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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
The World’s First Family Robot Could Be Like HAL in Your Home
Meet Jibo. On track to exist next year, Jibo is being marketed as “the world’s first family robot.” The bulbous little guy can read to kids in the living room, recite recipes in the kitchen, take photos in the yard, and perform a handful of other simple tasks. Jibo is also a little bit creepy. … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
The World’s Best Subway System Is Powered By an Advanced AI Boss
Hong Kong’s metro puts others to shame: It’s one of the most profitable subways in the world. It’s on time 99.9 percent of the time. It’s always improving—and it’s controlled by some very clever artificial intelligence. An article in the latest issue of New Scientist introduces us to the algorithm that’s responsible for the incredible … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
A Computer Program Has Passed the Turing Test For the First Time
This is big. A computer program has successfully managed to fool a bunch of researchers into thinking that it was a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman. In doing so, it has become the first in the world to have successfully passed the Turing Test. The test is named after computer pioneer Alan Turing. To pass … Continued
By Pranav Dixit -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
A Wall-Mounted Computer Chess Game Is Playable Art
Staring at the Mona Lisa provides a few minutes of enjoyment and contemplation, but were the famous portrait on the wall of your living room, you’d soon find yourself wishing she did more than just sit there and smirk. Maybe that’s what inspired the Artful Dodger to build this portrait chess set that lets you … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Creepy Robot Looks Like Your Friends, Knows What You’re Thinking
Humans are the worst—there’s no denying it. But isolating yourself from the rest of humanity doesn’t exactly come with the best track record either. Now, though, you can get the best of both worlds thanks to SociBot-Mini, a depth-sensing, mood-reading, friends’-identity-stealing disembodied robot torso. Created by Engineered Arts in the UK, SociBot-Mini may not be … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Boten Anna, the spam-killer!
This week, the traffic on the Space subsite grew enough to attract our first spam-comment since I started as writer/editor. To commemorate the rise in traffic that attacked spammers, here’s a Euro-pop flashback praising artificial intelligence and spam-fighting. Boten Anna is a song by Basshunter about an anti-spam comment-moderator bot. The chorus translates as: I … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Her Tech Support: Troubleshooting Your AI Girlfriend
Relationships are hard. Especially when your partner inhabits a completely different realm of sentient existence that your frankly puny human mind could not be expected to fathom under any circumstance. The good news? You’ve got tech support. WARNING: CRAZY SPOILERS Sure, it’s fun to imagine the future will be a clean, beautiful, technologically advanced place … Continued
By Eric Limer -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
This Amazing Image Algorithm Learns to Spot Objects Without Human Help
It’s only a matter of time before things go the way of Skynet, and this new algorithm is a stepping stone along the way: it can learn to identify objects all by itself, with zero human help. Gulp. Created by Brigham Young University researchers, this new recognition algorithm churns through images, defining its own parameters … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Gah! They’ve Taught Drones How To Weave Giant Spider Webs Now
It’s becoming painfully aware that those involved in robotics and artificial intelligence research aren’t quite thinking about the consequences of their so-called innovations. Like these researchers at ETH Zurich who’ve taught autonomous drones how to build and weave tensile wire structures. Or, to put it another way, DRONE WEBS OF DOOM. Sure, the artificial intelligence … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
This IBM Scientist Predicted Netflix Before The Internet Even Existed
If you predicted the decline of deadtree books or the rise of services like Netflix streaming, say, 25 years ago, you’d be considered a damn good prognosticator. But what if you predicted those things back in 1964—before the internet even existed? Amazingly, a scientist from IBM did just that, long before any of these things … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Just How Smart Is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence is the Holy Grail of computer science—and, for that matter, science fiction. But just how far have we come? In this video, Luciano Floridi—Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford—explores the current state of AI. The nub of his argument boils down to one big question: have we … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
CARROT Wakes You Up With Empty Threats…And Some Real Ones
Getting out of bed is the worst. And anyone who says they don’t mind waking up can just leave now. Some of us are employing desperate measures to get going every morning, and a manipulative/verbally abusive alarm clock sounds like just the thing. The makers of the CARROT To-Do list wanted to bring their motivational … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
How Machines Think
When people talk about artificial intelligence, it’s tempting to think that it means computers can think (a little) like humans. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out that’s not quite the case. This video from New Scientist explains how machine are designed to be capable of solving problems that humans can—just not quite in the same way. … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
One of the World’s Best A.I. Computers Is as Smart as a Four Year Old
Computers are good at a lot of things. Thinking like a grown-up human being is not one of them. Not yet, at least. A team of researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago recently set out to discover just how advanced our artificially intelligent computers have become. Like they’d do with any food-eating human, they … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence Is Absolutely Fascinating
We poke fun at Siri and pretend to get scared by Humanoid robots and make our neck hair stand up straight by watching quadrocopters do amazing things but the truth is, artificial intelligence is still pretty dumb. But that’s going to change! The rise of artificial intelligence is happening and they’re learning a lot more … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
IBM’s Watson Has a Boring New Job Answering Phones
After you’ve used your crazy robot intellect to crush puny meatbags definitively in a game of Jeopardy, it would seem like the world is your oyster. But Watson’s not taking trying to take over the world or anything, no. After a trying out medicine and inventing a pastry, he’s settling for a boring job in … Continued
By Eric Limer -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
The Most Realistic Virtual Human Ever Is a Fully Expressive Talking Head
Hoping to be holding the personal assistant of the future, researchers at the University of Cambridge have unveiled what’s supposedly the most realistically esxpressive controllable avatar ever. Move aside, Siri—this is what you get for mouthing off. https://gizmodo.com/what-happens-when-you-tell-iphone-4s-siri-that-you-love-5848856 To develop the virtual, controllable avatar (dubbed Zoe) with what they claim is “unprecedented realism,” they had … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Meet the Twitter Bot That Can Answer All Your Questions
Remember SmarterChild? That AIM bot that would answer all/most of your questions and get huffy and stop talking to you when you inevitably started swearing at it? Unfortunately SmarterChild is still dead and gone, but it’s got a Twitter descendant: @DearAssistant. DearAssistant is a simple Twitter bot designed by Amit Agarwal for a single function: … Continued
By Eric Limer -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
Supercomputer “Dr.” Watson Is Now Seeing Patients
Everybody’s favorite clue-guessing computer Watson was always destined for more than just trouncing meatbags on Jeopardy. And though it spent a little of its time just hanging out and learning how to swear, Watson has now moved on to bigger and better things. “Dr”. Watson’s taking patients now, through a cloud-based medical application. Watson’s first … Continued
By Eric Limer -
Tech NewsArtificial Intelligence
The Smartest Computer in the World Also Has the Dirtiest Mouth
We already knew Ken Jennings thought IBM’s Jeopardy-winning supercomputer was a dick, but he’s not alone. Developers at IBM were forced to wipe part of Watson’s memory once they realized their hyperintelligent computer had turned into a bit of a smartass. https://gizmodo.com/ken-jennings-wants-to-occupy-jeopardy-5853708 During development, Watson’s project head had what must have seemed like a brilliant … Continued