artificially intelligence

Anki, blessed by Apple, takes AI and robotics to consumers

When Apple turns over part of its oh-so-important Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address to an unknown startup, you can be sure Tim Cook and Co. think they're dealing with some very cool technology.

That was very much the case with Anki, which was handpicked for a coveted slot as the poster child for what unknown developers can do with iOS. During its time onstage, Anki showed off what at first appears to be a simple toy car racing game, but what in reality might be the most advanced intersection of consumer-grade artificial intelligence and robotics ever.… Read more

Google quantum computer lab to study artificial intelligence

Google is opening a new research lab to see if a quantum computer can solve problems too taxing for traditional computers.

Hosted by NASA's Ames Research Center, the new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab will be home to a quantum computer made by D-Wave Systems. Operated by the Universities Space Research Association, the supercomputer will be available to researchers around the world to work on their own projects.

The goal, as stated in a Google blog posted today, is "to study how quantum computing might advance machine learning."

Traditional computers are limited, as they think in terms of … Read more

Computer beats human pro at Japanese chess

Humanity lost a little more ground to machines last weekend, in case you're counting down the days to when Skynet takes charge of the planet.

A computer defeated a professional Japanese chess (shogi) player for the first time in a public match, Kyodo News tells us grimly.

A program called Ponanza, developed by Issei Yamamoto, took down 30-year-old Shinichi Sato on Saturday in the Shogi Master Versus Machine Match.

Sato was doing well until he made mistakes midway through the game. … Read more

IBM's Watson heads to school

To borrow from Hugh Gallagher's famous take on the university admissions essay, IBM's Watson computer has played Jeopardy with a Congressman, has offered medical advice to doctors, and has spoken with late-night TV stars. But it has not yet gone to college.

Till now, that is.

IBM announced today that it would, for the first time, be providing a modified version of a Watson system to a university: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The system will "afford faculty and students an opportunity to find new uses for Watson and deepen the system's cognitive capabilities," Big Blue said … Read more

Google's Kurzweil on teaching human language to computers

Famed inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil joined Google last month to work on "some of the hardest problems in computer science," specifically machine learning and language processing.

"The project we plan to do is focused on natural language understanding," Kurzweil told Singularity Hub in an interview (see video below). "We want to give computers the ability to understand the language that they're reading."

As Google's director of engineering, Kurzweil's said the challenge isn't just one of the hardest but also the most important.

"It's ambitious, in fact there'… Read more

Futurist Ray Kurzweil on smartphones, AI, and the human brain

MARANA, Ariz.--Inventor, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil took to the stage here at the Techonomy conference in Tucson to offer his thoughts on a future where humanity is enhanced by technology.

Kurzweil spoke to Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick about his new book on human thought, "How to Create a Mind," and the various themes that stem from it. Their talk was varied and at times scattered -- with a topic this big, you can imagine the temptation of tangents -- but Kurzweil had a few choice things to say along the way.

The highlights:

• "I'… Read more

Did a bug in Deep Blue lead to Kasparov's defeat?

It's part of the conventional wisdom now that machines are smarter than us, especially when it comes to specific challenges. Chess, for instance. World champion Garry Kasparov's defeat at the hands of IBM's Deep Blue computer in 1997 was a milestone in the story of artificial intelligence.

But did the machine merely psych him out? Statistician Nate Silver's new book "The Signal and The Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail--But Some Don't" contains an anecdote about how a glitch in Deep Blue may have led Kasparov to overestimate the machine's smarts, according to The Washington Post.

Despite the machine's ability to evaluate 200 million moves per second, Kasparov easily won the first game of the match. In the 44th move, however, Deep Blue made an inexplicable play, moving a rook for no apparent purpose. … Read more

Woz: iPhone 45 will mean you won't need humans

I can't get enough of Steve Wozniak.

Fortunately, there's quite a lot of him to go around -- especially when he decides to pronounce on, well, anything that takes his fancy.

The Apple co-founder is currently in Australia, which means he is already clutching an iPhone 5, while you are still dreaming of the moment.

However, while he's there, he's already been expounding on iPhone 45. That's not a typo. That's not iPhone 4S. That's iPhone 45.

I am grateful to Australia's 9 News for telling me that Woz was speaking yesterday … Read more

Japan building robot that would pass college exams

It isn't enough that machines can beat the best of us at chess, Jeopardy, and a billion other things. Now they want to rub our faces in our inferiority by getting into our universities and scoffing at us.

Boffins at Fujitsu Labs are teaming up with Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII) to create an artificial-intelligence system that would be able to pass the entrance exam for the University of Tokyo, one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

The project aims to build an AI that can do well on Japan's nationwide university entrance exams by 2016, and then pass the more difficult exam for Todai, as the top college is known, by 2021. … Read more