24 August 2009 - New Scientist Robot with bones moves like you do: "YOU may have more in common with this robot than any other - it was designed using your anatomy as a blueprint.
Conventional humanoid robots may look human, but the workings under their synthetic skins are radically different from our anatomy. A team with members across five European countries says this makes it difficult to build robots able to move like we do.
Their project, the Eccerobot, has been designed to duplicate the way human bones, muscles and tendons work and are linked together. The plastic bones copy biological shapes and are moved by kite-line that is tough like tendons, while elastic cords mimic the bounce of muscle."
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Advances in Humanoid Robots
Inventor Demonstrates Humanoid Robot's Latest AI Abilities: "In August 2007, Le Trung invented Aiko, a Yumecom, or 'Dream Computer Robot.' Although it took only a month and a half to build Aiko's exterior, the artificial intelligence software has been a work in progress ever since. Recently, Le Trung has demonstrated his most recent improvements to the software, called BRAINS (Bio Robot Artificial Intelligence Neural System).
In the video below, Le Trung demonstrates Aiko's internal operating system, which gives the robot many abilities, including the ability to speak two languages (English and Japanese), solve high school math problems, communicate the weather forecast, understand more than 13,000 sentences, sing songs, identify objects, focus on objects or people of importance, read newspapers and other materials, and mimic human physical touch."
In the video below, Le Trung demonstrates Aiko's internal operating system, which gives the robot many abilities, including the ability to speak two languages (English and Japanese), solve high school math problems, communicate the weather forecast, understand more than 13,000 sentences, sing songs, identify objects, focus on objects or people of importance, read newspapers and other materials, and mimic human physical touch."
Machines computing morality
Moral machines: "Researchers from Portugal and Indonesia describe an approach to decision making based on computational logic in the current issue of the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems which might one day give machines a sense of morality."
"Morality no longer belongs only to the realm of philosophers. Recently, there has been a growing interest in understanding morality from the scientific point of view," the researchers say.
"Morality no longer belongs only to the realm of philosophers. Recently, there has been a growing interest in understanding morality from the scientific point of view," the researchers say.
"They have turned to a system known as prospective logic to help them begin the process of programming morality into a computer. Put simply, prospective logic can model a moral dilemma and then determine the logical outcomes of the possible decisions. The approach could herald the emergence of machine ethics.
"The development of machine ethics will allow us to develop fully autonomous machines that can be programmed to make judgements based on a human moral foundation. "Equipping agents with the capability to compute moral decisions is an indispensable requirement," the researchers say, "This is particularly true when the agents are operating in domains where moral dilemmas occur, e.g., in healthcare or medical fields."
Friday, August 21, 2009
“Rich interaction” may make computers a partner, not a product
News and Communication Services: "In the movie “2010,” while trying to salvage the mission to Jupiter, the Hal 9000 computer noted, “I enjoy working with human beings, and have stimulating relationships with them.”
Well, 2010 is just around the corner, and as usual Hollywood was a little ahead of its time – but in this case, not by much. Oregon State University researchers are pioneering the concept of “rich interaction” – computers that do, in fact, want to communicate with, learn from and get to know you better as a person.
The idea behind this “meaningful” interaction is one of the latest advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, in which a computer doesn’t just try to learn from its own experiences, it listens to the user, tries to combine what it “hears” with its internal reasoning, and changes its program as a result. When ordinary users spot the machine’s errors they should be able to step in and explain directly to the machine the logic it should be using."
Well, 2010 is just around the corner, and as usual Hollywood was a little ahead of its time – but in this case, not by much. Oregon State University researchers are pioneering the concept of “rich interaction” – computers that do, in fact, want to communicate with, learn from and get to know you better as a person.
The idea behind this “meaningful” interaction is one of the latest advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, in which a computer doesn’t just try to learn from its own experiences, it listens to the user, tries to combine what it “hears” with its internal reasoning, and changes its program as a result. When ordinary users spot the machine’s errors they should be able to step in and explain directly to the machine the logic it should be using."
Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom
Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "A recent 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education, has a starchy academic title, but a most intriguing conclusion: “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction."
"The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.
"Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile. That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference.
"The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.
"Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile. That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference.
Autonomous machines prompt debate - News - The Engineer
Autonomous machines prompt debate - News - The Engineer: "Legislators and opinion-formers need to start thinking about how autonomous machines like driverless trucks, surgical robots and smart homes that keep an eye on their occupants could affect society, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering.
"In a new report, the Academy points out that the technology to develop such systems is either already available or closer to reality than many people think — and the legal system needs to catch up fast."
"Autonomous trucks are a good example; as Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, a member of the Academy’s engineering ethics working group and BAE Systems’ Military Air Solutions’ science and technology director pointed out, autonomous vehicles already operate in mines and warehouses. Such trucks would use lasers and radar to monitor their surroundings and neighbouring cars, and would have the Highway Code programmed into them.
‘They’d be much more predictable than trucks driven by humans; they wouldn’t pull out suddenly, they would always pull in if there was a problem; they’d give way where they were supposed to,’ Dopping-Hepenstal said. ‘But also, there are bound to be problems. If there’s an accident involving one of these things, who’s responsible? The system's engineer? The manufacturer?’
"In a new report, the Academy points out that the technology to develop such systems is either already available or closer to reality than many people think — and the legal system needs to catch up fast."
"Autonomous trucks are a good example; as Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, a member of the Academy’s engineering ethics working group and BAE Systems’ Military Air Solutions’ science and technology director pointed out, autonomous vehicles already operate in mines and warehouses. Such trucks would use lasers and radar to monitor their surroundings and neighbouring cars, and would have the Highway Code programmed into them.
‘They’d be much more predictable than trucks driven by humans; they wouldn’t pull out suddenly, they would always pull in if there was a problem; they’d give way where they were supposed to,’ Dopping-Hepenstal said. ‘But also, there are bound to be problems. If there’s an accident involving one of these things, who’s responsible? The system's engineer? The manufacturer?’
Friday, August 14, 2009
IBM gets $16 million to bolster its brain-on-a-chip technology - Network World
IBM gets $16 million to bolster its brain-on-a-chip technology
- Network World: "According to DARPA, the SyNAPSE program will create useful, intelligent machines. In DARPA language: the agency is looking to develop electronic neuromorphic machine technology that is scalable to biological levels. The goal is to develop systems capable of analyzing vast amounts of data from many sources in the blink of an eye, letting the military or civilian businesses make rapid decisions in time to have a significant impact on a given problem or situation."
"According to DARPA, programmable machines are limited not only by their computational capacity, but also by an architecture requiring (human-derived) algorithms to both describe and process information from their environment. In contrast, biological neural systems such as human brains, autonomously process information in complex environments by automatically learning relevant and probabilistically stable features and associations, DARPA stated.
- Network World: "According to DARPA, the SyNAPSE program will create useful, intelligent machines. In DARPA language: the agency is looking to develop electronic neuromorphic machine technology that is scalable to biological levels. The goal is to develop systems capable of analyzing vast amounts of data from many sources in the blink of an eye, letting the military or civilian businesses make rapid decisions in time to have a significant impact on a given problem or situation."
"According to DARPA, programmable machines are limited not only by their computational capacity, but also by an architecture requiring (human-derived) algorithms to both describe and process information from their environment. In contrast, biological neural systems such as human brains, autonomously process information in complex environments by automatically learning relevant and probabilistically stable features and associations, DARPA stated.
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