Software That Cares
“I was impressed how powerful a response (by viewers of demos . . . and of users themselves) is evoked by the caring shown by the system.”
NY Times article here.
The Singularity as Rapture
A small, but growing group of computer scientists, are treating advances in A.I. as a life-altering religious experience. “Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,” Dr. Horvitz said. “Technologists are replacing religion, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.”
Artificial Intelligence Summit: Confronts Rise of Ultra-Smart Machines
Teaching Robots the Rules of War
[Dr. Ronald C.] Arkin’s “ethical controller” is a software architecture that provides, “ethical control and reasoning system potentially suitable for constraining lethal actions in an autonomous robotic system so that they fall within the bounds prescribed by the Geneva Conventions, the Laws of War, and the Rules of Engagement.”
[The robots] can be designed without a sense of self-preservation and, as a result, “no tendency to lash out in fear.” They can be built without anger or recklessness and they can be made invulnerable to what he calls “the psychological problem of ‘scenario fulfillment,’ ” that causes people to absorb new information more easily if it matches their pre-existing ideas.
A montage of very well-armed robots:
Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man (NY Times)
The researchers also discussed possible threats to human jobs, like self-driving cars, software-based personal assistants and service robots in the home. Just last month, a service robot developed by Willow Garage in Silicon Valley proved it could navigate the real world.
Machines have repeatedly replaced human labor, particularly in dangerous and unpleasant jobs. New jobs emerge to reflect an evolving economic reality. This seems no different.
New York Times article here.
In Search for Intelligence, a Silicon Brain Twitches
Despite the challenges, the push to understand, replicate and even re-enact higher behaviors in the brain has become one of the hottest areas of neuroscience.
WSJ article here.
When Do Robots Become Artificial Life? And Who’ll Get The Robot Vote??
Video at Pajamas TV
Emotional Robots: Will We Love Them or Hate Them?
Innerscope's approach is the latest in a wave of ever more sophisticated emotion-sensing technologies. For years, computers in some call centres have monitored our voices so that managers can home in on what makes us fly into a wild rage. The latest technologies could soon be built into everyday gadgets to smooth our interactions with them. In-car alarms that jolt sleepy drivers awake, satnavs that sense our frustration in a traffic jam and offer alternative routes, and monitors that diagnose depression from body language are all in the pipeline. Prepare for the era of emotionally aware gadgets.