http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/artificial intelligence http://io9.com/tag/artificial intelligence

This landscape may not look like that much - it's a solid B+ in middle school art, I'd say - but this might just be proof that its creator, a computer program named the Painting Fool, is a creative being. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5879423&view=rss&microfeed=true

In the movies, technology is usually represented one of two ways: a hallelujah-worthy miracle or a soul-deadening trespass on the natural order of things. Robot and Frank, a film receiving near-unanimous praise at the Sundance Film Festival, is smart enough to know better. Technology, like everything in life, isn't black and white, and is only as good or bad as the people who interact with it. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5878242&view=rss&microfeed=true

Most Silicon Valley companies were opposed to the patent reform law that President Obama signed last week. Some argue that the America Invents Act favors large megacorps over smaller companies, and could dampen innovation in the tech sector. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5845142&view=rss&microfeed=true

When you're a robot, a new motion-planning algorithm can mean the difference between waving your arms around like an inflatable tube man and reaching for a coffee mug like you're supposed to. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5842760&view=rss&microfeed=true

If you've ever wanted a world-class introduction to the basics of artificial intelligence, here's your chance. Every fall, engineering students at Stanford University can enroll in a class titled "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence." And now you can, too. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5834891&view=rss&microfeed=true

We've seen plenty of quadcopters and plenty of follow-the-leader ‘bots, but this might be our first brush with follow-the-leader ‘bots that work together to build a mobile landing pad for a quadcopter while it's in flight. But that's not even the coolest part about this robotic system from the Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5826143&view=rss&microfeed=true

Computers may be naturally fluent in binary, but how might they fare with learning human languages? Computers were tested by playing the game Civilization. Random chance let them win about half the time...but then they started reading the instruction manual. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5820624&view=rss&microfeed=true

Double entendres have been making us laugh since the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare, but up until now computers weren't in on the joke. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5797436&view=rss&microfeed=true

We're about to put smart robots in space. A new system in development at the University of Southampton in the UK could allow spacecraft to go beyond simply obeying commands, instead developing and reacting to knowledge about their missions. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5785130&view=rss&microfeed=true

There's lots of reason for optimism about the coming year — Game of Thrones! More Doctor Who and Fringe! Dozens of huge movies! But there are also reasons for apprehension. Here's what we're scared could happen this year. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5723089&view=rss&microfeed=true

Bringing us one step closer to giant robot overlords is CLARION, a program that performs the same way human subjects do in some impressive cognitive tests. It mimics not what we think, but how we think. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5703534&view=rss&microfeed=true

Kimiko Ross, star of Dresden Codak hangs out with probably nuclear-powered individual and Tiny Carl Jung, builds supervillainous memory-stealing devices, and waits for the Singularity with almost evangelical devotion. In the meantime, she traverses some funny and fantastical landscapes. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5682878&view=rss&microfeed=true

Have you met Suzette? If you have, you might not know it — because Suzette has passed the Turing Test. This chatbot convinced a judge that she was a human. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5673836&view=rss&microfeed=true

At Carnegie-Mellon university, a massive computer system called NELL (Never Ending Language Learner) is systematically reading the internet and analyzing sentences for semantic categories and facts, teaching itself English and educating itself in human affairs. We spoke to NELL's creators. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5659503&view=rss&microfeed=true

Caprica comes back tomorrow night, with more religious fundamentalists, more gangsters, and more virtual head-busting. We talked to Alessandra Torresani (Zoe), Sasha Roiz (Sam) and Magda Apanowicz (Lacey) about the crazy-intense stuff that lies ahead. Minor spoilers below... More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5654060&view=rss&microfeed=true

When training a future robot overlord, you want it to learn to make complex decisions. No one likes an android whose only call is ‘shoot it.' Neural networks allow problem solving, prioritizing, and hopefully mercy. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5647277&view=rss&microfeed=true

Science fiction creators need to stop making self-aware machines into a metaphor for our society. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5645208&view=rss&microfeed=true

Yesterday I sat down with William Gibson to talk about his new novel, Zero History. We talked about his fascination with fashion, the military, and stories about the present. He also revealed a secret about his Bridge Trilogy. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5635066&view=rss&microfeed=true

Though science fiction often mangles scientific truths, it is nevertheless a genre that is highly influenced by the latest trends in scientific thought and research. Here are some of the scientific (and semi-scientific) ideas that have influenced SF the most. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5621127&view=rss&microfeed=true

Our search for intelligent alien life depends on picking up the radio waves of a reasonably advanced extraterrestrial civilization. We had assumed these aliens would be biological life like us - but logic says that's probably not the case. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5619150&view=rss&microfeed=true

After the "flash crash" that brought the stock exchange to its knees a few months ago, data analysis firm Nanex started looking into some odd patterns in stock trades. They discovered bot armies are affecting trades on a microsecond-by-microsecond basis. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5605762&view=rss&microfeed=true

Science fiction's full of wishful thinking about artificial intelligence: It'll spring up on its own. It'll become smarter than us in no time. Ted Chiang's new novella, The Life Cycle of Software Objects, will change how you think about A.I. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5597704&view=rss&microfeed=true

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) just met in Georgia, and some new photos show off the incredible diversity of your future robot overlords. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5587599&view=rss&microfeed=true Just after we linked to the Physics and Cake blog's post about whether there might be a "ceiling" in the level of theoretical physics that humans can understand, Reith Lecturer Martin Rees wrote an essay for the London Times, explaining the first of his Reith Lectures. And Rees does believe that there may be intrinsic limits to human understanding of the cosmos: More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5552803&view=rss&microfeed=true Over at the Physics And Cake blog, there's a great discussion of exactly how machines will replace theoretical physicists, with their only goal being to create a perfect model of the universe, and no ego at stake. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5552142&view=rss&microfeed=true

One thing Caprica will have in common with its parent show, Battlestar Galactica: Gnarly, uncompromising characters who'll make choices you won't like. We talked to star Paula Malcomson and producer David Eick about the bad mother who birthed the Cylons. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5452124&view=rss&microfeed=true

A new research initiative at MIT intends to revisit some decades-old assumptions about artificial intelligence. It's part of a five-year plan to create an AI program that can comprehend a children's book. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5434212&view=rss&microfeed=true David Levy, who took home this year's Loebner Prize for most human-like chatbot and famously lost a $5000 bet in 1989 when the computer Deep Thought beat him in a game of chess, has had a keen interest in human-AI carnal relations since writing his 2007 book Love and Sex with Robots. He believes that, as sexbot AIs more convincingly ape humans and as artificial skin becomes more realistic, sex robots could save the adult entertainment industry and be a great boon to the lonely: More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5362307&view=rss&microfeed=true

In a twist on the traditional Turing Test, BotPrize asked contestants to program a bot that could play Unreal Tournament 2004 with all the imperfections and trash talk of a real player. See if you can tell human from bot. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5356901&view=rss&microfeed=true Last week I published an article in the Washington Post about a very real possibility for the emergence of artificial intelligence that we rarely consider. Here's how the article starts: More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5352937&view=rss&microfeed=true

Where most humanoid robots have human-looking features on the outside but not inside, the Eccerobot team takes a different approach, giving their robot a humanoid skeleton, joints, and tendons so that it can better mimic human movement. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5345337&view=rss&microfeed=true

Once upon a time, we hoped for robots that could beat humans at cultured, highbrow games like chess. But as society falters and falls around us, it's another game that we hope our robot overlords will master: Super Mario Bros. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5330745&view=rss&microfeed=true

We're much closer than you think to the reality of a "mindclone" — a computer with the mental capacity of the human mind — says the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies' Martine Rothblatt. We're "close enough to feel the bits and bytes of cyberbreath on our cheeks." Ooh, spooky. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5265004&view=rss&microfeed=true

We're bound to spawn computers smarter than us in the next ninety years or so. So we may as well start hoping they have our best interests at heart, says Wake author Robert J. Sawyer. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5234719&view=rss&microfeed=true

Is the next step in artificial intelligence really being used to answer telephone calls? That's a claim being made by one AI company... and maybe the very reason why we should prepare for oncoming robocalypse. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5148075&view=rss&microfeed=true

A new anthology gives some hints at the cutting edge of storytelling about artificial intelligences. We Think Therefore We Are, just out from Daw, includes a number of brilliant concepts amidst mostly lukewarm writing. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5145791&view=rss&microfeed=true

Elbot is a droid with a sarcastic edge — it points out that it's a machine even as it tries to convince you it’s human. And yesterday it proved somewhat successful, fooling three out of 12 judges during the University of Reading’s Turing Test and taking home the Loebner Artificial Intelligence bronze medal. But does that mean that Elbot is on the verge of sentience? His creator doesn’t think so. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5062542&view=rss&microfeed=true

From our earliest dreams of golems and Galatea, people have wanted to create artificial beings with human characteristics and abilities. But in our haste to see a future of walking, talking mechanical humanoids, we're easily fooled by con artists looking to exploit our sense of wonder. Hoaxers and engineers, magicians and advertising agencies have sold the public on "robots" whose incredible abilities seemed to defy explanation. We pull the curtain back on some the fake automata that captured the human imagination. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5053731&view=rss&microfeed=true

You may notice a new feature called "Suggest" when you use Google this week — the search engine will now suggest possible searches you might want to do. So, for example, if you type something like "Invasion of . . . " into the Google search bar, Google will helpfully suggest things like "invasion of privacy" or "invasion of Georgia." The search engine's anticipation of what you want may feel like a crude form of A.I., but it can't figure out truly important things, such as the fact that you were actually searching for "Invasion of the Booby Snatchers." Still, these kinds of search features are making it obvious that A.I. will probably emerge out of services like Google Search that aggregate data and make inferences based on it. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5042636&view=rss&microfeed=true

This fall’s Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica, will plunge civil rights attorney Joseph Adama into unfamiliar legal and ethical depths when he encounters the first member of the Cylonic species. Fortunately, lawyers on our planet are already considering the legal consequences of the future, toaster-laden or otherwise. After the jump, five legal areas sure to burn up the billable hours of future law firms. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5032197&view=rss&microfeed=true