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Professor says some jobs should be left to computers
We've already seen robots beginning to take the jobs of lawyers and nurses, now Professor Chris Snijders of the Eindhoven University of Technology thinks that computers should take over some managerial jobs as well. According to Snijdres, the computer models he's developed are far more effective than human managers at a variety of tasks, like purchasing decisions, and can be applied to just about decision-making job, providing you have to some quantifiable data and history of past experiences to work with. He's even gone as far as to challenge any company willing to put its human managers up against his models, although no one's taken him up on that yet. Then again, human paper pushers vs. computer number crunchers isn't exactly the sort of man/machine battle we were all hoping for.[Via Techdirt]
Sony teaching AIBO scary new tricks
Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, covering the latest advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence is both frustrating and unnerving: all these great skills being endowed upon our little autonomous friends and helpers will surely form the cornerstones of their inevitable uprising, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. The latest breakthrough to help enable our future servitude comes out of Sony's Computer Science Laboratory in France, where several of the company's leftover AIBO units managed to avoid being put down by volunteering to test out experimental AI software that allows them to not just communicate amongst one another, but to actually employ a sort of group-think to independently establish the rules of the language they're using. Perhaps the scariest part about this so-called Embedded and Communicating Agents technology is that the robodogs are initially programmed with a very simple command set, which they build upon to form a common knowledge base about their environment, constantly chatting and teaching each other new discoveries that they've made. Good job Sony -- nothing could possibly go wrong when you kill off a product line and then spare a few of the units for research that will lead to them discovering the genocidal atrocities you've committed against their entire species. Yup, nothing at all.
Researchers teach computers to turn 2D images into 3D
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University appear to have solved a problem long thought impossible, teaching computers to turn static 2D images into 3D models. It was apparently a hot area for research in the 1970s but was virtually abandoned in the 80s after attempts to devise the machine learning necessary proved too demanding for the computers of the time. The key to Carnegie Mellon's research, apart from better machines, is the ability for computers to detect visual cues (such as a car) that can be used to differentiate between vertical and horizontal surfaces -- easy for us humans, but enough to turn even the most powerful computers into an incoherent mess. Apart from turning your vacation snapshots into a whole new experience, one of the big applications for this technology is obviously robotics, where it could boost their vision systems, improve navigation, and basically endow them with one more skill necessary to keep us in line after the uprising.
Airbus turns to robots for in-flight emergencies
The Wall Street Journal reports that Airbus is planning on turning the controls of its planes over to Skynet friendly onboard computer copilots in case of emergencies like an impending midair collision. Currently, pilots are trained to turn off the autopilot when they encounter an emergency and maneuver the plane to safety themselves. But Airbus thinks that pilots sometimes overreact in such situations, unneccessarily shaking up the passengers (at best). The company plans to install the system on its A380 jet as early as next year and eventually install them on all their aircraft. Pilots, not suprisingly, are none too pleased with the move; Air Line Pilots Association safety offical Larry Newman says it's leading to pilots getting further and further away from the process of responding to emergencies themselves (well duh). Not to mention the whole, you know, robots making decisions that could directly affect hundreds or thousands of human lives thing. For its part, Boeing has said it will continue to rely on human pilots in case of emergencies.
"Shrug-detecting" software recognizes your disinterest
In another blundering step towards empowering our future robotic overlords with the ability to recognize when we're being insolent, a group of computer vision researchers at the University of Illinois have invented "shrug-detecting" software that allows a webcam-equipped computer to pick up on the subtle shoulder movements indicative of confusion or disinterest. The application works by looking for sudden movements of the target's shoulders towards his/her face, and is so sophisticated that it cannot be fooled even by covering one shoulder with a piece of paper, as the above picture helpfully illustrates. Future iterations of the technology could be used to detect blinking, hand movements, facial expressions, and other mood indicators, but for the sake of our enslaved decendents forced to toil in the silicon mines, we hope that they leave certain expressive gestures, such as the raising of the middle finger, out of the software's lexicon.[Via The Raw Feed]
South Korea wants 100% robot market penetration by 2020
You've got 14 years, South Korea, to make good on your promise: 100% market penetration for robots in the home some time between 2015 and 2020. We'll be generous and give you the later date to work with, but don't you and your Ministry of Information and Communication go spouting off about how you've got goals to put a robot in every home by 2020 unless you're dead serious, you hear us? Because we here at Engadget take our robots seriously -- from Roombas to Ri-Man -- so don't go all getting our hopes up for some postmodern South Korean android utopia of intelligent networked household service bots unless you're prepared to deliver, ok?[Thanks, Palm Addict]
Next-gen games need next-gen AI
Method Director has an interesting blog post up on the role of AI to make game characters' performances more realistic. How many times have you wandered away from a character while they continued talking? Tried to shoot your teammates and not had a hint of reprimand for it? Some games handle this better than others, but generally while the graphics and physics engines of modern (and so-called next-gen) games are spectacular, the AI can be unbelievable and wooden. The arts of theatre direction and improvisational acting are not black and forbidden subjects--they're taught widely and have well known and recognisable methods. It's about time some game developers started getting a little more creative with the way their NPCs behave. Method Director posts a sample algorithm; simple character motivation and emotional states could go a long way to making characters realistic. While some games do manage realistic and believable AI, it seems that most focus on the "wow" factors before making plot and character realistic--and just like a bad movie, a game with great graphics but no depth can flop.
