[pandorabots-general] Turning test to be beaten this year? + AI news.

Mon Mar 31 10:31:51 PST 2008

A New Divide in Social Networks
<http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20480/?nlid=970>  by Erica
Naone

MySpace and Yahoo support Google's OpenSocial standard; Facebook does
not. 
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20480/?nlid=970
<http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20480/?nlid=970>  

Recent headlines from www.KURZWEILAI.NET  

AI researchers think 'Rascals' can pass Turing test

EE Times, Mar. 12, 2008

"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
<http://www.eetimes.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=algorithm&x=&
y=>  is now making this possible, but we need a supercomputer to get
real-time performance." ......

Mental states 

The key to the realism of RPI's synthetic characters, according to
Bringsjord, is that RPI is modeling the mental states of others--in
particular, one's beliefs about others' mental states. 

"Our synthetic characters have correlates of the mental states
experienced by all humans," said Bringsjord. "That's how we plan to pass
this limited version of the Turing test." 

Note: Facial expression mapping & Simulation.

Avatar Mimics You in Real Time

PhysOrg.com, Mar. 25, 2008

An international team has built vision- and speech-driven avatar
<javascript:loadBrain('Avatar')>  technology
<javascript:loadBrain('Technology')>  that imitates 66 facial expression
<javascript:loadBrain('Expression')> s and basic
<javascript:loadBrain('BASIC')>  hand gestures in real time
<javascript:loadBrain('Time')> . 

Bringing Second Life To Life: Researchers Create Character With
Reasoning Abilities of a Child

PhysOrg.com, Mar. 10, 2008

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute research
<javascript:loadBrain('Research')> ers unveiled "Eddie," a 4-year-old
virtual child in Second Life <javascript:loadBrain('Life')>  who can 
reason <javascript:loadBrain('Reason')>  about his own beliefs to draw
conclusions in a manner that matches human
<javascript:loadBrain('Human')>  children his age. 

"Our aim is not to construct a computation
<javascript:loadBrain('Computation')> al theory that explains and
predicts actual human <javascript:loadBrain('Human')>  behavior, but
rather to build artificial agents made more interesting and useful by
their ability to ascribe mental states to other agents, reason
<javascript:loadBrain('Reason')>  about such states, and have -- as
avatars -- states that are correlates to those experience
<javascript:loadBrain('Experience')> d by humans," said Selmer
Bringsjord, head of Rensselaer's Cognitive Science
<javascript:loadBrain('Cognitive%20Science')>  Department and leader of
the research <javascript:loadBrain('Research')>  project. 

"Applications include entertainment
<javascript:loadBrain('Entertainment')>  and gaming
<javascript:loadBrain('Gaming')> , but also education
<javascript:loadBrain('Education')>  and homeland defense." 

This research <javascript:loadBrain('Research')>  is supported by IBM
<javascript:loadBrain('International%20Business%20Machines%20(IBM)')>
and other outside sponsors, and the team hopes to engineer a version of
the Star Trek <javascript:loadBrain('Star%20Trek')>  holodeck
<javascript:loadBrain('Holodeck')>  - a virtual reality
<javascript:loadBrain('Virtual%20Reality')>  system
<javascript:loadBrain('System')>  used onboard the starships that
allowed users to interact with the projected hologram
<javascript:loadBrain('Hologram')> s of other individual
<javascript:loadBrain('Individual')> s. Such a system
<javascript:loadBrain('System')>  could allow cognitively robust
synthetic characters to interact directly with human
<javascript:loadBrain('Human')>  beings, according to Bringsjord. 

See also: AI Meets the Metaverse: Teachable AI Agents Living in Virtual
Worlds
<http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0710.html>

Read Original Article>> <http://physorg.com/news124368610.html>  

Virtual pets can learn just like babies

New Scientist news service, Mar. 28, 2008

Novamente has developed a demonstration of a synthetic character (a
virtual pet) in a virtual world being controlled by an autonomous 
artificial intelligence
<javascript:loadBrain('Artificial%20intelligence%20(AI)')>  (AI
<javascript:loadBrain('Artificial%20intelligence%20(AI)')> ) program
<javascript:loadBrain('Program')> , which will be released to
inhabitants of virtual worlds like Second Life
<javascript:loadBrain('Life')>  later this year. 

Their work, along with similar program <javascript:loadBrain('Program')>
s from other research <javascript:loadBrain('Research')> ers, was
presented at the First Conference on Artificial General Intelligence
<javascript:loadBrain('Intelligence')>  at the University of Memphis in
Tennessee earlier this month. 

A Virtual Travel Agent With All the Answers

New York Times, Mar. 4, 2008

Alaska Airlines and its subsidiary, Horizon Air, have introduced on the
Alaskaair.com
<javascript:loadBrain('Component%20Object%20Model%20(COM)')>  Web site a
user-friendly virtual assistant named Jenn that orally answers a wide
range of questions.

Read Original Article>>
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/business/04road.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
>  

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