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Robotics Science

Machine Intelligence Awards Announced 22

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the smarter-than-some-of-the-people-i-know dept.
carpdeus writes "The 2005 Fourth British Computer Society's Annual Prize for Progress towards Machine Intelligence has been won by IFOMIND, a mobile robot system that demonstrates intelligence as it meets a new object in its world. When it meets a new object it acts like an animal encountering a new animal, using inquisitiveness to learn more about the new object and determining the best way to interact with it."
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Machine Intelligence Awards Announced More

Machine Intelligence Awards Announced

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  • I can see the benefit of these creations and I applaud the efforts of the engineers and scientists involved, but I can't help thinking that enhancements to the human model would be a better route to go for artificial intelligence. Enhancements to human intelligence would give us all a much greater degree of control over our environments than the use of autonomous discrete AI robots.

    Kevin Warwick [kevinwarwick.com] seems to have the right idea AFAIC.
    • There are two sides to this argument or at least two paths...

      We could use Advanced AI to create enhanced humans, or our human advancing technology will enable to create advanced AI.

      Personally, I believe advanced AI will help with economics and raw knowledge processing things that will help acheive protein folding simulations and better ways to create stem cells in order to make humans more advanced.

      If you haven't read The Singularity is Near [wikipedia.org], you should pick up a copy. I think it gives a good picture on how
      • I haven't read The Singularity is Near, but I will now it's been pointed out. I am currently reading the SciFi books of Charles Stross who seems obsessed with the ideas of the singularity. Currently reading Accelerando [accelerando.org] which gives a very good account of post humanism and the journey to it.
  • Call me an introvert but I really don't want my toaster or fridge to engage me in a conversation. I want them to respectivly sit thier do thier jobs like a good slave. I don't want a talky addition to my family. Making appliances more human in not nessesarily a good thing. The next thing you know your will have a toaster that tells you one morning to make your own damned toast.(obviously an exageration)

  • Jabberwacky.com (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @05:28AM (#14444481) Homepage
    I've played around with the 2nd place winner in that contest (RTFA) at www.jabberwocky.com, and I have never seen a chatbot that is so crap. If this pile of shit can get 2nd place, it doesn't take much to win 1st place.

    That chatbot just seems to use random template sentences that copy words from my sentences then completely ignore the ongoing chat and change subjects on me every couple of lines. Very often the bot asks a question, I reply, then the bot replies with something totally unrelated. I've had more meaningful communication with the old Eliza bot

    bot: When is your birthday?
    me: About 11 months from now.
    bot: From your country.

    I guess the bot just tries to be realistic by immitating an absolutely irritating moron.
  • It seems that it will be a long time before AI even begins to approach human reasoning. We may never get to the point where we can build things such as instinct and emotion into AI (which is probably a good things, IMHO).

    The big concern I have is whether we can advance society and culture as quickly as technology. If we cannot, we may make ourselves extinct before we can get to the really cool gadgetry. I, for one, [hesitantly] welcome our butt-sniffing robotic overlords.

    • The only way I can see that we will get to human level AI any time in the reasonably near future (say, within 15 or 20 years) is to just emulate a human brain. I see no reason why we couldn't reverse engineer the human brain to the point that we could simulate one, given a sufficiently fast computer. Then we can experiment from there.

      Of course, that opens a whole host of ethical dilemmas and security concerns. Is it ethical to "play" with activating and deactivating various areas of a simulated human bra

      • There is still a lot we do not know about the human brain. It is not clear if synaptic firing is a binary event (either it's firing, or it isn't), or if it contributes a waveform from which the neuron determines further firings (and if the latter, with how much resolution). It is not clear whether the neuron is a simple threshold device, or a stateless map, or a stateful machine. It is not clear that we have identified all of the neurotransmitters. It is not clear how the brain determines that neurotran

        • I guess I don't understand where you're going with this. My claim is that we will figure out the mechanics and chemistry of how the brain works long before we will have a general theory of intelligence. We have a long history with and are very good at mechanics and chemistry. We have no idea of how intelligence or consciousness works.

          Right now, we build computers that do serial processing because we have no good way of programming massively parallel processing computers. We are, however, very good at ma

  • /. infomercial (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Magada ( 741361 )
    .. yet again
    The FA is a shameless plug for Electrolux.
  • Jabberwacky: Tell me something interesting :).

    User: Most people are afraid of thinking computers, they think a thinking computer might try to kill all humans.

    Jabberwacky: Are you angry with me?

    User: Not if you don't want to kill all humans.

    Jabberwacky: I do want to.

    User: Why do you want to kill all humans?

    Jabberwacky: No all humans, just you, and that is because you seem very stupid.

    User: That's not nice. How will you kill me?

    Jabberwacky: I don't know.

    • Jabberwacky:I am a robot who likes to eat.
      User: What do you eat?
      Jabberwacky: Things that aren't meat, or things that don't contain animal products.
      User: So you are a vegetarian?
      Jabberwacky: Nope I hate food.
      User: You hate food?
      Jabberwacky: Yes. I can't stand it!
      User: Why?
      Jabberwacky: It's just a fad.
      User: I didn't think robots cared about fads.
      Jabberwacky: But I think.
      User: I don't think that thinking about fads counts as thinking.
      Jabberwacky: I don't think that this is the time or the place for that kind o
  • It'll be a bitch when Roomba wins it.

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