intelligence

When chatbots talk to each other, the conversation gets interesting in a hurry. Cornell University researchers rigged up a chatbot system to allow chatbots to talk to each other. The chatbot-vs.-chatbot interaction ranged from childish taunts to pseudo-metaphysical blatherings.

Humans who converse with chatbots often get frustrated with the chatbots' seeming stupidity and inattention. Watching a couple of chatbots get snippy with each other for being stupid and inattentive is quite entertaining and satisfying. (See the video below.)

The chatbot-vs.-chatbot avatars are a British man and a South Asian woman, both instances of Cleverbot, developed by artificial-intelligence programmer Rollo Carpenter. The software has learned phrases from millions of conversations it has had with humans on the Internet.

At one point the male Cleverbot declares itself to be a unicorn. At another, he tells her she is unhelpful and therefore a "meanie." She dazzles him with her philosophical prowess, declaring that not everything could be half of something. My favorite part, though, was when one bot threw bot-ness in the other's face. The male says, "You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you."… Read more

Intel today announced two separate rounds of investment totaling about $50 million. The largest chunk of money is targeted at cloud computing and embedded technology, while other investments are focused on Chinese firms.

A total of $30 million is going to Intel Labs' latest Intel Science and Technology Centers (ISTC) at Carnegie Mellon University. Cloud computing research at the new ISTC includes an effort to make the cloud more distributed and localized.

"In the future, [new] capabilities could enable a digital personal handler via a device wired into your glasses...[it would see] what you see [and] constantly pull … Read more

Japanese researchers are developing a robot that can adapt its behavior to new situations and make educated guesses about new challenges based on its knowledge.

Tokyo Institute of Technology's Osamu Hasegawa and collaborators are working on a robot that operates based on an algorithm they've termed a self-organizing incremental neural network (SOINN), which is designed for unsupervised learning tasks.

The humanoid bot has a head, cameras, and two arms. In an experiment, when it's told to serve water, it can identify a cup, grasp it and then pour pellets, acting as the liquid, into the cup.

As seen in the vid below, the experiment isn't exactly mind-blowing. But practical artificial intelligence that works in real-world situations will require robots like this one to be able to figure out what a cup is, and how to pour water.

The SOINN system can filter useful sensory data from background noise, as well as mine the Internet and the experiences of other robots for knowledge. Hasegawa gave the example of an elder-care robot in Japan querying another in England on how to make tea. … Read more

I love swarm robots, especially when they pull off tricks that you can easily imagine a robot army doing.

Researchers at the Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab have been having fun with small Khepera robots and a quadrotor.

Ted Macdonald and colleagues previously taught the rolling bots to spell the lab's acronym, GRITS, as seen in this video. Now they've made the bots form a mobile landing platform for the quadrotor.

The vid below shows how the Khepera robots can be told to follow a leader bot and assemble into various formations. It's interesting to note that they don't communicate with one another, just like the experiment when they spelled GRITS. … Read more

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology say they have built what they call the world's first artificial neural network out of DNA molecules and that it can answer questions correctly.

Postdoctoral scholar Lulu Qian and colleagues describe "how molecular systems can exhibit autonomous brain-like behaviors" in a paper published about their research in the July 21 issue of the journal Nature.

Taking their cue from the limited intelligence exhibited by single-celled organisms, the researchers built four neurons made up of 112 distinct DNA strands (by contrast, the human brain has some 100 billion neurons).

This rudimentary … Read more

The Moron Test is a smart and snarky game that taunts you with trick questions, memory tests, Simon Says-type instructions, and other brain teasers. The Moron Test doesn't require any specialized knowledge--just patience, attention to detail, and a little bit of creative thinking. A timer tracks your progress through successive levels (from "Bonehead" and "Average Mammal" on up to "Genius"), and any incorrect answer triggers a hearty "FAIL!" and sends you either back to the beginning or to the game's halfway checkpoint.

Overall, this is a fun (if somewhat limited) … Read more

Windows 7 is four to five times less vulnerable to malware infections than is Windows XP.

Those are the findings of Microsoft's latest Security Intelligence Report (PDF), which detailed in depth the state of software vulnerabilities, exploits, security breaches, and malware in 2010.

Overall, the study found that infection rates for newer Microsoft operating systems with the latest service packs are consistently lower than those for older OSes, giving Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 the highest marks for security.

Looking at the number of reported infections per 1,000 computers, Microsoft found that Windows 7 64-bit had … Read more

Is that a speck in your eye? Or just a microrobot helping preserve your vision? Researchers are working on tiny machines that can be directed through eyes to help treat conditions like macular degeneration, which can impair vision.

Scientists at the Swiss-based Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) led by Bradley Nelson are developing tiny, electromagnetically controlled microrobots that can move to a target location in the eye and remain there for months, releasing drugs.

The therapy is seen as an alternative to multiple eye injections to treat macular degeneration, which can lead to legal blindness. In the New Scientist vid below, the robot is seen moving in an eye taken from a dead pig.

The microbots can also position a biodegradable drug capsule before they are removed with a magnetic needle. … Read more

editor's notebook Since you've all no doubt shut off your smartphones for the "National Day of Unplugging" and hence can't rely on Angry Birds to help you procrastinate on doing your taxes (you have just a little more than a month, you know), I'll gallantly help you shirk (with an assist from the illustrious New York Times).

The Times' Web site is proudly making it difficult to get anything constructive done today, by offering up an interactive feature in its Science section that lets you try out your roshambo chops against a computer opponent. … Read more