Lessons from the Silver Surfer !

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I just saw the Movie : Fantastic Four : Rise of the silver surfer ! I should say the hero of the movie is the Silver Surfer as he is the one who sacrifices his life in order to save our planet. In the process, he destroys "Galactus", the eater of worlds !

On a more serious note, the finale of the movie of the explosive ending of a world eating villain by a seemingly small surfer is quite similar to our own fight against our superstitions. Our cultural civilizations have forced us to serve masters we do not often wish to serve. The most common reason is that we do not have a choice. In order to merge into society, we are often forced to align ourselves favourably to certain guidelines. This is often what blinds us from the truth, for example, the underlying spirituality beneath religious rites.

In the Movie, the silver surfer realized that we do have a choice and he chose to break away the bonds of his captivity and in turn saving others and paving the way for a future with choices.

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Transcendent Consciousness for Transcendent Technologies: Part II

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SUMMARY OF PART I :

Human beings must understand that much of their grandeur and achievement pale in comparision to the other organisms on this planet. We must come to terms as an organism or as a species and realize the importance of ensuring our survival. How can we transcend our present status with technology, improve our consciousness and our bodies while maintaining harmony with our planet and beyond? Part I looks into how one realizes the importance of this "species" state and comes to understand the need to attain transcendent states with transcendent technologies.

PART II :
Our greatest fear is that the technology we develop could one day come back to challenge the collective worth of our existence. This is probably why there are so many efforts to develop friendly forms of artificial intelligence programmes, or "friendly AI". But in designing such a conditional form of intelligence, are we practicing a form of techno-eugenics in order to preserve our security? At the outset, the desire to design "friendly" AI is important, but it also challenges our cultural memes of equality and liberty. If artificial intelligence is indeed capable of attaining consciousness, then are we denying the liberty of a radically new form of life? It is a real challenge to choose between an anthropocentric view or an ecocentric point of view. Here is where we go back to the tipping point where we distinguish ourselves from being a boon or a disease on the planet.

The anthropocentric view dictates that we can choose to redesign nature to suit our existence. However, this is very much similar to what a virus does. The virus manipulates the very core of the host cell and forces the cell to use it’s resources to produce more viruses which ultimately bursts out, destroying the host. A parallel could easily be drawn between a virus using the cell’s resources for replication and our own exploitation of our planet’s resources to survive and multiply.

If humanity is truly a viral infection of the Earth, then one day we will exhaust all our resources and attempt to colonize other planets in the solar system and beyond. As we contemplate this process, we must ask ourselves if our planet is no longer inhabitable, would we seek to overpower another species in order to colonize a habitable planet? Surely, there are going to be intergalactic wars in the future, and we may not always be the victors nor the heroes. So, why continue this basal existence and eventually destroy our home planet when we can choose to transcend ourselves, ascend our consciousness and live in harmony?

Harmony. It is such a lovely word. John Lennon sang a melancholy dreamy inspiration for all of us in his song "Imagine". If only all of what he aspired for in his song were that easy. Although we humans may have succeeded in becoming the most prominent species on out planet, we are still largely divided amongst ourselves. There are those who have and those who do not. In every aspect of society, there is still, a distinct presence of discrimination; either pronounced or subtle. We compete with each other in ways that would fail to differentiate us from the other animals we have seemingly evolved from. Our history has been riddled with prolonged conflicts, encroachments, slavery , and genocides.

Though we have had great moments in our history and have managed to overcome most of our "evils", we are never far away from reverting back to our old selves; and imposing the age old discriminations that we imposed on each other. When discriminations are complimented with actions, they result once again in the very cruel aspects of "eugenics" and "genocides". Therefore, harmonious existence requires a lot of sacrifices and compromises. It comes somewhere between the anthropocentric and the ecocentric viewpoints. A delicate balance is to be forged between our species and the planet. The greatest challenge for such a bond is for us to accept our position both critically and with humility. Only then can we transform ourselves. Great change must begin with small steps, otherwise it would lead to a rapid collapse.

To begin with, every individual must undergo a change in thinking which is free from the entrapments and preconceived notions imposed by a cultural society. A loving acceptance of one’s own species irrespective of sex, colour, race, religion or caste is required. But, this is not so easy. Most often, the individual is too weighed down by the bonds of economic, social and religious obligations to feel the universal love and yearn to transcend to a higher state. It is usually left to the other individuals, the scientist and the philosophers to contemplate the destiny of the technologies consumed by the rest of the crowd. The crowd may be too preoccupied with collecting the most resources for them and their families that they do not have the time to contemplate.

In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Arthur C.Clarke writes ...whatever godlike powers and personalities lurked beyond the stars, Poole reminded himself, for ordinary humans only two things were important, love and death. Our mortality is our greatest weakness. Knowledge of our own bodies has improved and continues to improve solely to overcome this singular weakness. The pursuit of immortality is not a dream nor a legend anymore. It is entirely possible to achieve an ageless body, one where the cells would stay young and keep dividing at any lifespan much like that of a child. It would also become possible to obtain custom superhuman bodies such as Primo Post Human envisioned by Natasha Vita More. In a posthuman future, we will as a species, "exist" not just as organic life forms but also as data. But such a posthuman future shall not arise unless we address the current problems. A Mayfly lives only for a day compared to a human being who lives much much longer. But the Mayfly is oblivious to this enviable lifespan of a human. Such is our case, with regards to our expectations of a posthuman future. It is in fact very similar to Vernor Vinge’s "fish analogy". I do not think it is entirely possible to leapfrog across generations into a posthuman future. It may only be possible to "accelerate" or "encourage" such a future. Therefore in essence, it must be realized that it is more important to contemplate acceptance and development of technologies that help us address the immediate concerns of our kind and those which enhance and preserve the relationships that we have with our home planet.

The alarming impacts of human activities such as global warming and loss of biodiversity has made us realize that we must not only take care of our own kind but also of the entire planet in order to survive. We have the potential to serve as guardians and we have begun doing this already. But, what we do is not enough. We are not united enough. We fight amongst ourselves for food, water and shelter. In the real world, there is no galactic federation to centrally take care of the problems that plague us. The United Nations is so far the only refuge for crisis or conflict. As we realize the urgency of the crisis facing us, we are urged to co-operate and co-exist with the planet to preserve the existence of the generations that would come after us. We will be to blame if the future generation is forced to have membrane filters implanted in addition to their biological lungs.

People who philosophize about the future must act responsibly to bring it to reality. We need thinkers who can bring visions to those who cannot see the rainbows. Personally, I would like the future to be available to all. There is always a lot of fear which is not without truth considering our past history, that genetic technologies, sophisticated biological warfare and other technologies would be used against the weaker sections of humanity.

In today’s world, one is weak mostly in terms of economic power. There is a huge difference in available technologies to the rich and the poor and the divide gets bigger each day. Some say that this division is inevitable. However, I would say that a submission to such presumed "inevitabilities" would one day consume the hard earned ideals of equality, justice and liberty. If anything does mark our species as being distinct if we are extinct one day, it would be our capacity to love. Our altruistic nature would be the only true achievement that we have acquired from our consciousness.

This capacity to love indefinitely is the reason why revolutions, new political systems and environmental conservation/restoration has been happening throughout history. One can no longer escape by stating “Karma” or “neutrality” for not helping make these technologies available to all sections of people. We must understand that most conflicts are born out of sheer frustration where one section of society enjoys all the fruits of human progress while the other is left to forage or wait for the same. At this point in time, I cannot predict that any one economic or political system/philosophy can offer the solutions. It would not be sensible to do so. But the interconnected "global village" can no longer pretend that problems due to lack of access to life saving and essential technologies are not their concern.

We are becoming so enmeshed that a genocide in Africa, an explosion in Arabia or a flood in Asia would hurt us no matter where we are. Why should we feel this pain for others? It is because, deep down beyond all the scientific and intellectual shrouds, we love each other. We just do not know it. The human species must collectively shed their doubts, and their socio-cultural trappings in order to bring universal access to advanced technologies without hindrances of superstition or red tape. Regulations should be framed not with aims to curb progress in any one part of the globe but to regulate against destructive usage. At present, it is not important whether to transform into a flying superman who turns colours faster than a chameleon. It is more important to transform ourselves into beings who lives in disease free bodies and in a clean environment. The future will happen automatically.

Coming back to my robot toy, I have since realized that if I divest myself of my religious and cultural memes, I am really no different from the mechanized robot. I would be active only as long as the switch is turned on. Knowledge of body biochemistry and neuro-biology shows how incredible an organism we are. Once we are humbled by this knowledge and have accepted ourselves as nothing more than another organism, we would see the sense in pursuing technologies that prolong conditions for life in the body and overcome fundamental obstacles namely disease and mortality.

Once we realize the importance of such "transhuman" technologies, we would begin to undergo a dramatic change in consciousness where all people, irrespective of orientation, gender or race would appear to us equally as dignified individuals. Once such an acceptance is born, then we would no longer be bound by assumptions, ego or discrimination. We would also have several options to combat things that we previously felt we could never stop. We could never have imagined that one day we would dissect the genetic structure of pathogenic viruses for drug design.

This is all just a small measure of the amount of change that can be brought about by emergent futuristic technologies. But, it is important that we tread carefully. Already there are criticisms against futurists who wish to see immortal posthumans walking on the street. But much of such criticism is based on fear from past history where we have gone wrong. I would like the critics of such technologies to come forward and work in cohesion with the next generation of innovators as guardians of our sanity lest we become uncontrollable.

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Visions of the Future

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How would the future look like ? It is rather amusing that we are no longer able to fully cope up our predictions of the future with the happenings around us. Science is accelerating rapidly as it should and has been. I was talking about how the traditional values of ethics are being overthrown and regulation is becoming more difficult. We are closer to our "Gods" than ever before. In this line, I recently saw that one of the best recent documentaries on the future of things, Visions of the Future narrated and presented by a renowed physicist is now available on youtube. Here is the first part, and there are more which you can follow up once you click on the site :

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Upload your Real body to a Virtual Avatar !

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Imagine you, a die hard Cryonics enthusiast waking up after 1,000 years into a computer simulation. As per current speculations, you would first need an avatar to interact. The currently available virtual world, Second Life already has a similar place where you can upload your real life picture and obtain a close likeliness in your virtual avatar. However, you can always do this yourself. As with the real world, there are service providers who do this for you for a fee. I visited this cool place called Avatar Island in second life and found that there is a machine to do this sort of thing. I have made a movie of my visit to the place.

I did not take up the service. I simply cannot afford it. But, the notecard I received for the process is quite interesting especially if you consider second life to be a very close and accurate extrapolation of a future existence :

Thank you for choosing the CyberExtruder face creation service for you avatar. This simple and fast process will automatically prepare your new face texture within minutes. The steps involved are as follows:

· Pay the sign in front of you; $2700L for one face, $4000L for 2 and $5400 for 3

· After you complete the lab machine process, you will receive a personalized webpage link, click it

· Follow the guidelines on the web page to produce the best results

· The system will prompt you to locate a photo on your computer for uploading

· Within a minute or two your new face will sent to you by email

· To apply the face texture to your Avatar: upload the image file (File -> Upload Image) then apply it to your character using Face Tattoo under Edit Appearance

IMPORTANT: Make sure you have modify rights to the skin you will be wearing with your face BEFORE you begin. If the skin is not modifiable the face tattoo option won’t be available once you have uploaded your face.

NO REFUNDS

Please be warned, the future may not be entirely free.

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Transcendent Consciousness for Transcendent Technologies : Part I

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Please Note : This is part I of a two part series.

When I was five, I played with my first toy robot. It was my favorite at the time, with flashing lights on its chest. It could travel straight or in circles, was powered by batteries, and made quite a lot of interesting sounds. This incredible range of activities that fascinated me could be switched off at the click of a button. The robot would then stand still, inactive. A moment ago, it was going around flashing its lights, making noises, and fascinating my imagination. The very next moment, it was still when switched off.

Was my robot dead ? But my supposed common sense dictated that it was a machine and it is not “dead” and did not come “alive” when switched on. It was merely doing what it is meant to do when you switch it on. As a child, I could always convince myself that my robot toy could come alive at the click of a button and vaporize imagined villains. However as an adult, the distinction of consciousness between my toy robot and myself often baffles me! So, who am I or rather, who are we?

We are an amazing amalgamation. Beginning from the atom, we go to the molecule and then up to the cell. Many cells form tissues which in turn form organs. Organs, together with a myriad of regulatory networks and systems form an organism. Thus, we have become Homo sapiens. We have over the centuries as various civilizations, colonized along fertile valleys and perennial rivers. We have developed social structures, hierarchies, by means of politics and religion.

Incredibly, we have also learned to utilize the resources available to us for our activities. Once we have come to terms with ourselves in ways that transcend our religious and cultural upbringing, we will come to understand and accept our “species” status. No matter how much we believe ourselves to be distinctly intelligent or unique, we are really no different from the multitude of other living organisms that occupy this planet, all competing for survival.

Most of our self proclaimed grandeur and engineering feats are nothing spectacular. As Extropia puts it in her essay on the fallacies of Singularity,

We may pride ourselves to think we discovered architecture, engineering, central heating, agriculture, and huge economies from division of labour amongst specialists, but we did not. Termites discovered all these things an exceedingly long time before our species evolved.

If we are to seek a destiny beyond our own bodies and our home planet, we must also be prepared to transcend. At the outset, such transcendence may be immensely glorified by our own cultural memes as being done for superhuman feats and power. However, there is a much deeper and more practical form and reason to our transcendence. It is our basic instinct to survive. Although there may not be an immediate predator or an incredible threat, we as an intelligent species must evolve in order to exist.

We have become capable of traveling vast distances with our tools of transportation even though we do not share the anatomy of the birds that adorn our skies. We have managed to speak and amplify our immense array of vocal communication beyond the vibrations of our throats, across the entire planet and even out to outer space. We can sense and perceive global events as information while physically remaining in one place.

Just about 10,000 years ago, we were hunters and gatherers who knew no agriculture. And yet today, we are contemplating global implementation of genetically modified food to overcome our food crisis. Cockroaches and Locusts have always foraged for food in different locations for all these centuries. However, we have managed to move on from foraging for food to our current status of agriculture.

If the human species survives for another 10,000 years, one is only left to wonder whether glycolytic or other metabolic pathways of obtaining that precious adenosine triphosphate from food would be required at all. We might directly generate energy much like the current autotrophs or even better, become energy itself! We are now contemplating the next stages of our evolution as a species to ensure survival, both on this planet and into the known and unknown parts of the universe. As we contemplate our destiny amongst the stars, we must also observe what we really are. In the movie The Matrix, there is a very chilling dialogue between the human, Morpheus and Agent Smith the artificial intelligence:

I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.

So, are we a disease ? There are a lot of reasons to claim such a state and a lot of reasons to claim otherwise. Our rapid disintegration of the natural environment around us to create “new” environments of our own making such as elaborate cities, the siphoning of earth’s natural resources, and the resultant increase in our population are all reasons. This really is no different from what a cockroach or a locust does in this very same planet. We may just be doing it a bit better. There are not many of us who are quite friendly with a cockroach or a locust.

Be that as it may, we must acknowledge that no matter what we throw at them, they keep coming back. Their resilience is almost a parallel to our own in terms of survival. We must understand that a cockroach or a locust is not trying to destroy the world. It is only trying to survive in order to procreate and carry on with its existence. This is what we do as well. We have always tried to continue our existence, in different forms. But, there is a very fine line defining our status as a species or as a parasite from the planet’s perspective. James Lovelock defined Gaia in his Gaia Hypothesis as "a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet."

Lovelock’s hypothesis also considers that the organism most likely to spread the seeds of Gaia across the universe as evidenced by our pursuits in space exploration. If evolution were to be accepted, then we can comfortably state that we have achieved a good position as a "species" on this planet. Thus, if we are the most favored organism on the planet, then surely we will accept such a destiny. This destiny is also a responsibility and we must undertake it with surgical precision and a new mindset.

Such a frame of mind definitely calls for a huge change in our collective consciousness. By change, I do not mean a sudden uniformity in consciousness. I would rather call for a gradual sustainable change with long term realizable visions based on current speculations and aspirations. The former president of India, Dr.Abdul Kalam, gave India its most formidable vision to become a developed country by the year 2020. He named it Vision 2020.

The most formidable part of his vision is to change the consciousness of people right from the home. He states that a noble citizen is created from a home and goes on to form a noble society and eventually a noble, or in this case, a “conscious” country. It is actually a very cellular approach which merits more attention. It really is the individual who goes on to form an entire system and not the other way around. Every individual brings in his/her survival skills into the system and the system improves or rather evolves as a result of this collective skills. Therefore, we can find very interesting relationships with our own behavior and that of the computer! Aurobindo and the Mother from India have always called for an Integral Yoga which calls for a integration of work and the pursuit of a higher consciousness for a great transformation.

It is therefore most important that we change the way we think and perceive things around us. The phenomena of globalization has taught us a great deal of how much influence culture and economy can have on totally unrelated communities. Wikipedia defines globalization as "...the increasing interconnectedness of people and places as a result of advances in transport, communication, and information technologies that cause political, economic, and cultural convergence." Convergence is most definitely going to be the catalyst towards a rapid acceleration of human progress. When the human species as a whole progresses, it shall help us maintain our presumed position in the ecological hierarchy within this planet and our survival in the vast universe.

Progress of the Homo sapiens is to be made simultaneously from several angles. If the concept of the singularity were to be embraced with abandon, then it can be said that such a progress would have a tremendous acceleration. I as a human being am worried about one aspect of the singularity. Increasingly, the singularity is being interpreted more from the side of computer science and its technologies than other disciplines. In reality, it would be an integration of several disciplines that can bring about this state of singularity. Otherwise, there would be progress but with a slant towards only one prespective.

This could cause the collapse our entire system. Any tall building needs a strong foundation. For the tallest endeavour of the human species hailed as the singularity, the foundation of the exponential curve, the "S" curve, should have a proper foundation. Only then can the graphical acceleration be foreseen in the concrete world. It is extremely important for responsible futurists to not get deluded or fantasize about any one state where a collective effort is required.

The purpose and importance of such a precaution is extremely obvious. It is for our very survival. The fruits of transcendent technology may not be seen in our lifetime, however the work done today is the reason for the emergence of a glorious future. In the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred holy book for Hinduism, one of the most famous lines from the second chapter is: "Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana, Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani" which basically means "You have a right to perform your prescribed action, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be associated with not doing your duty."

This is a good and rather useful saying for the aspiring futurists and visionaries. One can not predict whether the current efforts at cryonics would successfully enable people to wake up in a distant future. However, such obstacles should not stop us from working towards viable suspended animation of a live human being for extended space travel, medical resuscitation and for other reasons. We have come a long way from the humble ice box to virtrification. Likewise for our visions of the cryogenic suspension and space elevators. Therefore, much like an adult worker ant works tirelessly to feed its colony, so too must we continuously develop technologies for the continued survival of our species.

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Artificial Intelligence Resources

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Artificial Intelligence Resources (AIResources.info)is a Subject Tracer™ Information Blog developed and created by the Virtual Private Library™. It is designed to bring together the latest resources and sources on an ongoing basis from the Internet for artificial intelligence resources which are listed below. We always welcome suggestions of additional sites and resources to be added to this comprehensive listing and please submit by clicking here. This site has been developed and maintained by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.; Internet expert, author, keynote speaker, and consultant. His latest white papers include Searching the Internet, Academic and Scholar Search Engines and Sources, and Knowledge Discovery Resources 2009. All of his Subject Tracer™ Information Blogs and his white papers are available from WhitePapers.us.

His latest monthly column is available by clicking here. Subscribe to his free monthly Awareness Watch™ Newsletter. Learn more by clicking here. Free online streaming tutorial videos on searching the Internet by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.; available by clicking here.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES

20Q.net - An Experiment in Artificial Intelligence
http://www.20q.net/

AboutAI.net
http://www.aboutai.net/

About Intelligence
http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/

Adaptive Artificial Intelligence
http://adaptiveai.com/

ADATE System - Automatic Design of Algorithms Through Evolution
http://www-ia.hiof.no/~rolando/index.html

AI Dreams - Forum for the Discussion of Artificial Intelligence and Linked Materials Such as Robotics, Character Design, Movies and New Technology
http://www.aidreams.co.uk/

AI Education Repository
http://www.cs.cofc.edu/~manaris/ai-education-repository/

AI FAQ Index
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/

Ai Forums
http://www.ai-forum.org/

AI Genealogy Project
http://aigp.csres.utexas.edu/~aigp/

AI Hub
http://www.aihub.org/

AI Lab University of Zurich
http://www.ifi.unizh.ch

AI on the Web
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~russell/ai.html

AI Repositories and Resource Lists
http://snipurl.com/7gk2

Ai Research
http://www.a-i.com/

AISB - The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour
http://www.aisb.org.uk/

AI: The Movie
http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/aimovie.html

AITIA Informatikai - Artificial Intelligence, Information Technology, Intelligent Agents
http://www.aitia.ai/

AI Toolkits and SDKs
http://www.gameai.com/toolkits.html

AI Topics
http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/aitopics.html

American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
http://www.aaai.org/

Amzi!
http://www.amzi.com/

Applied Soft Computing
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/15684946

Appreciative Inquiry Commons
http://appreciativeinquiry.cwru.edu/

Artificial Intelligence - a CompInfo Directory
http://www.compinfo-center.com/tpai-t.htm

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/

Artificial Intelligence Areas
http://www.isis.vt.edu/~fanjun/text/ai1.html

Artificial Intelligence By Jonathan Crowhurst
http://www.freepint.com/issues/290704.htm#tips

Artificial Intelligence Depot
http://ai-depot.com/Main.html

Artificial Intelligence from the Bible
http://users.adelphia.net/~lilavois/Seven/bible.html

Artificial Intelligence Research
http://www.a-i.com/

Association for Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (AUAI)
http://www.auai.org/

AutoStitch - A New Dimension In Automatic Image Stitching
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

Babel - A Language for Talking To Computers
http://babelproject.com/

Bibliographies on Artificial Intelligence
http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/Ai/

BLIASoft Knowledge Discovery
http://www.bliasoft.com/Eindex.html

Bot Research
http://www.BotResearch.info/

BrainMaker (California Scientific) Neural Network Software
http://www.calsci.com/index.html

BUBL LINK / Artificial Intelligence
http://bubl.ac.uk/link/a/artificialintelligence.htm

CGAL - Computational Geometry Algorithms Library
http://www.cgal.org/

ChatterBots
http://www.ChatterBots.info/

Cybernetics and Systems Analysis
http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=106467

Dali
http://www.dalilab.com/index.html

Data Mining Resources
http://www.DataMiningResources.info/

digitalAGORA
http://aut.edu/agora/main.htm

Dr. Dobb's Journal - AI
http://www.ddj.com/topics/ai/

Edinburgh University, Artificial Intelligence
http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/

Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence
http://www.etai.info/

Elzware - Information Virtually and Conversational Interfaces
http://www.elzware.com/

Encog - A Neural Network Framework for C# and Java
http://www.heatonresearch.com/encog

Evolutionary Intelligence
http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12065

Feng-GUI - Feng Shui For Graphic User Interfaces™
http://www.feng-gui.com/

Framsticks - Artificial Life - 3D Evolution and Simulation
http://www.frams.alife.pl/

Franz, Inc.
http://www.franz.com/

Free Online Directory of Computing (FOLDOC)
http://www.foldoc.org/

Generation5
http://www.generation5.org/

Genetic Algorithms and Artificial Life Resources
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_96/journal/vol2/tcw2/article2.html

Genetic Algorithms Archive
http://www.aic.nrl.navy.mil/galist/

Gnod - Experimental AI Self Adapting System
http://www.gnod.net/

Google™ Directory - Computers - Artificial Intelligence
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Artificial_Intelligence/

GreatMindsWorking.com
http://greatmindsworking.com/

gwap.com - Training Computers by Playing Games
http://www.gwap.com/gwap/

Heuristics and Artificial Intelligence in Finance and Investment
http://www.geocities.com/francorbusetti/

Imagination-Engines
http://www.Imagination-Engines.com/

Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC)
http://www.ihmc.us/

Institute for Information Technology - Artificial Intelligence Technologies
http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/r-d/ai-ia_e.html

Interactive Artificial Intelligence Resources
http://www.mainline.brynmawr.edu/EIAIR/

Interesting AI Demos and Projects
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~dyer/cs540/demos.html

International Association of Artificial Intelligence and Law (IAAIL)
http://www.iaail.org/

International Journal of Computational Intelligence (IJCI)
http://www.enformatika.org/journals/1304-2386/

International Journal of Computational Intelligence Research (IJCIR)
http://www.ijcir.info

International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence
http://www.imai-software.com/openlab/index.php?q=journal

International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools (IJAIT)
http://ejournals.wspc.com.sg/ijait/ijait.shtml

Introduction to Neural Networks for C#
Online Book: http://www.heatonresearch.com/online/introduction-neural-networks-cs-edition-2
Online Course(YouTube): http://www.heatonresearch.com/course/intro-neural-nets-cs

Introduction to Neural Networks for Java
Online Book: http://www.heatonresearch.com/online/introduction-neural-networks-java-edition-2
Online Course(YouTube): http://www.heatonresearch.com/course/intro-neural-nets-java

Java Applets for Neural Network and Artificial Life
http://staff.aist.go.jp/utsugi-a/Lab/Links.html

Joone - Java Object Oriented Neural Engine
http://www.jooneworld.com/

Journal of Artificial General Intelligence (JAGI)
http://journal.agi-network.org/Home/tabid/72/Default.aspx

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/jair/home.html

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS.html

Journal of Interesting Negative Results in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning (JINR)
http://jinr.site.uottawa.ca/

Journal of Machine Learning Research
http://www.jmlr.org/

KurzweilAI.net
http://www.kurzweilai.net/

Logic Programming Associates - LPA
http://www.lpa.co.uk

Machine Translation
http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=100310

MindPixel: Digital Mind Modeling Project
http://www.mindpixel.com/

Minds and Machines
http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=100314

MIT AI Lab Research Projects
http://www.csail.mit.edu/research/activities/activities.html

NASA Tech Briefs Software Center - Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems
http://www.techbriefs.com/software/ai.html

Natural Computing: An International Journal
http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=108905

Neuron AI Directory: Artificial Intelligence Resources
http://www.neuron.co.uk/

Neuroph - Java Neural Network Frramework
http://neuroph.sourceforge.net/

OpenAI
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openai/

OpenCyc - Open Source General KnowledgeBase and Commonsense Reasoning Engine
http://www.cyc.com/cyc/opencyc

Open Directory - Computers: Artificial Intelligence
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Artificial_Intelligence/

Pascal Costanza's Highly Opinionated Guide to Lisp
http://p-cos.net/lisp/guide.html

PCAI Artificial Intelligence Magazine
http://www.pcai.com/

PCAI Artificial Intelligence Yahoo Groups Mailing List
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pcai/

Prediction Markets
http://www.PredictionMarkets.com/

Pyro - Python Robotics
http://pyrorobotics.org/

SIGART AI Web Resources Directory
http://www.acm.org/sigart/ai/

Sigma Knowledge Engineering Environment
http://sigmakee.sourceforge.net/

Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/

SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center
http://www.ai.sri.com/

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Video Lectures by Hal Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman
http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/

Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO)
http://www.ontologyportal.org/

Summarizer Ranks Sentences
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2005/042005/Summarizer_ranks_sentences_042005.html

Swarm Intelligence Resources
http://glmrc.ie.ncit.edu.tw/simon/SIHompage.htm

Tangent Research Intelligent Systems and Robotics R&D
http://tangentresearch.com/research/ai/

The A.I. Honor Society, National Chapter at GWU
http://www.gwu.edu/~aisoc/

The Artificial Intelligence Directory
http://www.ai-directory.com/

The Game AI Page: Building Artificial Intelligence into Games
http://www.gameai.com/

The Haley Enterprise
http://www.Haley.com/

The IDC Story: The First Successful AI Based Multi-Expert System In Arizona
http://snipurl.com/7ucv

Things That Think
http://ttt.media.mit.edu/index.html

Thinking Machine 4
http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/index.html

Transactions of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (TJSAI)
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/tjsai

University of Arizona Artificial Intelligence Lab
http://ai.bpa.arizona.edu/index.html

What Is Artificial Intelligence?
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/whatisai/whatisai.html

WPI AIRG -- AI Webliography
http://www.cs.wpi.edu/Research/airg/AI-hotlist.html

WWW Virtual Library - Artificial Intelligence
http://vl.fmnet.info/ai/

Yahoo Directory - Artificial Intelligence
http://snipurl.com/7glb

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© 2009 Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.

Decision Making for Medical Support [News]

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In April, the two-year-old RHIO began offering a clinical decision-support service through ActiveHealth Management, a New York-based company. ActiveHealth's CareEngine technology compares patients' medical, pharmacy and laboratory claims against established standards of care. It then notifies a physician if it finds an opportunity to improve a patient's treatment.

For example, CareEngine can alert physicians to potential adverse drug interactions, overlooked lab tests or the availability of beneficial drugs, according to ActiveHealth.

Neural Network Creates Music CD [News]

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Computers have composed music before, but those efforts were little more than high-tech mixed tapes. Most computer composers have been taught rules of music through extensive programming or by breaking down works of human musicians and creating new pieces from the parts.

Instead, these Creativity Machine are untrained artificial intelligence computer known as a neural network. The neurons in the computer brain are mathematical entities instead of brain cells. The creative process starts by tweaking the mathematical connections between the neurons. That set off a cascade of calculations that were translated as sounds.

Artificial General Intelligence: Now Is the Time [News]

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Dr. Ben Goertzel's talk at Google, discussing his own work on the Novamente Cognition Engine, an AGI project based on combining a number of knowledge representations and reasoning and learning techniques into an integrative architecture motivated by complex systems theory, and initially oriented at the control of virtual agents in 3D simulation worlds such as Second Life.

What Would You do With 80 Cores? [News]

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An Intel developer discussed model-based computing, and how this relates to multi-core architectures.

"Like the human brain itself, these intelligent applications lend themselves to parallel processing. 80-cores would change the game in a broader sense than just hardware - it will enable new application possibilities."

Software Finds Learning Language Child’s Play [News]

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A computer program that learns to decode language sounds in a similar way to a baby could shed new light on how humans acquire the ability to talk. It casts doubt on the idea that babies are born with an innate understanding of all possible language sounds.

The debate in language acquisition is around how much specific information about language is hard-wired into the brain of the infant, and how much is something that can be explained by relatively general purpose learning systems.

Artificial Intelligence in Games [Article]

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There’s a new site on Game AI called AiGameDev.com (feed). It features daily articles in a blog-like format, including reviews, editorials, and tutorials, not forgetting regular community discussions on game AI.

Here are some interesting posts made recently.

Machine Learning in Games

Game developers are increasingly keen to try ML techniques, but it does take some know-how and experience.

Hierarchical Planning & Behavior Trees

Planners have proven themselves very effective in recent games, and hierarchical planners are the next logical step.

Conference Coverage

AiGameDev.com also has summaries of recent events, very useful for catching up with what went on…

Be sure to check out the site/blog if you’re interested in game AI!

Decision Tree [Knowledge]

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A decision tree is a technique for predicting target values from observations.

Motivation

Assume your program has data samples and needs to draw certain conclusions about each of them. This is the case when mining for information in large databases, or trying to find an appropriate behaviour for a particular situation. You can apply decision trees to this problem as long as:

  • The data samples each have attributes, either discrete or continuous values. For example, a symbol indicating if it was overcast or not, and the humidity level.
  • The predictions must also be discrete or continuous values. For example, the estimated temperature or a prediction of whether it will rain or not.

Decision trees assume that it’s possible to check the attributes of the data samples multiple times, and use this information to refine the predicted value.

Description

A decision tree is based on a hierarchical data-structure, where each branch in the tree represents a condition. This condition typically evaluates to a boolean, with true/false each corresponding to a child node. However, it’s also possible to have more than two child nodes — for example if ranges are used as conditions. The leaves in the tree store the predictions for the target value(s).

Decision Tree

A simple traversal algorithm is also necessary to traverse the tree, evaluating each decision and then selecting the appropriate sub-tree to enter. The algorithm is then applied recursively until a leaf node is reached. This process is rather efficient as very little memory is required to store a tree, and only simple conditional checks need to be evaluated while predicting.

Application

A decision tree can be used in almost any classification problem (to predict discrete symbols) or regression problem (to predict continuous values). They are particularly useful in data-mining because of their efficiency. However, such decision trees cannot solve all types of problems because of assumptions of the hierarchical model.

In practice, to apply the traversal algorithm successfully, a good decision tree is needed. This can be obtained in multiple ways:

  1. The decision tree may be edited by an expert.
  2. The decision tree can be induced from data samples.

Since expert solutions may take time to develop and tune, supervised learning is often used.

Resources

  • See papers about the decision tree in the resources section on AI Depot.

More AI Content & Format Preference Poll [Article]

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Most of my time these days is spent updating the artificial intelligence knowledge part of the website. Two brand-new overviews of AI techniques have been published recently, complete with pseudo-code and graphics:

You can subscribe to articles like these by signing up for the combined artificial intelligence feed. Be sure to let me know (using the form below) if you have a particular topic at heart so we can bump it up the list of things to write about.

On a related note, I’m exploring ways to liven up this kind of content and drag it kicking and screaming into the world of Web 2.0. I would appreciate your feedback on the subject:

What format do you prefer to complement text articles?

View Results

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Any comments are also welcome on the subject.

New Planners Solve Rescue Missions [News]

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New technology has been used to plan search and rescue operations for the American air force. The research can be seen as providing a way to combine route planning principles with principles for automatic fault finding. "My research has combined two different but complementary principles for handling complex planning problems, developed within the computer science disciplines of artificial intelligence and formal verification", explains Rune Moeller Jensen.

Several research groups have tried to combine the two principles. However, this has been shown to be difficult. Rune Moeller Jensen has, in co-operation with American colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University, developed a method called state-set-branching, in which the two principles can be combined. "We could show that these search algorithms were more efficient than previous algorithms", he says.

Neural Network Learns to Bluff at Poker [News]

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These days, the bots playing poker can't bluff convincingly. "Computers are programmed to perform the best strategy, but bluffing is based on unexpected, illogical actions," says Evan Hurwitz, a computer scientist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Now Hurwitz and Tshilidzi Marwala, also at Witwatersrand, have developed a virtual player that has taught itself to bluff at a card game called lerpa. Their artificial intelligence bot, named Aiden, is based on a neural network algorithm that usually forecasts stock market fluctuations.

Then the researchers decided to play Aiden against three other similarly trained bots to see what would happen. "They began to develop their own personalities - either aggressive or conservative - depending on their past successes,"

Mining Data for the Netflix Prize [News]

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Last October, Netflix, the online movie rental service, announced that it would award $1 million to the first person or team who can devise a system that is 10 percent more accurate than the company's current system for recommending movies that customers would like.

The contest has also generated several academic papers, Mr. Bennett said. It has turned out to be more exciting than officials expected.