[Video] The Long-Term Future of (Artificial) Intelligence

Professor Stuart Russell is a long term researcher into Artificial Intelligence and wrote (along with Peter Norvig) a widely used undergraduate text called “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach”. Last month he delivered this excellent lecture at The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. He makes very good arguments that although sentient AI may be far in the future, it is worth considering the ethical possibilities as soon as possible.

It’s quite a long video, but worth the time to watch through.

[Note the sound quality is poor for the first several minutes but is clear thereafter.]

Video: What recent advances in AI and Robotics mean for us

This is a good review of the recent DARPA Robotics Challenge by CBS News. The video also looks at some of the latest advances in Artificial Intelligence that you may be familiar with and some of the potential impacts it will have in the years to come.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-future-of-robots-and-artificial-intelligence

MarI/O

This is interesting – machine learning applied to the Super Mario World video game. It uses neural networks and genetic algorithms

Mario never looked so good!

Some Bits and Bytes

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Polish Startup Filmaster Sells To Samba TV For €1 Million

Recommendation systems have been around for a while so I wonder what’s different about this one. “Proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms” means we’ll probably never know.

How Facebook is teaching computers to see

Brief overview of how Facebook is using Convolutional Neural Networks to mine the enormous amount of free data they have. It’s also interesting to note that they are attempting to use Artificial Intelligence to understand the content in posts, videos and text.

So make sure you know what Facebook is doing with the information you post there.

UAE offering US$1m prize in AI and Robotics

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of the UAE

In a sign of things to come, the United Arab Emirates is running a competition to find applications for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in the areas of Education, Healthcare and Social Services.

The focus on areas that have the potential to improve people’s lives is interesting and timely, given that one of the first major uses for IBM’s Watson is also in Healthcare.

With an award for international entries of US$1m, this competition is likely to attract a lot of interest around the world. Furthermore, with the substantial award, it looks like AI is finally entering the realm of respectability when it comes to attracting investment.

The competition’s organising committee will begin accepting submissions from 15th June, 2015. For more details on the competition, follow the link below.

Robotics for Good Website

New book: “Surviving AI”. Review copies available

Pandora's Brain

I’ve just finished writing a non-fiction book on artificial intelligence, called Surviving AI.

It starts with a brief history of the science and a description of its current state.  It goes on to look at the benefits and risks that AI presents in the short and medium term, with a short story highlighting the improvements to everyday life that are in the pipeline, and discussions of technological unemployment and killer robots.

Then it gets into artificial general intelligence – machines with human-level cognition: whether we can create one, and if so when; whether we will like it if we do, and what we should do about it.

Surviving AI will be published this summer.  If you would like a review copy in PDF or mobi for Kindles, email me at cccalum at gmail.com.

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