A New And Improved Asimo

Honda's famous robot "Asimo" is growing up and learning as he goes... check out this impressive video of the little guy acquiring knowledge via sight and verbal queues. He's come a long way from simply walking about and climbing on stairs.

University Of Alberta Poker Playing AI Wins In Vegas

The University of Alberta's Polaris poker playing software took on Vegas over the July 4th weekend and won the 2nd man-machine showdown with a record of 3-2-1. Polaris played against some of the best online poker players in the world at the stoxpoker.com booth at the 2008 Gaming Life Expo in Las Vegas, July 3-6. According to ars technica "Each match consisted of 500 hands of poker. In the first of four matches, Polaris and the human players wound up in a draw. The second match ended with the human players up by $50,000. The third and fourth matches were decisive wins for Polaris—it won the two matches by ending up by nearly $150,000." Last year Polaris was bested by it's human counterparts but it seems as though the lessons learned have resulted in better game play, hmm practice does make perfect particularly if you are an AI program.

Alaska Airlines Deploys Virtual Travel Agent - Jenn

Here is a story that I have a special interest in, having developed a number of web and Instant Messenger agents over the last 7 or 8 years myself. Alaska Airlines, and as it turns out the US Army, have recently deployed virtual agents to their sites. While it does not appear as though the technology has taken great leaps forward, it is nice to see commercial deployments and apparently satisfied customers embracing the technology. In this case, developer Next IT spokesman Jeff Brown says “We built out the personality, aware that people would want to test the bounds,” and further “So if they ask questions such as ‘Are you married?’ or ‘Where did you go to school?’ she’s able to answer intelligently, and all of a sudden people’s trust in the overall knowledge goes up significantly. We’re in the business of making her very smart. Basically, besides knowledge, the virtual agent’s image has a past, a current and a future.” The NY Times article discussing Alaska Airlines deployment does not say whether or not Next IT uses proprietary software, the experience reminds me of Artificial Solutions (formerly Kiwi Logic) Interactive Chat Assistant technology. There are also offerings by Microsoft on the horizon after their acquisition of the buddyscript platform, and of course the open source Alice from the A.L.I.C.E. Artificial Intelligence Foundation and Dr. Richard Wallace.

Building a wise cracking computer

Putting his AI abilities to good use, Russian Igor Suslov, a physicist at the Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow, is trying to create a computer based program that has a sense of humor. According to the Telegraph, Suslov "thinks he sees at least the broad outline of how humour works" based on "his mathematical model, which traces our ability to experience humour to quirks in how the brain handles information". In an interview with New Scientist, Suslov says humor's "... biological function, is to make brain operations more efficient." hmmm... there has to be a joke in this somewhere!

Checkers may have fallen but poker still elusive

Polaris a poker playing computer program developed at the University of Alberta, was close but not as successful as its checkers playing colleague Chinook. Two world class poker players won 2 of the 4 matches, with Polaris taking the third and the forth declared a draw in a contest of man vs. machine. The contest held in front of the annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, was anxiously observed by 1000 attendees. Jonathan Schaeffer from the University of Alberta is one of the brains behind Polaris, he also headed the Chinook project that officially conquered checkers last week. CBC story here.

"A robot in every home by 2013"

That is the ambition of South Korea according to this very informative and interesting article appearing in today's Globe and Mail. The article is a look into the current state of robotics and the trend, of today's robot manufacturers and researchers, towards building devices that will aid an aging population. From self driving cars to companions for the elderly and robotic care givers, the possibilities are mounting and the technology is ready. It appears as though we humans are struggling more with the thought of robots caring for us than we are with actually creating the devices. Of course it seems like the lawyers are at the forefront of the debate... be careful little roomba!