Filed under: Robots

Earlier this week, Elbot made a fairly impressive showing (comparatively speaking, at least) when fooling three judges into thinking it was human; had it fooled one more on the dozen deep panel, it would have successful passed the famed Turing test. Auntie Beeb now has a report on what exactly Elbot said when asked a litany of questions away from the competition, and there’s also a video with the related experts dissecting its performance. To be totally honest, its responses weren’t too far from being completely passable as ones from a tired, potentially inebriated Earthling (in our humble opinion), but we’ll leave the final determination to you. Touch the read link for a one-on-one with ones and zeros.

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Filed under: Robots

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Filed under: Robots

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

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Filed under: Gaming

You know how Go nerds are always going on about how magical they are since supercomputer AI hasn’t yet cracked the ancient board game, and rarely beats even an average Go player? No? Maybe those are just our nerdy friends. Well, those folks can wipe the smug grins off their faces as they’re faced with the sobering reality of defeat: Dutch supercomputer “Huygens” has defeated a human Go professional in an official match at the 24th Annual Congress of the game Go in Portland, Oregon. The newly-minted supercomputer was aided by the recently-developed Monte-Carlo Tree Search algorithm and a whopping 60 teraflops of processing power. Poor Kim MyungWan — who managed to beat the computer in three “blitz” games leading up to the actual match, and probably won’t be hanging up his Go hat just yet — didn’t stand a chance.

[Via Tech Digest]

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Filed under: Robots

We’ve seen a couple robotic efforts to explore the Arctic and the Antarctic, but they’ve all been remotely-operated — unlike the SnoMote, a new bot being developed at the Georgia Tech that can navigate itself around ice and snow. Packs of the mini-snowmobile-based SnoMotes can negotiate with each other and “bid” on locations to investigate, and navigate by classifying microscopic fissures in the icy terrain. The bots haven’t made it to the Antarctic yet, but they’re apparently handling simulations quite well, and the plan is for teams of 40 to 50 of the $10,000 machines to wander the ice collecting data points for climate change models. Sure sure — and the next thing you know, the Antarctic is the flashpoint of the revolution. Good plan, guys.

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Filed under: Robots

Wondering just how we mere mortals were going to even give a robot enough smarts to completely overtake our societies? Oddly enough, some of that artificial brain power could come from studying the way fruit flys, um, fly. A completely bizarre flight simulator at Caltech actually plays “scenes” that flys react to, and considering that the fly is constantly held, researchers can closely examine how the insect attempts to navigate away from lines, blobs and all manners of incoming obstacles. Those working with the installation suggest that these studies could one day help autonomous robots function better, potentially taking some of the load off of our human workforce. We know, you’ve got three bold letters and a question mark running through your noggin right now — just hit the read link to see what it’s all about.

[Thanks, Dave]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen software created in order to determine whether a subject is drop-dead gorgeous, but scientists at Tel Aviv University have seemingly concocted a program of their own that can “interpret attractiveness in women.” Before you ask, the researchers have yet to perfect the art of computing the beauty of males, but they’re attributing said omission to the difficulty in “defining” attractiveness in dudes. Nevertheless, the software was purportedly able to reach nearly the same conclusion as humans about how lovely (or not) a hundred different ladies were, as it broke down features like face symmetry, smoothness of the skin and hair color. We’re told the development could eventually be used in “plastic and reconstructive surgery and computer visualization programs,” but c’mon, this is totally meant to automate the grueling Hot or Not process.

[Via Physorg]

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Filed under: Robots

The robot uprising, it inches ever closer — researchers working on the EU-funded COSPAL project have developed a new robotic AI that they say is the most advanced of its type ever created. Using both learning neural AI techniques and traditional rules-based AI as a control mechanism, the robot can be trained “like a child or a puppy,” and has managed to figure out simple sorting tasks on its own. The next step is to try and integrate the system into a car that can adjust to unforeseen driving conditions, but the researchers in charge aren’t worried about creating an army of KARRs set to mow us all down — according to researcher Michael Felsberg, adult-level AI based on this system probably won’t happen in our lifetimes. On the other hand, we’ve heard machines will match us by 2029 — that’ll be a fun debate to have when we’re all slaving away in the robo-mines.

[Apologies for the terrible photo — sure, COSPAL can develop puppy-level AI, but they’re apparently still rocking a QuickTake 100.]

Read - Physorg article on the COSPAL robot
Read - COSPAL site

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Filed under: Robots

So the military is continuing down the totally inevitable path of computer-controlled autonomous robo-warriors capable of fighting deadly human battles on our behalf — and out come the naysayers like U of Sheffield prof Noel Sharkey, who, at The Ethics of Autonomous Military Systems conference in London, decried the bots’ self-determined killing abilities as “a threat to humanity” — especially if they’re captured and re-purposed by terrorists to do their evil bidding. Sharkey exclaimed that he’s “worked in artificial intelligence for decades, and the idea of a robot making decisions about human termination terrifies [him],” but — and we’re just gonna throw this out there — what if being oppressed by a race of automatons run amok were actually an improvement over our corrupt governments of men? Isn’t that a possibility, too? We’re certainly going to keep telling ourselves it is, thankful we’ve somehow managed to not be overthrown by our own creations. Thus far.

P.S. -We dare you, commenters, NOT to bust out the welcoming our robot overlords cliché.

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Filed under: Robots

Famed technologist and futurist Ray Kurzweil is on the record about human-machine intelligence parity: it’s going down by or before 2029, so be prepared to get digital on entirely new levels. Apparently, machines “will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence” by then, but even if it’s not in the form of meatbag-terminating cyborgs, Kurzweil thinks one future of intelligent machines is on the nano scale, with interfaces to enhance our own physiology and intelligence. Oh sure, this stuff is completely pie in the sky — but it’s still absurdly fun to think of what kinds of crazy crap the 21st century’s going to hold.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Household

Believe it or not, engineering minds have figured out a way to gadgetize even coasters, but Sentilla’s Smart Drink Coasters hope to be the zaniest yet. Designed using vanilla glass coasters from Michael’s (an arts and crafts store), one of Sentilla’s diminutive pervasive computers, a handful of LEDs and a few other ingredients, these units can not only blink in different ways depending on how full / empty one’s beverage is, but they can be used to create a whole new world of drinking games. Reportedly, the gizmos can be programmed to understand when a drink is on it and when a refill is needed, theoretically enabling a bartender or server to be alerted of one’s drink status without even going over to check. Additionally, a set of coasters can be used to replicate a memory game much like “Simon,” which could undoubtedly create a room full of laughs in the right circumstances. Granted, this all works under the assumption that you’ll actually slam your container down on (i.e. not just nearby) the intelligent coaster, but if you think you’re that coordinated, hit the read link for a full description and a video demonstration.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Robots

Dr. Honghai Liu, one of the two researchers heading up a project to craft an exceptionally deft robotic hand, has called such a device “one of the holy grails of science,” and honestly, we can’t say we disagree. He, along with Professor Xiangyang Zhu, were recently award a Royal Society grant to further research the possibility of using artificial intelligence to create software that could “learn and copy human hand movements.” A sensor-laden cyberglove has been used to capture data about how the human hand movies, and the duo hopes to eventually use the findings to produce the “perfect artificial limb.” Of course, there’s no telling how long it’ll take for such technology to actually be perfected, but we can already see the line forming with folks eager to swap out their own hand for one more a bit more adept.

[Via The Raw Feed]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!