Category: Machine Intelligence

from the My-they-move-fast,-don't-they? dept.

The full text of a number of papers on evolutionary robotics design, artificial life (Alife), and swarm programming are available either online or as Acrobat PDF files as the "Feature of the Week" for the 31 August 2000 issue, on the website of the journal Nature.

Items of recent interest include:

• the paper by Pollack & Lipson of Brandeis University on evolutionary robotics design (see item posted here on 30 August)
• another paper titled, "Ant-like task allocation and recruitment in cooperative robots," by Krieger, et al. (no, not that Krieger)
• a commentary article on these two above
• related past items, including a paper on the complexity and evolution of artificial genomes, and another by the Swarm group at the Santa Fe Institute on the use of social insects as a model for programming robotic swarms.

Note: It is unclear how long Nature provides full access to articles in its "Feature of the Week" series; some past features several weeks old are still available, but others are not. Visit this site soon if you'd like to access or download these papers.

from the machines-with-a-past? dept.
Adam Brown writes "It has been theorized that in order for a computer to evolve its personality, it should have past memories to draw upon. While browsing the web I found the site randomaccessmemory.org which encourages members to post their life experiences and any memories that stand out in their mind. Could such a database be used as a starting seed for the implanted past memories of an AI persona? Does anybody else know of any similar resources?" CP: there's the separate question of whether seeding with human memories is a good idea…but if so, one could use biographies.

from the early-"engineering-AI" dept.
EddieWehri writes "Researchers developed a computer program that came up with designs for simple robots after being given simple parameters. Found on slashdot. http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSScience 0008/30_robot.html" RalphMerkle explains that this refers to "recent work at Brandeis by Jordan Pollack. Evidently, this work involves a design system that uses evolutionary algorithms to design a robotic system."

Update: A spate of press coverage of this research was set off by the publication of a paper by Pollack and co-worker Hod Lipson, also of Brandeis, in the 31 August 2000 issue of Nature. Some interesting press accounts include articles in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.

from the Do-you-know-me? dept.

Three years after its widely-publicized chess match with Grand Master Garry Kasparov, IBM's Deep Blue computer system outranks many human celebrities in a poll of the public's familiarity with both human and machine personalities. A short article from the Associated Press on the Washington Post web site describes the study, which was conducted by Marketing Evaluation/TvQ, Inc.

According to the article, even though Deep Blue's big public splash was in 1997, about 50 percent of those polled recognized Deep Blue's name — putting it on par with actress and "Baywatch babe" Carmen Electra, and slightly above CNN talk show host Larry King.

from the synapse-crackle-pop dept.
An interdisciplinary team that includes electrical engineers, computer scientists, physicists and neuroscientists is using a hybrid analog-digital circuit design in an attempt to understand how biological neurons function and process information. A brief description of the research appeared in the New York Times on 29 June 2000, and was described in greater detail in a paper that appeared in the 22 June 2000 issue of the journal Nature.

from the when-Vernor-speaks-smart-people-listen dept.
From the SingularityWatch newsletter edited by Senior Associate John Smart: Vernor Vinge lives in San Diego, and is now retiring from his professorship to write science fiction full time (Congrats, Vernor!). An August 13th article from the San Diego Union-Tribune decided this was an appropriate time to discuss his interpretation of the Singularity. From the article itself: "In 20 years, superintelligent computers will outsmart humans and take over the world. Sounds ludicrous, the stuff of science fiction. So how come when Vernor Vinge makes the prediction, smart people listen?" Read more for John's comments.

from the we're-so-very-lonely dept.
A long article on SETI looks at "where are the aliens?", including the effect of nanotechnology on this question. The assumption seems to be that, given nanotechnology, the aliens exist but are hiding. Another possibility is that they just aren't there at all: Whatever superior intelligence emerges from human ingenuity will be the first that the Milky Way has seen, asserts physicist Frank J. Tipler of Tulane University. "Weíre it as far as intelligence, but one-cell organisms are probably all over the place in the solar system and possibly the entire spiral arm" of the galaxy in which Earth is situated.

A branch of the comments on this story was deleted due to pilot error. The deletion could also be credibly blamed on poor user interface design, or poor system documentation. I'm looking forward to being able to work on Nanodot and related stuff full-time to make such occurrences less likely. — Dave
The "pilot" was me; sorry. –ChrisPeterson

from the AI-in-action dept.

An early example of automated engineering guided by AI was reported in mid-June.

A press release decribes work using computer models developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that employ genetic algorithms to design high-performance deisel engines. The new designs simultaneously increase fuel efficiency and reduce pollution.

The development of automated engineering was anticipated by Eric Drexler in Engines of Creation (see "Automated Engineering" in the Glossary, for example).

from the but-how-do-I-know-what's-going-on-in-there dept.
Senior Associate Eliezer Yudkowsky forwards from Transdot: Aaron Davidson writes: "About 8 months or so ago, David Gobel & I formed a new company called Vastmind, as a result of discussions on the Extropians list and on Eliezer's Singularitarians list. It is our pleasure to debut the early beta version of Vastmind. What is Vastmind? It is a general purpose distributed computing service. With our system, people will be able to sell or donate spare computing resources to those that need it for large projects. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, read Egan's 'Permutation City', which discusses the potential of a planetary computing market."