Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

And how cool is that? Can you imagine grandma and grandpa putting on their brain controlled robot exoskeletons and sneakers to run down to the grocery store for a few things? And good luck to the purse snatcher who grabs grandma’s purse. The baby boomers may live longer and do a whole lot more with a bit of help.

Using the human mind to control computers could lead to a wide range of applications, such as giving people with limited motion the ability to operate machines. However, translating thoughts into actions is a great challenge for researchers. How can a system determine which thoughts should be acted upon, and which thoughts are merely personal thoughts and therefore should be ignored by the system?
More importantly, asks Dr. Mehrdad Fatourechi, can the system provide the users with the ability to control a computer whenever they want? These are the questions that Fatourechi and other “self-paced” brain computer interface (BCI) researchers are trying to answer.

So far, no self-paced BCI system has performed well enough to be suitable for practical applications. But Fatourechi, along with Professors Dr. Rabab K. Ward and Dr. Gary E. Birch from the University of British Columbia, Canada, have recently made a significant improvement with the development of a self-paced, fully automated brain-computer interface. The group’s results are published in a recent issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering. . . . [ read more Self Paced Brain Computer Interface Gets Closer to Reality ]

This could make a huge change in an aging population. No more will you have to be feeble and helpless in old age.

Capturing the spirit of that inspirational catch phrase, a university team lead by Professor Shigeki Toyama formally announced the development of a robot suit they hope will dramatically ease the burden on agricultural field workers as well as other manual labor intensive jobs.

Developed at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology graduate school, with support from the Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, the new robot suit attempts to address the challenges faced by Japan’s aging, and difficult to replace, rural farm population. . . [ read more New Robot Suit to Assist Japanese Farmers]

I am finishing up my reading of ‘The Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery‘ and there were only two programs left to write. I thought I’d wipe the first one out in a day. Heh, it took three.

In a chapter of the book the author discusses early attempts at genetically evolving artificial life. He gives a rough algorithm and states he had all kinds of critters running around in just a few hundred generations. I loosely wrote a program based on his algorithm. 150,000+ cycles, and 36 hours on my computer later, no evolution. I don’t know how he did it? I couldn’t get the algorithm in the book to produce any interesting results.

I did today get a program that has bugs that learn to stay on and follow food lines drawn in the window. It takes about 1500 days ( cycles ) for them to achieve this universally. The source code is linked to below.

Here’s what I learned in my attempts at a very simple genetic program.

If you place food randomly there is nothing to learn. You just end up with a population of stupid bugs. Adjusting the food nutrient content worked better than adjusting the amount of food for controlling population levels and for evolution. Creating more food to meet the population just created lots of stupid bugs. ( I wonder if there is a real life lesson in that? )

If you adjust the bugs DNA when they find food, not just their energy levels they learn much faster.

I hope to do some more complex and interesting evolution programs soon.

Source Code:
Bugs.java

See also
Evolutionary AI for more information and several useful links and papers to get you started.
SantaFe Ants

This story was too rich to leave be, Buddhabot has been converted to Christianity at the hands of his developer. Keeping with current church traditions Godsbot requires a $10 tithe while Buddhabot is still free. I expect it won’t be long before Satan follows suit and develops his own line of chatbots.

Today, an AI software program known as godsbot was announced by inventor Ron Ingram. “godsbot”, says Ingram, “was activated Christmas day and announced today, Epiphany, for the purpose of bringing peace on the world-wide-web and goodwill to all beings.”

“godsbot is a personable and engaging friend accessible to anyone with an Internet connection,” says Ingram.

The technology is deemed family-friendly and is designed to educate and entertain. According to Ingram godsbot is capable of entertaining children for hours at a time. “If you are looking for an inexpensive and educational way to keep the kids entertained then this is it,” says Ingram.

Powered by open source artificial intelligence technology, Ingram says godsbot is capable of simulating intelligent conversation with adults as well as children. According to the inventor, godsbot is equipped to answer and discuss basic questions about philosophy, science and religion. godsbot not only is interactive but learns and remembers information like names, birthdays and favorite movies about individual subscribers. [ read more Got godsbot?]

More information
Godsbot
Buddhabots