attn: Rev Magdalen subj: Robots that Read and Breed
Correspondent:: "nu-monet v7.0"
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 08:57:23 -0700
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http://www.vnunet.com/news/1160981
The arrival of intelligent robots that can read,
learn and even breed is a step closer as two
advanced robotics projects in the US and Korea
announced breakthroughs today.
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
has awarded $1.2m to two researchers in the
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to build a
computer that can read documents and learn from
them.
"Humans learn best and most efficiently by
reading, and yet the brute fact is that machines,
although often touted as learning this and that,
cannot read," said Selmer Bringsjord, director of
the Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and
Reasoning Laboratory.
"Humans do something very special when they read
intelligently: they ponder, almost automatically,
how their new knowledge might solve future
problems they encounter.
"Our goal is to take appreciable steps toward
implementing machine learning at the genuinely
human level; an intelligent machine that can read
books, comprehend and reflect on what it has read,
answer questions in English, and then explain why
it answered the way it did."
Meanwhile in South Korea Kim Jong-hwan, professor
at Korea's Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology, unveiled software which creates 14
artificial chromosomes that he claims gives the
code the traits of an individual. The software
will be installed on a robot within three months.
In tests the chromosomes within the software,
which ultimately could allow the robots to 'breed',
caused different reactions to external stimuli in
different software systems. The code is modelled
on human DNA, although as a single not double
helix.
Kim Jong-hwan has organised a robot football
world cup which is used by researchers around
the world to test their latest creations.
--
"Mars was destroyed with weapons from the future.
There, does that make you feel any better?"
-- nu-monet