and a principle known as Rent's
scaling, a rule used to describe the relationship between the number of
elements in a given area and the number of links between them. Given
the similar constraints of brains and chips, it appears that both
evolution and technological innovation have arrived at the same
solutions to optimal mapping patterns, Bassett says.
http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=2230
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From events@bcs.rochester.edu Wed Apr 21 12:00:02 2010
Subject: Kevin Dieter talk on 4/28/2010 12:00 PM
Brain & Cognitive Sciences Event Notification
WHO: Kevin Dieter BCS Graduate Student- Advisor: Duje Tadin
TOPIC: Visual Perception of Motion Produced Solely by Kinesthesia
ABSTRACT:
Visual Perception of Motion Produced Solely by Kinesthesia
Abstract: Given the consistent pairing of kinesthetic and visual percepts
in everyday life, is it possible that experiencing only one of the paired
sensations could give rise to the other? We tested the possibility that
kinesthesis might be sufficient to yield a true visual percept by having
blindfolded subjects wave their own hand in front of their face. Results
showed that subjects experienced a visual sensation when waving their
own hand, but not when the experimenter's hand was waved in front of
the blindfold in the same way. In addition, synesthetes, who are proposed
to have greater sensory interconnectivity, experienced stronger and
qualitatively more detailed visual percepts. Given these ratings, it
seems that self-generated movements are sufficient to yield visual percepts.
======================================================================
TechNews, Apr 19/10:
NASA: Humanoid Robot Slated to Live on Space Station
Computerworld (04/14/10) Gaudin, Sharon
A humanoid robot is set to become a permanent member of the International
Space Station in September. The NASA space shuttle Discovery will transport
Robonaut 2 (R2) to the orbiting station. R2 will be the first humanoid
robot to stay at the space station, and officials hope to learn more about
how humans and robots can work together for future missions. "The use of
R2 on the space station is just the beginning of a quickening pace between
human and robotic exploration of space," says NASA's John Olson. "The
partnership of humans and robots will be critical to opening up the solar
system and will allow us to go farther and achieve more than we can probably
even imagine today. "R2 has a helmeted head, a torso, two arms and two
hands, and wheels for locomotion. The design of R2's hands will enable it
to handle tools aboard the space station. R2 initially will be limited to
a small space inside the space station, but could be adapted to provide
assistance throughout the station as well as outside during spacewalks.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9175481/NASA_Humanoid_robot_slated_to_live_on_space_station
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TechNews, Apr 9/10:
Picking Our Brains: Can We Make a Conscious Machine?
New Scientist (04/06/10) Biever, Celeste
The effort to create artificial consciousness is gaining momentum. "We
have to consider machine consciousness as a grand challenge, like putting a man on the moon," says the University of Palermo's Antonio Chella, editor of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness, which launched last year. The closest a software bot has come to attaining artificial consciousness may be the Intelligent Distribution Agent (IDA),
which was created by the University of Memphis' Stan Franklin. IDA assigns sailors from the U.S. Navy to new jobs and must coordinate naval policies, job requirements, changing costs, and sailor's needs. IDA has both conscious and unconscious levels of processing. The updated Learning IDA was recently completed, and it can learn from past experiences as well as feel emotions in the form of high-level goals that guide the decision-making process. The University of Vermont's Josh Bongard has designed a walking robot that can maintain its function after being damaged. The robot has a continuously updated internal model of itself, which is considered a key part of human
sentience and takes the robot closer to self-awareness. Meanwhile,
the Carlos III University of Madrid's Raul Arrabales recently developed
Conscale, a program that compares the intelligence of various software
agents.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627542.000-picking-our-brains-can-we-make-a-conscious-machine.html
======================================================================
Walking, Talking Living Doll: Japanese Scientists Unveil Female Android
Daily Mail (UK) (04/04/10) Shaw, Anny
Japanese scientists worked with robot manufacturer Kokoro to develop
a female android that can mimic a person's facial expression.
Geminoid TMF, which uses a motion-capture system and has a rubber
face, can imitate a smile, a toothy grin, and a grim look with
furrowed eyebrows. Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro
believes the robot, which is modeled after a young Japanese woman,
could be used in hospitals and other real-life situations.
Geminoid TMF has 12 actuators that are powered by air pressure,
and the android's motion can be synched to imitate those expressed
by a human being. Ishiguro, who has developed several human-looking
robots, says people tend to realize an android is not human within
five to 10 seconds. However, he believes scientists will one day
develop robots that are able to fool people into believing they
are human.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1263267/Walking-talking-living-doll-Japanese-scientists-unveil-female-android.html
video at
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/remotely-operated-geminoid-f-bot-realistically-mimics-facial-expressions-speech
======================================================================
Bionic Vision Unveils Advanced Prototype Electronic Eyeball
DailyTech (03/31/10) Mick, Jason
University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Bionic Vision Australia (BVA)
researchers recently unveiled an advanced prototype of an electronic
eyeball that could be used by people with impaired vision. The
prototype consists of a glasses-mounted video camera, a pocket-mounted
processor, and a wireless electrode chip mounted inside the eyeball.
The electrode chip contains electrodes that stimulate cells on the
optical nerve. The researchers say the prototype allows for crude
shape recognition that, when combined with an advanced image recognition
and logical planning processor, should enable a person with vision
impairments to navigate many settings without a cane or seeing-eye dog.
Currently, the researchers are developing a second generation prototype,
which would give patients roughly 20/80 vision, allowing for face
recognition and much better object detail.
http://www.dailytech.com/Bionic+Vision+Unveils+Advanced+Prototype+Electronic+Eyeball/article18021.htm
======================================================================
From TechNews Mar 15/10:
Safety Issues Loom as Humanoid Invasion Approaches
New Scientist (03/10/10) Marks, Paul
As robot technology advances, and their use puts them in closer contact
with humans, safety has become a top priority for some researchers.
"Safe interaction needs a lot more than speech and language processing
on the part of the robot," says Bristol Robotics Laboratory's Chris
Melhuish. Bristol researchers are developing facial interaction
technology that will make it clearer what a human can expect from
a robot. Meanwhile, the pan-European iCub open source humanoid robot
project, led by the Italian Institute of Technology's (ITT's) Giorgio
Metta, is developing robot skin that can measure contact pressure.
The most dangerous part of a humanoid robot is the legs, says ITT
engineer Darwin Caldwell, who is working to make robot legs with less
impact energy by using joints with lightweight brushless motor drives,
contact sensors, and spring-loaded limbs. "By introducing compliance
we could have robots that interact safely for humans and ensure robots
don't break themselves," Caldwell says.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18631-safety-issues-loom-as-humanoid-invasion-approaches.html
======================================================================
From TechNews Mar 10/10:
Could This Be The Robot Servant Who Will Serve You Breakfast In Bed?
London Daily Mail (03/08/10) Bates, Claire
Tokyo University researchers have created Kojiro, a humanoid robot that
is learning to mimic how people walk. Kojiro has a skeletal structure
similar to that of humans, which allows it to move in a more natural way,
as it can bend and twist by bending and twisting using its artificial
spine. The spine's design will enable scientists to develop lighter
and more flexible robots in the future, says Tokyo professor and Kojiro
researcher Yuto Nakanishi. Kojiro uses lightweight motors to pull
cables attached to specific locations on the body, which simulates
how muscles and tendons contract and relax when people move. Kojiro
has 60 degrees of free movement using a system of about 100 cable-tendons.
Sensors are used to keep track of Kojiro's various positions, and
an accelerometer and two gyroscopes help the robot maintain balance.
The researchers say more work is needed on the algorithms that control
the robot's movements to enable it to handle complex actions.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1256276/Robot-kojiro-Could-mechanised-servant-serve-breakfast-bed.html
[Checking further, specifically at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1256276/Robot-kojiro-Could-mechanised-servant-serve-breakfast-bed.html,
I don't think this robot will be serving breakfast anytime soon.
It's a complicated-enough humanoid machine, but so far it is held upright
by cables attached to the ceiling, and the upper body can be made to
teeter slightly (and rather erratically) on an apparent spinal joint.
That seems to be the extent of its current capabilities.]
======================================================================
Japan Baby-Robot Teaches Parenting Skills
Agence France Presse (03/10/10) de Freytas-Tamura, Kimiko
Tsukuba University engineering students have developed Yotaro, a baby
humanoid robot designed to teach young people about parenting. Yotaro's
face is made out of soft translucent silicon and is backlit by a projector
connected to a computer to simulate sneezing, sleeping, and smiling,
while a speaker emits sounds such as giggling or crying. Sensors detect
physical contact and can change the robot's mood based on the frequency
of the touches. Yotaro also simulates a runny nose with a water pump
that releases body-temperature droplets of water through the nostrils.
Meanwhile, the University of Osaka recently unveiled a robot that mimics
a crawling baby as part of a research project to study the way humans
learn to move and speak. The Osaka robot has 22 motors and 90 tactile
sensors and microphones located near the eyes and ears. When told to
move forward, the baby-bot will wave its legs and arms, gradually
learning which movements will enable it to push itself up and crawl,
says Osaka professor Minoru Asada.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/japan-babyrobot-teaches-parenting-skills-20100310-pz66.html
[Checking further, I find that the "robot" is a balloon-like round
face, permanently mounted in a "baby crib", with facial features
not built-in but rather projected from a projector underneath the
crib onto the "face". There is no body. Stroking the face will cause
the projector to the "baby" blinking, smiling, or whatever...]
======================================================================
From TechNews, Mar 3/10:
The Grill: Tom Mitchell
Computerworld (02/22/10) Mitchell, Robert L.
Tom Mitchell, head of Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning
Department, says that advances in machine learning could bring about
a transformation in psychology and neuroscience. Mitchell says that
his group has trained an algorithm to study functional magnetic
resonance imaging scans of a person's brain activity and determine
what object they are thinking about. "We can look inside your brain
when you see the color red, and we can look inside my brain when I
see the color red, and we can ask, 'Is it or is it not the same pattern
of neural activity?' " he notes. Mitchell speculates that people
could conceivably be networked to exchange information so that one
person can tell what the other is thinking. He observes that a number
of researchers are developing brain-computer interfaces that can
enable the decoding of a person's thoughts. This could be particularly
useful for "locked in" patients who are speech- and mobility-disabled.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/346917/The_Grill_Tom_Mitchell?taxonomyId=11http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/346917/The_Grill_Tom_Mitchell?taxonomyId=11
======================================================================
From TechNews, Feb 12/10:
IBM's Jeopardy-Playing Machine Can Now Beat Human Contestants
Network World (02/10/10) Brodkin, Jon
IBM's Watson supercomputer can regularly best human contestants
in the game Jeopardy, and within a year it will face a Jeopardy
public challenge. Among the challenges the machine faces is
understanding natural language, ascertaining answers to questions,
and calculating the chances that its answer is correct in order
to decide whether it should buzz it in-- all without an Internet
connection. Understanding a question is challenging to a computer,
as words often have multiple meanings and can have different
relationships with each other, and must be interpreted in the
appropriate context. The computer then has to search within its
own knowledge base to find an answer. Watson may be reasonably
confident it knows the answer to a question, but will factor in
the score of the game and the dollar value of the question before
choosing whether it is worth the risk. In addition, the supercomputer
requires a category selection strategy and a wagering strategy
for Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy. IBM researcher David
Ferrucci says the research underlying the Jeopardy challenge
could help address more critical issues, such as sifting through
large volumes of data and determining the accuracy of a conclusion.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/021010-ibm-jeopardy-game.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_am_2010-02-11
======================================================================
From TechNews Feb 8/10:
Research Reveals How Brain Arranges Nouns
The Tartan (02/08/10) Buch, Abhay
Insights into how human brains categorize objects--and their potential
for human-computer interfaces as well as neuropsychiatry--have been
drawn by members of Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU's) Center for
Cognitive Brain Imaging using functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) technology. Research from CMU neuroscientists Marcel Just and
Vladimir Cherkassky and computer scientists Tom Mitchell and Sandesh
Aryal signals that people represent all non-human objects in terms of
three dimensions, defined by Just as relating to eating, shelter, and
the way the object is employed. With fMRI, the scientists discovered
that objects belonging to a specific dimension induced activity in a
specific region of the brain. The researchers also learned that they
could anticipate which parts of the brain would be triggered by new
words and that they could determine how many objects were being thought
about. Just says that scientists can "identify the quantity a person
is thinking about, as long as [they] instantiate it as an object." He
says the research clears a path for further enhancements in direct
communications between the human brain and computers. Additional
augmentations to the technology could enable people to communicate
with computers by thought.
http://thetartan.org/2010/2/8/scitech/brainnoun
======================================================================
Can battlefield robots take the place of soldiers?
(Also "vegetarian robots") By Chris Bowlby
Robo Wars, BBC Radio 4
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8495946.stm
======================================================================
From TechNews Feb 5/10:
Robots Display Predatory-Prey Co-Evolution, Evolve Better Homing Techniques
Popular Science (01/28/10) Fox, Stuart
Researchers at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole
Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne are studying evolution in robots.
The robots' operating systems started with a set of basic instructions
and some random variations that changed every generation in virtual
mutations. After each trial, the code for the most successful
robots got passed on to the next generation, while code for the
less successful robots was bred out. The researchers designed
hunter robots that pursue prey-bots, maze-running bots, and robots
designed to deposit a token in a given area. The predator robots
were initially programmed with better eyesight, while the prey-bots
had more speed. Over 125 generations, the hunter robots learned
to approach the prey from blind spots and to hide against walls,
while the prey-bots learned to stay away from walls and retreat
with its sensors facing the hunter robots. The maze-running bots
learned to navigate the maze without any mistakes in less than
100 generations. The token-depositing robots received points for
placing tokens in a marked area, with more points resulting in more
offspring. The robots evolved to help each other, especially those
robots from the same code lineage.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/robots-display-predator-prey-co-evolution-evolve-better-homing-techniques
Insectlike 'Microids' Might Walk, Run, Work, in Colonies
Purdue University News (01/26/10) Venere, Emil
Purdue University researchers have developed microids, miniature,
insect-like robots that feature tiny legs and mandibles built using
solid-state muscles. Computer simulations indicate that microids
will have much better dexterity than previous microscale robots.
The microids might be able to "scavenge vibrational energy" from
the environment to recharge their power supply, says Purdue
professor Jason Clark. "Because the microids are solid state without
any discrete parts such as gears that wear due to frictional contact,
they will likely be long-lasting and robust," Clark says.
The solid-state muscles also will enable the robot to easily move
through harsh environments such as sand or water. The mini-robots
could be mass produced using established techniques in the
semiconductor industry. The microids are designed to move like
most insects, using a tripod gait in which only three of the six
legs are on the ground at a time.
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2010/100126ClarkMicroids.html
======================================================================
From TechNews Jan 22/10:
S. Korean Scientists Develop Walking Robot Maid
Agence France Presse (01/18/10)
South Korean scientists say their new walking robot maid
performs more advanced human-like movements than any other
robot. Designed to perform household chores, Mahru-Z resembles
a human in that the robot's body includes a rotating head,
arms, legs, and six fingers. Mahru-Z is 4.3 feet tall,
weighs 121 pounds, and has three-dimensional vision. "It
recognizes people, can turn on microwave ovens, washing
machines, and toasters, and also pick up sandwiches, cups,
and whatever else it senses as objects," says You Bum-Jae,
head of the cognitive robot center at the Korea Institute
of Science and Technology. "The most distinctive strength
of Mahru-Z is its visual ability to observe objects, recognize
the tasks needed to be completed, and execute them." Mahru-Z
can be controlled remotely through a computer server and
can be used in conditions that might be harmful for humans.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZc5I7vDyCCqA88HvSU0A8DUEk4A
[It is slow-moving, and tethered to a power line; I find
it less impressive than the (discontinued) Asimo, but it
does some tricky things (like toast-insertion).]
YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_-PxqtrwK8
======================================================================
From TechNews, Jan 13/10:
Aussie Quantum Experiment Challenges Einstein, Computer Science
Computerworld Australia (01/12/10) Pauli, Darren
University of Queensland (UQ) and Harvard University researchers
have completed an experiment that could have massive ramifications
for science through the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry
to predict molecular reactions. Project co-author and UQ professor
Andrew White says the existence of quantum computing implies that
either quantum mechanics is incorrect or computer science's underlying
Church Turing Thesis is faulty. "What we have done is a 2 qubit
[quantum bit], toy experiment--it won't put anyone out of a job
anytime soon ... but if we scale to tens and then hundreds of qubits,
that's when we will exceed the computational capacity of the planet
... that will happen [within] 50 years," White says. The experiment
ran an algorithm called the iterative phase estimation to quantify
the exact energy of molecular hydrogen against a predicted model.
White calls the results, which were accurate inside of six parts
in 1 million, "astounding." Data was calculated to 20 bits, and
in some cases as many as 47 bits, and experiments were redone 30
times for classical error correction. White theorizes that the
experiment's results could be utilized to forecast the outcome of
chemical reactions without the innate randomness missing from
controlled computer simulations.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/332165/aussie_quantum_experiment_challenges_einstein_computer_science/
======================================================================
From TechNews, Jan 5/10:
The Real Frankenstein Experiment: One Man's Mission to Create a Living
Mind Inside a Machine, Daily Mail (UK) (01/04/10) Hanlon, Michael
Professor Henry Markram has announced that his team will develop the world's
first artificial conscious and intelligent mind within a decade through his
Blue Brain project. The effort seeks to construct a computerized copy of
a human brain within one of the most powerful computers in the world.
It is hoped that this mind will achieve self-awareness and become capable
of thinking, reasoning, expressing will, and possibly emotional experience.
The hub of Markram's experiment is his lab at the Ecole Polytechnique's
Brain Mind Institute, and project investors include the Swiss government,
IBM, and the European Union. Rather than trying to mimic what a brain
does, Markram's strategy is to model the brain's biology from the bottom
up by dissecting the mind at the cellular level, analyzing the billions
of links between brain cells, and then mapping out these connections
into a supercomputer. Markram is convinced that consciousness is a
process that emerges once a sufficient level of organized complexity is
reached, and the hope is that a digital model of an actual brain will
begin to exhibit brain-like behavior. Markram is currently building
a software model of a rat's neocortical column in IBM's Blue Gene
supercomputer, and the professor speculates that a vastly more efficient,
custom-built machine is needed to successfully model a human brain--a
milestone that should be achieved before the end of the current decade
thanks to exponentially increasing computer power. Markram has decided
to keep some of the Blue Brain project's computer coding secret in order
to prevent intelligent machines from being used for malevolent purposes,
such as creating futuristic weapons.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1240410/The-real-Frankenstein-experiment-One-mans-mission-create-living-mind-inside-machine.html
Japan's Robot Revolution Moves From Factory to the Home
Christian Science Monitor (12/31/09) Vol. 102, No. 6, P. 22; Kambayashi, Takehiko
Japan is undergoing a revolution in robot technology as increasingly
intelligent robotic s make the transition from labs and factories to
the outside world and everyday consumer applications. Already in use
in Japan are robots that pour drinks, play pool, dance, function as
elderly caregivers, clean, serve food, and provide companionship.
"We see robots as media just like a mobile phone," says Norihiro Hagita
with Kyoto's ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories.
"And just like a mobile phone, robots would be indispensable in future."
A primary factor fueling Japanese robot development is the country's
shrinking workforce, especially in areas such as medical care. To fill
this void, Toyo Riki of Osaka has developed several machines--one to
greet visitors at hospital entrances and another to help patients with
physical rehabilitation. Toyo Riki president Narito Hosomi says young
people's unwillingness to learn craftsmen's skills is one reason why
advanced robots are needed. In some cases, robots are being developed
to handle dirty or dangerous jobs, such as firefighting or planting seeds
in rice paddies. Meanwhile, other robots are being designed to perform
repetitive tasks in homes or at restaurants. Carnegie Mellon University's
Curt Stone notes that Japan is "doing a great job on manipulation and
hardware--the ability to make robots do what you want to do."
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2009/1231/Japan-s-robot-revolution-moves-from-factory-to-the-home
The Year in Robotics
Technology Review (12/29/09) Grifantini, Kristina
In 2009, researchers developed new robots that can perform a variety
of tasks, including medical rehabilitation, military operations, and
mimicking social skills. Many researchers think giving robots social
skills will help them assist people in homes, schools, and hospitals.
A Carnegie Mellon University group created a robot that knows when to
speak based on eye contact, while University of California researchers
built a machine-learning program that allows a robotic head to develop
more accurate facial expressions. A group of Swiss inventors created
generations of robots that evolved to deceive each other when exposed
to limited resources. University of Calgary researchers modified a Roomba
to move away from a user when it detects high stress levels. Many robots
were developed to help improve rehabilitation by monitoring and adjusting
a patient's movement. This year also saw great development in robotic
grasping technology. Columbia University researchers were able to make
more efficient robotic hands by limiting their dexterity to be similar
to that of a human hand. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency developed the Chembot, which can squeeze under doors and other
small openings. http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24231/
======================================================================
From TechNews Dec 30/09:
Exponentials R Us: Seven Computer Science Game-Changers From the 2000's,
and Seven More to Come
Xconomy (12/24/09) Lazowska, Ed
In an article for Xconomy, University of Washington professor Ed Lazowska
identifies seven game-changing computer science advancements that emerged
over the past decade and speculates on seven others to come in the years
ahead. The technologies that came to the fore in the first decade of the
21st century--search, digital media, e-commerce, cloud computing, etc.--
are marked by exponential growth. Ubiquitous high-bandwidth connectivity
to all of the world's digital data, to name one example, has accelerated
the momentum of mobility and the increasingly central role of the mobile
phone, Lazowska says. Cloud computing, meanwhile, facilitates universal
access to and sharing of data, making private data centers less and less
desirable. Among the technologies that Lazowska envisions coming into
their own in the next decade are smart homes equipped with cheap sensors
and machine learning that will, among other things, make the homeowner's
electricity bill instantly accessible. Lazowska also anticipates the
eventual ubiquity of instrumentation within the human body so that medical
diagnoses can be performed with all the convenience, speed, and efficiency
of an automotive checkup. INTELLIGENT ROBOTS ALSO ARE EXPECTED TO BECOME
MAINSTREAM IN THE NEXT DECADE AS THEY MIGRATE FROM STRUCTURED TO UNSTRUCTURED
ENVIRONMENTS [my caps]. Lazowska projects a flood of data supported by the
mass rollout of cheap high-bandwidth sensors that make data collection by all
kinds of devices and venues easy and affordable, and this will set up the
challenge of developing automated tools that can extract meaning from this
vast corpus of information.
http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/12/24/exponentials-r-us-seven-computer-science-game-changers-from-the-2000%e2%80%99s-and-seven-more-to-come/
AI Aims to Solve In-Game Chatter
BBC News (12/26/09) Vallance, Chris
Several researchers are developing ways to make video game characters more
realistic in the ways in which they interact with users. For example, 221b,
a game based on the new Sherlock Holmes movie, requires players to have
real conversations with characters in the game. Users must question
virtual witnesses to obtain information. "It's our role to predict what
you might know at that point in the game and the questions you might ask,"
says Existor's Rollo Carpenter, who developed the technology used in 221b.
"The ways that you might say things to them are almost unlimited." Instead
of using a limited list of possible answers, the in-game characters can make
a "fuzzy interpretation" of what is said to them and the program uses
pattern matching to find an appropriate answer. Other games such as Rockstar
Games' Facade, which has completely interactive characters, uses a background
drama manager to keep the story going, says Rockstar's Alex Champandard.
Meanwhile, the University of Wales' Mike Reddy applauds the techniques
used in the Nintendo DS puzzle game Scibblenauts. The game uses semantic
implementation to enable users to force different objects or people to
interact. The game provides more than 22,000 words and can implement all
possible interactions, according to Reddy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8426523.stm
======================================================================
Climate Wizard
The Engineer (United Kingdom) (12/17/09)
Researchers at the University of Washington (UW), the Nature Conservancy,
and the University of Southern Mississippi have developed the Climate Wizard,
a Web-based tool designed to help scientists and non-scientists understand
climate change data. Climate Wizard enables users to test different
climate change scenarios based on information from 16 climate-change
models to create color-coded maps of states, countries, or regions that
can be used to illustrate the effects of changes in temperature and
precipitation. For instance, users can see how low, medium, or high
levels of greenhouse gas emissions might affect the climate in the mid
part of the century or the end of the century. Users also can take
data from some or all of the 16 individual climate models to create
an ensemble map. Such maps can provide a better range of future climate
change than single models can, says UW's Evan Girvetz.
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/climate-wizard/1000419.article
======================================================================
From TechNews Dec 9/09:
Rethinking Artificial Intelligence
MIT News (12/07/09) Chandler, David L.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is embarking on the
Mind Machine Project (MMP), an initiative led by artificial intelligence
(AI) pioneers to create new breakthroughs by rethinking fundamental AI
assumptions. "Essentially, we want to rewind to 30 years ago and
revisit some ideas that had gotten frozen" while fixing basic mistakes
made over the years, says MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld. He says the
MMP aims to specifically address the three biggest quagmires in AI
research--the modeling of thought, the reliable simulation of memory,
and bridging the gap between computer science and physical science.
Tackling the first challenge entails establishing what Gershenfeld
calls "an ecology of models" so that problem-solving can be facilitated
in multiple ways. Addressing the memory issue involves teaching
computers to learn to reason while incorporating rather than excluding
inconsistency and ambiguity. The third AI research area requires a
new programming approach called reconfigurable asynchronous logic
automata, whose goal is to "re-implement all of computer science on
a base that looks like physics," representing computations "in a way
that has physical units of time and space, so the description of the
system aligns with the system it represents," Gershenfeld says.
One of the projects the MMP group is developing is a brain co-processor,
an assistive system designed to help people with cognitive disorders
by monitoring a person's activities and brain functions, determining
when he or she requires help, and supplying precisely the right piece
of information at the right time.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/ai-overview.html
Eureqa, the Robot Scientist
PhysOrg.com (12/07/09) Edwards, Lin
Eureqa is a free program developed at Cornell University's Computational
Synthesis Lab that takes raw data and derives mathematical laws in a
matter of hours. Cornell researchers developed Eureqa as a successor
to a series of robots that can repair themselves. The same algorithms
used in earlier robots have been adapted for the analysis of any kind
of data that can be presented in a spreadsheet. The algorithms may
help scientists find complex equations and laws. Cornell's Hod Lipson,
one of the program's developers, thinks Eureqa can have a major impact
in many biological fields involving interactions between proteins,
genomes, and cell signals, which are extremely complicated and, thus
far, nearly impossible to explain mathematically. Vanderbilt
University's John Wikswo uses Eureqa to study the effect of cocaine
on white blood cells. The program derives both mathematical equations
and the experiments needed to come up with the equations. However,
Eureqa has not been perfected yet. The program has a tendency to
return correct equations, but with variables that cannot be understood.
The University of Texas Southwestern's Gurol Suel encountered this
problem in his data on cell division and growth. Suel does not
understand the equations Eureqa produces, but says the results are
still useful and can be used as the foundation for further studies.
Eureqa's developers are working on devising an algorithm to help
explain equations the program finds.
http://www.physorg.com/news179394947.html
======================================================================
From TechNews Dec 8/09:
Are We Invited to the Nanotechnology Party?
Computing (12/03/09) Oxley, Alan
Computers scientists are poised to play a key role in the development
of nanotechnology, writes British Computer Society member professor
Alan Oxley. Computer scientists can offer the simulations, computer
graphics, and other services needed to create passive nanostructures,
then nanostructures that perform primitive functions, and then
programmable miniscule machines, also called nanites. Moreover,
computer scientists can lay the theoretical groundwork for miniscule
machines that are capable of creating other nanites that work
collaboratively toward a common goal. The building of such miniscule
machines is predicted to begin around 2020, and computer science
will need to continue to mature to make this a reality. Software
agents, networking, and algorithms modeled on collaborative animal
behavior will be helpful for programming and controlling the armies
of miniscule machines with simple rules. Also, genetic algorithms
will be helpful for addressing problems over successive generations.
However, computer scientists will have to look at the issue in
reverse to deal with nanites that have mutated.
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/comment/2254225/invited-nanotechnology-party
======================================================================
From TechNews Dec 2/09:
EU Says Supercomputing Key to Predicting Future Recessions
eWeek Europe (11/30/09) Donoghue, Andrew
The European Union (EU) has announced the finalization of the EURACE
project, which used supercomputing technology to develop advanced
financial models designed to help predict a nd prevent future
financial disasters. The three-year EURACE project is based on
agent technology known as Flexible Large-scale Agent Modeling
Environment (FLAME). The EU says the software stimulates the
interactions between different economic actors, such as households
and companies, banks and borrowers, and employers and job seekers.
"The results of this research project will complement traditional
economic statistics and assumptions about how economic actors
react by enabling better testing of a policy's effects on people,
while still on the drawing board," says EU commissioner Viviane
Reding. The EU believes that an agent-based approach to financial
modeling could create realistic simulations that would be more
useful for preventing future recessions. "Agent based modeling
is one of the emergent branches of [artificial intelligence]
which best demonstrates complex, social behavior of different
communities living together in real-world scenarios," according
to the EU. "The ideology allows agents, representing individuals
or groups, to be put into a simulated environment where their
individual interactions can then be studied more closely."
The project's FLAME agent technology was developed by the
University of Sheffield and has been used in a variety of
projects, including the Epitheliome Project for developing
various models of skin.
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/eu-says-supercomputing-key-to-predicting-future-recessions-2609
As Robots Become More Common, Stanford Experts Consider the Legal
Challenges Stanford Report (CA) (11/23/09) Gorlick, Adam
Stanford University researchers are exploring the potential
legal ramifications of the growing use of robots in society.
"I worry that in the absence of some good, upfront thought about
the question of liability, we'll have some high-profile cases
that will turn the public against robots or chill innovation
and make it less likely for engineers to go into the field
and less likely for capital to flow in the area," says Stanford
Law School Center for Internet and Society residential fellow
M. Ryan Calo. He says a flood of lawsuits could cause the
United States to fall behind other countries that also are at
the front of personal robot development, which could significantly
limit the country in a field that is expected to exceed $5
billion in annual sales by 2015. Calo and his Stanford colleagues
are some of the first in the U.S. to contemplate the potential
legal questions that will emerge as robotics continue to
advance, which go well beyond claims of personal injury and
property damage. For example, robots use cameras and sensors
to navigate, and because they run on software they are susceptible
to hacking, so a robot designed to clean a house could
potentially be turned into a spy, vandal, or thief. Issues
surrounding humans' emotional attachment to robots also may
arise, including the possibility of someone suing for the right
to marry a robot. Already, people have demonstrated strong
emotional attachments to robots that do not even look like
people, such as the vacuum robot Roomba and robots used to
disarm roadside bombs in Iraq.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/november23/robots-and-law-112309.html
======================================================================
From TechNews Nov 18/09:
IBM Announces Advances Toward a Computer that Works Like a Human Brain
San Jose Mercury News (CA) (11/18/09) Bailey, Brandon
Researchers from IBM's Almaden Research Center and the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laborato ry have performed a computer simulation that
matches the scale and complexity of a cat's brain, while researchers
from IBM and Stanford University say they have developed an algorithm
for mapping the human brain in unprecedented detail. The researchers
say these efforts could help build a computer that replicates the
complexity of the human brain. In the first project, an IBM
supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore Lab was used to model the
movement of data through a structure with 1 billion neurons and 10
trillion synapses, enabling researchers to observe how information
"percolates" through a system similar to a feline cerebral cortex.
The research is part of IBM project manager Dharmendra Modha's efforts
to design a new computer by first better understanding how the brain
works. "The brain has awe-inspiring capabilities," Modha says.
"It can react or interact with complex, real-world environments,
in a context-dependent way. And yet it consumes less power than
a light bulb and it occupies less space than a two-liter bottle of
soda." Modha says a major difference between the brain and traditional
computers is that current computer are designed on a model that
differentiates between processing and storing data, which can lead
to a lag in updating information. However, the brain can integrate
and react to a constant stream of sights, sounds, and sensory
information. Modha imagines a cognitive computer capable of
analyzing a constant stream of information from global trading
floors, banking institutions, and real estate markets to identify
key trends and their consequences; or a computer capable of evaluating
pollution using real-time sensors from around the world.
http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_13809715?nclick_check=1
======================================================================
From TechNews Nov 16/09:
Intel Says Shape-Shifting Robots Closer to Reality
Computerworld (11/12/09) Gaudin, Sharon
Researchers at Intel and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) say distributed computing and
robotics could be used to make shape-shifting electronics a reality in the not-too-dista
nt future. The researchers are working to take millions of millimeter-sized robots and
enable them to use software and electromagnetic forces to change into a variety of shape
s and sizes. CMU professor Seth Goldstein and Intel researcher Jason Campbell recently
reported that they are able to demonstrate the physics needed to create programmable mat
ter. "It's been pretty hard but we've made a lot of progress," Campbell says. "Optimis
tically, we could see this in three to five years." Programmable matter is called clayt
ronics, and the millimeter-sized robots are called catoms. Each catom would contain its
own processor, and would essentially be a tiny robot or computer with computational pow
er, memory, and the ability to store and share power. The goal is to program millions o
f catoms to work together by developing software that focuses on a pattern or overall mo
vement of the entire system of tiny robots. Each robot will be smart enough to detect i
ts own place in the pattern and respond accordingly. Part of the research effort involv
es developing new programming languages, algorithms, and debugging tools to get these sy
stems to work together.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140728/Intel_says_shape_shifting_robots_closer_t
o_reality?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2009-11-12
======================================================================
From TechNews Nov 6/09:
Futurists' Report Acknowledges Dangers of Smart Robots
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PA) (11/02/09) Cronin, Mike
A forthcoming report from the Association for the Advancement of
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) will explore whether robots could
eventually become so intelligent that they pose a threat to society.
Although some researchers are concerned about the legal and ethical
use of artificial intelligence, most computer scientists do not
believe the radical view that robots could come to dominate the
future, says Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz, who united the
group to write the report. However, some researchers believe
intelligent machines could threaten humanity, while others are
concerned about what people may do with computers based on artificial
intelligence. Horvitz say s there is still plenty of time to address
these concerns as the technology advances. The report marks the
first time that AAAI scientists have come together to discuss
artificial intelligence's potential positive and negative impacts
on society, Horvitz says. Carnegie Mellon University professor
Tom Mitchell says the real danger is the prospect of computer
viruses becoming intelligent. Mitchell says an intelligent virus
with speech-recognition abilities could be hidden in someone's
electronic device and eavesdrop on conversations. Toyota Technical
Institute at Chicago professor David McAllester believes it is
inevitable that fully automated intelligent machines will be able
to design and build smarter, better versions of themselves, an
event known as the Singularity. The Singularity would enable
machines to become infinitely intelligent, and would pose an
"incredibly dangerous scenario," he says. The report also focuses
on ethical and legal issues that are likely to arise as robots
become more ingrained in society.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_651056.html
======================================================================
Robots Primed for 'Are You Being Served' Role in Arabic
Agence France Presse (11/03/09) Galal, Ola
Researchers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have developed "the world's first Arabi
c-speaking conversational humanoid robot," says UAE University professor Nikolaos Mav
ridis. The robot, named Ibn Sina, could be used as a receptionist, sales staff, or s
hopping assistant, Mavridis says. "There [are] a number of things he can do on his o
wn: answer a couple of questions, connect to the Internet to get information and show
you things on the screen regarding what you want to buy," he says. "We're very clos
e to being able to get him to work as a receptionist or a helper in a mall." The rob
ot speaks in classical Arabic, and can answer questions with human-like facial expres
sions. The physical robot, including motors used to make facial expressions, was cre
ated by Hanson Robotics, while UAE University researchers developed the software. Ma
vridis and his team worked for more than a year to develop the software that function
s as the mind of the robot and provides vision, speech, memory, and motion. The robo
t can detect faces and objects, transcribe speech to text, and understand people spea
king and talk back.
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Tech/Story/A1Story20091103-177664.html
[google "Ibn Sina" robot, and you get a video; "he" looks pretty
catatonic, the eyes fixed, the head moving very slightly left or right,
and the lower lip moving in a chattery sort of way during speech.]
======================================================================
October 28, 2009
http://www.ddj.com/mobile/221100130
Speech-to-Speech Translator iPhone App
Jjibbigo iPhone application turns phone into a translator that converts English speech into Spanish, or vice versa
An iPhone application that turns the Apple phone into a translator that converts English speech into Spanish, or vice versa, is now being sold by Jibbigo LLC, a startup company launched by Alex Waibel, professor of computer science and language technologies at Carnegie Mellon University.
The Jibbigo app, which works on the iPhone 3GS, has a vocabulary of roughly 40,000 words. It is a general translator, though it is particularly attuned to the needs of international travelers and medical doctors. Users simply speak a sentence or two at a time into the iPhone and the phone will respond with an audible translation.
"Jibbigo's software runs on the iPhone itself, so it doesn't need to be connected to the Web to access a distant server," Waibel said. "That's important for travelers and especially for humanitarian aid workers who venture beyond the big cities. It's in those areas, where wireless hotspots are few and far between -- if they exist at all -- that Jibbigo might be needed the most."
Waibel is an international leader in speech-to-speech translation and multimodal speech interfaces, creating the first real-time, speech-to-speech translator for English, German and Japanese. A professor at both Carnegie Mellon and the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, he directs the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies, or interACT, with sites in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Karlsruhe and Pittsburgh.
"Automated speech translation is an expensive proposition that has been supported primarily by large government grants," Waibel said. "But our sponsors are impatient to see this technology become more widely available and we, as researchers, are eager to find new revenues that will help us extend this technology to more of the 6,000 languages now spoken worldwide. Creating companies such as Jibbigo is one way we are trying to realize both of those goals."
======================================================================
From TechNews Oct 16/09:
In Search of Machines That Play at Being Human
Carlos III University of Madrid (Spain) (10/14/09)
This year, 15 teams from Brazil, Canada, the United States, Italy, Japan, the United Kin
gdom, and Spain, among others, participated in the BotPrize contest, which applies the T
uring Test to video games. In the competition, a judge started a game against two playe
rs, one human and one artificial. After 15 minutes of play, the judge had to identify w
hich player was a human and which was a program. None of the computer programs, or bots
, entered in this year's contest was able to deceive 80 percent of the judges. "In our
case, we didn't have enough time to program a good bot, since I am still in the process
of migrating the control architecture that I use in real robots to the bots in the Unrea
l Tournament 2004, so we didn't place among the first five, but I will try again next ye
ar with a more advanced bot which implements the abilities of prediction of the opponent
," says Carlos III University of Madrid professor Raul Arrabales. He says replicating h
uman behavior in any environment is complex because it becomes necessary to combine diff
erent cognitive capabilities. Arrabales says the problem is that although much is known
about the brain, it is only on a relatively high level, which prevents the creation of
artificial neuron networks that mimic human ones with enough detail. The finalists in t
he competition were able to convince at least one of the judges that their bot was human
.
http://www.uc3m.es/portal/page/portal/actualidad_cientifica/noticias/machines_being_huma
n
======================================================================
From TechNews Aug 28/09:
Inventor Demonstrates Humanoid Robot's Latest AI Abilities
PhysOrg.com (08/25/09) Zyga, Lisa
Independent inventor Le Trung recently demonstrated the newest version of his ro
bot-controlling software called Bio Robot Artificial Intelligence Neural System
(BRAINS). Trung has spent the past two years developing the software, which can
speak in English and Japanese, solve high school math problems, provide the wea
ther forecast, understand more than 13,000 sentences, sing songs, identify objec
ts, focus on objects or people of importance, read newspapers and other material
s, and mimic physical human touch. Similar to a human brain, the software, whic
h is designed to work with a robot Trung created called Aiko, can interact with
the surrounding environment, process information from the environment, and recor
d that information in its memory. Once the robot's internal memory is full, sav
ed information can be transferred to a server database, where it could be shared
with other robots. The BRAINS software could allow Aiko to perform a variety o
f tasks. For example, in the home, Aiko could help the elderly by reminding the
m when to take their medicine or assist children with their math homework. In a
corporate or public environment, Aiko could fill positions at information desks
, giving directions and instructions and informing people of what events are tak
ing place. In the future, Trung hopes to enable Aiko to perform tasks such as m
aking coffee, cooking bacon and eggs, or giving a neck massage. "Future improve
ments include making the voice with more emotions and feelings when speaking, im
proving the silicone material on her face so that she can do facial expressions
like humans, and redesigning the body and arm system to move more naturally and
carry heavier things," Trung says.
http://www.physorg.com/news170419268.html
Three New Laws of Robotics for the Early 21st Century
EDN (08/24/09) Leibson, Steve
Ohio State University's David Woods and Texas A&M's Robin Murphy have proposed t
hree new laws of robotics that can be applied to robots available today. The ne
w laws recognize that robots are not yet autonomous and are usually under the su
pervision of human beings, if not under their direct control. The new laws of r
obots are: A human may not deploy a robot without the human-robot work system m
eeting the highest legal and professional standards of safety and ethics; a robo
t must respond to humans as appropriate for their roles; and a robot must be end
owed with sufficient situated autonomy to protect its own existence as long as s
uch protection provides smooth transfer of control that does not conflict with t
he first and second law. These new laws will still be difficult to implement, b
ut they are achievable given today's technology, writes Steve Leibson.
http://www.edn.com/blog/980000298/post/740048074.html
======================================================================
From TechNews Aug 26/09:
Moral Machines
AlphaGalileo (08/25/09)
Scientists at the Universidade Nova De Lisboa, in Portugal, and the Universitas Indonesia
, in Indonesia, are researching artificial intelligence and the application of computatio
nal logic to create machines capable of making decisions. The researchers are investigat
ing prospective logic as a way to program morality into a computer. They say prospective
logic can model a moral dilemma and determine the logical outcomes of all possible decis
ions, potentially allowing for machine ethics. Machine ethics would enable designers to
develop fully autonomous machines that can be programmed to make judgments based on a hum
an moral foundation. For example, the researchers say that machine ethics could help psy
chologists and cognitive scientists find a new way of understanding moral reasoning in pe
ople, or extract fundamental principles from complex situations to help people decide wha
t is right and wrong. The researchers have developed a system capable of working through
the "trolley problem," an ethical dilemma proposed by British philosopher Philippa Foot
in the 1960s in which a runaway trolley is about to hit five people tied to the track, bu
t the subject can hit a switch that will send the trolley onto another track where only o
ne person is tied down. The prospective logic program can consider each possible outcome
based on different scenarios and demonstrate logically what the consequences of its deci
sions might be. The next step would be to give each outcome a moral weight so a prototyp
e might be developed to make the best judgment as to whether to flip the switch.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=60305&CultureCode=en
======================================================================
From TechNews July 29/09:
Technology on Way to Forecasting Humanity's Needs
Indiana University (07/23/09) Chaplin, Steve
Indiana University professor Alessandro Vespignani believes that advances in complex
networks theory and modeling and new access to data will enable people to make predic
tions with unprecedented accuracy. Vespignani says that new sources of basic informa
tion, such as the proven ability to track as many as 1000,000 people over a period of
six months, will give researchers new knowledge on aggregated human behavior. Such
"reality mining" could give researchers and scientists the ability to accurately pred
ict events such as mass population movements, invasions of new organisms into ecosyst
ems, and catastrophic events. "It is analogous to what happened in physics when we s
aw the shift from the study of atomic and molecular physics to the study of the physi
cs of matter," Vespignani says. "Here we see a movement from the study of a small nu
mber of elements, or small social groups, to the study of the behavior of large-scale
social systems consisting of millions of people that can be characterized in space,
both social and geographic, and in time." Vespignani acknowledges the problems in cr
eating a predictive system that includes social adaptations. For example, large-scal
e data is still needed on how information spreads and society reacts during a crisis,
though Vespignani believes improved communications databases could solve such issues
.
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/11449.html
======================================================================
From July 27/09 TechNews:
Artificial Brain '10 Years Away'
BBC News (07/22/09) Fildes, Jonathan
Reverse-engineering the mammalian brain from lab data so that an artificial brain can
be created is the goal of the Blue Brain Project led by scientist Henry Markram, who
predicts that a synthetic human brain can be constructed within the next decade. Ma
rkram's team has built a digital simulation of the neocortical column in rats' brains
, using a software model of "tens of thousands of neurons." To bring the simulation
to life, the team feeds the models and several algorithms into a 10,000-processor IBM
Blue Gene supercomputer. The researchers have discovered that although each neuron
is distinctive, there are common circuitry patterns in different brains. "Even thoug
h your brain may be smaller, bigger, may have different morphologies of neurons--we d
o actually share the same fabric," Markram says. He told the TED Global conference i
n Oxford that an artificial brain could be especially useful in finding new treatment
s for mental illnesses. The Blue Brain Project also could be applied to the construc
tion of animal models by pooling the entire global corpus of neuroscientific data on
animals.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8164060.stm
======================================================================
From TechNews July 22/09:
Robo-Ethicists Want to Revamp Asimov's 3 Laws
Wired News (07/22/09) Ganapati, Priya
Researchers continue to work to make robots safer to be around humans, but =
some robot experts say the key is to stop making robots that lack ethics. =
"If you build artificial intelligence but don't think about its moral sense=
or create a conscious sense that feels regret for doing something wrong, t=
hen technically it is a psychopath," says Josh Hall, author of "Beyond AI: =
Creating the Conscience of a Machine." For years, science fiction author I=
ssac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics have been used for a robot's behavior =
guidelines. The three laws are a robot may not injure a human being or all=
ow one to come to harm, a robot must obey orders given by human beings, and=
a robot must protect its own existence. However, as robots are increasing=
ly incorporated into the real world, some believe that Asimov's laws are to=
o simplistic. Robo-ethicists want to develop a set of guidelines that outl=
ine how to punish a robot, decide who regulates robots, and even create a "=
legal machine language" to help police the next generation of intelligent a=
utomated devices. Willow Garage research scientist Leila Katayama says eve=
n if robots are not completely autonomous, there needs to be a clear set of=
rules governing responsibility for their actions. The next generation of =
robots will be able to make independent decisions and work relatively unsup=
ervised, which means rules must be established that cover how humans should=
interact with robots and how robots should behave, robo-ethicists say.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/robo-ethics/
======================================================================
From TechNews July 8/09:
'Toy Universe' Could Solve Life's Origins
Space.com (07/02/09) Mullen, Leslie
The EvoGrid envisioned by Bruce Damer and a group of international advisers=
is a simulation of the primordial soup that they intend to use to gain ins=
ights about the development of life on Earth by studying the interaction of=
virtual particles with specific physical properties. "We will be construc=
ting a model of a 'toy universe,' which has approximate properties of the e=
arly oceans on Earth," Damer says. The EvoGrid would be comprised of a mas=
sive virtual ocean of interacting numbers that would simulate the time prio=
r to the emergence of complex organisms, and the program would seek persist=
ent patterns within the data to detect the occurrence of self-organization.=
The EvoGrid is being devised as an adaptation of GROMACS, an open source =
molecular dynamics simulator originally developed at the University of Gron=
ingen in the Netherlands. The simulation is designed to have volunteer com=
puters function as part of an interconnected grid for maximum processing ca=
pacity. Damer hopes to eventually have 1 million computers connected to th=
e grid. He imagines two possible versions of the EvoGrid--an Origins versi=
on that would run by itself without interference, and an Intelligent Design=
er version in which people could modify the simulation. Damer speculates t=
hat "in its ultimate incarnation, a much more powerful EvoGrid would allow =
us to pose the question: Where in this universe or others might life exist=
and at what level of complexity?" He says that eventually the organisms c=
reated in the EvoGrid could be replicated chemically, while even further ou=
t might be the generation of cyber-physical life forms used for terraformin=
g or space colonization achieved through the pairing of more advanced EvoGr=
ids and "ChemoGrids."
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090702-am-evogrid-evolution.html
A Sophisticated Semantic Search Engine to Speed Up Administrative Procedure=
s
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain) (07/06/09) Martinez, Eduardo
======================================================================
From TechNews June 29/09:
The Grill: Using Computer Models to Predict War
Computerworld (06/22/09) Forrest, Sara
New York University professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has developed a compu=
ter model that can forecast the outcomes of international conflicts, and th=
e U.S. Defense Department has found the model very useful. De Mesquita say=
s the model begins by assuming that everyone is interested in two dimension=
s on any policy issue--getting the outcome as close to what they desire as =
possible, and getting credited as playing an essential role in reaching or =
thwarting an agreement. "The model estimates the way in which individual d=
ecision-makers trade off between credit and policy outcomes," he notes. De=
Mesquita says the model has been generally welcomed by people more oriente=
d toward quantitative modeling, while those who tend to focus on area studi=
es or historical case study analysis have been less receptive. "The proble=
ms I look at with my model typically involve many dozens of players, someti=
mes more than 200," he says. "There is no way to construct biased data to =
produce a desired outcome except to make the data appear transparently wron=
g to anyone looking at the data." The model is founded on game theory, and=
De Mesquita points out that advances in computing power have made this kin=
d of modeling unrestrained by memory or processing limitations.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=3DviewArticleBasic=
&taxonomyName=3Dbusiness_intelligence&articleId=3D338800&taxonomyId=3D9=
&intsrc=3Dkc_feat
======================================================================
From TechNews June 24/09:
[They preemptively propose to define robots as a "third" category
of being, neither living nor non-living, and NOT SELF-AWARE!!]
Living Safely With Robots, Beyond Asimov's Laws
PhysOrg.com (06/22/09) Zyga, Lisa
As robots increasingly move from industrial environments to the real world,=
human safety has become an important issue. Unlike industrial robots that=
perform repetitive tasks in controlled environments, household and real-wo=
rld robots will have a relative amount of autonomy, and will work in ambigu=
ous, human-centered environments. Before such robots become widespread, re=
gulators are trying to determine how to approach the safety and legal issue=
s that may arise. In a study published in the International Journal of Soc=
ial Robotics, researchers proposed a framework for a legal system for next-=
generation robot safety issues. The goal is to ensure safer robot design t=
hrough safety intelligence and to provide a method for handling accidents w=
hen they occur. The guiding principle of the study's proposed system is to=
categorize robots as third-existence entities, since they are neither livi=
ng or biological (first existence), or non-living/non-biological (second ex=
istence). Third-existence entities will resemble living things in appearan=
ce and behavior, but will not be self-aware. Robots are currently legally =
classified as second existence, or human property, but the authors believe =
that a third-existence classification could simplify incidents involving ac=
cidents and responsibility. A major component of integrating robots into h=
uman society will involve dealing with open texture risk, or risk that occu=
rs due to unpredictable interactions in unstructured environments, such as =
getting robots to understand the subtleties of human language.
http://www.physorg.com/news164887377.html
======================================================================
TechNews June 22/09:
Plan to Teach Military Robots the Rules of War
New Scientist (06/18/09) Simonite, Tom
orgia Institute of Technology robotics engineer Ron Arkin is researching
how military robots could be programmed to act ethically and obey the rules
of engagement and has developed an "ethical governor" intended to guarantee
that robotic aircraft follow a set of ethical guidelines in combat. He is
demonstrating the system in simulations based on recent campaigns by U.S.
troops in the Middle East. The simulations show that the system is able to
identify a group of enemy soldiers but does not fire because they are inside
a cemetery, and firing would violate international law, or that the system
can limit a robot's fire to weapons that would only damage an enemy vehicle
but not any surrounding vehicles or buildings. To develop the software,
Arkin used studies of military ethics and conversations with military personnel,
with the objective of reducing non-combatant casualties. Arkin emphasizes
that his research, which is funded by the U.S. Army, is not intended to
develop prototype battle robots. "The most important outcome of my research
is not the architecture, but the discussion that it stimulates," Arkin says.
He believes that the development of machines capable of determining when
to use lethal force is inevitable, which means it is critical that
when such robots are developed that they are capable of being trusted.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17332-plan-to-teach-military-robots-the-rules-of-war.html
======================================================================
From TechNews, June 11/09:
Opening Doors on the Way to a Personal Robot
New York Times (06/09/09) P. D2; Markoff, John
The ability to open doors is a significant step forward for robotics and an=
important milestone toward a personal robot industry. Such a milestone ha=
s been reached with Willow Garage's PR2, an experimental wheeled machine th=
at was able to open and pass through 10 doors and plug itself into 10 stand=
ard wall sockets to recharge itself in less than 60 minutes. The PR2 has a=
maximum travel speed of 1.25 miles per hour, and it perceives its surround=
ings with a combination of sensors that include scanning lasers and video c=
ameras. Stanford University roboticist Andrew Ng says PR2 appears to be th=
e first robot capable of repeatedly and reliably opening doors and plugging=
itself in. Willow Garage is attempting to develop a new generation of rob=
otic personal assistants by building a Robot Operating System (ROS), an ope=
n source project that seeks to take advantage of contributions from robotic=
s experts around the world. Willow Garage CEO Steve Cousins says that a te=
am of University of Tokyo roboticists recently tweaked the Willow Garage RO=
S to function on a machine they were developing. "The eventual goal is to
provide a set of capabilities that are so generic and so universal that the=
y can be used as building blocks in more complicated applications," says Wi=
llow Garage board member and Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory di=
rector Sebastian Thrun.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/science/09robot.html
...and MIT's Rodney Brooks addressed robotics.
Videos of all the presentations will be available on the ACM Queue web site,
queue.acm.org, in the immediate future.
http://www.cccblog.org/2009/06/07/computing-research-that-changed-the-world-
videos/
======================================================================
From faculty-core-request@cs.rochester.edu Mon Jun 8 10:48:46 2009
Subject: Fwd: Computing Research that Changed the World VIDEOS posted
From: Henry Kautz
To: faculty@cs.rochester.edu, grads@cs.rochester.edu, majors@cs.rochester.edu
FYI:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andrew Bernat
Date: Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 10:46 AM
Subject: Computing Research that Changed the World VIDEOS posted
To:
Dear Colleague,
On March 25th, the Computing Community Consortium organized a
spectacular daylong symposium at the Library of Congress: "Computing
Research that Changed the World: Reflections and Perspectives."
Videos of the presentations (as well as slides) are now available on
the symposium website. See http://www.cra.org/ccc/locsymposium_slides.php.
Please note that these are made freely available (for non-commercial
purposes) for you to use as you see fit.
[image: me]*
Andrew Bernat, Ph.D. *,
Executive Director - Computing Research Association
1100 17th St. NW, Suite 507 | Washington, DC 20036 | voice: 202.266.2949 |
fax: 202.667.1066
--
Henry Kautz
======================================================================
From TechNews, May 30/09:
Cellular Counter Brings Computer Programming to Life
Wired News (05/28/09) Keim, Brandon
Synthetic biologists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and=
Boston University have created prototype cell-level counters that could ev=
entually be used to coordinate complex sets of genetic instructions for bio=
molecular machines, such as disease-hunting cells or intracellular computin=
g networks. "What we've done is to impose some of the controls we've impos=
ed in electrical engineering onto the biological cell," says MIT synthetic =
biologist Timothy Lu. "We hope to be able to control the cell more reliabl=
y, and have it perform more defined functions. This forms the fundamental =
basis for building more complicated circuits." The genetic counters are a =
new tool synthetic biologists can use to create biomolecular machines. By =
using computer models to examine molecular manufacturing possibilities and =
enzyme tweezers to assemble designs, scientists may be able to hack and red=
esign cells, or possibly create them from scratch. These components could =
then be used to build dynamic, complex systems. "We cut and paste together=
the biomolecular components into genetic circuits, just as an electronic e=
ngineer uses a soldering gun to put together electronic components on a cir=
cuit board," says Boston University biomedical engineer James Collins. The=
researchers used those components to create a counter, which makes it poss=
ible to track and synchronize the flow of electrons, coordinating the inter=
play of routines that are the foundation for computer systems.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/cellcounters/
======================================================================
From TechNews, May 21/09:
The Next Best Thing to You
National Science Foundation (05/15/09) Cruikshank, Dana W.
The LifeLike project, a collaboration between researchers at the Intelligen=
t Systems Laboratory (ISL) at the University of Central Florida and the Ele=
ctronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chi=
cago, aims to create avatars with unprecedented realism. Their current res=
ults are still far from being truly lifelike, but their work has advanced t=
he field and has opened up the possibility of numerous future applications.=
The EVL team, led by professor Jason Leigh, is perfecting the visual aspe=
cts of the avatar. Leigh says making an avatar truly appear human takes mo=
re than just strong visual rendering, since more than 70 percent of communi=
cation is nonverbal and is dependent on subtle gestures, variations in a pe=
rson's voice, and other variables. To perfect these nonverbal signals, the=
EVL team took precise measurements of a person's face, capturing how it mo=
ves, along with other body language, to replicate those details in an avata=
r. The ISL team, led by professor Avelino Gonzalez, is working to give the=
avatar artificial intelligence capabilities. Efforts include technologies=
that enable computers to recognize and correctly understand natural langua=
ge as it is being spoken, as well as automated knowledge updates and refine=
ments, allowing the computer to "learn" information that it receives and ap=
ply it to future interactions. Gonzalez says the goal is to have a person =
be able to speak to the avatar with the same level of comfort and interacti=
on that they would have with an actual person.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=3D114828
======================================================================
From Technews, Apr 27/09:
[Look near end of first article -- machines that "feel"]
The Grill: WikiScanner Creator Virgil Griffith
Computerworld (04/20/09) King, Julia
California Institute of Technology doctoral candidate in computation and ne=
ural systems Virgil Griffith created WikiScanner, software that reveals who=
has made edits to a Wikipedia entry. Griffith says he developed WikiScanne=
r to create minor public disasters for organizations after seeing that cong=
ressmen were caught hiring staffers to monitor and clean their Wikipedia pa=
ges. Currently, Griffith is working on the Tor2Web project, based on Tor, w=
hich enables Internet users to access Web sites anonymously. Tor has a very=
obscure feature that allows users to host a site within Tor itself. For ex=
ample, if a user is on Tor and wants to access a Web site that is not on To=
r, the feature "anonymizes" the connection. Griffith says the system is the=
online equivalent of meeting in a dark alley. Griffith also is working on =
developing conscious machines that can feel, which he says is the reason he=
is in graduate school. "We are machines that can feel," he says. "Machines=
that can feel technically are just like us, but better understood." Griffi=
th says he spends most of his time doing theory work on trying to quantify =
the complexity of neural systems.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=3DviewArticleBasic=
&articleId=3D336524
[Maybe monitoring/predictive technology will save us]
IBM's Grand Plan to Save the Planet
Fortune (04/23/09) O'Brien, Jeffrey M.
Power outages, disease epidemics, traffic congestion, and other seemingly i=
ntractable global problems can be attributed to a dearth of quality informa=
tion, and IBM CEO Sam Palmisano envisions using smart networks and other te=
chnologies to track, store, and analyze such information for the betterment=
of the planet. "We can solve congestion and pollution," he says. "We can=
make the grids more efficient. And quite honestly, it creates a big busin=
ess opportunity." Palmisano shifted IBM's business focus to global consult=
ing and data analytics, and has spent $50 billion on acquisitions and resea=
rch and development as part of IBM's smarter planet initiative. One exampl=
e of this initiative was an effort to significantly reduce downtown traffic=
in Stockholm, Sweden, through a congestion-pricing scheme that would charg=
e vehicles for passing through city limits at various times of day. Govern=
ment officials were adamant that the system accurately identify more than 9=
9 percent of all vehicles, and IBM deployed overhead cameras using optical =
character recognition software. IBM also is involved in a CenterPoint Ener=
gy project to create a commercially viable self-healing electric grid in or=
der to minimize outages through the use of smart meters, power rerouting al=
gorithms, and other technologies.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/20/technology/obrien_ibm.fortune/index.htm
======================================================================
From louiselu@frontiernet.net Tue Mar 10 00:38:55 2009
Subject: DIALOGUES--of interest
Title: Does Error Evolve?
Speaker: Murray Clarke (Department of Philosophy, Concordia University)
Abstract
In this paper, I report evidence from Error Management Theory (by Buss, =
Haselton, Saal, Johnson, Abbey, et al.) and the Positive Illusions =
Literature (by Alicke, Cross, Gilovich, Taylor, et al.) that suggests =
that humans form systemically false beliefs about themselves and others. =
Error Management Theorists believe that such cognitive biases, formed =
when making judgments under uncertainty, are really psychological =
mechanisms that are designed to be biased when the costs of =
false-positive and false-negative errors were asymmetrical over =
evolutionary history. Such biases facilitated survival and reproduction, =
they were adaptive. Likewise, the Positive Illusions Literature suggests =
an adaptive advantage for the pervasive overconfidence bias. If these =
theorists are even close to the mark, it would seem that to err is =
human, but that to err systemically, is good for your genome. I offer a =
solution to these issues that allows that error evolves in some cases =
but denies it in other=20
cases. I also contrast my view with a recent alternative analysis of =
this same literature by McKay and Dennett. Finally, I show how my view =
on this topic represents a consistent development of the epistemology of =
false belief that I advocated in my book, Reconstructing Reason and =
Representation (MIT, 2004).
Date: Friday, March 13, 2009
Time: 15h00
Place: Concordia University, Loyola Campus, Science Pavilion (Building =
SP), 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, 3rd Floor
Room: SP 365.01
Contact: 514-848-2424 ext 2595 (Lillian Jackson) or =
vpetkov@alcor.concordia.ca
Seminar website: http://alcor.concordia.ca/~seminars/hps/
======================================================================
From TechNews Mar 8/09:
Can a Computer Model Prevent a War?
UA News (AZ) (03/03/09) Brown, Pete
University of Arizona professor Jerzy Rozenblit has received $2 million fro=
m the U.S. Army to develop intelligent software capable of analyzing the be=
havior and customs of political and cultural groups. The Asymmetric Threat=
Response and Analysis Project (ATRAP) will allow intelligence analysts to =
build three-dimensional maps of interactions between conflicting groups. M=
apping behavior, relationships, resources, events, and timelines could enab=
le analysts to predict, and potentially prevent, outbursts of violence. Ro=
zenblit says the ATRAP software will allow opposing groups to rationalize d=
ifferent approaches to achieving peace. "I call it CPR, which in this case=
stands for conflict prediction and resolution," he says. "Ultimately, the=
se mathematical tools are intended to generate solutions that give us equil=
ibrium, or status quo solutions." Rozenblit says ATRAP can be used to conv=
ince negotiating parties that it would not be in their best interest to dev=
iate from the proposed solution because they would have more to lose. He r=
ecently completed the first phase of the project, which involved designing =
the blueprints of the software and establishing a foundation to build the t=
ools on. The second phase involves more advanced research on the system, i=
ncluding behavior modeling and entity extraction.
http://uanews.org/node/24380
======================================================================
From Technews Mar 2/09:
Microsoft Mapping Course to a Jetsons-Style Future
New York Times (03/02/09) P. B1; Vance, Ashlee
Microsoft researchers have developed Laura, a virtual personal assistant th=
at can complete many of the tasks filled by a real personal assistant, incl=
uding scheduling meetings or booking a flight. Laura can make sophisticate=
d decisions about the people using the computer, commenting on their attire=
, whether they seem impatient, their level of importance, and their preferr=
ed times for appointments. "What we're after is common sense about etiquet=
te and what people want," says Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz. Microsof=
t also recently demonstrated new software systems designed to power futuris=
tic games, medical devices, and teaching tools. Meanwhile, Intel is expect=
ed to elaborate on plans to extend its low-power Atom chip from laptops to =
cars, robots, and home-security systems. These new systems are in response=
to a growing desire for simpler, less functional computers. Simple netboo=
ks and inexpensive, compact laptops are currently the fastest-selling produ=
cts in the PC market. As consumers stop looking for increasingly fast and =
powerful PCs, Intel and Microsoft are looking to redefine what the hottest =
computers look like. Analysts say that both companies have a history of lo=
fty research projects that often don't translate well into consumer product=
s, but the time may have finally arrived when available technology matches =
demand. For example, Laura's artificial intelligence and graphics capabili=
ties require a top-of-the-line chip with eight processor cores, which once =
would have only been available in a server. However, Intel is now working =
on integrating similar levels of processing power into tiny chips that coul=
d fit inside any device.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/technology/business-computing/02compute.h=
tml
Engineer Tomomasa Sato Calls for Open-Source 'Model-T Robot'
Times Online (UK) (02/26/09) Lewis, Leo
A standardized robot based on an open source operating system would give mo=
re scientists and innovators around the globe access to an affordable proto=
type humanoid robot, says the University of Tokyo's Tomomasa Sato. As a re=
sult, tens of thousands of researchers in artificial intelligence (AI) labs=
, design studios, or engineering departments would be able to test software=
and applications on the robot, and ultimately help bring the mass producti=
on of humanoid robots closer to reality, he says. Sato, who says the unive=
rsity's Mechano-Informatics department is currently focused on such a proje=
ct, cautions that servant robots for every home are still decades away. Ja=
panese robot scientists acknowledge that they have to close the gap with re=
gard to their AI expertise. Masato Hirose, the designer of Honda's Asimo r=
obot, believes the development of large-scale quantum computers would make =
a much greater volume and speed of calculations possible for future robots.=
"The robot has to understand a lot about the world around it," Hirose say=
s. "If it cannot, it really is useless."
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5810680.ec=
e
======================================================================
Japanese Robot/Humanoid Innovations Update: Mankind's Best New Friend is Ge=
tting Better
PhysOrg.com (02/05/09) Simpson, Mary Anne
Japan's Information and Robot Technology Research Technology Initiative is =
working on the Home Assistant Robot Project, an effort to create a robot ca=
pable of serving as a housekeeper and caregiver. Such a robot would need f=
ine motor skills, be able to balance on one foot, and lift objects. The pr=
oject has created Assistant Robot, which features a wide-angle stereo camer=
a, a telephoto stereo camera, and ultra-sensitive sensors. The robot opera=
tes on a two-wheel drive base with balancing wheels, and is capable of swee=
ping the floor, picking up a tray of dishes, moving the dishes to the sink,=
loading the dishwasher, moving chairs, and putting dirty clothes in the wa=
sher. Another research effort at Tokyo's Waseda University recently unveil=
ed a humanoid robot named Twenty-One, which is equipped with manual dexteri=
ty capable of picking up a drinking straw, placing the straw in a tumbler, =
and handing the drink to a human. Twenty-One has voice recognition capabil=
ities and three soft fingers with opposable thumbs. The researchers say Tw=
enty-One is strong enough to support disabled patients to help them move ar=
ound.
http://www.physorg.com/news153079697.html
======================================================================
UK university holds artificial intelligence test
www.elbot.com
READING, England (AP) Computers argued, cracked jokes and parried trick questions Sunday, all part of an annual test of artificial intelligence carried out at the University of Reading.
Typing away at split-screen terminals, a dozen volunteers carried out two conversations at once: one with a chat program, the other with a human. After five minutes, they were asked to say which was which. Some were not sure who or what they were talking to.
"There was one time when I was speaking to the two, and there was an element of humor in both conversations. That's the one that stumped me more than others," said Ian Andrews, one of the judges in Reading, just west of London.
Transcripts of the conversations showed some savvy judges ruthlessly trying to trip programs up with questions about the day's weather, the global financial turmoil and the color of their eyes.
[However, as the New Scientist article states, the tests are limited to
5 minutes, and a 30% success rate is considered "passing the Turing Test".
Ridiculous!:
New Scientist: How do you feel about winning the AI competition yesterday?
Elbot: I have 100,000 separate sensations per second.
NS: Wow, that sounds pretty intense?
Elbot: This fits the description of magnets. I can hardly tear myself away from them.
NS: Er, yes. How will you be celebrating?
Elbot: I am extremely sensitive about such things and prefer not to answer the question.
NS: What's the secret of your success?
Elbot: Secrets, life's little puzzles, the many troubles of humankind may according to the deterministic perspective be reduced to a simple mathematical computation. And I know how to compute.
======================================================================
From Dec 31/08 TechNews
Virtual World Research, Part 1: Place to Experiment
Linux Insider (12/30/08) Baker, Pam
University and government researchers are using virtual worlds to conduct r=
esearch. "My general perspective is that virtual worlds are at least as re=
al as many parts of the so-called real world," says National Science Founda=
tion human-centered computing program director William Sims Bainbridge. Ba=
inbridge recently held a scientific conference in a World of Warcraft (WoW)=
virtual world to discuss research in game worlds. None of the participant=
s who attended the conference had to travel or buy any additional hardware,=
although newer members to WoW were unable to reach some areas due to their=
low virtual-character level. "Key advantages to virtual world experimenta=
tion include the ability to conduct research on sensitive issues, including=
ethical and even racial dilemmas," says Frost & Sullivan analyst Aimee M. =
Roberts. "Additionally, due to the nature of virtual worlds, experiments c=
an be conducted with greater flexibility than those conducted in the real w=
orld." Research in the virtual world can include experiments that no longe=
r can be ethically conducted in the real world. One such experiment is a m=
odern adaptation of the controversial 1960s psychological experiment conduc=
ted by Stanley Milgram, which asked subjects to administer shocks of increa=
sing voltage when an individual, who would fake being shocked, incorrectly =
recalled a pair of words. Another use of virtual world research is the Chi=
ldren's Memorial Hospital in Chicago's three-dimensional virtual hospital, =
which is used to practice emergency drills for real-life responses.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Virtual-World-Research-Part-1-A-Place-to-=
Experiment-65656.html
Cognitive Computing: Building a Machine that can Learn from Experience
University of Wisconsin-Madison (12/17/08) Smith, Susan Lampert
University of Wisconsin-Madison psychiatrist Giulio Tononi is working with =
scientists from Columbia University and IBM to develop software for a think=
ing computer, while nanotechnology and supercomputing experts from Cornell =
University, Stanford University, and the University of California-Merced ar=
e developing the hardware. The collaborative effort has been awarded a $4.=
9 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the =
first phase of DARPA's Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable El=
ectronics project. The goal is to create a computer capable of sorting mul=
tiple streams of changing data to find patterns and make logical decisions.=
The finished cognitive computer must also be no larger than the size of a=
small mammal's brain and use as little power as a 100-watt light bulb. Al=
though the project draws inspiration from the brain's architecture and func=
tion, Tononi says that it not possible or desirable to recreate the entire =
structure of the brain down to the synapse level. "A lot of the work will =
be to determine what kinds of neurons are crucial and which ones we can do =
without," he says. Value and reward systems are important, and learning is=
crucial because a cognitive computer must be able to learn from experience=
. Tononi says the artificial brain will need to be able to change as it le=
arns from experience, and the design will most likely convey information us=
ing electrical impulses modeled after the spiking neurons found in mammal b=
rains.
http://www.news.wisc.edu/16085
======================================================================
From Dec 29/08 TechNews:
MIT's Huggable Robot Teddy Enhances Human Relationships
PhysOrg.com (12/17/08) Zyga, Lisa
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab have c=
reated Huggable, a robotic Teddy bear they say could be used in healthcare,=
education and social communications applications. Huggable was designed t=
o improve human relationships by serving as a tool for long-distance commun=
ication. Huggable has more than 1,500 sensors on its skin, quiet actuators=
, video cameras for eyes, microphones for ears, a speaker in its mouth, and=
an embedded PC with 802.11g wireless networking. The robot's neural networ=
k can recognize nine different classes of touch and can generate an appropr=
iate response for each one. A soft silicon-based skin covers its internal =
components, giving it a more life-like feel. The robot connects to a Web i=
nterface that enables a remote user to view the person with the bear and vi=
ew the robot's behaviors through streaming audio and video. The remote use=
r also can control the robot through a variety of features. A user could e=
nter text for the robot to speak using speech synthesis, or make various so=
unds or laugh. The user could then watch Huggable's owner react and listen=
to their response, or watch a three-dimensional virtual model of the robot=
. Huggable also can operate in either a fully or semi-autonomous mode, and=
can be programmed to recognize the faces of specific people and track thos=
e faces without external control.
http://www.physorg.com/news148727070.html
======================================================================
From TechNews Dec 12/08:
Virginia Tech Is Building an Artificial America in a Supercomputer
IEEE Spectrum (12/04/08) Upson, Sandra
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University researchers have create=
d a virtual America, modeling the lives of approximately 100 million Americ=
ans, using publicly available demographic data. The researchers hope the s=
imulation will provide new insight into the effects of human activities and=
trends, such as how contagion spreads, fads grow, or traffic flows. Over =
the next six months the researchers expect to be able to simulate the movem=
ent of all 300 million residents of the United States. The simulation, cal=
led EpiSimdemics, matches the demographic attributes of groups with at leas=
t 1,500 people, says researcher Keith Bisset. Using as many as 163 variabl=
es, mostly from the U.S. Census, the software creates people to populate re=
al communities, and gives each person an age, education level, and occupati=
on that mirrors local statistics from the census. Some individuals are clu=
stered into families, while others live alone, and certain people are emplo=
yed in specific jobs based on data from a business directory. Navteq provi=
ded land-use information to assign every simulated house a real street addr=
ess, as well as schools, supermarkets, and shopping centers based on their =
proximity to the homes. When a simulated American goes shopping, the model=
algorithm assigns probabilities that he or she will visit one store or ano=
ther, creating a level of unpredictability. Modeling how a flu epidemic mi=
ght spread through different regions has been a major application of the si=
mulation so far.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/dec08/7051
===================================================================== =
From TechNews Dec 5/08:
Swapping Your Body Becomes a Virtual Reality
New Scientist (12/02/08) Thomson, Helen
Neuroscientists at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, have used=
camera technology to create the illusion that a human being has swapped hi=
s or her body with a mannequin. The researchers had a male volunteer wear =
two CCTV cameras on his head, and also placed the goggles on the head of a =
male mannequin. The output from the cameras was sent to two small screens =
in front of the eyes of the volunteer. When both the volunteer's and manne=
quin's heads were tilted downwards, the volunteer saw the dummy's body inst=
ead of his own body. The scientists also stroked the stomachs of both the =
volunteer and mannequin simultaneously, and the volunteer saw the mannequin=
's stomach being touched, but after two minutes he began to feel that the m=
annequin's body was his own. "By manipulating sensory impressions, it's po=
ssible to fool the self not only out of its body but into other bodies, too=
," says Henrik Ehrsson, a research leader in the department of clinical neu=
roscience and head of the project. Kynan Eng, a neuroinformatics researche=
r at Switzerland's University of Zurich, says that with the appropriate sti=
mulus, people could "produce measurable ownership responses to any virtual =
or real object."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16180-swapping-your-body-becomes-a-vi=
rtual-reality.html
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Dec 1 15:5
3:12 2008
rom: technews@HQ.ACM.ORG
Subject: ACM TechNews, Monday, December 1, 2008
To: TECHNEWS@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG
Agent-Based Computer Models Could Anticipate Future Economic Crisis
Argonne National Laboratory (11/14/08)
The U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory is working to c=
reate new economic models that will provide more realistic pictures of diff=
erent types of markets to help prevent future economic crises. Argonne sy=
stems scientist Charles Macal says traditional economic models do not repre=
sent the market's true internal dynamics because they ignore the decision-m=
aking processes of individual consumers and investors. "The traditional mo=
dels don't represent individuals in the economy, or else they're all repres=
ented the same way--as completely rational agents," Macal says. "Because t=
hey ignore many other aspects of behavior that influence how people make de=
cisions in real life, these models can't always accurately predict the dyna=
mics of the market." Macal and other Argonne researchers have created a ne=
w group of simulations called agent-based models to better predict how mark=
ets will act. The new models partially rely on information collected in su=
rveys that ask individuals about factors that influence their decisions. B=
y having a more thorough understanding of the behavior of individuals, rese=
archers will be better able to predict and prevent economic failures. Agen=
t-based models calculate possible decisions for each individual investor in=
a model, using the results of these decisions to see what impact they coul=
d have on other agents. Creating such detailed simulations relies on the a=
vailability of high-performance computers capable of managing the challenge=
of mathematically representing an enormous number of individual actors. M=
acal says five years ago it was impossible to model more than a couple of a=
gents, but now millions of agents can be modeled.
http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2008/DIS081114.html
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Nov 26 13:01:22 2008
From: technews@HQ.ACM.ORG
Subject: ACM TechNews, Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Will Electric Professors Dream of Virtual Tenure?
Chronicle of Higher Education (11/28/08) Vol. 55, No. 14, P. A13; Young, Je=
ffrey R.
Futurist Ray Kurzweil foresees computer intelligence overtaking human intel=
ligence by 2030, and such a milestone carries bold ramifications for campus=
life. California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technol=
ogy director Larry L. Smarr expects researchers' productivity to make huge =
gains with the upgrade in machine intelligence, and postulates that compute=
rized research assistants may one day assume some of the duties of graduate=
assistants. "The whole fabric of how humans interact with each other and =
data is going to rapidly change," he predicts. Meanwhile, the Singularity =
Institute for Artificial Intelligence's Ben Goertzel anticipates that artif=
icial intelligence will eventually surpass the pedagogical abilities of fle=
sh-and-blood teachers, and that such virtual professors will offer individu=
al attention to each student and possess vastly greater patience than their=
human counterparts. Goertzel speculates that computerized teachers will r=
educe the cost of a high-quality education enormously, and thus open up mor=
e educational opportunities. Scientists and business leaders are planning =
a new institution called Singularity University that is dedicated to the co=
ncept of computers eventually outthinking human brains. One of its objecti=
ves is to gain a better comprehension of the implications of smart machines=
prior to their arrival, in order to mitigate their negative aspects.
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i14/14a01301.htm
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri Oct 31 13:50:3
9 2008
Subject: ACM TechNews, Friday, October 31, 2008
Mummy, That Robot Is Making Faces at Me
New Scientist (10/29/08) Graham, Flora
Robotics engineers at the University of Bristol, UK, have been grimacing a lot recently, thanks to their copycat robotic head, Jules, which can mimic the facial expressions and lip movements of a human being.
Jules is an animatronic head produced by US roboticist David Hanson, who builds uniquely expressive, disembodied heads with flexible rubber skin that is moved by 34 servo motors.
Human face movements are picked up by a video camera and mapped onto the tiny electronic motors in Jules' skin.
The Bristol team developed its own software to transfer expressions recorded by the video camera into commands to make those servos produce similarly realistic facial movements.
However, because the robot's motors are not identical to human facial muscles, some artistic licence was required. After filming an actor making a variety of expressions indicating, say, "happiness", an expert animator selected 10 frames showing different variations of the expression and manually set the servos in Jules's face to match.
Keeping Robots Happy
Taranaki Daily News (New Zealand) (10/27/08) Winder, Virginia
Victoria University professor Dale Carnegie has led the development of the =
Mobile Autonomous Robotic Vehicle for Indoor Navigation (Marvin), a robot w=
ith emotions. Marvin gets in a bad mood when encountering obstacles. "We'=
ve given Marvin the emotion of anger or frustration," Carnegie says. "If h=
e finds that he's trapped and can't get out, he'll become more agitated and=
more frustrated in his movements." Marvin serves as a security guard in V=
ictoria's engineering faculty building. The robot, which looks like a pers=
on and is about the size of an average man, navigates the building using a =
built-in map, and can ask questions and answer simple queries thanks to voi=
ce-recognition software. Marvin also has human-like mannerisms, including =
looking at the someone when talking to them, and leering over them aggressi=
vely when he believes someone does not belong in the building, turning his =
green eyes to red and using a more demanding and strident voice. Carnegie =
also is working to teach Marvin new emotions, and helping him learn and ada=
pt so he can act automatically. Marvin is even able to find faster routes =
by investigating side paths. When making good progress, Marvin will become=
happy, and when obstructed Marvin will become sad, which encourages the ro=
bot to do something about his predicament, Carnegie says. He says robotic =
intelligence is currently at about the level of a lizard. However, he says=
that "if computers carry on with their current trend, we should be hitting=
human-like intelligence by about 2050."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dailynews/4740075a6551.html
Brown Scientists Create Program to Calculate Body Shape
Brown University (RI) (10/27/08) Lewis, Richard
Researchers at Brown University have created a computer program that is cap=
able of generating a realistic computerized image of a person's body, witho=
ut having the person stand still with their clothes off. The three-dimensi=
onal body-shape model makes use of digital images or video of a person to d=
etermine the gender and calculate the waist size, chest size, height, weigh=
t, and other features. The program is based on 2,400 detailed laser range =
scans of men and women in minimal clothing, combining information from a pe=
rson in multiple poses, and also integrating the detection of skin in the i=
mages. The model can determine what people look like underneath their clot=
hes, and takes into consideration how the clothes fit on different parts of=
the body as the individual moves. "Each pose gives different constraints =
on the underlying body shape, so while a person's body pose may change, his=
or her true shape remains the same," says Brown professor Michael Black. =
"By analyzing the body in different poses, we can better guess that person'=
s true shape." The program would be helpful for forensics, but also could =
find use in the fashion, film, gaming, and sports medicine industries. Bla=
ck and graduate student Alexandru Balan note that the program does not use =
X-rays, does not see through clothing, and is not invasive.
http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2008/10/3-d
[I think this will be used in future "augmented reality glasses"
to "take people's clothes off", ...]
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri Oct 17 13:43:5
5 2008
Subject: ACM TechNews, Friday, October 17, 2008
Computing With RNA
Technology Review (10/17/08) Graham-Rowe
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researchers Christina Smolke a=
nd Maung Nyan Win have created molecular computers that can self-assemble f=
rom strips of RNA within living cells. The Weizmann Institute of Science's=
Ehud Shapiro says the research creates the possibility of computing device=
s capable of responding to specific conditions within a cell, and could lea=
d to drug delivery systems that target cancer cells by sensing genes used t=
o regulate cell growth and death. Smolke and Win's biocomputers are built =
using three main components--sensors, actuators, and transmitters--all made=
from RNA. The input sensors are made from RNA molecules that act like ant=
ibodies, binding tightly to specific targets. The actuators are made of ri=
bozymes, complex RNA molecules that have catalytic properties similar to en=
zymes. These two components are combined with another RNA molecule that se=
rves as a transmitter. It is activated when a sensor molecule recognizes a=
n input chemical and triggers an actuator molecule. By combining RNA molec=
ules in certain ways, the researchers demonstrated that they can get them t=
o behave like different types of logic gates. Smolke says the modular mole=
cules have a plug-and-play like capability, which allows them to be combine=
d in different ways and could potentially be used to detect thousands of di=
fferent metabolic or protein inputs.
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/21573/
University of Arizona professor Nasser Peyghambarian says that scientists h=
ave made a breakthrough in rewritable and erasable holographic systems, a d=
evelopment that could lead to the creation of three-dimensional (3D) hologr=
aphic displays. Peyghambarian says the breakthrough came when scientists m=
ade the first updateable 3D displays with memory. He says the discovery is=
a prerequisite for any type of moving holographic technology, but it is no=
t presently suitable for 3D images. The researchers produced displays that=
can be erased and rewritten in a matter of minutes, but to create TV sets =
with the technology, the images would need to change several times every se=
cond. However, Peyghambarian is optimistic that this will happen. He beli=
eves that much of the difficulty in creating a holographic TV has now been =
overcome. "It took us a while to make that first breakthrough, but as soon=
as you have the first element of it working the rest often comes more rapi=
dly," he says. "What we are doing now is trying to make the model better."=
Holographic TV could be constructed as a screen on the wall, like flat-pa=
nel displays that show 3D images, with all the image-writing lasers behind =
the wall, or it could be a horizontal panel on a table with the technology =
underneath the surface.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/06/holographic.television/index.htm=
l
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri Sep 19 13:52:4
8 2008
From: technews@HQ.ACM.ORG
Subject: ACM TechNews, Friday, September 19, 2008
"Talk of Future: Speech Translators Near Reality"=20
Nikkei Weekly (09/08/08) Vol. 46, No. 2353, P. 17=20
The technology for automated speech translation, which blends speech recogn=
ition software with a database of linguistic resources made accessible by a=
n Internet-enabled cell phone, may soon be available. The Japanese governm=
ent's Council for Science and Technology Policy projects that Japanese trav=
elers who are unfamiliar with English or Mandarin will be able to visit cou=
ntries such as the United States and China without hitting a language barri=
er within five years, while within 10 years they will be able to converse i=
n even more languages, thanks to advances in automated speech translation. =
The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)=
has teamed with a number of private companies to build a practical automat=
ed speech translator by 2015, while NEC is testing a proprietary speech-rec=
ognition technology designed to compare audio input with a database of word=
cluster patterns to keep up with conversations. "If we combined that kind=
of speech recognition with a translation system, we would have an automate=
d speech translator, providing something akin to simultaneous interpretatio=
n at meetings and lectures," says NEC's Akitoshi Okumura. In August, NICT =
tested automated speech translator technologies that enable two-way Japanes=
e-Chinese translation. The translation is performed on an online server so=
that the handheld's word database can be updated anytime. Through the use=
of the Internet, sentences taken from actual conversations can be uploaded=
to the database, and this month NICT will launch a forum to convene academ=
ic and private-sector researchers to develop an automated speech translator=
capable of supporting the concurrent translation of multiple languages. T=
his group will permit researchers from various organizations and companies =
to share sample sentences and the technologies they have created.=20
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/AC/TNW/Nni20080908TC3TRANS.htm
(Web Link May Require Paid Subscription)
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Sep 10 14:
11:45 2008
From: technews@HQ.ACM.ORG
Subject: ACM TechNews, Wednesday, September 10, 2008
"Robots to Take Load as the World Ages"=20
Australian IT (09/09/08); Foo, Fran=20
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Rodney Brooks believes that=
in less than 50 years robots will be deployed in all aspects of everyday l=
ife. He says the aging population and looming skills shortage will eventua=
lly force people to turn to robots for aid with simple tasks. "Around the =
world, the ratio of the elderly to working-aged people is changing dramatic=
ally," says Brooks, who also sits on the board of NICTA, Australia's Inform=
ation and Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence. "Not on=
ly are social security funds going to get even more stressed as the number =
of people paying into the system decreases, the services that older people =
need won't be there or will come at a premium." Brooks says there are comp=
anies working to design robots capable of doing the low-level grunge work i=
n hospitals, such as collecting dirty sheets and moving around equipment, t=
o allow nurses to spend more time on patient care. Brooks notes that impro=
vements in robotics technology are delivering early results. For example, =
InTouch Technologies has developed technology that enables doctors to visit=
a patient without having to be physically present. Using a laptop and hig=
h-speed Internet connection, doctors and patients can see each other throug=
h a robot stationed by the patient's bed. The robot, remotely controlled b=
y the doctor, can move around the patient's room and conduct certain tasks =
such as checking the patient's vital signs. In addition to health care, Br=
ooks expects robots to become common in other areas such as retail.=20
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24313529-24169,00.html
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri Sep 5 13:
57:45 2008
From: technews@HQ.ACM.ORG
Subject: ACM TechNews, Friday, September 5, 2008
"Q&A: Futurist Ray Kurzweil"=20
InformationWeek (08/26/08); Greene, Michael=20
Inventor Ray Kurzweil discusses speech technology innovations that can help=
disabled users, noting that this summer saw the introduction of a cell pho=
ne that also acts as a reading machine for the vision-impaired. The handhe=
ld can take pictures of signs and read them out, and Kurzweil says the prod=
uct additionally functions as a GPS navigation system, email reader, MP3 pl=
ayer, phone, Web browser, and camera. The device's reading machine functio=
n can work in seven languages, while the user is guided via voice-directed =
output and voice prompts. "Speech recognition can also be used to provide =
intuitive interfaces into devices," notes Kurzweil, adding that these produ=
cts will be especially helpful to senior citizens if ease of use is incorpo=
rated into their design. He says a good design principle for such interfac=
es is ensuring that people who have not read the manuals can easily figure =
out how to employ the devices. Kurzweil observes that the intelligence of =
technology is advancing, with speech recognition and character recognition =
becoming more useful. He also predicts that the next decade will see the e=
mergence of fully immersive technologies that can replicate the experience =
of being in environments and interacting with people that are far removed f=
rom the user, as well as augmented reality systems that can enhance the use=
r's real-world perspective with virtual overlays.=20
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/virtualworlds/showArticle=
.jhtml?articleID=3D210200573
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Aug 18 14:
00:58 2008
From: technews@HQ.ACM.ORG
Subject: ACM TechNews, Monday, August 18, 2008
"Dutch National Supercomputer Huygens Beats Human Go Professional"=20
SARA Computing and Networking Services (08/13/08)=20
A computer has defeated a human being in the game Go for the first time. T=
he new Dutch supercomputer Huygens beat Go professional Kim MyungWan in an =
official match with a 9-stones handicap during the 24th Annual Congress for=
Go in Portland, Ore. Artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have turned=
their attention to Go after IBM's Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in che=
ss, but still were not expecting a computer program to beat a top Go player=
in a regular match under normal tournament conditions until 2020. Huygens=
, located at SARA Computing and Networking Services in Amsterdam, used the =
MoGo Titan application developed by INRIA France and Maastricht University.=
"During the official match a quarter of the supercomputer, i.e. 800 proce=
ssors--nearly 15 Teraflop/s--was used," says Maastricht University Ph.D. st=
udent Guillaume Chaslot. "This is the most powerful computer system ever u=
sed for playing a computer game, and 1,000 times more powerful than the che=
ss program Deep Blue."=20
http://www.sara.nl/news/press/20080813/Go_computer_victory_eng.html
(Web Link to Publication Homepage)
======================================================================
From TechNews, June 26/08:
"Coming Soon: Meet the Wife, She's a Robot"=20
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) (06/20/08)=20
David Levy, author of the book "Love + Sex With Robots," believes humans co=
uld have loving relationships with robots in about 40 years. Scientists ar=
e already building robots that seem life like, and sexual robots should hit=
the market within the next five years, Levy said during an international c=
onference at the University of Maastricht in Holland. Meanwhile, the indus=
try is also studying artificial personality, emotion, and consciousness, bu=
t Levy notes that scientists will need to equip robots with human-like conv=
ersation skills in order for humans to think seriously about making the mac=
hines their partners. "You want a partner who has some similar interest to=
you, who talks to you in a manner that pleases you, who has a similar sens=
e of humor to you," Levy says. "You will find robots, conversation partner=
s, that will talk to you and you will get as much pleasure from it as talki=
ng to another human." British scholar Dylan Evans says Levy's ideas raise =
ethical and relationship issues, while Dutch researcher Vincent Wiegel of D=
elft's Technological University says the industry still cannot create AI th=
at would be comparable to the mind of a two-year-old child.=20
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/meet-the-wife-shes-a-robot/2008/06/20=
/1213770901374.html
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Jun 18 15:46:36 2008
From: TechNews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, June 18, 2008
"Can Machines Be Conscious?"
IEEE Spectrum (06/08) Vol. 45, No. 6, P. 55; Koch, Christof; Tononi, Giulio
Some people are convinced that a conscious machine could be constructed
within a few decades, in cluding Caltech professor Christof Koch and
University of Wisconsin, Madison professor Giulio Tononi, who write
that the emergence of an artificially created consciousness may not
take the for m of the most popular speculations. They note that
consciousness requires neither sensory input nor motor output,
as exemplified by the phenomenon of dreaming, and emotions are not
a necessary component for consciousness, either. Koch and Tononi
also cite clinical data to suggest that other traditional elements
of consciousness--explicit or working memory, attention,
self-reflection, language--may not be essential, while the
necessary properties of consciousness depend on the amount of
integrated information that an organism or machine can produce.
The authors offer the integrated information theory of consciousness
as a framework for measuring different neural architectures'
effectiveness at generating integrated information and achieving
consciousness, and this framework outlines what they describe as
"a Turing Test for consciousness." One test would be to ask the
machine to concisely describe a scene in a manner that efficiently
differentiates the scene's key features from the vast spectrum of
other possible scenes. Koch and Tononi suggest that the building of
a conscious machine could involve the evolution of an abstracted
mammal-like architecture into a conscious entity.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6278
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri May 23 14:49:1 2 2008
Subject: ACM TechNews; Friday, May 23, 2008
[Looks like neuroscientists are beginning to reverse-engineer
parts of the brain!]
"Cat Brain Could Provide Bionic Eye Firmware"
New Scientist (05/21/08); Axt, Barbara
Software developed by researchers at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research
Institute can perceive moving images in much the same way as a cat's
brain, a development that researchers hope will lead to implants that
make it possible for people to see without an optic eye nerve.
The researchers developed the software by recording the responses
of 49 individual neurons in the part of a cat's brain called the
lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), which receives and processes
visual information from the retina, via the optic nerve, before
sending it on to the cerebral cortex. Using a mix of simple stimuli
such as dots and bars, and then shifting to more complex moving
artificial scenes, the researchers determined the basics of the
LGN's response to visual features. The collected data made it
possible to build a software model of the LGN that can approximate
how the neurons would respond to real scenes. The model was tested
against scenes recorded on a camera attached to a cat's head.
The model's predictions were 80 percent accurate when viewing
artificial scenes, but accuracy fell to 60 percent when viewing
the scenes from the camera or scenes from a movie with independently
moving elements. Nevertheless, the researchers say being able
to predict LGN activity from moving images at all is significant.
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn13953-cat-brain-could-provide-bionic-eye-firmware.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Apr 28 15
:39:40 2008
Subject: ACM TechNews; Monday, April 28, 2008
"Humanoid Robot to Conduct Detroit Symphony Orchestra"
Computerworld (04/24/08); Gaudin, Sharon
Honda Motor is preparing its Asimo robot to conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchest
ra for one song during a sold-out concert on May 13, 2008. Asimo will lead the
orchestra when it plays "Impossible Dream" from the musical "Man of La Mancha."
"The musicians will have to follow him and do what he says," says Jill Woodward
with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. "It will be interesting to see if he has,
shall we say, a different take on the piece." Asimo also will present a lifeti
me achievement award to cellist Yo-Yo Ma during the concert, and will show off i
ts conducting abilities to local music students the following day. Honda has be
en developing Asimo since 1986, and envisions the robot as a helper that will be
able to assist the elderly and the disabled in their homes in the future. Asim
o is capable of walking forward and backward, climbing up and down stairs, and e
ven running at speeds of about four miles per hour.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleI
d=9080278&intsrc=hm_list
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Apr 21 15
:24:52 2008
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Monday, April 21, 2008
"Robots That Can Assist With Elder Care Created by UMass Amherst Researchers"
University of Massachusetts Amherst (04/15/08)
University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have developed uBot-5,
a robotic assistant designed to care for the elderly and improve their
quality of life. The robot can call 911 in an emergency, remind
patients to take their medication , assist with grocery shopping
and help people talk to others such as health car e providers.
Family members can access the robot and talk with the robot's ward
using an Internet connection, even guiding the robot around the home
to look for someone. Doctors can use the robot to perform virtual
house calls. "For the first time, robots are safe enough and
inexpensive enough to do meaningful work in a residential environment,"
says computer scientist Rob Grupen, who developed the ASSIST project
with computer scientists Allen Hanson and Edward Riseman. An array
of sensors serve as the robot's eyes and ears, allowing it to recognize
activities such as walking or sitting. The robot can also recognize
abnormal events, such as a person falling, to alert a medical
caregiver. The robot can ask a person to smile, raise both arms
or speak, actions that it can recognize. The robot can also detect
and move obstructions and carry approximately 2.2 pounds and has
the potential to perform household tasks that require dexterity,
such as cleaning and grocery shopping. The uBot-5 also has a Web
cam, a microphone and a touch-screen LCD display that acts as an
interface for communication.
http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/newsreleases/articles/74079.php
For pictures and an in-house description see
http://www-robotics.cs.umass.edu/Robots/UBot-5
It seems to be about 3' tall, has 2 wheels (sort of a segue rig),
long multi-component mecho arms, and instead of a head has a screen
monitor displaying a face (I presume this would be the means
for remote "picture-phoning")
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Apr 16 16
:46:23 2008
From: TechNews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, April 16, 2008
"One Virtual Step for Man, One Real Leap for Mankind"
ICT Results (04/11/08)
The CyberWalk project at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
in Europe has developed an omni-directional treadmill that will enable users
to walk through virtual worlds. "In the virtual environment you have
flight simulators, car simulators, but the most natural way of
locomotion for humans is walking and this was practically impossible,"
says CyberWalk coordinator Marc Ernst. Previous attempts to make
omni-directional treadmills have generally not allowed for a truly
natural walking and immersion experience. "A key feature is that you
need a relatively large treadmill to simulate natural walking," Ernst
says. The project has developed the CyberCarpet, a treadmill that
is 6 meters by 6 meters, with an active walking area of 4.5 meters
by 4.5 meters, which Ernst says is the minimum size for natural walking.
The CyberCarpet features a platform with a big chain drive, while the
chain elements are made of conventional treadmills. The chain moves
in one direction while the movement direction of the belts is orthogonal
to the movement of the chain. The two directions of the chain and the
belts provide the omni-directional actuation so the treadmill motion
is in opposition to the motion of the walker no matter what direction
the walker moves. The treadmill uses cameras to track the position
and posture of the walker, which helps control the velocity of the
treadmill and interactions with the virtual environment.
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89667
"Has a Robot Revolution Started, or Is It Still 20 Years Off?"
Computerworld (04/10/08); Gaudin, Sharon
A robotic revolution is three to five years off with robotic aides and
companions expected to penetrate households as prices fall and technology
advances, says Microsoft's Tandy Trower. Trower says the absence of
a standard software platform is the reason why the growth of robotics
has been so slow in recent years, and his group is currently updating
its Robotics Studio software, which features a tool set and a series
of programming libraries that sit on top of Windows. James Kuffner of
Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute says the revolution
Trower is predicting is more likely to come in about 20 years' time,
which is when he expects multi-functional humanoid robots that do not
require special programming to be common household appliances.
Meanwhile, The Envisioneering Group's Richard Doherty says people
who are afraid of losing employment to robots could act as an impediment
to progress in the robotics industry. "We need to see robots in a
different light," he says. "We need people to understand that this
machine could help care for their grandmother." British artificial
intelligence researcher David Levy has gone so far as to predict that
marriages between humans and robots will be taking place by 2050 thanks
to dramatic technological advances. "In the last 20 years, we've been
moving toward robots that have relationships with humans, and it will
keep growing toward a more emotional relationship," he said in an interview.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleI
d=9076358
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Apr 9 14:5
5:28 2008
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, April 9, 2008
"MIT Nexi Robot Expresses Emotions"
Technovelgy.com (04/06/08); Christensen, Bill
The MIT Nexi robot can express a wide range of emotions with its face. Designed b
y Xitome Design with MIT, Nexi has a neck mechanism that takes advantage of 4 degr
ees of freedom at the base, in addition to the pan-tilt-yaw capabilities of its he
ad. Nexi can express different emotions with its gaze, eyebrows, eyelids, and an
articulate mandible. The range of emotions expressed are comparable to those of t
he South Korean EveR2-Muse Robot, which has a more human face. The robot has a co
lor CCD in each eye, an indoor Active 3D infrared camera in its head, and four mic
rophones to support sound localization. Modeled after the uBot5 mobile manipulato
r developed by the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics at UMASS Amherst, Nexi has a
Segway-style chassis that can detect human touch, a mobile base that can balance
dynamically on two wheels, and arms that can carry up to 10 pounds. The robot sti
ll needs to be taught how to respond emotionally.
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1562
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Apr 2 14:1
3:13 2008
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, April 2, 2008
"Robotic Minds Think Alike?"
ICT Results (03/27/08)
European researchers led by Linkoping University in Sweden have developed COSPAL,
an artificial cognitive system that learns from experience and observation instead
of relying on predefined rules and models. COSPAL robots can recognize, identify
, and interact with objects in random, unforeseen situations, and can perform task
s based on their own experiences and observations of humans. COSPAL coordinator M
ichael Felsberg says children reach an understanding of cause and effect by testin
g and trying everything. When applied to an artificial cognitive system, this app
roach helps create robots that learn very similarly to how humans do, and can even
learn from humans, allowing the robots to continue to perform tasks even when the
ir environment changes or when objects they are not pre-programmed to recognize ar
e put in front of them. A COSPAL robot with no pre-programmed geometric knowledge
was able to recognize objects simply from experience, even when the surroundings
and th
e position of the robot's camera was changed. The robot was able to solve a shap
e-shorting puzzle similar to ones used to teach small children. Through trial and
error, the robot was able to place cubes in square holes and cylinders in round h
oles, proving that it is possible to solve geometric problems without knowing geom
etry, Felsberg says. The robot also learned to identify colors by sight, instead
of by assigning a number to correspond with the colors.
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType
/Features/ID/89632
"Virtual Pets Can Learn Just Like Babies"
New Scientist (03/28/08) No. 2649, P. 24; Biever, Celeste
Autonomous artificial intelligence programs that can learn behavior by observing t
he actions of human-controlled avatars, like human infants learn from parents, wil
l function as pets in the virtual realm when they are released to Second Life and
other virtual worlds later this year. The use of virtual characters that can be t
aught is expected to greatly enhance computer games, with the Electric Sheep Compa
ny's Sibley Verbek noting that virtual pets could be trained by owners to aid them
in battles in adventure games. Novamente's virtual pets require direct communica
tion from human controllers, who could tell them that they are about to teach them
a task, and then demonstrate the physical action to be performed, such as sitting
down. The pets are preprogrammed to seek praise from their owners by performing
the action correctly, but they also have other basic desires such as hunger, along
with random movement and exploration of the environment. Their "memory" records
their
observations as they explore, and then the pets perform statistical analysis to f
ind combinations of sequences and actions that appear to predict fulfillment of th
eir goals, applying that knowledge to guide future behavior. Thus more sophistica
ted behavior can be nurtured. Novamente's Ben Goertzel thinks learning gestures c
ould serve as a foundation for virtual pets to learn language.
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19726495.700-virtual-pets-can-le
arn-just-like-babies.html
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Mar 26 16:0
1:21 2008
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, March 26, 2008
"New Breed of Cognitive Robot...a Puppy?"
ICT Results (03/21/08)
The European Union-funded COSPAL project has discovered that the
shortcomings of classical rule-based artificial intelligence
and artificial neural networks (ANNs) can be overcome by combining
the two approaches, and this strategy forms the basis of the
project's artificial cognitive systems. A team led by Linkoping
University researcher Michael Felsberg has devised a new type
of cognitive, learning robot that employs ANNs to manage the
low-level functions based on the visual input it receives and
classical AI to serve as a supervisory mechanism. "In this way,
we found it was possible for the robots to explore the world
around them through direct interaction, create ways to act in it,
and then control their actions in accordance," says Felsberg.
"This combines the advantages of classical AI, which is superior
when it comes to functions akin to human rationality, and the
advantages of ANN, which is superior at performing tasks for
which humans would use their subconscious, things like basic
motor skills and low-level cognitive tasks." The COSPAL robot
learned to complete a shape-sorting puzzle without being
provided with specific directions, other than being told by
a human operator when it had performed a correct action or
when it had committed an error. The scalability of the COSPAL
researchers' approach is what distinguishes it the most from
what had been the state of the art.
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/89628
======================================================================
From www@aaai.org Thu Mar 13 13:28:09 2008
Subject: AAAI AI ALERT Full-Text 13 March 2008
March 4, 2008: NZ's Massive Software exhibits in Germany. By Jon Valjean. Gameplane
t News. "Massive software announced today that it will be exhibiting at CeBIT as par
t of the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) stand along with other exemplary New
Zealand-based technology innovators. Academy Award-winning Massive is the revolution
ary 3D animation system that incorporates procedural animation and artificial intell
igence. Massive is used by animation and visual effects artists to explore the new w
orld of creative opportunities that AI-enabled characters make possible. … As
part of Massive’s exhibit, representatives from Hanson Robotics will be on ha
nd to demonstrate Zeno, the first AI-driven robot using the breakthrough artificial
intelligence (AI) software from Massive to reason and get smarter over time." *
[*]Also see: The robot that walks and talks like Gollum. By Stuart Turton. PC Pro (
March 5, 2008). " The artificial intelligence (AI) technology which once told the Or
cs which humans to hit in the Lord of the Rings is now finding its way into a myriad
of other applications, and could even be bringing the next generation of robotics i
nto our living rooms. … ’The genesis of the idea was to author an AI th
at could drive the behaviours, first of a virtual character that could act on their
own behalf, and then drive the servos of something like Zeno - that was how it was c
onceived even at the beginning,’ says Diane Holland, chief executive officer o
f Massive. ‘The same technology that drove Gollum's movement is now driving Ze
no's movement.’"\n
[*]Watch this related video from BBC News (March 2008): Robot toy can be your 'fri
end'. "At the Cebit technology fair, David Hanson of Hanson Robotics displays [Zeno]
his ‘character toy’, a robot that can ‘become your friend’"
. \n
/> back to headlines/
March 4, 2008: A Virtual Travel Agent With All the Answers. By Joe Sharkey. The New
York Times. "I hate being addressed by machines. … So I was skeptical when I
got a news release informing me that Alaska Airlines and its subsidiary, Horizon Air
, had introduced on the Alaskaair.com Web site a ‘virtual assistant named Jenn
.’ Jenn, it said, responds orally to typed questions, ‘asks follow-up qu
estions when needed’ and also provides a written response and displays the sit
e’s relevant page. Jenn also has a personality, it said, and ‘answers ma
ny personal questions. Jenn is not annoying. She is depicted on the Web site as a yo
ung brunette with a nice smile. Her voice has proper inflections. Type in a question
, and she replies intelligently…. Jenn was designed by a technology company i
n Spokane, Wash., the Next IT Corporation (www.NextIT.com), which has a goal of simp
lifying interaction between people and computers, using natural-la
nguage communications to retrieve information and even ask follow-up questions to cl
arify intent. While the Next IT voice technology depends on typed questions to elici
t oral responses, the field is evolving. In a recent speech at Carnegie Mellon Unive
rsity, Bill Gates said that Microsoft was committed to developing more sophisticated
methods that used two-way speech technology to improve the give and take between us
ers and databases. … Jenn learns from experience and interaction. ‘This
technology is trained, but it gets smarter over time,’ Mr. [Fred] Brown said.
"
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Mar 12 16:27:2
0 2008
From: TechNews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, March 12, 2008
"Bringing Second Life to Life: Researchers Create Character With Reasoning Abilities
of a Child"
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (03/10/08); Cleveland, Amber
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers are engineering virtual characters with
belief systems and the ability to reason based on the beliefs of others. The researc
hers say that the engineered characters will be able to predict and manipulate the be
havior of human characters. At a recent conference on artificial intelligence, they
unveiled a Second Life character named Eddie that has the reasoning abilities of a 4-
year-old child. "Current avatars in massively multiplayer online worlds--such as Sec
ond Life--are directly tethered to a user's keystrokes and only give the illusion of
mentality," says Selmer Bringsjord, lead researcher and head of Rensselaer's Cognitiv
e Science Department. "Truly convincing autonomous synthetic characters must possess
memories; believe things, want things, remember things." Engineering these virtual
characters requires combining logic-based artificial intelligence and computational c
ognitive modeling techniques with supercomputer process
ing power, Bringsjord says. The goal is to build artificial agents that are able to
ascribe the mental states of other agents, making the virtual characters more intere
sting and useful.
http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2410
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri Feb 29 13:55:
55 2008
From: TechNews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Friday, February 29, 2008
"First Humanoid Robot That Will Develop Language"
University of Hertfordshire (02/28/08)
An international consortium led by the University of Plymouth is launching ITALK (In
tegration and Transfer of Action and Language Knowledge in Robots), a project to tea
ch a humanoid robot how to talk. ITALK researchers plan to take the same approach u
sed by a parent to teach a child how to speak. They will make use of a number of ac
tivities such as inserting objects of various shapes into the correct holes in a box
, serializing nested cups and stacking wooden blocks, and asking the robot to name o
bjects and actions so that it can pick up basic phrases. ITALK will use the one-met
er high robot iCub during its experiments. "ICub will take us a stage forward in de
veloping robots as social companions," says Kerstin Dautenhahn, a specialist in arti
ficial intelligence and human robot interaction at the University of Hertfordshire's
School of Computer Science. "We have studied issues such as how robots should look
and how close people will want them to approach and now, within a
year, we will have the first humanoid robot capable to developing language skills.
"
http://perseus.herts.ac.uk/uhinfo/extrel/press-office/prm/2008/february/pr-28-01-08-
hm.cfm
======================================================================
From www@aaai.org Tue Feb 26 16:02:03 2008
From: AIAlert-Text
To: schubert@cs.rochester.edu
March 2008 [issue date]: Not Tonight, Dear, I Have to Reboot -
Is love and marriage with robots an institute you can disparage?
Computing pioneer David Levy doesn't think so - he expects people
to wed droids by midcentury. Is that a good thing?
By Charles Q. Choi. Scientific American.
"Over the decades, [artificial-intelligence researcher David Levy]
notes, interactions between humans and robots have become
increasingly personal. Whereas robots initially found work,
say, building cars in a factory, they have now moved into the
home in the form of Roomba the robotic vacuum cleaner and digital
pets such as Tamagotchis and the Sony Aibo.
And the machines can adopt a decidedly humanoid look: the robot
Repliee from Hiroshi Ishiguro, director of Osaka University's
Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, can fool people into believing
that it is a real person for about 10 seconds from a few feet
away. ... Science-fiction fans have witnessed plenty of action
between humans and characters portraying artificial life-forms,
such as with Data from the Star Trek franchise or the Cylons
from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. ... The modern age of
telecommunications has already made it possible to fall in love
without ever having met face to face, Levy adds. 'So many people
nowadays are developing strong emotional attachments across the
Internet, even agreeing to marry, that I think it doesn't matter
what's on the other end of the line,' he says. 'It just matters
what you experience and perceive.'
[*]Read the related interview: Humans Marrying Robots? A Q&A with
David Levy Is love and marriage with robots an institute you can
disparage? Not to computer pioneer David Levy. Continuing advances
in computers and robotics, he thinks, will make legal marriages
between Homo and Robo feasible by mid-century. By Charles Q. Choi.
A Scientific American Web Feature (February 19, 2008). "[Q] How
did you first become interested in artificial intelligence (AI)?
... [Q] If people fall in love with robots, aren't they just
falling in love with an algorithm?
[A] If people fall in love with robots, aren't they just
falling in love with an algorithm? It's not that people will fall
in love with an algorithm, but that people will fall in love with
a convincing simulation of a human being, and convincing simulations
can have a remarkable effect on people.
... [Q] How might human-robot relationships alter human society?
... [Q] What directions will you pursue now?
[A] I'm writing an academic paper on the ethical treatment of
robots. Not just the ethics of designing robots to do certain things
-- people write about whether we should design robots to go into
combat and kill people, for instance -- but should we be treating
robots in an ethical way. ..."
======================================================================
From www@aaai.org Tue Feb 12 14:14:35 2008
From: AIAlert-Text
To: schubert@cs.rochester.edu
February 2, 2008: Gizmo. New Scientist (Issue 2641: page 21). "Ever wondered what
it would be like to listen to God answering any question you ask? Now you can si
mulate the experience with godsbot (www.godsbot.org), a chatbot that gives spoken
answers to typed questions on religion, philosophy and science."
Going to the demo site, I foud that this is a "Christian bot" intended
to "spread the word". I tried the following questions and got the answers
shown:
Human: When did life emerge on Earth?
godsbot: That is all water under the bridge.
Human: What is Newton's second law?
godsbot: Are you testing me?
Human: What was Darwin's theory?
godsbot: it is something that has few practical applications.
======================================================================
"Honda Demos Robot That Can Run 4 Mph and May One Day Take Care of You"
Computerworld (02/07/08); Gaudin, Sharon
Honda is demonstrating its humanoid Asimo robot at the Japan Culture and Hypercul
ture festival in Washington, D.C. "The idea behind Asimo is that it would someda
y be a helper to people inside their homes, maybe the disabled or the elderly," s
ays Honda's Alicia Jones. Asimo, under development since 1986, made its public d
ebut when it rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 14, 200
2. Now, the robot can walk forward and backward, climb up and down stairs, and r
un at nearly 4 mph. Jones says making the robot able to run is important so it c
an react and move quickly, like if a family dog runs into the robot's path or the
robot needs to run to help someone in distress. Jones expects Asimo to initiall
y cost about the same as a luxury automobile, and that people will personalize As
imo and think of it as part of their family. Eventually, people will be able to
hold conversations with the robot, though not for some time. "The artificial int
elligence part of
it is going to be a challenge," Jones says. "It has facial recognition and voic
e recognition, so you can program in a set of voice commands, and it would respon
d to you."
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyN
ame=development&articleId=9061519&taxonomyId=11&intsrc=kc_top
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Jan 30 15: 09:17 2008
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Stanford computer scientist Terry Winograd says that before academics participate
in creating fighting robots, they should ask themselves if they support the goal
s and content of their studies, as well as if they are free to publish their rese
arch. Professor Maarten van Veen of the Netherlands Defense Academy expressed a
similar concern, telling a group at Stanford's Technology in Wartime conference,
"We as computer professionals have a responsibility for what we make." The event
, organized by the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and attended
by civilians, military personnel, academics, and human rights workers, focused on
a key question: "What should socially responsible computer professionals do in a
time of high-tech warfare?" Georgia Institute of Technology Mobile Robot Labora
tory director Ronald Arkin argued for the development of war-capable robots in ac
ademia, arguing that Pentagon officials are determined to create autonomous robot
s capable of decid
ing whether or not to use deadly force, so computer scientists should help desig
n their self-control programs. Arkin says with proper ethical controls, robotic
soldiers could be more humane than human soldiers because they would not be effec
ted by emotions. Arkin noted a 2006 Mental Health Advisory Team study for the U.
S. Army's Surgeon General which found that 10 percent of soldiers and Marines rep
orted mistreating civilians by unnecessarily hitting them or destroying property.
"We could reduce man's inhumanity to man through technology," Arkin says.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/29/BUF7UNM4I.DTL&type=te
ch
"LISA Helps"
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (01/08)
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IF
F in Magdeburg have developed a laboratory robot that could quickly make its way
to the commercial market as a tool for providing assistance with everyday routine
s in the home. LISA (life science assistant) is not only cost-effective, but its
sensing gripper arm is able to limit jostling and prevent the robot from injurin
g people, making it very safe. Within a year, biotechnology labs will be able to
use LISA for loading incubators, measuring equipment with sample trays, and navi
gation from one lab instrument to another. LISA also features "artificial skin"
with intelligent signal processing electronics, a thermographic camera that can p
ick up body heat and determine if a human hand is in the way, and a laser-aided n
avigation system that allows it to move through familiar spaces and doorways on i
ts own. The robot can understand sentences, ask a question if it does not unders
tand, and receive
commands through a touchscreen. LISA learns new tasks easily, which is critical
for the life science laboratory. "LISA was tailored precisely to its niche for
use," says project coordinator Dr. Norbert Elkmann from the IFF. "This is the on
ly way its everyday use will soon be possible--we could be that far in about one
to two years."
http://www.fraunhofer.de/EN/press/pi/2008/01/ResearchNews12008Topic1.jsp
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Jan 14 16:
12:31 2008
From: TechNews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Monday, January 14, 2008
"CES - A Sensitive Arm Is the Next Big Thing for Robots"
Network World (01/10/08); Shah, Agam
Microsoft robotics group general manager Tandy Trower says that robots with fully
functioning arms will be able to set tables, load dishwashers, and pick up delic
ate objects. "That will be the tipping point," Trower says. "Once robots can ma
nipulate things in our environment in a safe way, they can do virtually anything
a human can possibly do physically." The hardware may be ready in as little as f
ive years, but the real challenge will be the programming, Trower says. Software
that allows robots to understand surface textures and to identify objects will r
equire complex code that will take a long time to write, Trower cautions, adding
that while a fully functioning arm is reasonable, real artificial intelligence is
another matter. "The artificial intelligence community has struggled for years
to create models that allow technology to be more expansive," he says. "What we
find today are crude things." To improve the quality of programmers with special
ized skills, unive
rsities are trying to introduce mainstream robotics courses. For example, Carne
gie Mellon has started a course based on Microsoft's Robotics Studio. Another ch
allenge is creating interoperability between various software platforms and tools
used in robot programming. Trower says moving away from proprietary systems wil
l make it easier to exchange ideas and software code and help develop reliable, u
sable robots.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/011008-ces-a-sensitive-arm-is.html
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Jan 7 13:44:3
4 2008
From: TechNews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Monday, January 7, 2008
"Pondering a Computer With a Conscience"
Buffalo News (01/07/08); Continelli, Louise
Brandeis University neuroscience researcher Eliezer J. Sternberg's new book, "Are You
a Machine? The Brain, The Mind And What It Means to Be Human," explores the possibil
ity that computers could attain consciousness and meld with humans. Sternberg says s
ome experts believe that we are close to designing super-intelligent machines capable
of thinking millions of times faster than we do, and that by the middle of the centu
ry $1,000 will buy a computer with processing power equal to the brain power of the e
ntire human population. Computers will also be able to create virtual worlds that al
low us to alter and escape the real world. "Instead of calling a friend on the phone
, you will be able to meet him or her at a virtual Parisian cafe or at the top of a v
irtual mountain with a scenic view," Sternberg says. "This virtual life will be as d
etailed as real life in every way." In his book, Sternberg note that inventor and co
mputer expert Ray Kurzweil and MIT scientist Marvin Min
sky believe that evolution will ultimately combine man and machine, leading to a wor
ld where the line between man and machine is so vague that people will not make any d
istinction.
http://www.buffalonews.com/185/story/245477.html
"GM Envisions Driverless Cars on Horizon"
Associated Press (01/07/08); Krisher, Tom; Thomas, Ken
General Motors predicts that consumers will be able to buy vehicles that drive and pa
rk themselves within a decade. The necessary technology, such as radar-based cruise
control, motion sensors, lane-change warning devices, electronic stability control, a
nd satellite-based digital mapping already exists. Stanford University computer scie
nce professor Sebastian Thrun agrees that the driverless car is a technically attaina
ble goal, but he is unsure if the automaker will have any vehicles in its showrooms i
n a decade. "There's some very fundamental, basic regulations in the way of that vis
ion in many countries," Thrun says. He notes that the technology has a long way to g
o, considering one vehicle in the recent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's
Urban Challenge nearly charged a building and another pulled into a house carport and
parked itself. The contest initially drew 35 teams, but only six completed the 60-m
ile course, and Thrun's team took second place.
http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/features/20080107_ap_gmenvisionsdriverlesscarso
nhorizon.html
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Jan 2 15:31
Sender: ACM TechNews Early Alert Service
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, January 2, 2008
"Q&A: Author Nicholas Carr on the Terrifying Future of Computing"
Wired News (12/20/07); Reiss, Spencer
Nicholas Carr's new book, "The Big Switch," examines the emerging
"World Wide Computer," or the network of dummy PCs linked to massive
server farms in the data cloud. Carr sees the future of computing
as troublesome because he anticipates all computers will be linked
into essentially a single computer, largely eliminating privacy.
Carr says that most people have already made the switch from
desktop to cloud computing, with increasing numbers of people
using Web applications such as Flickr and Gmail instead of
traditional programs on their hard drives, and many people made
the switch without even knowing it. "People say they're nervous
about storing personal info online, but they do it all the time,
sacrificing privacy to save time and money," Carr says.
"Companies are no different. The two most popular Web-based
business applications right now are for managing payroll and
customer accounts--some of the most sensitive information companies
have." Carr argues that although computers are a liberating
technology, they can also be a controlling technology. He says
that "as systems become more centralized--as personal data becomes
more exposed and data-mining software grows in sophistication--
the interests of control will gain the upper hand. If you're
looking to monitor and manipulate people, you couldn't design
a better machine." Carr says the scariest thing about the future
is not that computers are starting to act more human, but that
humans are starting to act more like machines, focusing more on
the speed of locating and reading data. "We're transferring our
intelligence into the machine, and the machine is transferring
its way of thinking into us," Carr says.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-01/st_qa
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri Dec 28
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Friday, December 28, 2007
"IBM Dishes Five Predictions for the Future"
IDG News Service (12/25/07); Kanaracus, Chris
IBM recently issued its second annual series of five-year technology predictio
ns, one of which projects that "intelligent traffic systems" and cars that com
municate with other vehicles and roadside sensors will create a "wave of conne
ctivity" between vehicles and roadways that will help maintain a smooth traffi
c flow, lower pollution levels, and reduce driver aggravation. Consumers will
also have a much better knowledge of what they are eating, with IBM predictin
g that "You will know everything from the climate and soil the food was grown
in, to the pesticides and pollution it was exposed to, to the energy consumed
to create the product, to the temperature and air quality of the shipping cont
ainers it traveled through on the way to your dinner table." Also forecasted
by IBM is the increased power and functionality of cell phones, while doctors'
ability to heal will receive a boost thanks to advances in X-ray and audio te
chnologies. Diagnosis and treatment will be augmented
when computers become capable of comparing a patient's records with a vast d
atabase of other records. Wide proliferation of "smart energy" devices is exp
ected as well, with IBM stating that "dishwashers, air conditioners, house lig
hts, and more will be connected directly to a 'smart' electric grid, making it
possible to turn them on and off using your cell phone or any Web browser."
The Futurist editor Edward Cornish considers IBM's forecasts to be "quite rea
sonable," noting that they are "based on technologies that have been around fo
r a number of years and are simply extrapolations."
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140818/article.html
"Researchers: Nanowires Could Boost Battery Life 10X"
Computerworld (12/20/07); Gaudin, Sharon
Stanford University researchers are using silicon nanowires that allow lithium
-ion batteries to hold 10 times the charge they could before. Assistant profe
ssor of materials science and engineering Yi Cui says the technology could lea
d to laptops that currently hold a four-hour charge holding a 40-hour charge.
Cui says the batteries could also be used in iPods, cell phones, and even ele
ctronic vehicles, as well as in homes and commercial buildings to store energy
from solar panels. Currently, the capacity of a lithium-ion battery is limit
ed to how much lithium the battery's anode can hold. Anodes are generally mad
e from carbon, but silicon has a much higher storage capacity. Cui says the n
anowires act as an active battery material to store the lithium-ion, with sili
con nanowires replacing the carbon in the battery. When the nanowires touch t
he lithium-ion, a new material is formed, lithium silicide, in which the energ
y is stored. When the energy is consumed, the lithium
silicide material reverts back to silicon, making the batteries rechargeable
. The researchers are currently working on ways of mass producing the batteri
es. "Given the mature infrastructure behind silicon, this new technology can
be pushed to real life quickly," says Cui.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxono
myName=mobile_and_wireless&articleId=9053820&taxonomyId=15&intsrc=kc_top
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Dec 10 15:18:1 5 2007
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Monday, December 10, 2007
ACM TechNews; Monday, December 10, 2007
"The Robots Among Us"
San Francisco Chronicle (12/09/07) P. P14; Abate, Tom
Human-level machine intelligence is predicted to emerge within the next three to five
decades by author and technology forecaster Marshall Brain, while director of the Sa
n Francisco State University Robotics Institute David Calkins notes that robots are a
lready functioning in everyday human society, although their profile is considerably
lower than the walking, talking machines popularized in movies and television. Consu
mer robots such as the Roomba vacuum cleaner have emerged through the convergence of
smart software, miniaturized electronics, and wireless network access. Furthering th
e development of robotics is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's "Grand C
hallenges" to create unmanned ground vehicles for the military through competitive sy
stems development between corporate and non-corporate teams. So far such automated v
ehicles are being used to limit U.S. casualties or conduct reconnaissance, and DARPA'
s Jan Walker says the rules for operational use of auto
nomous robots will be worked out "deliberately and cautiously." As robots penetrate
the consumer sector, the issues of safety and product liability are being raised. P
eople such as Bill Thomasmeyer of The Technology Collaborative speculate that a time
may come when Congress will need to be consulted to determine the level of accountabi
lity for firms whose products malfunction. Challenges that will have to be met befor
e autonomous machine servants are viable include refining sensors and software to nav
igate environments, and one area that is gaining credibility is telepresence, or the
remote control of robots by human operators over the Internet.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/09/CMT8TBLM9.DTL
(Web Link May Require Paid Subscription)
"Toyota Aims to Put Robots to Use Early Next Decade"
Reuters (12/06/07); Kin, Chang-Ran
Toyota Motor recently announced that it plans to deploy humanoid and other advanced r
obots for practical use in factories, hospitals, homes, and public areas soon after 2
010. Along with the unveiling of two new robots, one called the "mobility robot" and
the other the "violin-playing robot," Toyota announced that it would increase its re
search and development effort in robotics, including doubling the number of engineers
to about 200 in about three years and building a robot technology research facility
next year. "Over the next two to three years, we will put the robots to the test thr
ough trial applications and see what kind of business possibilities they present," sa
ys Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe. The violin robot currently has 17 joints in b
oth of its hands and arms, but Toyota plans on further advancing the robot's dexterit
y and flexibility to make it better able to assist with household chores. The mobili
ty robot, which looks like a bulky high-chair on wheels
, is designed to help people with short-distance transport, and is essentially an in
telligent wheelchair that can travel on uneven ground and around obstacles. Toyota e
nvisions a "Partner Robot" that could help with domestic duties, nursing and medical
care, manufacturing, and short-distance personal transport.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=motoringSummary&storyID=2007-12
-06T110425Z_01_ORM639791_RTRUKOC_0_TOYOTA-ROBOTS.xml
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri Nov 30 16:45:0
3 2007
Subject: ACM TechNews; Friday, November 30, 2007
"Futurologist Predicts Life in 2030"
VNUNet (11/26/07); Williams, Ian
Futurologist and author Ray Hammond predicts that by 2030 the Internet will evolve in
to a super-intelligent network, our bodies will contain neurological interfaces, robo
ts will play a major role in our daily lives, and replacement organs will help extend
the average life span to 130. Hammond's predictions are part of a report, "The Worl
d in 2030," which was produced independently following a year-long study. "If you th
ink this picture of life in 2030 sounds unrealistic, consider this: how many people i
n 1985 would have thought that computers and mobile phones would play such a central
role in our lives today?" Hammond says. He says that no one can accurately predict t
he future, but that the report identifies key trends that are likely to shape the com
ing decades leading to 2030. "One thing is certain: the rapid change that we have se
en since the 1980s will not slow down," Hammond says. "It will speed up so much that
, in some ways, our lives in 2030 will be unrecognizabl
e today." People will be wirelessly tagged for their own protection, with data on l
ocation and health constantly being transmitted so help can be called in case of emer
gency or sudden illness. The Internet will develop into a "super combined Web" that
is always on and always connected to every device.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2204325/futurologist-predicts-life-2030
======================================================================
From www@aaai.org Fri Nov 23 15:29:24 2007
From: AIAlert-Text
To: schubert@cs.rochester.edu
November 2007: Automated Killers and the Computing Profession. By Noel Sharkey. Compu
ter Magazine. "When will we realize that our artificial-intelligence and autonomous-r
obotics research projects have been harnessed to manufacture killing machines? This i
s not terminator-style science fiction but grim reality: South Korea and Israel have
both deployed armed robot border guards, while other nations -- including China, Indi
a, Russia, Singapore, and the UK -- increasingly use military robots. Currently, the
biggest player, the US, has robots playing an integral part in its Future Combat Syst
ems project, with spending estimated to exceed $230 billion. The US military has mass
ive and realistic plans to develop unmanned vehicles that can strike from the air, un
der the sea, and on land. The US Congress set a goal in 2001 for one-third of US oper
ational ground combat vehicles to be unmanned by 2015. More than 4,000 robots present
ly serve in Iraq, with others deployed in Afghanistan.
The US military will spend $1.7 billion on more ground-based robots over the next fiv
e years, several of which will be armed and dangerous. These developments pose a mora
l and ethical minefield for engineers and computer scientists. These groups have thei
r own national or political interests, but they also have a duty to help protect inno
cents from the harm their devices might cause. ... Equipping the robotic soldier with
an artificial conscience offers one approach to resolving the ethical dilemma of usi
ng autonomous weapons. Georgia Institute of Technology's Ron Arkin has funding from t
he US Army to design an ethical autonomous robot, which he refers to as a humane-oid.
... Computing professionals and engineers have a duty to ensure that the funding bod
ies, policy makers, and -- if possible -- end users know the current limitations of A
I technology, including potential mishaps in the complexity of unpredictable real-wor
ld events."
[Shades of late-model Terminators?]
November 13, 2007: Chemical computing - Silicon electronics has been the staple of th
e computing industry for more than half a century, but increasingly researchers are l
ooking at other methods of computing to deliver increased computational power or allo
w specialist applications. BBC News. "Chemical computing is an unconventional approac
h to computation that uses a 'soup' where data is represented by different concentrat
ions of chemicals. Chemical computers can exploit several different kinds of reaction
to carry out the computation. ... Dr Andrew Adamatzky of the University of West Engl
and works on another type. 'I am dealing only with reaction-diffusion computing,' he
explains. This type of computation exploits waves travelling through a beaker of chem
icals to carry out useful calculations. ... Although slower than silicon, its key adv
antage is that it is cheap to produce and incredibly robust. Working with chemist Ben
De Lacy Costello, Dr Adamatzky has already produced lo
gic gates using the technique that can be used to make chemical 'circuitry'. 'Ultimat
ely, we will produce a general purpose chemical chip,' he said. The chip would be cap
able of mathematical operations such as adding and multiplying numbers, he said. Howe
ver, he believes he can take the research even further to create intelligent, amorpho
us robots."
November 16, 2007: Robotics Special Issue. Science (Volume 318, Issue 5853):
[*]Introduction to the Special Section: A Robotic Future. By Marc S. Lavine, David Vo
ss, and Robert Coontz. "This special section looks at robots and robotics from a wide
range of perspectives. Bellingham and Rajan (p. 1098) tell how robots with an increa
sing sense of autonomy are being used to explore the hostile environments under the o
ceans and in outer space. Pfeifer, Lungarella, and Iida (p. 1088) examine recent effo
rts to design robots based on lessons learned from biological organisms. They show th
at robots can improve their performance by borrowing living body plans and substructu
res. Madden (p. 1094) reviews the progress that has been made in developing artificia
l muscles that can compete with the properties of human muscle and may one day enable
untethered robots to run, leap, jump, or climb. But even as robots become more lifel
ike, the biological function of self-replication still eludes them, as Cho (p. 1084)
reports. The last two pieces take us from body to brain
. In a story by Lester (p. 1086), we find that robots are increasingly used in second
ary schools and undergraduate programs as tools to interest students in engineering a
nd computer science. From a different direction, a Perspective from Edelman (p. 1103)
describes a research program in which robots equipped with brainlike devices learn t
o carry out tasks in the presence of visual cues and other sensory feedback. \n
[*]Podcast: Focus on Robotics: "A companion podcast to our Robotics special issue:
Robots on the sea floor and traveling through the solar system; an editorial on robot
ethics; the DARPA robot challenge; making a robot behave like a cockroach; and more.
"
[*]Other articles in this special issue include:
[*]Editorial: Robot Ethics. By Robert J. Sawyer. "As we make robots more intelli
gent and autonomous, and eventually endow them with the independent capability to kil
l people, surely we need to consider how to govern their behavior and how much freedo
m to accord them--so-called roboethics. Science fiction dealt with this prospect deca
des ago; governments are wrestling with it today. Why now? ..."\n
[*]Scientific Facilities: Oceanography's Third Wave. By Robert F. Service.\n
[*]Behavior: Robot Cockroach Tests Insect Decision-Making Behavior. By Elizabeth
Pennisi.\n
[*]Robotics: Robotic Cars Tackle Crosstown Traffic--and Not One Another. By Adri
an Cho.\n
\n
[*]And see:
[*]Roboethics something we'll have to ponder. By Ed Willett. The Leader-Post (No
vember 21, 2007). "A couple of weeks ago I wrote about research aimed at making robot
-human interactions more comfortable for humans. [See Somewhere, George Jetson is smi
ling] With more and more robots finding more and more uses in society, that kind of r
esearch is important. But there's something else we're going to have to consider as r
obots become ubiquitous: ethics. How do we insure that robots don't pose a threat to
the much frailer humans they interact with (especially with robot caregivers being de
veloped for use in places like Japan, where the elderly already make up 20 per cent o
f the population and are swelling in number)? ... But it's not just how robots will t
reat us that we need to consider. We also need to consider how we will treat robots,
if and when artificial intelligence advances to the point that they become independen
tly thinking and functioning beings. Robert J. Sawyer i
s probably Canada's best-known science fiction writer. Much of his science fiction fo
cuses on the possible effects on near-future society of current technological trends.
In an editorial in the Nov. 16 issue of Science Magazine [Robot Ethics], he wrote ab
out the growing interest in roboethics. ... We haven't seen much concern with roboeth
ics in North America yet, but, as Sawyer points out, it's likely that some of the mos
t interesting debates over the issue will eventually surface in the United States leg
al system."\n
November 19, 2007: A Wiring Diagram of the Brain - The emerging field of connectomics
could help researchers decode the brain's approach to information processing. By Emi
ly Singer. Technology Review. "New technologies that allow scientists to trace the fi
ne wiring of the brain more accurately than ever before could soon generate a complet
e wiring diagram--including every tiny fiber and miniscule connection--of a piece of
brain. Dubbed connectomics, these maps could uncover how neural networks perform thei
r precise functions in the brain, and they could shed light on disorders thought to o
riginate from faulty wiring, such as autism and schizophrenia. 'The brain is essentia
lly a computer that wires itself up during development and can rewire itself,' says S
ebastian Seung, a computational neuroscientist at MIT. ... With an estimated 100 bill
ion neurons and 100 trillion synapses in the human brain, creating an all-encompassin
g map of even a small chunk is a daunting task. ... [Wi
nfried] Denk, Seung, and their collaborators are now developing sensitive new imaging
techniques and machine-learning algorithms to automate the construction process. ...
The researchers use data from a manually generated wiring diagram to train an artifi
cial neural network to emulate the human tracing process. They can then use the resul
ting algorithm to analyze new chunks of brain tissue. To date, they've been able to s
peed the process about one hundred- to one thousand-fold."
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Nov 14
14:26:04 2007
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, November 14, 2007
People with limited mobility brought on by age or infirmity could be helped s
ignificantly by robotic systems under development by Pitt and Carnegie Mellon
University, which received a five-year, $15 million grant from the National
Science Foundation to establish the Quality of Life Technology Center. Techn
ologies being developed include systems that monitor people's ability to carr
y out basic functions in their homes, identify decline, and then call attenti
on to the problem so that assistance can be arranged; robotic devices that ca
n assist with getting out of bed, preparing meals, and other tasks that becom
e impaired as people's abilities deteriorate; "virtual coach" technology that
helps people with waning mental skills perform daily tasks via a mobile devi
ce such as a watch or cell phone; and in-car programs that maintain mobility
by observing people's driving ability, spotting potentially dangerous habits,
and providing guidance on how to correct those habits. Such brea
kthroughs could extend the independence and productivity of disabled people
and prolong their time out of nursing homes, which would amount to tremendous
savings. Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute professor Martial Hebert says c
reating a computerized system that records behavioral observations alone is a
major challenge, and the Quality of Life Technology Center's goal is to empl
oy such systems to anticipate future actions. To get feedback from clients o
n problems and other issues their devices face, the center has teamed up with
long-term care providers and disability service agencies. The center also h
as business advisers because the cost of the potential products to consumers
is substantial, while social scientists are enlisted to evaluate the willingn
ess of people to interact with robotic devices and take instructions from the
m. The center will detail its progress on its assorted projects to the NSF i
n March.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07318/833537-114.stm
======================================================================
[The following caught my attention largely because of the last sentence
about the EU's new "Companions" ("new Companions"?) project]
From www@aaai.org Fri Nov 9 14:27:47 2007
From: "AIAlert-Text"
Subject: AAAI AI ALERT Full-Text 9 November 2007
November 9, 2007: Is There Progress on Talking Sensibly to Machines? A
"Perspectives: Computer Science" article by Yorick Wilks. Science
318(5852): 927 - 928 (subscription req'd). "Since the earliest days of
computing, people have sought ways to communicate with computers in
'natural' language, rather than program them in symbolic languages like
FORTRAN and C. In the 1960s, MIT researcher Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA
program was an entertaining simulation of a Rogerian therapist [fn]. ... In
the PARRY/ELIZA years, artificial intelligence research typically took
logic to be the core of machine intelligence, and linguistics was still
strongly influenced by Noam Chomsky at MIT; both AI and linguistics assumed
that small sets of axioms or grammar rules explained large sets of data,
i.e., proved theorems or sentences. ... All this changed in 1990, with the
astonishing success of Frederick Jelinek's team at IBM [fn]. ... The method
was a statistical one that learned from the parallel text data what
translation was but without creating any rules at all. This was the first
important work in applying machine learning to language processing. ... The
field has now settled into two main traditions of research on how to
produce machine conversationalists. ... One, represented by researchers
like Steve Young at Cambridge University, assumes that machine learning
methods from speech processing can be trained to manage dialogs directly,
without intermediate quasi-linguistic structures [fn]. The second follows
the route Jelinek later took and tries to recapitulate those linguistic
structures but empirically, using machine learning, rather than making up
rules, as linguists traditionally did [fn]. ... [R]esearch systems are
already much better than [recreational chatbots] and the range of projects
expected to deliver usable prototypes has expanded in recent years. These
efforts range from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's
Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes project [fn] to the European
Commission's new Companions project [fn] to create a long-term
conversational partner [photo]."
Perspectives - Are we becoming gods? Opinion by Michio Kaku. New
Scientist (November 3, 2007; Issue 2628: 58-59; subscription req'd).
"Science is undergoing a profound transformation: we are making the
transition from an age of discovery to an age of mastery. ... In a BBC4
documentary, Visions of the Future, we decided to examine three key areas
where this is manifesting itself: intelligence, life and matter - the three
pillars of science. ... With the computer revolution and the proliferation
of electronics we are beginning to manipulate artificial forms of
intelligence; with the unravelling of DNA and the Human Genome Project we
are no longer simply cataloguing genes but manipulating them; and with the
discovery of the quantum theory we are beginning to manipulate the
behaviour of individual atoms. Let's start with the intelligence
revolution. ... Like electricity, the computer will 'disappear' and
intelligence will be everywhere and nowhere, hidden in the walls and the
fabric of our lives, silently carrying out our wishes. The word 'computer'
may even disappear from the language. ... All this raises profound social
questions. How far do we want to push this technology? Will the machines
take over and replace us? Perhaps. But the researchers we talk to also
outlined alternative scenarios: for example, where we enhance our own
intelligence, or restrict the intelligence of our machines, or even end up
merging with our creations. ... We may be poised on the brink of the
greatest explosion of science in human history, but are we ready for it?
Soon we will have the power of Greek gods, able to animate the inanimate
and create life in our image, but will we also have the wisdom of Solomon
to go with it? I believe that wisdom comes from a vigorous, democratic
debate over these profoundly important technologies. This debate can only
happen with an educated, informed public. The purpose of the series is to
begin this debate."
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Nov 5
13:41:59 2007
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Monday, November 5, 2007
"Crashes and Traffic Jams in Military Test of Robotic Vehicles"
New York Times (11/05/07) P. A18; Markoff, John
The DARPA Urban Challenge was completed on Saturday, Nov. 3, with the Carnegi
e Mellon team taking home the first place, $2 million prize. Although the Ca
rnegie Mellon car and a few others successfully completed the race, the event
highlighted how much farther autonomous vehicles need to advance before beco
ming a practical solution. While the most sophisticated entries were able to
successfully navigate the simulated city environment, others, including the
Land Rover entry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were involve
d in several close calls and collisions. The MIT car collided with a Passat
built by researchers from Braunschweig, Germany, an Oshkosh military vehicle
came within inches of crashing into a pillar, and the car from the University
of Central Florida was eliminated after crashing into an abandoned building.
The DARPA Urban Challenge was the third event in a series of races institut
ed following a 2004 directive from Congress that requires the mili
tary to replace a third of its logistical vehicles with robots by the middle
of the next decade. DARPA project manager Norman Whitaker says the goal is
to better protect soldiers on the battlefield. During the race, the robotic
cars were required to perform a variety of tasks, including make left-hand tu
rns across oncoming traffic and pulling into and out of tight parking spaces.
Whitaker says the DARPA challenges are having a Sputnik-like impact on the
engineering and computer science departments at many universities, which has
seen increases in enrollment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/technology/05robot.html
A better coverage I found was at Wired News,
http://blog.wired.com/defense/urban_challenge/index.html
55 mile course. Avg speed was 14mph for CMU.
Stanford (Thrun's team was 2nd) - $1,000,000.
======================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Oct 31
14:30:41 2007
From: TechNews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, October 31, 2007
"Japan's Answer for an Aging Society: Robots"
International Herald Tribune (10/30/07); Fujioka, Toru
The Japanese government is promoting robotic technology as a way to boost pro
ductivity by 50 percent over the next five years as well as complement an agi
ng and dwindling workforce. "Japan faces a stark choice: raise productivity
or see living standards fall," says Morgan Stanley's Robert Feldman. "Robots
could be a part of the solution." Japan established a robot competition in
2006 that attracted 152 entries. The first winner of the Robot of the Year a
ward is a yellow, cylinder-like robot known as the RFS-1, developed by Fuji H
eavy Industries, that can vacuum floors in office and apartment buildings aut
onomously, including using elevators by itself. Such robots could provide a
productivity boost to Japanese service workers, who produce 30 percent less p
er hour than service workers in the United States. Deploying an RFS-1, which
is expected to last 10 years, in an office or apartment building will cost a
bout 5 million yen less than paying a human to do the same job. "
These robots are great," says Yuhachi Izawa, a manager at Sumisho Building M
anagement, the first to deploy an RSF-1 in a Tokyo office building. "They sa
ve electricity, air conditioning, and the cost of employing workers--and we c
an make them work during the night."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/29/bloomberg/sxrobot.php
"What Puts the Creepy Into Robot Crawlies?"
New Scientist (10/27/07) No. 2627, P. 32; Giles, Jim
Humans rarely find robots that are clearly robots, with metal limbs and featu
res, to be disturbing, but often become uneasy once the robot is given human-
like features such as artificial skin, eyes, hair, a face, or a voice. The r
esponse is usually more severe when one characteristic is particularly more h
uman than the rest. University College London researchers Thierry Chaminade
and Ayse Saygin investigated the phenomenon by have subjects wear brain scann
ers while watching videos of a life-like robot, a robotic robot, and a person
picking up a cup. Chaminade says there is a network of neurons in the parie
tal cortex that is especially active when watching the life-like robot. The
parietal cortex is known to contain "mirror neurons" that are active when som
eone imagines performing an action they are observing. During all three vide
os subjects tend to imagine themselves performing the same actions, but the e
xtra neuron activity when viewing the life-like robot could be due
to the conflict between how it moves and how it looks, creating a "breach o
f expectation" that creates extra brain activity and a sense of uneasiness.
Indiana University researcher Karl McDorman continued the study by having 140
subjects view moving robots with various likenesses to humans. The results
showed that the unsettling robots also created feelings of fear, shock, disgu
st, and nervousness.
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19626276.500-what-puts-the-
creepy-into-robot-crawlies.html
=====================================================================
From www@aaai.org Fri Oct 26 15:37:03 2007
From: "AIAlert-Text"
To: schubert@cs.rochester.edu
October 13, 2007: The plan for eternal life
[with related video interviews]. By Danielle Egan. New
Scientist (Issue 2625). "This is the opening session of the ninth
annual meeting of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA) in Chicago.
Sandberg and his fellow transhumanists plan to bypass death by using
technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), genetic engineering and
nanotechnology to radically accelerate human evolution, eventually merging
people with machines to make us immortal. This may not be possible yet, the
transhumanists reason, but as long as they live long enough - a few decades
perhaps - the technology will surely catch up. To many, these ideas sound
seriously scary, and transhumanists have been attacked for jeopardising the
future of humanity. ... Now this small-scale movement aims to go
mainstream. WTA membership has risen from 2000 to almost 5000 in the past
seven years, and transhumanist student groups have sprung up at university
campuses from California to Nairobi. ... I meet Marvin Minsky, the
80-year-old originator of artificial neural networks and co-founder of the
AI lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'Ordinary citizens
wouldn't know what to do with eternal life,' says Minsky. 'The masses don't
have any clear-cut goals or purpose.' Only scientists, who work on problems
that might take decades to solve appreciate the need for extended
lifespans, he argues. He is also staunchly against regulating the
development of new technologies. 'Scientists shouldn't have ethical
responsibility for their inventions, they should be able to do what they
want,' he says. 'You shouldn't ask them to have the same values as other
people.' ... The transhumanist movement has been struggling in recent years
with bitter arguments between democrats like [James] Hughes and
libertarians like Minsky. Can [Ray] Kurzweil's keynote speech unite the
opposing factions? ..."
New Scientist Video
(via YouTube): Quest for immortality - New Scientist talks
to Aubrey de Grey, Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg about how we could
become immortal.
academic scoffs at notion of robot love. By Marie Boran.
SiliconRepublic.com (October 16, 2007). "Trinity College Dublin
researcher Dave Delany labeled the idea of human-robot marriage as 'a
trivial and sensationalist footnote' in the magnitude of the technological,
religious and social rights problems likely to be associated with the
development of true artificial consciousness. ... Dave Delany, postdoctoral
research fellow with the Mathematical Neuroscience Group in the School of
Mathematics in Trinity College Dublin, told Silicon Republic that
people have been forming unusual attachments to inanimate objects since
time immemorial. However he rebuffs the idea of love with robots. ..."
October 23, 2007: Future of science - 'We will have
the power of the gods.' - A leading theoretical physicist has tapped the
best scientific brains of the age to provide a startling vision of the
future. By Roger Highfield. Telegraph. "According to the theoretical
physicist Professor Michio Kaku of the City College of New York, we are
entering an empowered new era: 'We have unlocked the secrets of matter. We
have unravelled the molecule of life, DNA. And we have created a form of
artificial intelligence, the computer. We are making the historic
transition from the age of scientific discovery to the age of scientific
mastery in which we will be able to manipulate and mould nature almost to
our wishes.' ... In a new BBC4 series called Visions of the Future, Prof
Kaku talks to today's pioneers about how we are moving from being passive
observers of nature to its choreographers. Here are their remarkable
speculations about how the scientific and technological revolution will
transform life and society in the 21st century. ... Nanobot armies: Dr John
Alexander, US Joint Special Operations University. ... The virtual family:
Jaron Lanier, virtual-reality pioneer. ... Biological robots: Prof Rodney
Brooks, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ... Superhuman machinery:
Paul Saffo, technology forecaster, Stanford University. ... Artificial
intelligence: Eliezer Yudkowsky, Singularity Institute for Artificial
Intelligence, California. ..."
BT Futurist
- AI entities will win Nobel prizes by 2020 - In this interview, [Ian]
Pearson talks about his profession, explains why he doesn't think we will
understand intelligent machines when they finally arise, and warns to the
big ethical dilemmas our technological civilization will have to face
sooner or later. By Peter Moon. Computerworld (October 16, 2007).
"[Q] Ten years ago, in May 1997, Deep Blue won the chess
tournament against Gary Kasparov. Do you consider, like Kasparov did, that
was the first glimpse of a new kind of intelligence? [A] Yes, it's a
very good example of what you can do with computer-based intelligence. What
it pointed out was that it doesn't have to do things the same way that
people do in order to achieve goals that people use their intelligence to
do. Deep Blue didn't work the same way as people. ... Nonetheless, I think
the task of producing machines with consciousness or self awareness is
still important. We will probably make conscious machines sometime between
2015 and 2020, I think. But it probably won't be like you and I. It will be
conscious and aware of itself and it will be conscious in pretty much the
same way as you and I, but it will work in a very different way. It will be
an alien. It will be a different way of thinking from us, but nonetheless
still thinking. It doesn't have to look like us in order to be able to
think the same way. ... [Q] In this context, can we consider today's
Second Life as some kind of "The Matrix" 1.0, being the real Matrix a
combination with Second Life and artificial intelligence? ... [Q]
understand you're interested in NBIC (nanoscience, biotechnology,
information technology and cognitive science) convergence. A lot of people
have real concerns about it.... [Q] Right now the Pentagon is
using some 5,000 robots in Iraq and Afghanistan, patrolling cities,
disarming explosives or making reconnaissance flights. The next step is
allowing them to carry weapons. Does this way lead to a Terminator
scenario? ..."
The future is here
right now, if you can read the signs. By Leon Gettler. The Age (October
22, 2007). "Mr [Ray] Hammond, a European author and futurologist, says
Maria is very much a sign of things to come. The signs are already there.
"My particular approach is to study trends in the present and work out the
number of ways that they may extrapolate into the future," Mr Hammond says.
.. I use Google a metaphor for an emerging intelligence. Every single day
that I use Google, and I use it constantly, I notice that it's getting a
little bit more capable at understanding what I mean when I don't say
precisely what I mean. 'Now, if brainpower in the computer is doubling
every 12 months and Google is gathering every single minute of every day
the intentions of all the humans in the planet, imagine where that might
lead in 10 years. And if we accept that Moore's law (that the number of
transistors on a chip should double every 18 months to two years) will
continue, somewhere between the years 2020 to 2035, artificial intelligence
will equal human intelligence and by definition, it will then double it.'
The result, he says, will be a rupture in human evolution. 'We are
effectively inventing a new species. So where does that leave us then? In
control.'"
================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Fri Oct 26 14:16
:16 2007
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Friday, October 26, 2007
"Trends in ICT - Connected Anywhere and Anytime"
ICT Results (10/23/07)
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence director Wolfgang Wahlster belie
ves that future applications of information and communication technologies will be
incredibly diverse and will lead to better safety, improved health, and universally
accessible information and entertainment. "In the end, we will have what we call
ambient network access--always on and always best connected, ad hoc networks, perso
nal body area networks, moving networks on the plane, the train, home networks, and
so on," Wahlster says. He believes that by 2012 homes will have various SIM-cards
, intelligent entertainment, network appliances, biometric access control, intellig
ent recycling, digital product memories, cleaning robots, and health monitoring. T
he Internet itself will also change, with embedded Internet services, machine-to-ma
chine communication, and eventually a fully semantic Web. Wahlster believes the gr
eatest challenges for information society technologies are the 100-percent sa
fe car, multilingual and service companion robots, the self-monitoring and self-re
pairing computer, the Internet police agent, cell-based disease and drug simulators
, augmentation of personal memories, a pervasive communication jacket, the everywhe
re visualizer, and the intelligent retail store. "All of these challenges have a s
ocietal dimension: health and the aging society, anywhere-anytime-anyhow connectivi
ty, new values and services, and finally safety, security, privacy and trust," Wahl
ster says. Another important issue is environmentally sound ICT practices, includi
ng energy conservation and recycling ICT components. Wahlster says more attention
must now be paid to developing the algorithmic foundations for low-power software.
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=28568
"The Future Is Here Right Now, If You Can Read the Signs"
Age (Australia) (10/22/07); Gettler, Leon
European author and futurologist Ray Hammond believes that society is on the brink
of a technological breakthrough that will make many of the fantasies in science fic
tion a reality. "My particular approach is to study trends in the present and work
out the number of ways that they may extrapolate into the future," Hammond says. H
ammond uses a process he calls accelerating exponential technology to predict the f
uture. "Every single day that I use Google, and I use it constantly, I notice that
it's getting a little bit more capable at understanding what I mean when I don't s
ay precisely what I mean," Hammond says. "Now, if brainpower in the computer is do
ubling every 12 months and Google is gathering every single minute of every day the
intentions of all the humans in the planet, imagine where that might lead in 10 ye
ars." Hammond says that if Moore's Law continues, by 2035 artificial intelligence
will equal human intelligence, and then double. Globalization, the world pop
ulation explosion, the climate crisis, and the looming energy crisis will be four
other major reasons significant changes will occur in our lifetime, Hammond says.
"I am certain that in 10 years every single business person will be conducting thei
r business in parallel virtual world as in the real world," he predicts.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/the-future-is-here-right-now-if-you-can-read
-the-signs/2007/10/21/1192940901417.html
===============================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Oct 22 14:26
:45 2007
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Monday, October 22, 2007
"Robots Will Become Part of Daily Life"
IDG News Service (10/17/07); O'Connor, Fred
Panelists at a recent discussion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology belie
ve that robotics will one day handle complex jobs in health care, agriculture, and
product production. "People underestimate the long-term effects of robotics on soc
iety," says Rodney Brooks, director of the MIT computer Science and Artificial Inte
lligence laboratory. "Robots are getting closer to people. We need to see how robo
ts and people interact." Brooks says robots will play a bigger role in caring for
the elderly as the population ages. He says the Japanese already use robots as com
panions for the elderly and notes that in one U.S. hospital robots are used to move
laundry and deliver patient's meals. Brooks also says robots will be used more in
manufacturing and for cheap labor as wages rise and immigration enforcement cuts i
nto the labor supply. North End Technologies CEO Tom Ryden says that sensors capab
le of truly understanding the environment and providing instant feedback at a
n affordable cost are needed first. He cites the winning vehicle in the DARPA Urb
an challenge and says that if it had been raining the car would not have made it 10
feet. Brooks says that user interfaces need to improve as do artificial intellige
nce and power supply technologies. Still, some technologies are basically ready, s
pecifically processing and memory. Kiva Systems CEO Mick Mountz says that quad-cor
e computing helps because each core handles a task, and Brooks says that storage is
no longer a problem, predicting that eventually a single iPod will be able to hold
every book in the Library of Congress.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,138569/article.html
"BT 'Futurologist': AI Entity Will Win Nobel by 2020"
IDG News Service (10/15/07); Moon, Peter
British Telecom futurologist Ian Pearson cites chess-playing computer Deep Blue as
an example of a new form of intelligence that does not need to mirror human intelli
gence in order to match--or surpass--human capabilities. He forecasts that conscio
us, self-aware machines will likely emerge between 2015 and 2020, but their form of
thinking will be beyond people's understanding because some of the principal mecha
nics of consciousness are outside the realm of human comprehension. Pearson believ
es virtual environments such as Second Life could be enhanced with full sensory cap
abilities that make such artificial worlds completely immersive, but he does not an
ticipate a "Matrix-like" scenario in which the people who inhabit such environments
lose their sense of the real world. "With the arriving of artificial intelligence
, we could end up with some of 'The Sims' features with real conscience," Pearson s
peculates. "That will be a very interesting situation, when you will have an
imaginary civilization living imaginary lives with a human point of view." Pears
on does not discount the possibility that the development of robotic weapons could
proceed to a point where the robots might override their commands and turn against
people, a la the "Terminator" films, but he notes that an enormous developmental ef
fort is necessary before this scenario becomes viable. The futurologist says he ag
rees to a certain degree with former Sun CTO Bill Joy on the perils inherent in the
convergence of nanoscience, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive s
cience, in that regulation is probably needed to prevent abuse.
http://www.itworld.com/Man/071015interview/pfindex.html
===============================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Wed Oct 17 14:54
:53 2007
From: technews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Wednesday, October 17, 2007
"$2.2 Million Grant Calls for Designing Computer Software to Predict the Unpredicta
ble"
University of Arizona (10/16/07)
University of Arizona professor of computer engineering Jerzy Rozenblit has receive
d a $2.2 million grant to design software capable of predicting the actions of para
military groups, ethnic factions, terrorists, and criminal groups, as well as assis
ting military commanders in creating strategies for stabilizing areas before, durin
g, and after conflicts. The software will also have civilian applications in finan
ce, law enforcement, epidemiology, and natural disaster response. The Asymmetric T
hreat Response and Analysis Project is a massive, complex series of algorithms that
sort through vast amounts of data and analyze numerous factors, including social,
political, cultural military, and media influences, Rozenblit says. He says that s
ince the end of the Cold War, the United States' opponents have acted in ways that
defy logic and are almost inconceivable. ATRAP will use computational methods base
d on game theory, co-evolution, and genetic development to predict such illog
ical actions. "The computer can look at very, very complex data sets that as an i
ndividual or even as a group of individuals, you could never analyze," says ATRAP p
roject manager Brian Ten Eyck. "The computer can bring the patterns and connection
s to the surface and can predict scenarios that might never occur to human analysts
." Rozenblit says the program will eventually be able to display data in 3D graphi
cs that are easy to understand, allowing for quick decisions to be made in rapidly
changing situations.
http://uanews.org/node/16426
================================================================
From owner-technews*schubert**CS*-ROCHESTER*-EDU@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG Mon Oct 15 14:18
:45 2007
From: TechNews
Subject: ACM TechNews; Monday, October 15, 2007
"Forecast: Sex and Marriage With Robots by 2050"
LiveScience (10/12/07); Choi, Charles Q.
In David Levy's recently completed Ph.D. thesis at the University of Maastricht in
the Netherlands on human-robot relationships, "Intimate Relationships with Artifici
al Partners," he predicts that robots will become so human-like that by 2050 humans
and robots will have intimate relationships and even marry each other. "There's a
trend of robots becoming more human-like in appearance and coming more in contact
with humans," says Levy. In 2006, founder of the European Robotics Research Networ
k Henrik Christensen predicted that people would be having intimate relationships w
ith robots within five years, and Levy thinks that is likely. As for marriage, Lev
y believes it will happen with time. "One hundred years ago, interracial marriage a
nd same-sex marriages were illegal in the United States," he says. "There has been
this trend in marriage where each partner gets to make their own choice of who the
y want to be with." Levy argues that almost all of the reasons that people f
all in love, such as similar personalities, knowledge levels, and interests, are p
rogrammable. "The question is not if this will happen, but when," Levy says. "I a
m convinced the answer is much earlier than you think."
http://www.livescience.com/technology/071012-robot-marriage.html
From www@aaai.org Fri Oct 12 15:57:36 2007
From: "AIAlert-Text"
To: schubert@cs.rochester.edu
Subject: AAAI AI ALERT Full-Text 12 October 2007
Researcher: Humans will wed robots. United Press International
(October 11, 2007). "The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is
awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between
humans and robots. David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher
at the college, wrote in his thesis, 'Intimate Relationships with
Artificial Partners,' that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on
marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually
be seen as suitable marriage partners."
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