Rodney Brooks, cofounder of iRobot and former director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory envisions a future where a robot is as ubiquitous as computers today. Watch the video below or read the Discover article “The Robot Invasion Is Coming—and That’s a Good Thing“.
Imagine a robot deceiving its enemies by hiding so it won’t get caught…A team at Georgia Tech Research Institute in the US is teaching robots how to deceive other machines and humans. Read how robots capable of deception may be valuable for several different areas, including military and search and rescue operations. (gatech.edu)
Researchers at the EPFL in Switzerland have developed a wheelchair that it has on-board cameras which can identify and avoid obstacles without the need for any user intervention. The wheelchair is controlled the user’s EEG signals. Read the article (epfl.ch) or see for yourself.
Scientist at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that the diversity in how neurons respond to incoming stimuli is essential to overall brain function and to how neurons process complex stimuli and code information. More in the article Intrinsic biophysical diversity decorrelates neuronal firing while increasing information content (Nature Neuroscience) or in Carnegie Mellon’s press release.
Swarm intelligence describes artificial intelligence systems where collective behavior of simple causes coherent solutions or patterns to emerge. Examples of systems studied by swarm intelligence are colonies of ants and termites, schools of fish, flocks of birds, herds of land animals. Read how ants, bees - or other colonies - can help improve solving complex problems (via economist.com).
World Finance, a leading financial magazine, features an in depth article about ai-one inc., the technology and its applications. Read more about the ai-one approach.
Until now, it is thought that the brain has a top down structure - like a company. However, in a new study, brain circuits were traced. These circuits turned out to look like a distributed network, rather like the Internet. Read more on how the brain is wired (bbc.co.uk).
Dennis Hong, director of RoMeLa and his team work to infuse robots with artificial intelligence. In this video, Dennis Hong introduces seven all-terrain robots, that walk and climb over different surfaces and adapt their gait accordingly.
“My mind to your mind… my thoughts to your thoughts…” Remember how Spock chanted these words to initiate a mind meld? Humans can do this too, when two people “click” in a conversation. That is according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Brain scans of a speaker and listener showed their neural activity synchronizing during storytelling. The stronger their reported connection, the closer the coupling. Read more onwww.scientificamerican.com.
Dharmendra Modha is manager of cognitive computing at IBM Research Almaden. He also heads the project SyNAPSE, Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics. The aim of SyNAPSE is to build brain-like computers.
Dharmendra Modha has published a paper detailing the latest achievement: mapping a monkey’s brain. Watch the video in which Modha explains SyNAPSE or read his blog.
