artificial intelligence

Could robots take over the world? In many ways, they already have.

The day may be getting a little closer when robots will perform surgery on patients in dangerous situations or in remote locations, such as on the battlefield or in space, with minimal human guidance.

Building robots with anything akin to human intelligence remains a far off vision, but European researchers are making progress on piecing together a new generation of machines that are more aware of their environment and better able to interact with humans. Making robots more responsive would allow them to be used in a greater variety of sophisticated tasks in the manufacturing and service sectors. Such robots could be used as home helpers and caregivers, for example.

A virtual child controlled by artificially intelligent software has passed a cognitive test regarded as a major milestone in human development. It could lead to smarter computer games able to predict human players' state of mind. Children typically master the "false belief test" at age 4 or 5. It tests their ability to realise that the beliefs of others can differ from their own, and from reality.

Last year, David Levy published a book, Love and Sex with Robots, which marked a culmination of years of research about the interactions between humans and computers. His basic idea is that, for humans who cannot establish emotional or sexual connections with other people, they might form them with robots.

For all their sophistication, computers still can't compete with nature's gift—a brain that sorts objects quickly and accurately enough so that people and primates can interpret what they see as it happens. Despite decades of development, computer vision systems still get bogged down by the massive amounts of data necessary just to identify the most basic images. Throw that same image into a different setting or change the lighting and artificial intelligence is even less of a match for good old gray matter.

A few months ago I wrote a magazine article about scientists who are building robots capable of a rudimentary form of sociability. As part of my research, I spent a few days at the humanoid robotics laboratory at M.I.T. And I admit: I developed a little crush on one of the robots. The object of my affection was Domo, a man-size machine with a buff torso and big blue eyes, a cross between He-Man and the Chrysler Building; when it gripped my hand in its strong rubbery pincers I felt a kind of thrill. So I was primed for the basic premise of David Levy’s provocative new book, “Love and Sex With Robots”: that there will soon come a day when people fall in love with robots and want them for companions, friends, love objects and possibly even partners for sex and marriage.

The U.S. Air Force believes that its next generation fighter will not have a pilot on board. As is customary, development of the next generation fighter gets underway just as the latest ("fifth generation") F-22 is entering service. Thus, two years after the F-15 entered service in 1979, planning got under way to develop the F-22.

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research and development organization, today announced that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded an SRI-led, multi-organization team an initial $10 million, 15-month (Phase 1) contract to develop a learning system called Phased Learning through Analyzing, Teaching and Observation (PLATO). PLATO is a major component of DARPA’s newly formed program called Bootstrapped Learning. The total value of the effort, if all phases of the development program are completed, could be up to $27 million over 3.25 years. The SRI-led team will deliver a domain-independent electronic ‘student’ that can be taught and can learn in human-like ways. SRI will serve as the systems integrator, focused on integrating all development tools so that they function effectively and seamlessly within the PLATO system. “