Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

We know that our brains work by sending electrical signals along our neurons.  Sometimes the built in damping mechanism for the signals fails to work and things like Parkinsons and epilepsy strike the victim.  Much like a pacemaker for hearts, electric implants in the brain can smooth out signals and treat these illnesses.

Over 35,000 people have successfully had their Parkinsons disease treated this way, some with results lasting over seven years.

Surprisingly brain illnesses not commonly associated with electric signal problems also can be treated with implanted electrodes; depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, among them.

Patients can also be treated with electrodes placed outside the skull but the results tend to be very short term.  It is thought that the brain learns to rewire itself with the electrodes implanted and helps to cure itself.

Occasionally electrodes can be bumped, covered in scar tissure and fail to keep working.  One group of scientists has come up with an implant that moves itself to the strongest near signal hoping to over come this problem.

See also:

Moving brain implant seeks out signals
Wireheads: Healing the brain with electricity
Mind Hacks: Brain electrodes awake brain injured man
Technology Review: Tiny electrodes for the brain
Brain surgery helps a mute man speak
Brain surgery helps a mute man speak
This is your brain on electricity

Maybe soon, perhaps never, but recent advances have brought mind reading closer to reality.

An fMRI is a machine that takes pictures inside your body, like the familiar CAT scanner but in much greater detail. While you are in the machine scans your brain and can see which areas of your brain are getting more blood flow.

Had you sat in the machine while you looked at images or thought specific thoughts, a computer attached to the fMRI could learn which parts of your brain get active when you look at a specific photo or think a specific thought. Then the next time you entered the machine and thought those same thoughts it could recognize the pattern.

All our brains are different, not unlike our finger prints and so don’t all behave exactly the same. But they are a like enough that in time, with lots and lots of data, researchers might some day have a general mind map.

Perhaps your defense could be that you store murder weapons in a different part of your brain than the average person and so therefore are not guilty as charged. It’s too soon to know, but perhaps not as far away as we’d like.

News Stories;
fMRI Brain Scan Debate Neurology Research in Interrogations, Courtroom, Office
Scary or Sensational, A machine that can look into the mind
Can brain scans read our minds?

Papers:
Functional magnetic resonance imaging ( pdf )

In an effort to help those in power make split second decisions IBM is building a brain to help put together disparate pieces of information to aid in those decisions.

In an unprecedented undertaking, IBM Research and five leading universities are partnering to create computing systems that are expected to simulate and emulate the brain’s abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition while rivaling its low power consumption and compact size.

The digital data explosion shows no signs of slowing down — according to analyst firm IDC, the amount of digital data is growing at a mind-boggling 60 percent each year, giving businesses access to incredible new streams of information. But without the ability to monitor, analyze and react to this information in real-time, the majority of its value may be lost. Until the data is captured and analyzed, decisions or actions may be delayed. Cognitive computing offers the promise of systems that can integrate and analyze vast amounts of data from many sources in the blink of an eye, allowing businesses or individuals to make rapid decisions in time to have a significant impact. . . IBM seeks to build the computer of the future based on insights from the brain

More information:
Dharmendra Modha home page
IBM seeks to build the computer of the future based on insights from the brain (pdf)
Systems of neuromorphic adaptive plastic scalable electronics ( SyNAPSE )
Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics
Cognitive Computing Project Aims to Reverse Engineer the Mind

Now that the phone in your pocket is a full computer with an always on internet connection life is about to change. In the same way that any algorithms can solve complex problems with many agents each of which is not so bright, so can lots of cell phone micro computers.

From the little bit of information Darpa has made public it looks like they are hoping to form a system, like the one in the Batman movie, that will allow them to locate a specific person or item of interest.

If you are interested in artificial intelligence, you should be learning how to write code for these mobile computers. for they are the future of the internet and artificial intelligence.

Your phone is about to become part of the smart swarm.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVE: The Gandalf program is an advanced technology and development and demonstration program that is seeking solutions to the functions of radio frequency (RF) geolocation and emitter identification using specific emitter identification (SEI) for specific signals of interest. The ultimate goal of the Gandalf program is to enable a set of handheld devices to be utilized to perform RF geolocation and SEI on RF signals of interest to the Gandalf program. The specific goals and performance objectives associated with RF geolocation and SEI for the Gandalf system are classified. It is anticipated that DARPA-BAA-09-04 for the Gandalf Program will be released prior to the Industry Day.
When released, the BAA will be found on the FedBizOpps website,

http://www.fedbizopps.gov . . .
read more (pdf)

When troops get stressed bad decisions can be made. If you have a programmed bot, it is not subject to stress and will follow the rules we give it. Much controversy is beginning to take place in this subject.

In the heat of battle, their minds clouded by fear, anger or vengefulness, even the best-trained soldiers can act in ways that violate the Geneva Conventions or battlefield rules of engagement. Now some researchers suggest that robots could do better.

“My research hypothesis is that intelligent robots can behave more ethically in the battlefield than humans currently can,” said Ronald C. Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech, who is designing software for battlefield robots under contract with the Army. “That’s the case I make.”

Robot drones, mine detectors and sensing devices are already common on the battlefield but are controlled by humans. Many of the drones in Iraq and Afghanistan are operated from a command post in Nevada. Dr. Arkin is talking about true robots operating autonomously, on their own. . . read more

More information:
Governing Lethal Behavior: Embedding Ethics in a Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robot Architecture (pdf)
The Hastings Center, nonpartisan research into bioethics
Colin Allen home page
Ronald Arkin home page