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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? ..."
>>> AI Overview, Ethical & Social Implications, The Future, Interviews September 24, 2007: Happy Birthday, Sputnik! (Thanks for the Internet). By Gary Anthes. Computerworld. "Quick, what's the most influential piece of hardware from the early days of computing? The IBM 360 mainframe? The DEC PDP-1 minicomputer? Maybe earlier computers such as Binac, ENIAC or Univac? Or, going way back to the 1800s, is it the Babbage Difference Engine? More likely, it was a 183-pound aluminum sphere called Sputnik, Russian for 'traveling companion.' Fifty years ago, on Oct. 4, 1957, radio-transmitted beeps from the first man-made object to orbit the Earth stunned and frightened the U.S., and the country's reaction to the 'October surprise' changed computing forever. ... [T]he public demanded that something be done. The most immediate 'something' was the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), a freewheeling Pentagon office created by President Eisenhower on Feb. 7, 1958. Its mission was to "'prevent technological surprises'.... [J.C.R.] Licklider [the first director of IT research at ARPA] had studied psychology as an undergraduate, and in 1962, he brought to ARPA a passionate belief that computers could be far more user-friendly than the unconnected, batch-processing behemoths of the day. Two years earlier, he had published an influential paper, 'Man-Computer Symbiosis,' in which he laid out his vision for computers that could interact with users in real time. It was a radical idea, one utterly rejected by most academic and industrial researchers at the time. (See sidebar, Advanced Computing Visions from 1960.) ... [A]round 2000, Kleinrock and other top-shelf technology researchers say, the agency, now called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), began to focus more on pragmatic, military objectives. A new administration was in power in Washington, and then 9/11 changed priorities everywhere. Observers say DARPA shifted much of its funding from long-range to shorter-term research, from universities to military contractors, and from unclassified work to secret programs. Of government funding for IT, [Leonard] Kleinrock says, 'our researchers are now being channeled into small science, small and incremental goals, short-term focus and small funding levels.' The result, critics say, is that DARPA is much less likely today to spawn the kinds of revolutionary advances in IT that came from Licklider and his successors. DARPA officials declined to be interviewed for this story. But Jan Walker, a spokesperson for DARPA Director Anthony Tether, said, 'Dr. Tether ... does not agree. DARPA has not pulled back from long-term, high-risk, high-payoff research in IT or turned more to short-term projects.' (See sidebar, DARPA's Response.) ... 'In the early years, ARPA was willing to fund things like artificial intelligence -- take five years and see what happens,' he says. 'Nobody cared whether you delivered something in six months. It was, "Go and put forth your best effort and see if you can budge the field." Now that's changed. It's more driven by, "What did you do for us this year?"' ... Meanwhile, funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for computer science and engineering -- most of it for universities -- has increased from $478 million in 2001 to $709 million this year, up 48%. But the NSF tends to fund smaller, more-focused efforts. And because contract awards are based on peer review, bidders on NSF jobs are inhibited from taking the kinds of chances that Licklider would have favored."
>>> AI Overview, History, Applications; also see this related article and 11 down in our AI Crossword Puzzle (or go straight to the annotated solution) September 23, 2007: King Algorithm - An Oracle for Our Time, Part Man, Part Machine. By George Johnson. The New York Times. "Last week, when executives at MySpace told of new algorithms that will mine the information on users’ personal pages and summon targeted ads, the news hardly caused a stir. The idea of automating what used to be called judgment has gone from radical to commonplace. What is spreading through the Web is not exactly artificial intelligence. For all the research that has gone into cognitive and computer science, the brain’s most formidable algorithms -- those used to recognize images or sounds or understand language -- have eluded simulation. The alternative has been to incorporate people, with their special skills, as components of the Net. ... In the 1950s William Ross Ashby, a British psychiatrist and cyberneticist, anticipated something like this merger when he wrote about intelligence amplification -- human thinking leveraged by machines. But it is both kinds of intelligence, biological and electronic, that are being amplified. Unlike the grinning cyborgs envisioned by science fiction, the splicing is not between hardware and wetware but between software running on two different platforms. ... In his 1950 paper 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence,' Alan Turing foresaw a day when it would be hard to tell the difference between the responses of a computer and a human being. What he may not have envisioned is how thoroughly the boundary would blur." September 19, 2007: The Singular Question Of Human vs. Machine Has a Spiritual Side. By Lee Gomes. The Wall Street Journal Online (subscription req'd). "A few Saturdays ago, I spent the day in an auditorium full of fellow citizens concerned with 'singularity.' The word refers to the day when the intelligence of computers will exceed our own. ... It turns out, there is a schism between the AGI [Artificial General Intelligence] and the AI worlds. The AGI faction thinks AI researchers have sold out, abandoning their early dreams of 'general' intelligence to concentrate on more attainable (and more lucrative) projects. They're right. The machines today that recognize speech or play chess are one-trick wonders. Of course, AI researchers defend that approach by saying their early dreams of general intelligence were naive." September 5, 2007: AI - It's OK Again! Is AI on the rise again? By Michael Swaine. Dr. Dobbs. "Over the last half century, AI has had its ups and down. But for now, it's on the rise again. ... On the occasion of the 22nd annual AAAI conference this past July, we thought it appropriate to reflect on AI's 51-year history and check in with some experts about the state of AI in 2007. ... The connectionist approach is basically synthesis, or bottom-up, the symbolist approach is analysis, top-down. Both are doubtless necessary. '[S]ymbols-only AI is not enough, [but] subsymbolic perceptual processes are not enough either,' Winston says. ... In terms of real engineering and applied science accomplishments, '[t]he most active and productive strand of AI research today is the application of machine learning techniques to a wide variety of problems,' [Terry] Winograd says, 'from web search to finance to understanding the molecular basis of living systems.' ... Rodney Brooks sees great progress being made in practical systems involving language, vision, search, learning, and navigation, systems that are becoming part of our daily lives. Nils Nilsson took time out from writing a book on the history of AI to share some thoughts on its state today, citing practical results of AI work in adjacent fields like genomics, control engineering, data analysis, medicine and surgery, computer games, and animation. ... AI advances are not trumpeted as artificial intelligence so much these days, but are often seen as advances in some other field. 'AI has become more important as it has become less conspicuous,' Winston says. 'These days, it is hard to find a big system that does not work, in part, because of ideas developed or matured in the AI world.'" August 14, 2007: A discussion about emerging technologies with Esther Dyson of EDventure [video]. Charlie Rose Show.
>>> AI Overview, Nature of Intelligence, Philosophy, Expert Systems, Chess August 9, 2007: Three books about what it means to be human -- and maybe post-human. By Bill O'Driscoll. Pittsburgh City Paper. "Three new books address our provisional status as a distinct species. Thumbs, Toes and Tears is Chip Walter's engaging, nimbly written tour through the evolution of the body parts and bodily functions that make us human. ... Walter's tale, however, leads to a ghost: the ghost of evolution yet to come. Quoting the writings of such thinkers as visionary Carnegie Mellon robotics scientist Hans Moravec, Walter (himself a CMU adjunct professor as well as a journalist), prophesies our transformation into a new species he dubs 'Cyber sapien -- a creature part digital and part biological.' ... Moravec also cameos in Almost Human, Lee Gutkind's book [Almost Human - Making Robots Think] about CMU's famed Robotics Institute and the struggle to create an autonomous robot -- one that can function without human assistance. ... Meanwhile, Eliezer J. Sternberg weighs in on consciousness with a companionable little volume titled Are You a Machine? A key question for this Brandeis University student of neuroscience and philosophy is whether consciousness can emerge from physical structures. Are our minds merely patterns, replicable in labs? Daniel Dennett (who says yes) and John Searle (who says no) are among the philosophers Sternberg surveys, all while leavening with puckish humor his considerations of famous thought-experiments about the nature of consciousness, and of writings from Descartes to double-helix co-modeler Frances Crick. The artificial-intelligence guru whom Sternberg cites is not CMU's Moravec, but like-minded Ray Kurzweil." July 30, 2007: More Than Meets the Eye. The Leonard Lopate Show. WNYC, New York Public Radio. "Robots with artificial intelligence have been a science fiction staple for decades, but now some researchers might be close to making them a reality. New York Times contributing writer Robin Marantz Henig and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Rodney Brooks describe new machines that can make eye contact, read social cues, and even help out around the house. Are they too good to be true? Read Henig's article, 'The Real Transformers.' Weigh in: What would you like a robot to do?"
>>> See the referenced article below; AI Overview, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Robots, Machine Leaning, Nature of Intelligence, Emotion, Applications, Interviews July 29, 2007: The Real Transformers - Researchers are programming robots to learn in humanlike ways and show humanlike traits. Could this be the beginning of robot consciousness -- and of a better understanding of ourselves? By Robin Marantz Henig. The New York Times Sunday Magazine (cover story). "I was introduced to my first sociable robot on a sunny afternoon in June. The robot, developed by graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named Mertz. ... At the moment, no single robot can do very much. The competencies have been cobbled together: one robot is able to grab a soup can when you tell it to put it on a shelf; another will look you in the eye and make babbling noises in keeping with the inflection of your voice. One robot might be able to learn some new words; another can take the perspective of a human collaborator; still another can recognize itself in a mirror. Taken together, each small accomplishment brings the field closer to a time when a robot with true intelligence -- and with perhaps other human qualities, too, like emotions and autonomy -- is at least a theoretical possibility. If that possibility comes to pass, what then? Will these new robots be capable of what we recognize as learning? Of what we recognize as consciousness? Will it know that it is a robot and that you are not? ... [Cynthia] Breazeal realized how complicated it was to try to figure out what, or even whether, Kismet was feeling. 'Robots are not human, but humans aren’t the only things that have emotions,' she said. 'The question for robots is not, Will they ever have human emotions? Dogs don't have human emotions, either, but we all agree they have genuine emotions. The question is, What are the emotions that are genuine for the robot?' ... Robot consciousness is a tricky thing, according to Daniel Dennett, a Tufts philosopher and author of 'Consciousness Explained,' who was part of a team of experts that Rodney Brooks assembled in the early 1990s to consult on the Cog project. In a 1994 article in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Dennett posed questions about whether it would ever be possible to build a conscious robot. His conclusion: 'Unlikely,' at least as long as we are talking about a robot that is 'conscious in just the way we human beings are.' But Dennett was willing to credit Cog with one piece of consciousness: the ability to be aware of its own internal states. ... Robot consciousness, it would seem, is related to two areas: robot learning (the ability to think, to reason, to create, to generalize, to improvise) and robot emotion (the ability to feel). Robot learning has already occurred, with baby steps, in robots like Cog and Leonardo, able to learn new skills that go beyond their initial capabilities. But what of emotion? ... Some believe that emotion is at least theoretically possible for robots too. Rodney Brooks goes so far as to say that robot emotions may already have occurred -- that Cog and Kismet not only displayed emotions but, in one way of looking at it, actually experienced them. 'We're all machines,' he told me when we talked in his office at M.I.T. 'Robots are made of different sorts of components than we are -- we are made of biomaterials; they are silicon and steel -- but in principle, even human emotions are mechanistic.' A robot's level of a feeling like sadness could be set as a number in computer code, he said. But isn't a human’s level of sadness basically a number, too, just a number of the amounts of various neurochemicals circulating in the brain? Why should a robot's numbers be any less authentic than a human's? ... 'I want to understand what it is that makes living things living,' Rodney Brooks told me. At their core, robots are not so very different from living things. 'It's all mechanistic,' Brooks said."
>>> AI Overview, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Robots, Machine Leaning, Nature of Intelligence, Emotion, Applications July 24, 2007: Evil HAL 9000 or Benevolent R2D2 - The Future of A.I. [podcast]. Patt Morrison's live one-hour public affairs show with guest host, Jon Beaupre. 89.3 KPCC-FM , Southern California Public Radio. "Our most vivid images of artificially intelligent machines tends to come from science fiction movies, and they usually fall into two categories: evil robots run amok, bent on destroying mankind or wise androids assisting and saving humans. The reality of A.I. machines is a little more complex, but the advancements are coming in leaps and bounds with ever more intelligent and autonomous systems that are being designed for such tasks as caretakers for children and the elderly, independent transportation vehicles and war making. There are still many ethical and safety concerns that must be addressed. How long before we can all expect to have our own A.I. robot friend in our homes?" Jon's guests are:
>>> AI Overview, Ethical & Social Implications, Robots, Science Fiction, Grand Challenges, Autonomous Vehicles, Filtering, Information Retrieval, Neural Networks, Machine Learning, Poker, Checkers, Games & Puzzles, Applications July/August 2007: Artificial Intelligence Is Lost in the Woods - A conscious mind will never be built out of software, argues a Yale University professor. By David Gelernter. Technology Review. "AI offers to figure out how thought works and to make that knowledge available to software designers. It even offers to deepen our understanding of the mind itself. Questions about software and the mind are central to cognitive science and philosophy. Few problems are more far-reaching or have more implications for our fundamental view of ourselves. The current debate centers on what I'll call a 'simulated conscious mind' versus a 'simulated unconscious intelligence.' We hope to learn whether computers make it possible to achieve one, both, or neither. ... To say that building a useful conscious mind is highly unlikely is not to say that AI has nothing worth doing. Consciousness has been a 'mystery' (as Turing called it) for thousands of years, but the mind holds other mysteries, too. Creativity is one of the most important; it's a brick wall that psychology and philosophy have been banging their heads against for a long time." June 26, 2007: Computational thinking - wider uses? By Justin Richards. ComputerWeekly.com. "A recent BCS Thought Leadership debate asked its participants what computational thinking is, where it came from, how it affects people's lives, and whether it should be encouraged as a discipline. ... Jeannette Wing's seminal article on computational thinking was mentioned, which states, 'Computational thinking represents a universally applicable attitude and skill-set that everyone, not just computer scientists, would be eager to learn and use.' ... Computer science suffers from a poor relationship with the 'proper' sciences, the debate heard."
>>> AI Overview, Computer Science May 20, 2007: This Week on Philosophy Talk - Artificial Intelligence (radio broadcast: audio available online). With Ken Taylor and John Perry of Stanford University. KALW, 91.7 FM, San Francisco. "At least some versions of artificial intelligence are attempts not merely to model human intelligence, but to make computers and robots that exhibit it: that have thoughts, use language, and even have free will. Does this make sense? What would it show us about human thinking and consciousness? Join John and Ken [and guest, Marvin Minsky] as they uncover the philosophical issues raised by artificial intelligence." May 19, 2007 [issue date]: Self-aware robot turns mirror on humankind. By Celeste Biever. New Scientist (Issue 2604: pages 30-31; subscription req'd). "Nico gazes into the mirror in front of him. Looking back is his reflected self, wearing a grey Yale University sweatshirt and a baseball cap cocked at a jaunty angle. When Nico raises an arm, he recognises the arm moving in the mirror as his own. It may not sound like much of a feat, but Nico is a humanoid robot. He has just become the first of his kind to recognise his own reflection in a mirror. The ability to recognise your reflection is considered an important milestone in infant development, and as a mark of self-awareness, sociability and intelligence in a non-human animal. Nico's ability to perform the same feat could pave the way for more sophisticated robots that can recognise their own bodies even if they are damaged or reconfigured. ... To endow Nico with the ability to recognise himself, Kevin Gold and his supervisor Brian Scassellati at Yale equipped Nico with a video camera behind one of his eyes, a jointed arm and an attached computer running some clever software. ... Meanwhile, a furry robot called Leonardo, built at MIT, recently reached another developmental milestone, the ability to grasp that someone else might believe something you know to be untrue. ... As well as helping to build better robots, such research could ultimately enhance our understanding of cognitive development in infants."
>>> Robots, AI Overview, Cognitive Science, Philosophy May 18, 2007: Newsmaker interview with Matt Mason, director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University - Roboticist inspired by more than machines. By Candace Lombardi. CNET News.com. "[Q] You said at that ceremony for the Robot Hall of Fame induction that this is the first time real robots have outnumbered fictional robots as inductees and that this may be a sign you are finally fulfilling expectations? Can you explain what you meant by that? ... [Q] Are there a lot of Ph.D. students who then go out on their own and start companies from what they've done? ... [Q] What do you see as a less popular or unexplored area that you would like to see more research done in? ... [Q] What's the biggest AI achievement so far? ... [Q] Well, what's the most interesting work being done at CMU? ..." May 15, 2007: Newsmaker interview with Rodney Brooks, director of MIT's CSAIL and CTO of iRobot - Sizing up the coming robotics revolution. By Candace Lombardi. CNET News.com. "When it comes to robots, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab is one of the places in the world where the magic happens. Rodney Brooks is the Panasonic professor of robotics at MIT and the director of CSAIL. He is also the co-founder and chief technology officer of iRobot and one of the principal architects of iRobot's Roomba vacuum. On Tuesday, RoboBusiness 2007, an international conference showcasing consumer, commercial and military robots, will convene in Boston. To gain insight on what's in the pipeline, CNET News.com sat down with Brooks, one of the leading experts on robots and artificial intelligence. From his office at CSAIL, Brooks shared his thoughts on the best AI readily available today and the four things it will take for the magicians of science to match science fiction fantasies. ... [Q] MIT's Domo and iRobot's Roomba are vastly different, yet both are considered robots. What makes a robot a robot? Brooks: To me what makes a robot a robot, and as with every definition you can poke it enough until it breaks, but for me it's something that senses the world in some way, does some sort of computation, deciding what to do, and then acts on the world outside itself as a result. ... [Q] How close are you to each of these four objectives? How many years away do you think? Brooks: Ah. You must be a reporter. I'll never answer that, because, you know, in 1966 they thought it was going to be three months for the object recognition. ... [Q] What do you think are the greatest achievements in AI right now? Brooks: I think our whole lives are surrounded by artificial intelligence, but we don't think of it that way. Google--you know, all the techniques that Google uses. ... [Q] From your years of study of AI, what have you learned about humanity? ... [Q] You've said that "the coming robotics revolution will change the fundamental nature of society." Generally, in what ways will it change? ... [Q] Any truth behind the rumor that you're a robot? ..."
>>> AI Overview, Robots, Science Fiction, The AI Effect, Applications, Ethical & Social Implications, Interviews, Careers in AI -and - Academic Departments (@ Resources for Students), The Future April 4, 2007: Computer vision - Easy on the eyes. A computer can now recognise classes of things as accurately as a person can. The Economist. "One theory goes that the human brain recognises strategic positions in a general way, and that this helps to reduce the problem to a manageable size. Thomas Serre and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built a computer processing system that tries to work in this general way. ... A neuroscientist trying to understand how people recognise objects would thus start with this simplest of systems. That is the purpose of Dr Serre's computer. His project is nothing less than an attempt to reverse-engineer the relevant part of the brain. ... Dr Serre considered his computer's processing units analogous to nerve cells, and he organised them into areas, just as they are in real brains. Then he let the machine learn in much the same way that babies do. ... A system like this has obvious applications (it may, for instance, soon be put to use searching for child-pornography sites on the internet). But it also brings more subtle benefits. Based as it is on how brains work, it may give insights into what happens when they go wrong." March 26, 2007: Pushing the limits - Andrew Herbert’s job is to think the unthinkable. As Microsoft UK’s research chief, he and his 100 staff are at the cutting edge of technology. By Jon Excell. The Engineer Online. "Microsoft was the first software company to create its own research organisation, which has developed a character apparently at odds with its parent company's corporate philosophy — its researchers' academic candour contrasts with the tight-lipped corporate approach found elsewhere in the organisation. Nowhere is this balance between the academic model and the business of product development more seamless than at the company's oldest research outpost, here in the UK at Cambridge University. And the relationship between academia and industry is embodied by Andrew Herbert, the group's managing director. ... The centre also hosts a group that is carrying out research into machine learning and perception. It is looking at the design of algorithms for applications in areas such as computer vision, image recognition, information retrieval and handwriting recognition. Herbert explained that the approach to these problems has changed in recent years. While computer scientists once attempted to program computers to work like the human brain, the emphasis today is on modelling the physics of the world using statistics, then building robust statistical algorithms. He said: 'We've built systems that will look at images and say "that's a picture that has a car in it, that's a picture that has a house in it", but the computer isn't being intelligent. 'It has been shown many pictures of cars and built up a statistical pattern. It's saying "this is like all the other things you showed me and if you said those are cars then this must be a car".' Herbert believes the development of this approach could be key to the future of computing." March 12, 2007: Minsky on AI's Future - To move artificial intelligence forward we must unpack human mental states. Book review by Jennifer Chu. Technology Review. "As you start this review, you might be reading to see whether you'd like to read more. That might seem like a simple task, yet Marvin Minsky, an artificial-intelligence pioneer, says it is in fact an orchestration of many smaller mental processes. ... The Emotion Machine doesn't spend much time on actual advances in artificial intelligence. A few examples here and there tease rather than satisfy.... But in this book Minsky is less interested in AI's history than in its future." March 6, 2007: Jeff Hawkins and the Brain - The creator of the PalmPilot and the Treo is at it again. But his latest startup, Numenta, isn't just making another gadget. It's attempting to fuse silicon and gray matter to produce the ultimate intelligent machine. By Erick Schonfeld. Business 2.0 Magazine (February 1, 2007 issue) / now available from CNNMoney.com. "Hawkins believes that his latest startup, called Numenta, is on its way to creating the first truly intelligent computer - a thinking machine that, in essence, learns the same way the human brain does. ... Numenta, Hawkins stresses, has nothing to do with the field known as artificial intelligence. What he has in mind is far more supple and elegant. Rather than being inspired by biology, AI uses brute computing power and logic to make computers seem intelligent through their behavior. When IBM's (Charts) Deep Blue finally beat chess grand master Gary Kasparov a decade ago, it wasn't because it was smarter than he was. It was just faster. Even today, computers don't have intuition. ... Numenta's approach is radically different. Computers running Numenta software will not be programmed like regular computers. Rather, algorithms that Numenta has come up with allow machines to learn from observation, just as a child learns by observing the world around her. ... The key difference between an HTM and a regular computer is that you don't program an HTM ["hierarchical temporal memory" system]. It learns by itself through observation. This could fundamentally change the relationship between the programmer and the computer. 'The programmer's job is no longer to tell it what to do,' [Bill] Atkinson notes. 'An HTM can deliver more intelligence than the programmer has because it can learn things the programmer does not understand.' ... For Hawkins, the ultimate applications will be those that allow us to acquire new knowledge in areas of science such as quantum mechanics and biology. 'What is exciting to me,' he says, 'is the prospect of building intelligent machines that sit comfortably in the realms of science where we have difficulty thinking. It will be like having a dedicated Einstein working around the clock on these problems.' ... Moreover, there are deep moral dilemmas inherent in Hawkins's vision of intelligent machines, starting with the primal fears behind plots for everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Terminator:...."
>>> Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, AI Overview, Applications, Science Fiction, Ethical & Social Implications March 1, 2007: It's 2001. Where Is HAL? A Dr. Dobbs podcast (in 3 parts) featuring a talk given by Marvin Minsky in 2001. "To Marvin Minsky, Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, it is clear that AI hasn't delivered on the promises made over 30 years ago. What happened? Minsky examines the failures of AI research and lays out directions for future development in the field." When you're finished with Part 1, go to Parts 2 & 3. [Also available from InformationWeek: Part 1 / 2 / 3 ] February 25, 2007: Case's Dexter (the robot car) steers toward fame, fortune. By John Mangels. The Plain Dealer (cleveland.com). "Dexter (a nod to 'dexterous') is an autonomous vehicle. Bristling with sensors, crammed full of computers, it's designed to operate completely on its own, with the goal of driving at least as well as a person would. Dexter will make its public debut this weekend at the Cleveland Auto Show. Later this year, Dexter's creators -- a brash, overachieving young team of more than 50 engineering and computer-science students and professors from Case Western Reserve University -- aim to win an international contest. To do so, their car must navigate a 60-mile mock urban course filled with unfamiliar roads, oncoming traffic and unexpected obstacles. If they succeed, the members of Team Case will snare a $2 million prize and respect in the highly competitive world of automotive robotics. They also may have a hand in designing future military transports whose drivers would lose only circuit boards, not limbs or lives, if hit by a roadside bomb. Eventually, the technology should make its way into commercial vehicles. ... Deciding how to program Dexter, the team confronted a fundamental schism in the artificial-intelligence community. It involves differing views of what intelligence is and how to try to re-create it in machines. The classic AI approach, with its roots in the earliest computer chess-playing programs written in the 1950s, attempts to assemble sets of logical rules that define any possible condition. ... New-wave AI accepts that rules can't cover everything. Its marching orders are more general: 'Do the right thing.'" February 24, 2007 [issue date]: Once more with feelings. Marvin Minsky interviewed by Amanda Gefter. New Scientist (Issue 2592: pages 48 - 49; subscription req'd). "Even after decades of research into artificial intelligence, machines still don't think like human beings. Marvin Minsky, the discipline's founding father, refuses to give up hope. His solution is to make machines more emotional - and feelings, he says, are simpler to model than rational thought. He talks to Amanda Gefter about the need for emotional machines, the inner workings of the human brain, and the future of AI. [AG:] Many people are disappointed at the lack of progress in AI since the 1980s. Why so little headway? ... When do you foresee us having sophisticated AI? What will be the major forces driving the development of AI in years to come? ..." February 22, 2007: Nigel Shadbolt - The ITWales Interview. By Sali Earls. ITWales.com. "Nigel Shadbolt is Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University. He is Director of Interdisciplinary Research within ECS, and Director of the EPSRC Advanced Knowledge Technologies IRC. Since 1978 he has been carrying out research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cognitive Science, has published some 190 articles on various facets of AI, and has written and co-edited eight books. In November 2006, Professor Shadbolt was announced as President of the British Computer Society.... [SE:] You're a Professor of Artificial Intelligence - how would you define your subject? [NS:] Artificial Intelligence really is an attempt to understand the principles of intelligent or adaptive behaviour - and that's tough. Animals and humans have evolved over billions of years and what we're trying to do is build programs and systems to replicate aspects of how we, and animals, deal with our environment, how we cope, how we solve problems. It turns out that building a program is a very exacting test of whether you actually understand what's going on or even imagining how it might work, so a lot of the early attempts in AI were trying to find out if we could even get a system to simulate, emulate or behave like a human or animal. People always imagine AI is like they see in the films - Terminator or HAL from 2001 - some mad brain in a box. That's quite a hard test, because that's not what most of us in AI are about. We may have been inspired into the subject by such thoughts.... But AI, or IA as I sometimes like to think of it - Intelligence Amplification - is where you try and think of assistive technology, and in that way AI has been incredibly helpful. What it's given us is not brains in boxes but a whole range of methods and techniques that are beneficial - for example predictive texting on mobile phones is an idea that's come out of AI, as have some of the concepts that have come out of search engines; and rules based diagnosis for modern car engines. ... [SE:] You made a point there about getting the brightest and best kids involved in Computer Science, but my observation is that the IT curriculum taught in schools does not provide a good grounding in basic computing, favouring something more appropriate to secretarial skills. The perception that many kids have of the subject is one that is often boring or geeky. If you had the opportunity to rewrite the school syllabus from scratch, what would you teach the pupils? [NS:] ... Because of my background I always look at it from an AI perspective, because I think that's fundamentally an intruiging and fascinating way to come into Computing. The founders of our subject were all intruiged by AI - people like Turing, von Neumann, people like this - wondering if machines could perform in ways that were flexible, intelligent and adaptive. All those people who founded our subject were excited and pulled in by this, and I think that we could get those messages out much more powerfully, and also it's not just about computers - it's about the information fabric, it's about the web, it's about how information is held, managed and published, and how Computing affects all the other subjects that are being taught at school - we really could pull things together and it could be a very good crossroads for linking subjects together. ... [SE:] What technologies do you think society will be depending on in five years time, and beyond?..." February 20, 2007: Grand challenges free researchers to explore what can be imagined. By John Jernery. The Daily Yomiuri Online. "By design, grand challenges are dreamed up to push the envelope, to break through barriers, and to ignore limits. ... In the previous 'Report from Silicon Valley,' we began looking at some of the grand challenges currently under way in Britain under the auspices of the U.K. Computing Research Committee (www.ukcrc.org.uk). ... We continue here with some of the other grand challenges that the British are exploring. The Architecture of Brain & Mind: Cognitive science, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics, while related, have traditionally followed distinct trajectories. Cognitive science is primarily concerned with understanding the human mind, while artificial intelligence would be happy to create any type of intelligent system, humanlike or not. Robotics brings programmed action, intelligent or otherwise, into the realm of the physical. In the true spirit of a grand challenge, the Architecture of Brain & Mind project aims to bring these three disciplines together in a single demonstrable system. ... Learning for Life: Computer tutoring, e-learning, and distance learning are fast becoming a common ingredient in education-and not just for children. Learning today is a lifetime endeavor and the Learning for Life grand challenge seeks to discover what that means in the coming age of ubiquitous, possibly intelligent machines." February 20, 2007: What Entrepreneurs Need to Know. Column by David E. Gumpert. BusinessWeek.com. "Is Artificial Intelligence Truly Achievable? Yale computer science professor David Gelernter challenges the long-running predictions of Ray Kurzweil of Kurzweil Technologies that thinking computers are within reach. ... For a video of the debate between Gelernter and Kurzweil, go to http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/422/." February 19, 2007: Crackpot tech ideas that may transform IT. InfoWorld. "Technologies that push the envelope of the plausible capture our curiosity almost as quickly as the would-be crackpots who dare to concoct them become targets of our derision. Tinkering along the fringe of possibility, hoping to solve the impossible or apply another's discovery to a real-world problem, these free thinkers navigate a razor-thin edge between crackpot and visionary. .... It's in that tenor that we take a level-headed look at 12 technologies that have a history of raising eyebrows and suspicions. We assess the potential each has for transforming the future of the enterprise. ... 3. Autonomic computing [by Eric Knorr]: A datacenter with a mind of its own -- or more accurately, a brain stem of its own that would regulate the datacenter equivalents of heart rate, body temperature, and so on. That's the wacky notion IBM proposed when it unveiled its autonomic computing initiative in 2001. ... 6. Artificial intelligence [by Peter Wayner]: Few terms carry as much emotional and technical baggage as AI (artificial intelligence). And while science-fiction authors probe AI's metaphysical boundaries, researchers are producing practical results. We may not have a robot for every task, but we do have cell phones that respond to our voice, data-mining tools that optimize vast industries, and thousands of other measurable ways AI-influenced computing enhances how the enterprise gets work done. ... 11. Semantic Web [by Martin Heller]: Originally designed for document distribution, the Web has yet to realize its full potential for distributing data. XML has done its part. Yet every XML document requires an XML Schema -- and relating them isn't easy. Until a viable means for surfacing and linking data is established and adopted, humans will remain the Web's core categorizing agents. ... 12. Total information awareness [by Steve Fox]: When the DoD's Information Awareness Office rolled out its high-tech scheme to track down terrorists in 2002, the program had all the hallmarks of a government boondoggle, invoking imagined -- and sometimes unimaginable -- future technologies to solve an immediate problem." February 16, 2007: Google at work on AI? - Larry Page tells you how powerful your brain is. Short video clip from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Conference in San Francisco. CNET News.com. "My predicition is that when AI happens, it's going to be a lot of computation and not so much ... clever algorithms...."
>>> Cognitive Science, AI Overview, Information Retrieval, The Future February 8, 2007: Man or Machine? Part 1: Human or Robot? - Experts ask are robots the next step in evolution? Find out how intelligent machines will change the world we live in. Transcript of a WCHS8 ABC Eyewitness News television broadcast. "Today, artificial intelligence flies airplanes, makes financial decisions and aids in medical diagnoses. ... BACKGROUND: Today, artificial intelligence helps airplanes fly, makes financial decisions, and helps diagnosis medical conditions. Tom Mitchell, president of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, says this about AI: 'Ever since computers were invented, it has been natural to wonder whether they might be able to learn. Imagine computers learning from medical records to discover emerging trends in the spread and treatment of new diseases, houses learning from experience to optimize energy costs based on the particular usage patterns of their occupants, or personal software assistants learning the evolving interests of their users to highlight especially relevant stories from the online morning newspaper.' The AAAI describes artificial intelligence as 'the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines.' Experts say AI is going to be increasingly important in our lives and it won't be long before AI allows man to increase his levels of intelligence." February 2, 2007: Rolf Pfeifer - New AI. Podcast from Talking Robots. "In this episode of 'Talking Robots' we interview Rolf Pfeifer, about the last 50 years in artificial intelligence, the 'new AI', the central role of embodiment for intelligence, and his new popular science book. Rolf Pfeifer is professor of computer science at the Department of Informatics of the University of Zurich, and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He has pioneered a new approach to artificial intelligence ('New AI'), which emphasizes the role of embodiment and argues that thought is not independent of the body, but tightly constrained, and at the same time enabled by it." January 29, 2007: Artificial intelligence: Making rapid strides - AI makes spam filters smarter, search engines more efficient and is even behind speech-to-text software. By J. Preethi. The Hindu Business Line. "Phraselater - a pencil box shaped device that translates phrases in 15-20 languages and the vacuum-bot called Roomba that automatically finds its way back to its charging point. Examples that indicate that artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to make itself seen and heard. 'What people don't know is that AI has been around for years now,' said the AI expert, Dr Ron Brachman, V-P of Worldwide Research Operations, Yahoo! Research, speaking to Business Line recently. ... Commending the contribution of Indian researchers at Yahoo in the field of AI, he said, 'The talent here is extraordinary.' Work on various AI themes - speech to text, computer vision, Indic language processing and translation, multimodal communication (voice communication) and handwriting recognition is being conducted at various research labs across the country." January 22, 2007: Q & A: Ronald J. Brachman, Head, Worldwide Research Operations Yahoo! Research: ‘Yahoo research uses artificial intelligence everywhere.’ Interviewed by BV Mahalakshmi. The Financial Express. "[Q] Why is there is so much talk on artificial intelligence (AI) globally? How does this system of learning help in developing intelligent systems? [A] Artificial intelligence is about understanding intelligent behaviour in machines and converting them to natural languages. We want to produce PCs that can perform natural language conversations. Moreover, it helps in planning ahead for the human activities in various applications. ... AI is a form of science having a potential for long-term aspirations like making computers more intelligent. ... [Q] How did the study of AI originate? What is its history ? ... [Q] How do you propose to develop your India R&D centre? What will be its focus area? ... AI is being used in every part of Yahoo’s research especially since we collect over 12 terabytes of data everyday. ... [Q] What is the AI’s future and how does your company propose to capitalise on this ? ..." January 2007: The Discover Interview - Marvin Minsky: The legendary pioneer of artificial intelligence ponders the brain, bashes neuroscience, and lays out a plan for superhuman robot servants. By Susan Kruglinski. Discover (Volume 28, Number 1). "[Q] So as you see it, artificial intelligence is the lens through which to look at the mind and unlock the secrets of how it works? [A] Yes, through the lens of building a simulation. If a theory is very simple, you can use mathematics to predict what it'll do. If it's very complicated, you have to do a simulation. It seems to me that for anything as complicated as the mind or brain, the only way to test a theory is to simulate it and see what it does. ... [Q] Many people feel that the field of AI went bust in the 1980s after failing to deliver on its early promise. Do you agree? [A] Well, no. What happened is that it ran out of high-level thinkers. ... [Q] Has science fiction influenced your work?[A] It's about the only thing I read. ... [Q] What did you do as consultant on 2001: A Space Odyssey? ... "
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