decisionmaking
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Surprisingly efficient snail brains could help make robots smarter
How snails think about eating could inform future robot decision-making designs. University of Sussex researchers have discovered that the creatures use just two brain cells for complex decisions: one cell told the snail if it was hungry, while another told it if food was near. Scientists attached electrodes to the snails' brains to measure activity -- which hopefully looked adorable. The takeaway is that it could help design efficient robot brains using the least possible number of components yet still capable of performing complex tasks. Lead researcher Professor George Kemenes added that it: "also shows how this system helps to manage how much energy they use once they have made a decision."
Five social apps to help you make a decision
Anyone who knows me well understands that I hate making decisions. From what to eat to where to go on vacation, I'd rather have little to no choice in the matter. For decision-avoiding people like me, there are a growing number of social decision-making apps that let you turn to your friends or the internet at large to help you make a decision. Here are five of them I have stumbled upon recently. Seesaw for iPhone [iPhone; Free] Seesaw allows you take a photo of your choices and then share them with the community to help you make a decision. You can also send your seesaws to your friends in your address book and they can respond without signing up for the service or installing the app. Loop -- Social Polling [iPhone; Free] Loop is a social polling app that lets you ask any question and get an instant answer. People responding to questions can do so without downloading or installing anything. It's more than just life decisions -- you can loop in your Pinboard or Amazon items, so you can use it for shopping advice and more. The app also allows you to create private polls and display an infographic of the voting results from a poll. Deciderr -- Social Decision-Making [iPhone; Free] Deciderr is a social app that lets you post a "Yes or No" question to help you make a decision. You can post your own questions or respond to questions posted by the people you follow. You can also share your question on Twitter or Facebook. PeepAdvice [iPhone; Free] PeepAdvice allows you to get advice quickly by asking simple questions with two choices that are open for voting. Your followers can then chime in with their favorite choice. PeepAdvice is a wide-open forum for discussing health, romance, purchases and more. Polar [iPhone; Free] Polar is a social polling app that lets people both vote and comment on your polls. As you share polls, you can build a following and follow others on the social network. You can chat with others and create or share polls right within the chat messages. It's a social experience that's part talking, part decision-making.
Gamers make accurate decisions faster than non-gamers, new study finds
Many studies have shown some evidence that spending a lot of time playing video games can mean, for instance, that a person will perform worse in school -- probably because they're too busy playing The Sims to study. Recently, however, some newer studies have begun to show some more complicated evidence. A new study published in Current Biology, for instance, discusses players of standard action games, and how doing so augments their decision making abilities. What gaming does, according to the study's perspective, is help people make probabilistic inferences -- decisions based on incomplete information -- increasing the efficiency of determining odds of something happening or not. The study examined both gamers and non-gamers, and found that given the same rate of accuracy, the gamers would consistently make decisions faster than the non-gamers. The entire article can be found at the source link -- but for now, just take comfort in the knowledge that in some ways, playing video games is making you smarter.
US Air Force says decision-making attack drones will be here by 2047
Leave it to the military to dream big. In its recently released "Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047" report, the US Air Force details a drone that could fly over a target and then make the decision whether or not to launch an attack, all without human intervention. The Air Force says that increasingly, humans will monitor situations, rather than be deciders or participants, and that "advances in AI will enable systems to make combat decisions and act within legal and policy constraints without necessarily requiring human input." Programming of the drone will be based on "human intent," with real actual humans monitoring the execution, while retaining the authority and ability to override the system. It's all still extremely vague, with literally no details on exactly how this drone will come into existence, but we do know this: the Air Force plans to have these dudes operational by 2047. We're just holding out to see what those "classified" pages are all about. [Warning: read link is a PDF] [Via PC World] Read -Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047
