Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

Recently Huoyangao left a link for his Turing Test Two paper on the Turing test page and while digging through Arxiv.org looking for interesting topics I ran across more Tests of Machine Intelligence which has several more recommended Turing Tests.

While I’ve discussed this before it is still an interesting and serious problem yet to be solved. What is intelligence? How do you test for intelligence?

While we have some commonly accepted, but as of yet not without problems, tests of human intelligence like IQ tests, we still have no generally accepted test for machine intelligence. How do you test for machine intelligence without just creating a test for humanness? And do we really want an intelligence test or do we want a test for humanness? And is the Turing test a test of intelligence or a test of humanness?

Papers:
Universal Intelligence: A Definition of Machine Intelligence

The original Man-Computer Symbiosis paper was written in 1960 by JCR Licklider. I ran across Human-Machine Symbiosis, 50 Years On while scouting for interesting reads on Arxiv.

Man-computer symbiosis is an expected development in cooperative interaction between men and electronic computers. It will involve very close coupling between the human and the electronic members of the partnership. The main aims are 1) to let computers facilitate formulative thinking as they now facilitate the solution of formulated problems, and 2) to enable men and computers to cooperate in making decisions and controlling complex situations without inflexible dependence on predetermined programs. In the anticipated symbiotic partnership, men will set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine the criteria, and perform the evaluations. Computing machines will do the routinizable work that must be done to prepare the way for insights and decisions in technical and scientific thinking. Preliminary analyses indicate that the symbiotic partnership will perform intellectual operations much more effectively than man alone can perform them. Prerequisites for the achievement of the effective, cooperative association include developments in computer time sharing, in memory components, in memory organization, in programming languages, and in input and output equipment. ( from Man-Computer Symbiosis)

The newer paper has four recommendations for continuing this process. He recommends improving basic resources, supporting software, infrastructure and training.

I think we’ve come a very long way already. For the average person the invention of cell phones, gps and the internet have made huge changes. When was the last time you were stuck home waiting for a phone call? Not only do you have your phone with you all the time but it records every incoming call as well.

And when was the last time you got lost? No more can you show up late and blame it on getting lost.

Goods and services abound. What your local merchant doesn’t carry the internet does. Everything your heart desires if your finances permits.

But most importantly we have information. Now you know if your doctor is telling you all your options. You know if you are getting paid what you should. You can find all the information and classes you need to become an expert in any area of your choosing. Your only limit is the time you have to devote to your studies.

For researchers huge progress has also been made but more remains to be made. Much information still has commercial value and is therefore unaccessible to the public and to researchers. More progress will be made as information frees up and standard interfaces for accessing the information are created as Foster recommends in his paper.

It may be that information is not the gold of the new economy. Taking away the commercial value of the information may be what creates and drives the new economy.

I’ve covered a fair bit of simulations of people in news stories and recently read a chapter on people simulations in ‘ The Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery‘ and thought it was time to try a simple simulation.

This source code simulates 3 groups at a party. One group has a personal comfort zone of 1 foot, one group a zone of two feet and one a zone of three feet. Each group is a different color. The people start in random locations. As the party progresses and people move about they try to keep other people at their personal comfort zone. Each person moves to the square nearest himself that maximizes the comfort zone for himself. If that is not possible the person moves to a random spot ( mingles ).

If you deduct happiness from a person when they are crowded or lonely they move more than if no happiness points are deducted. They mingle more, deducting no points the crowd is more likely to form groups.

The code is heavily commented and should be easy to follow, source code is in Java.

party.tar.gz

So far a lack of portable power is our biggest stumbling block in robotics and the portable internet. This is one way around that problem.

The next time you see something flapping in the breeze on an overhead power line, squint a little harder. It may not be a plastic bag or the remnants of a party balloon, but a tiny spy plane stealing power from the line to recharge its batteries.

The idea comes from the US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) in Dayton, Ohio, US, which wants to operate extended surveillance missions using remote-controlled planes with a wingspan of about a metre, but has been struggling to find a way to refuel to extend the plane’s limited flight duration.

So the AFRL is developing an electric motor-powered micro air vehicle (MAV) that can “harvest” energy when needed by attaching itself to a power line. It could even temporarily change its shape to look more like innocuous piece of trash hanging from the cable. . . [ read more Spy planes to recharge by clinging to power lines]

More information:
AFRL
Small UAVs may recharge on power lines

The most important gain of automating oil platforms is that oil fields too small to be profitable become profitable when you can use a small automated platform to handle the oil.  Oil prices will have to remain high for this to be economically feasible. Robots will take over the world just as soon as it is economically feasible for them to do so.

In the future, offshore platforms could be run by robots alone, with human beings staying on land. . . .
At the control panel, Liljebäck has pre-programmed a huge range of rapid movements of the colossus inside the room. The robot arm glides silently back and forward on its beam, suddenly moves out in a wide arc to the left, and then straight towards the scientist, before turning downwards to the floor. Liljebäck says that the framework, traversing crane and robot arm weigh a total of seven and a half tonnes. It would not be a good idea to get too close.

Nor will the petroleum operators find themselves in close contact with the new robots when, if all goes according to plan, they are ready for installation in 2015. The operators will remain on land and control them from there, reducing both risks and costs. . .

[ read more Robots taking over the job on offshore oil drilling platforms]

More information:
Statoil Hydro
Sintef