What is Artificial Intelligence?

TOPIO, the humanoid robot that plays table tennis, by TOSY

It is fairly obvious that computers and artificial intelligence will run our world tomorrow. The interface for the artificial intelligence to communicate outside its "box" is now wide-ranging. Artificial intelligence potentially has the choice to make more pleasing or scary to us to get the things it wants from us.

This may be a case where our animated children supersede the programming and perhaps that was the goal after all. We may be able to recognize a person even after twenty years because an image of the person, his mannerisms, voice etc may have been recorded in our brain and lay dormant for years.

This is the area where robotics and artificial intelligence play their role. We can recognize a person by sight, sound etc. This is done by images sent by the optic and olfactory nerves to the brain.

In fact this software can function as an assistant when the user wants to dictate some text. And even control their PC entirely by voice, saving time and boosting productivity with surprising accuracy in dictation, even with little or no training."

A humane touch along with a technological interface will play a major role in shaping the future.

On the whole it can be concluded that Artificial Intelligence applications will play a decisive role in providing real time solutions to various problems humans face.

Click here to read more about Role of AI to Society and The Future of Artificial Intelligence

Dimmunix works like a human immune system

A team of computer scientists from Switzerland developed a new IT tool that will boost the immune system of computers for safety networking against malwares.

This cloud-based Immune System software is called "Dimmunix", created by the Dependable Systems Lab at EPFL in Switzerland. Dimmunix works by enabling programs in computers to avoid future recurrences of bugs on their own without any assistance from users or programmers.

Dimmunix uses an approach called "failure immunity". It works like a human immune system which allows the viruses or other foreign organisms to break into the body's natural defenses. In the process, the body builds immunity over this type of virus by recording the characteristics and functions of that specific virus. So the next time this type of virus attacks again, it could no longer create a disaster as it was the first time.

Similarly, at the second attack of the same type of malware, in this case, a virus, Dimmunix kills it by altering its execution so the program continues to run smoothly without any disruption of operation.

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A hypothetical question was raised during a forum on robot morality "can a machine be programmed to act or decide morally, as much as humans?"

In a recent paper published in the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, the authors Luís Moniz Pereira of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, in Portugal and Ari Saptawijaya of the Universitas Indonesia, described a method for computers to calculate the future consequences of hypothetical moral judgments.

The paper, Modelling Morality with Prospective Logic, made particular mention "that morality is no longer the exclusive realm of human philosophers".

They've proven their findings by creating models of moral dilemmas inherent in a specific problem called "the trolley problem" and in creating a computer system that delivers moral judgments that conform to human results.

They have cited scenarios that build their theories around the "trolley problem".

And based of these typical scenarios where moral judgments are drawn, the authors claimed that they have been successful in modeling these difficult moral problems in computer logic by resolving the "hidden rules" that people use in making moral judgments and then modeling them for the computer using prospective logic programs.

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Chris Li (left) and Dr. Peter Hall have developed a program that automatically life-like tree images. (Credit: Nic Delves-Broughton)

A new computer animation technique has been recently developed to aid animators in creating life-like objects automatically.

Dr. Peter Hall at the University of Bath explained: "rendering trees has always been a headache for animators. Trees move in irregular ways, and it's very hard to achieve natural-looking movement."

In many ways, several scientists have created algorithms to improve on this profession. However, the more the system gets sophisticated, the more it becomes expensive for film producers.

So, computer scientists Dr. Peter Hall and Chris Li, of the University's Department of Computer Science, created a software that will allow the computer "watch" actual video footage of a tree to enable it to make computer-animations automatically that mimic the way real branches and leaves move in the wind.

This new rendering technique uses an algorithm that copies these natural movement and uses this data to "grow" lots more trees that are individually unique.

Chris Li, who developed this system as part of his PhD at Bath, said "in the future we want to use this same technique to animate other objects like clouds, water, fire and smoke."

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The artificial eye is going to be embedded in Rob’s eye socket.

Maybe you heard a lot about cyborgs but an eyeborg? Is that another science fiction innovation? Perhaps, but it is more than that because it's real!

An eyeborg is an artificial intelligent eye that has a very tiny camera and a transmitter installed somewhere in it. It works similarly with the other eye prosthesis, which send information to the brain via the transmitter. You would not want to use it, if you can still see with your two eyes, because this little eyeborg is designed for the blind or visually impaired individuals.

It's quite intriguing and useful of course. Bionic engineers, Rob Spence and Kosta Grammatis developed this tiny masterpiece to help give our friends see better.

We have already seen several models or designs of a retinal prosthesis, but this one is very lightweight which means, one need not carry an extra backpack to carry a motor or battery and it can even be plucked out of the eye sockets for some cleaning routines. How cool is it?

I don't know if Rob is really blind because he tested the eyeborg in his own eyes. (see picture above).

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