5 replies to this topic

[Futurist1000]

AI researchers think 'Rascals' can pass Turing test

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Passing the Turing test--the holy grail of artificial intelligence (AI), whereby a human conversing with a computer can't tell it's not human--may now be possible in a limited way with the world's fastest supercomputer (IBM's Blue Gene), according to AI experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RPI is aiming to pass AI's final exam this fall, by pairing the most powerful university-based supercomputing system in the world with a new multimedia group designing a holodeck, a la Star Trek.
"We are building a knowledge base that corresponds to all of the relevant background for our synthetic character--where he went to school, what his family is like, and so on," said Selmer Bringsjord, head of Rensselaer's Cognitive Science Department and leader of the research project. "We want to engineer, from the start, a full-blown intelligent character and converse with him in an interactive environment like the holodeck from Star Trek."

Currently, Bringsjord is stocking his synthetic character will all sorts of facts, figures, family trivia and personal beliefs gleaned from what he calls his "full-time guinea pig," a graduate student that has agreed to bare all for his synthetic doppelganger. The synthetic character will be able to converse with other human-controlled avatars about his educational and family history, his personal pastimes, and even his feelings and beliefs.

"This synthetic person based on our mathematical theory will carry on a conversation about himself, including his own mental states and the mental states of others," said Bringsjord. "Our artificial intelligence algorithm is now making this possible, but we need a supercomputer to get real-time performance."

[Johan]

Wow, that's awesome. And they're probably going to use Second Life for it - around October this year.
I'd like to try a conversation with that computer...

Edited by Johan, 13 March 2008 - 11:54 PM.

[Cyberbrain]

Einsteins Ghost! Thats amazing, I cant wait until its tested!

[Shannon Vyff]

Yeah, but delve into emotions, passion--sex, sure seems like it would be easy to identify as not human...

[Kalepha]

If I recall, Selmer Bringsjord is on a hypermachine trajectory, which means he probably wouldn't also state, as the article does in the beginning, that the Turing test is the holy grail of artificial intelligence.

[Futurist1000]

It sounds like the AI is going to be called Eddie.
childlike-intelligence-created-in-second-life

Four-year-old Eddie might behave like a typical young boy. Outside of the Second Life virtual world, however, he is anything but.
The child is a product of logic-based artificial intelligence and complex modelling techniques, and operates on what has been said to be the most powerful university-based supercomputing system in the world.

A creation of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Eddie has his own set of beliefs, and the ability to reason about his beliefs to draw conclusions in a manner that matches human children his age.

This includes a partially-developed "Theory of Mind", which allows him to understand, predict and manipulate the behaviour of other agents and of even human players, with whom researchers expect the technology to be able to one day interact with in the real, physical world.

"Second Life is remarkably easy to work with, and is very popular,"
said Selmer Bringsjord, head of Rensselaer's Cognitive Science Department and leader of the research project.

"But our technologies can be applied to any digital environment, and indeed we are specifically aiming, with IBM, at environments in which the physical and the virtual directly interact."

Eddie is only the first step of what Bringsjord called a "divide-and-conquer" strategy of prudent engineering.

Eventually, more advanced versions of the artificial intelligence technology will be put to use in entertainment and gaming, as well as immersive training and education scenarios.

Sciencedaily Article