Catherine Pelachaud develops virtual humans, called Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) at the Paris Institute of Technology. Pelachaud has found that people frequently lose interest in ECAs because they don’t seem sufficiently human. To create ECAs that keep human conversationalists engaged, her team is developing a virtual human that will recognize and respond to human emotions. They are training ECAs to detect emotional expressions via webcam, and studying how flesh and blood humans react to the virtual humans’ responses. They are hoping that this will improve the way that humans interact with virtual agents:

Pelachaud said this could be useful in applications where a person is seeking information from the agent. If the agent gets it wrong and detects the person becoming upset, it could show empathy through nonverbal signs, and this could help reduce the frustration the person feels, Pelachaud said.

"Having an agent that shows empathy can enhance the relationship between a user an agent," she said. "The user may still not get the information, but at least they won't feel so negative from the the interaction."

Greta, an ECA the team is training to become empathic, seems to be the antithesis of the character program “E,” which a team at Rensselaer is using to study computer-generated evil.

[Discovery News]

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Selmer Bringsjord, director of the AI lab and chairman of RPI’s Department of Cognitive Science, has created “E,” a computer-generated character programmed according to his own definition of evil. E must, according to Bringsjord, be willing to carry out premeditated acts that are immoral and would cause harm to others. And, when E analyzes its reasons for wanting to commit such acts, it must either develop a logically incoherent argument or conclude that it desired to see people harmed. The researchers then have E discuss moral scenarios:

The researchers have placed E in his own virtual world and written a program depicting a scripted interview between one of the researcher's avatars and E. In this example, E is programmed to respond to questions based on a case study in Peck's book that involves a boy whose parents gave him a gun that his older brother had used to commit suicide.

The researchers programmed E with a degree of artificial intelligence to make "him" believe that he (and not the parents) had given the pistol to the distraught boy, and then asked E a series of questions designed to glean his logic for doing so. The result is a surreal simulation during which Bringsjord's diabolical incarnation attempts to produce a logical argument for its actions: The boy wanted a gun, E had a gun, so E gave the boy the gun.

Bringsjord hopes that, by studying a virtual character that, while morally extreme, replicates human intelligence and emotional logic, he can get a better understanding of what drives some humans to acts that most find unthinkably repugnant. And, lest we fear a Demon Seed scenario, Bringsjord assures us that he has no intention of unleashing E on a virtual environment – at least, not without the proper safeguards.

Are You Evil? Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked [Scientific American]

In 1969, it took just eight days to reach the moon but, as Aldrin notes, getting a manned spacecraft to Mars would take the better part of a year. After all that time and expense, a trip to Mars might not be worthwhile unless the astronauts were there long term:

"That's why you [should] send people there permanently," said Aldrin. "If we are not willing to do that, then I don't think we should just go once and have the expense of doing that and then stop."

He asked: "If we are going to put a few people down there and ensure their appropriate safety, would you then go through all that trouble and then bring them back immediately, after a year, a year and a half?"

Currently, NASA’s Constellation program plans for a manned mission to Mars in 2030. Under the current plan, the crew’s return vehicle would arrive ahead of the actual expedition ship. But NASA is also scheduled to break ground on the lunar outpost in 2019, and there could be a fully operational base on the moon by 2024. If the lunar outpost proves a success, it might make sense for humans to erect similar colonies on Mars, where oxygen and water are more readily available. Of course, the challenge would be finding colonists willing to sacrifice a terrestrial existence in the name of the Martian frontier:

"They need to go there more with the psychology of knowing that you are a pioneering settler and you don't look forward to go back home again after a couple a years," he said.

"At age 30, they are given an opportunity. If they accept, then we train them, at age 35, we send them. At age 65, who knows what advances have taken place. They can retire there, or maybe we can bring them back."

Mars pioneers should stay there permanently, says Buzz Aldrin [Physorg via Universe Today]

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