Tag artificial intelligence

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(What About Artificial Intelligence?) Free ebook: The Quest for Artificial Intelligence – A History of Ideas and Achievements

Jan 3, 12 7:42 PM
Kismet, a robot with rudimentary social skills

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Artificial intelligence most likely may never come up as a topic for a family dinner, acquaintances gathering, and so on, but it’s probably at work behind the scenes most of the time and constantly changing the level of comprehension when the next best formula of improving artificial intelligence comes about.  (By saying the level of comprehension of artificial intelligence, I mean it in a sense of how smart artificial intelligence can be.)  If you don’t think artificial intelligence is involving in your daily activities, you might be wrong.  Why?  Just think how many times you have to interact with certain smart technologies in a day.

One such technology comes to mind easily is a computer.  Another one would be a search engine!  Anyway, our today computing technology such as computer hardware and software are somewhat inherit the past results of dreaming to automate tasks as if the creations of things that aren’t humans yet capable of automating tasks.  In a way, the striving for creating automation is on a path of trying to achieve better artificial intelligence.  We want something else to help, aid, or even automate things for us so we don’t have to do things for ourselves.  Computing technology is great at doing these mundane chores.

As we looking forward for a better future, a near future I suppose, many of us think about how to develop, design, and create technology that will aid humans better in many more advanced tasks.  For an instance, pilots would want smarter technology to help them in navigating the skies.  Furthermore, on the ground, car drivers want to be able to have cars with smarter artificial intelligence so they can avoid traffic accidents, not getting lost, and so much more.  Even furthermore, manufacturers want to acquire smarter machines so they can produce even more products with even greater efficiency.  The list goes on really.  This is why artificial intelligence is complicate, since it’s a topic where everyone wants to know more and achieve more but yet could not define or confine it to a specific field since it’s almost as if striving for artificial intelligence as in duplicating smart human brains.  I don’t think we humans have yet to understand our brains well enough, therefore we may not achieve the ultimate level of comprehension for artificial intelligence unless we can understand ours fully.

Artificial intelligence is indeed a topic which not a lot of people want to really chat about since it’s rather subtle and complex.  Nonetheless, I think there are enough people out there have interests for artificial intelligence.  Luckily for these people!  I had stumbled upon a free ebook bears the title The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - A History of Ideas and Achievements.  I think this free ebook which can be downloaded freely is a great book to read on the matter of artificial intelligence.  I have yet to finish it, but I thought such a great book is great for sharing to whoever wants to read up on anything which deals with the topic of artificial intelligence.  When I finish the book, I hope that I will be able to write a review for it.  Until then folks!

Source:  The Quest for Artificial Intelligence – A History of Ideas and Achievements

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DARPA Experiments With Do Without Passwords

Nov 11, 11 1:39 AM
This is the most up-to-date DARPA logo.

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Defense Advance Research Projects Agency is taking to the idea of developing an authentication system that does without hard to remember passwords.  The idea is to authenticate someone into a system (e.g., databases, computers, electronic devices, etc…) without having a person to enter any password at all.  This way, the users won’t have to remember any password, but yet they will be able to work with their systems just as usual.

It’s a grand goal in my opinion.  To develop an authentication system that knows how to discern one person from another is a witchcraft of developing an artificial intelligence type of computing.  Of course, I use the word witchcraft to praise and not to put down the idea.  I think it will be a very hard for someone to be able to actually develop the type of authentication system which DARPA wants to acquire.

When something is hard to realize, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.  I think it’s possible to develop such a smart authentication system.  The question is, can a smart authentication system prevents hackers from manipulating it.  How about, can such a smart authentication system be transparent enough so it won’t be able to outsmart everyone, spy on everyone, and secretly keep records of everyone’s behaviors so the owners of the system can infringe on everyone’s privacy?

Comparing the idea of realizing an authentication system with artificial intelligence against the idea of deploying fingerprint scanners and other authentication systems that rely on biometric signatures, I think the latter is easier to achieve.  Also, I surmise that the latter idea is less prone to be abused in ways that disregard of users’ privacy.  Anyhow, I love how DARPA thinks big and bold, because maybe, just maybe by pushing for something extraordinary, we might get what we wish for!  For better or worse, right?

Source:  http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/darpa-detail-program-radically-alters-securit

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Siri Should Be Everyone’s Personal Assistant

Oct 13, 11 1:01 PM

I don’t have Siri yet, but I’ve already heard many positive things about Siri.  Here is one for you, the TechnologyReview’s article Could Apple TV Use Siri? makes a good point!  Now, this where I think Apple’s tightly controlled operations of how certain products should be marketed and produced is no longer effective when it comes to a product such as Siri.  I think, instead of allowing only iPhone 4S to have Siri, Apple should have enabled Siri on all of its products (i.e., all devices).

Apple’s Siri is probably the best of its kind out there right now, but only right now if you know what I mean — wink, wink!!!  Just take a look at Microsoft, this company is well known for working with voice recognition and it has Kinect to boost its technological edge.  Now, Microsoft needs a brain for Kinect!

When Microsoft’s Kinect gets something even better than Siri, I think Apple will be sorry for not allowing Siri to be even more prolific.  Microsoft also has the intention in getting Kinect to be on all devices that run its platforms.  So, soon we will see Kinect to be used with PCs and Windows Phone 7 and more.  Coupling something better than Siri with Kinect this/that way, I can imagine how sorry Apple will be!

Apple is having one up at the moment, and yet it fails to take the advantage of something good.  Instead, it decides to play the wall garden hardware/software strategy.  People know they want Siri very much at the moment, but not everyone will have the money or the will to upgrade to iPhone 4S just for Siri (i.e., they can wait for iPhone 5).  While people are waiting for iPhone 5, a short window of time opens up for Microsoft and others to cook something even more potent than Siri and to release that something awesome everywhere at prices that make people care not for getting iPhone 4S or iPhone 5.  Microsoft and others probably by now knowing that Siri is something people really want, and so these companies will push hard and fast for something better than Siri.

Only Microsoft has the biggest edge, because it has Kinect.  Think about you can talk with a personal assistant as Siri in intelligible manner and yet you can also control anything with hand gestures, isn’t this even better than just Siri alone?  It’s a match makes in heaven for the two technology to be combined.

Some people prefer to use hand gestures at night time, because whispering will wake their partners up from sleep.  OK, that sounds like hardcore, no life, gamers who play games throughout the night and do not want to wake their partners up from sleep.  Nonetheless, that is only one example of how Kinect and Siri combination can be so enticing!  I think other people will be even more imaginative in their use of a something that combines the capabilities of Kinect and Siri together.

I think Apple should make Siri to be available in all of its products (e.g., hardware, software).  Remember Microsoft Word’s paperclip?  Why not Apple’s Siri in everything, because it is way better than Microsoft Word’s paperclip.  Siri isn’t meant to be walled inside one kind of devices, but Microsoft Word’s paperclip is meant to be walled inside the Microsoft Word’s wall garden only!

The TechnologyReview’s article Could Apple TV Use Siri? makes a good point, therefore Apple should listen!  Otherwise, Apple will see something better than Siri from a competitor to be even more prolific than Siri in term of grabbing the marketshare.  Proof?  Just take at how Google’s Android platform is able to spread like wildfire, because Apple is not effectively opening its iOS platform up for even more devices!  Apple should not make the iOS mistake for its Siri, because Siri isn’t iOS — it’s something much more, something closer to what most people want!  Can it be something as science fiction’s artificial intelligence which can understand humans and have a real conversation with humans and have feeling for humans?

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