What is Artificial Intelligence?

Sir David Cope in his room with Emmy

Ever heard of a musical genius that's a robot? A creative composer of beautiful pieces of music that's probably you never heard of, but it's true and her name is Emmy.

Emmy is just the "nickname" of Sir David Cope's musical genius EMI, which stands for Experiments in Musical Intelligence.

Sir Cope started this dream project 20 years ago using an old Apple Workstation. With his passion and love for unconventional music, he designed a musically intelligent cyborg that's able to create or mimic famous musical scores of Mozart and Beethoven. And so Emmy was born.

EMI or Emmy used to be the world’s most sophisticated artificial intelligent musical composer, and because Sir Cope managed to bring her to life, he somehow became the musical Dr. Frankenstein of our time. Emmy composed several hundreds of musical scores of classical heavyweights styles, with very impressive scores that classical music intellectuals failed to recognize "her music" as computer-generated. But not until 6 years ago, when Emmy was gone from the spotlight.

However, just recently, we heard news that Sir David Cope is back with a daughter version of Emmy, which was formally introduced to the public last month. And now, we will hear once again great musical scores of Emmy and see more of her as Emily Howell.

Click here to listen to Emmy.

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The left brain indicates a normal state while the right brain indicates general intelligence correlated to IQ scores.

Recently, a study about mapping the human brain has been published in the the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A team of neuro-scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Iowa, the University of Southern California (USC), and the Autonomous University of Madrid collaborate to have successfully mapped the brain to measure general intelligence.

According to Ralph Adolphs, one of the authors, "general intelligence is also referred to as the Spearman's g-factor" but the underlying concepts are quite vague.

Using brain imaging techniques, the team examined a uniquely wide range of data set of 241 brain-lesion patients who all took the IQ tests.

Then, the scientists mapped the area of each patient's lesion in their brains, and correlated them with the patient's IQ score to produce a map of the brain regions that affect general intelligence.

During the examinations, the researchers were amazed to find out that, instead of living in a single structure, general intelligence is distinguished by a network of regions across both sides of the brain.

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a new IT tool that automatically regulates administration of anesthesia to patients undergoing surgery

A new artificial intelligent system has been recently launched to regulate specific administration of anesthesia during a surgery.

Before the advent of artificial intelligent system, surgeons and anesthesiologists have no accurate way of knowing the how long or how effective is a kind of anesthesia to a patient during critical operations. They mainly rely on physical reactions of the patient to pain, thus immediately increasing dosage of anesthesia.

In Canary Islands, a team of research scientists from the Anesthesia Control Group at the University of La Laguna (ULL) developed a new IT tool that constantly monitors the level of hypnosis or unconsciousness of the patient while being operated.

With a team of anesthetists from the University Hospital of the Canary Islands, Juan Albino Méndez, lead author and researcher, spearheaded this project which regulates doses of anesthesia in operating theaters via a computer.

This artificial intelligent system uses sensors and a computer monitor to keep track of the patient's EEG and bi-spectral index (BIS), a parameter that measures hypnotic states without units.

The program relies on a detection algorithm that automatically controls a pump to inject anesthesia to the patient whenever needed.

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Left brain after the first trial; Right brain after 10 minutes of practice controlling movement of cursor through imagination

The human brain signals has been a subject of curiosity and exploration. And in a recent study, it showed that by just thinking about controlling the movement of a computer cursor, brain neurons populate to make it happen in real life.

As published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from the University of Washington observed the brain signals in its surface while using imagination to control the movements of computer cursor. The activity was proven with the brain-computer interface connecting the brain through tiny electrodes.

The team of experts studied eight patients awaiting surgery for epilepsy at two hospitals in Seattle. They were placed with electrodes connected to their brains' surface during the week of observation prior to the scheduled surgery.

They asked these patients to imagine moving their arms while brain activities were recorded. Then, they asked the patients to imagine moving a computer cursor towards a target object in the computer screen. And after just 10 minutes of doing so, they actually enjoyed controlling the movement of the computer cursor like it was something they do physically.

Now, this findings also provide marks on which brain signals to tap to aid in the treatment of brain-related diseases like epilepsy.

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Flame, the first ever walking robot to imitate humans

A new robot named Flame was developed by Daan Hobbelen, a PhD student at TU Delft in the Netherlands.

This robot is based on the principles of human walking and this is considered to be most advance robot in its kind. Flame can cope to achieve great stability while remaining energy efficient.

In the two groups of walking robot, Flame is categorized in the second group which is designed to imitate human walking in the sense that the robot is executing a controlled fall forward. This type of robot is not very energy consuming and is not that costly.

Flame is 1.3 m in height and is about 15 kg. It has seven motors. It does not fall and can manage to stay stable because of “organ balance” and a sequence of algorithms which calculate where and how far apart the robot’s ‘feet’ should be placed.

The upper body of Flame has PC104 computer which has a real-time Linux kernel (RTAI) running a control loop and can implement torque and/or position control on all actuated joints.

According to Hobbelen, Flame is the first walking robot with electric actuation. This research might further the development of treatment and diagnosis for people who have difficulty in walking.

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