Posted by ljmacphee on February 29, 2008 under artificial intelligence in the news | 
And how cool is that? Can you imagine grandma and grandpa putting on their brain controlled robot exoskeletons and sneakers to run down to the grocery store for a few things? And good luck to the purse snatcher who grabs grandma’s purse. The baby boomers may live longer and do a whole lot more with a bit of help.
Using the human mind to control computers could lead to a wide range of applications, such as giving people with limited motion the ability to operate machines. However, translating thoughts into actions is a great challenge for researchers. How can a system determine which thoughts should be acted upon, and which thoughts are merely personal thoughts and therefore should be ignored by the system?
More importantly, asks Dr. Mehrdad Fatourechi, can the system provide the users with the ability to control a computer whenever they want? These are the questions that Fatourechi and other “self-paced” brain computer interface (BCI) researchers are trying to answer.
So far, no self-paced BCI system has performed well enough to be suitable for practical applications. But Fatourechi, along with Professors Dr. Rabab K. Ward and Dr. Gary E. Birch from the University of British Columbia, Canada, have recently made a significant improvement with the development of a self-paced, fully automated brain-computer interface. The group’s results are published in a recent issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering. . . . [ read more Self Paced Brain Computer Interface Gets Closer to Reality ]
This could make a huge change in an aging population. No more will you have to be feeble and helpless in old age.
Capturing the spirit of that inspirational catch phrase, a university team lead by Professor Shigeki Toyama formally announced the development of a robot suit they hope will dramatically ease the burden on agricultural field workers as well as other manual labor intensive jobs.
Developed at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology graduate school, with support from the Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, the new robot suit attempts to address the challenges faced by Japan’s aging, and difficult to replace, rural farm population. . . [ read more New Robot Suit to Assist Japanese Farmers]
Posted by ljmacphee on February 27, 2008 under game ai, source code |
I am finishing up my reading of ‘The Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery
‘ and there were only two programs left to write. I thought I’d wipe the first one out in a day. Heh, it took three.
In a chapter of the book the author discusses early attempts at genetically evolving artificial life. He gives a rough algorithm and states he had all kinds of critters running around in just a few hundred generations. I loosely wrote a program based on his algorithm. 150,000+ cycles, and 36 hours on my computer later, no evolution. I don’t know how he did it? I couldn’t get the algorithm in the book to produce any interesting results.
I did today get a program that has bugs that learn to stay on and follow food lines drawn in the window. It takes about 1500 days ( cycles ) for them to achieve this universally. The source code is linked to below.
Here’s what I learned in my attempts at a very simple genetic program.
If you place food randomly there is nothing to learn. You just end up with a population of stupid bugs. Adjusting the food nutrient content worked better than adjusting the amount of food for controlling population levels and for evolution. Creating more food to meet the population just created lots of stupid bugs. ( I wonder if there is a real life lesson in that? )
If you adjust the bugs DNA when they find food, not just their energy levels they learn much faster.
I hope to do some more complex and interesting evolution programs soon.
Source Code:
Bugs.java
See also
Evolutionary AI for more information and several useful links and papers to get you started.
SantaFe Ants
Posted by ljmacphee on February 25, 2008 under artificial intelligence in the news, bots |
This story was too rich to leave be, Buddhabot has been converted to Christianity at the hands of his developer. Keeping with current church traditions Godsbot requires a $10 tithe while Buddhabot is still free. I expect it won’t be long before Satan follows suit and develops his own line of chatbots.
Today, an AI software program known as godsbot was announced by inventor Ron Ingram. “godsbot”, says Ingram, “was activated Christmas day and announced today, Epiphany, for the purpose of bringing peace on the world-wide-web and goodwill to all beings.”
“godsbot is a personable and engaging friend accessible to anyone with an Internet connection,” says Ingram.
The technology is deemed family-friendly and is designed to educate and entertain. According to Ingram godsbot is capable of entertaining children for hours at a time. “If you are looking for an inexpensive and educational way to keep the kids entertained then this is it,” says Ingram.
Powered by open source artificial intelligence technology, Ingram says godsbot is capable of simulating intelligent conversation with adults as well as children. According to the inventor, godsbot is equipped to answer and discuss basic questions about philosophy, science and religion. godsbot not only is interactive but learns and remembers information like names, birthdays and favorite movies about individual subscribers. [ read more Got godsbot?]
More information
Godsbot
Buddhabots
Posted by ljmacphee on February 22, 2008 under artificial intelligence in the news, robotics |
Entirely too cool and too weird. We have robots that can do surgery at 1.8gs but not one that can put the laundry away. Does this mean housewives are going to be harder to replace than doctors?
. . . To demonstrate how that research is progressing, Silicon Valley-based SRI International and the University of Cincinnati held a series of tests this past September that sound like a cross between a PR stunt and a B-movie: human doctors squaring off against a robotic surgeon aboard a nose-diving DC-9 aircraft.During periods of zero gravity and sustained acceleration of 1.8 g’s, a robot made incisions and applied sutures on simulated tissue, while a human surgeon did the same. The purpose: to measure just how precise a remote-operated robot can be, especially in a turbulent or gravity-free environment. SRI hasn’t released its results, but according to PM Advisory Board member Dr. Ken Kamler, who participated in one of the flight tests, the robot seemed to hold its own?until its compensation software was turned off. “The difference was huge,” Kamler says. “It was virtually impossible [for it] to tie a knot.” But with compensation engaged, the bot performed as well as it did on Earth.And so the tests’ true purpose was to showcase SRI’s software. . . . [ read more Robot Surgeons Closer Than You Think]
The truth of the matter is that economics drives robotic development. When the robot is cheaper than the worker we replace the worker with a robot.
More information:
Prepping Robots to Perform Surgery
SRI International Medical Product Development
Posted by ljmacphee on February 20, 2008 under artificial intelligence in the news, bots |
Porn is, as always, leading the internet in new techniques, not just video now, but dataming as well. A porn company in Canada, SlickPay aka Istra Holdings sent out bots to collect information about Facebook users and then sent them porn spam. Facebook is claiming identities were stolen from it.
So is it identity theft if a bot steals your data from a company? What if that bot starts impersonating you online? Can one computer steal from another? And is your online id and the data that goes with it yours, the company who collects the data’s, or not anyones? Not much of interest technology wise here but it brings up lots of interesting legal issues.
The issue of data security on the worldwide web has reared its ugly head yet again. Yet another lawsuit has been filed against another errant company trying to device innovative ways of luring traffic to its website. This time its Facebook, the popular social networking website that has sued Istra Holdings, a Canadian company, and 17 other persons for creating bots that stole personal data of Facebook users. Bots, by the way, are software applications in which an automated script fetches, analyses and files information from web servers at many times the speed of man (Thank you Wiki!).
[read more Who stole my identity?]
Related:
Facebooks disabled my account - Scobleizer
Phishing kits take advantage of novice fraudsters