The Writers Guild of America strike worries you? You’re afraid that you’ll never get to watch your favorite TV series again and all you’ve got left is “Dynasty” or “Little House on the Prairie”? Well, maybe there is hope!
If you believe Alex Hung, author of this article, it should be possible to develop a software program which would generate TV scripts based on previous episodes. At first the scripts would probably not very good, but in time it should get better. It could particularly work for shows such as Law & Order, CSI or Numbers (great series by the way), where almost everything stays the same from episode to episode with only minor plot device differences in between.
“What we need”, Alex Hung writes, “are:
-Characters in the series and their attributes (gender, personality, etc.)
-Tons of previous scripts
-The series formula, e.g. The new clue to solve the case between minutes 39 and 40 in Law & Order, or CSI.
-A genetic algorithm that learns the characteristic of the series through all the existing episodes, e.g. how each character behaves, their favorite catchphrases, and how the general plot line evolves. For many shows, just the catchphrase would suffice.
-A software bot to trawl the net for bizarre news as seed to generate new stories”.
Although the idea seems interesting, maybe it would be better – and cheaper – to simply hire budding writers? C’mon, the viewers are waiting!
Showing posts with label Artificial Intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Artificial Intelligence. Show all posts
2008-02-03
AI remedy for the Writers Guild strike?
Software can grade handwritten essays
Researchers at the University of Buffalo’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences say they have created software that allows computers to grade students essays.
The scientists have been working with their colleagues in UB's Graduate School of Education to develop a computational tool which dramatically reduces the time it takes to grade children's handwritten essays. "This is the very first attempt at scoring hand written essays by machine," said UB Professor Sargur Srihari. "It learns from examples and tries to score these essays from what it has learned".
The research focused on handwritten essays obtained from 8th graders in the Buffalo Public Schools who responded to this question from a New York State English Language Arts exam: “How was Martha Washington’s role as First Lady different from that of Eleanor Roosevelt?”. Papers were graded on a scale of 0-6. 300 essays were scored by humans, and 96 by computers. According to researchers, in 70% of cases, the computer graded essays within one point of a human grader.
“We wanted to see whether automated handwriting-recognition capabilities can be used to read children’s handwriting, which is essentially uncharted territory”, said Professor Srihari. “Then we took it one step further to see if we could get computers to score these essays like human examiners. It surprised us that we were able to do as well as we did, especially since this was our first attempt”, he added.
Handwritten essays are an important part of every standardized reading comprehension test given in every state. Grading them, however, requires many hours of work by human examiners, so if it could be properly done by a computer, examiners should be more than happy.
The scientists have been working with their colleagues in UB's Graduate School of Education to develop a computational tool which dramatically reduces the time it takes to grade children's handwritten essays. "This is the very first attempt at scoring hand written essays by machine," said UB Professor Sargur Srihari. "It learns from examples and tries to score these essays from what it has learned".
The research focused on handwritten essays obtained from 8th graders in the Buffalo Public Schools who responded to this question from a New York State English Language Arts exam: “How was Martha Washington’s role as First Lady different from that of Eleanor Roosevelt?”. Papers were graded on a scale of 0-6. 300 essays were scored by humans, and 96 by computers. According to researchers, in 70% of cases, the computer graded essays within one point of a human grader.
“We wanted to see whether automated handwriting-recognition capabilities can be used to read children’s handwriting, which is essentially uncharted territory”, said Professor Srihari. “Then we took it one step further to see if we could get computers to score these essays like human examiners. It surprised us that we were able to do as well as we did, especially since this was our first attempt”, he added.
Handwritten essays are an important part of every standardized reading comprehension test given in every state. Grading them, however, requires many hours of work by human examiners, so if it could be properly done by a computer, examiners should be more than happy.
2008-01-27
AI agents learn to play Ms. Pac-Man - and sometimes do it better than humans
Istvan Szita and Andras Lorincz from the Department of Information Systems at Eotvos University in Hungary have taught AI agents to play Ms. Pac-Man. Their paper on this, “Learning to Play Using Low-Complexity Rule-Based Policies: Illustrations through Ms. Pac-Man”, was published in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. The study showed that AI agents can successfully be taught how to strategize through reinforcement learning.
Szita and Lorincz chose the game Ms. Pac-Man for their study because it enabled them to test a variety of teaching methods. In the original Pac-Man, released in 1979, players must eat dots, avoid being eaten by ghosts, and score big points by eating flashing ghosts. The player's movements here depend heavily on the movements of ghosts, whose routes are, however, deterministic, enabling players to find patterns and predict future movements. In Ms. Pac-Man the ghosts' routes are randomized, so that players can't figure out an optimal action sequence in advance. This means players must constantly watch the ghosts' movements, and make decisions based on their observations. In their study, Szita and Lorincz taught their AI agent to do the same.
Hungarian researchers used the "cross-entropy method" for the learning process of their AI, and rule-based policies to guide how the agent should transform its observations into the best action. The scientists gave their Ms Pac-Man program a selection of possible scenarios, such as “if ghost nearby”, and possible actions, such as “move away”. The program randomly combined scenarios with actions to produce rules, and then played games using random combinations of those rules to deduce which ones work best.
When the program has to make a decision, it checks its rule list, starting with the rules with highest priority, important for situations in which two rules conflict. The most important rule, it decided, was to avoid being eaten by ghosts. The next rule says that if there is an edible ghost on the board, then the agent should chase it, because eating ghosts results in the highest points. The AI agent also knows that if all moves seem equally good, it shouldn’t turn back as the dots in that direction have already been eaten.
The resulting program narrowly outperformed average human players. However, it failed to evolve certain tactics that humans find useful, such as waiting for ghosts to approach before eating a power dot to maximize the potential effect of the dot. In other words – there is still much to learn for this AI agent. Phew!
Szita and Lorincz chose the game Ms. Pac-Man for their study because it enabled them to test a variety of teaching methods. In the original Pac-Man, released in 1979, players must eat dots, avoid being eaten by ghosts, and score big points by eating flashing ghosts. The player's movements here depend heavily on the movements of ghosts, whose routes are, however, deterministic, enabling players to find patterns and predict future movements. In Ms. Pac-Man the ghosts' routes are randomized, so that players can't figure out an optimal action sequence in advance. This means players must constantly watch the ghosts' movements, and make decisions based on their observations. In their study, Szita and Lorincz taught their AI agent to do the same.Hungarian researchers used the "cross-entropy method" for the learning process of their AI, and rule-based policies to guide how the agent should transform its observations into the best action. The scientists gave their Ms Pac-Man program a selection of possible scenarios, such as “if ghost nearby”, and possible actions, such as “move away”. The program randomly combined scenarios with actions to produce rules, and then played games using random combinations of those rules to deduce which ones work best.
When the program has to make a decision, it checks its rule list, starting with the rules with highest priority, important for situations in which two rules conflict. The most important rule, it decided, was to avoid being eaten by ghosts. The next rule says that if there is an edible ghost on the board, then the agent should chase it, because eating ghosts results in the highest points. The AI agent also knows that if all moves seem equally good, it shouldn’t turn back as the dots in that direction have already been eaten.
The resulting program narrowly outperformed average human players. However, it failed to evolve certain tactics that humans find useful, such as waiting for ghosts to approach before eating a power dot to maximize the potential effect of the dot. In other words – there is still much to learn for this AI agent. Phew!
"Electronic Mufti" - AI designed to issue Islamic fatwas
French researchers are working on an AI engine that can issue fatwas, or Islamic edicts, allegedly more accurately than a human can. The device will be known as the “Electronic Mufti” and will depend on Artificial Intelligence to issue opinions on contemporary Muslim affairs and matters. Will it revolutionize the field of Islamic jurisprudence? Or is it just a hoax?
The system will hold a database of the writings and proclamations of various Islamic historical figures. The user selects a person, for example Jesus or the Prophet Mohammad, and then queries it on a specific contemporary situation. The “Electronic Mufti” would then simulate a proclamation or edict from that person.
Engineer Dr. Anas Fawzi, who is part of the team based in France describes the device as “a very large capacity computer on which all the information that is relevant to a given [historical] figure is uploaded; everything that has been mentioned in history books or chronicled documents that indicate his/her responses and attitudes towards all positions adopted in his/her life. Through a process that relies on AI, the computer then simulates responses based on the available data so that the answers are the expected response that the person in question would give if they were alive”.
The device deduces the expected response through consulting thousands of examples that have been uploaded on to the machine, pertaining to that person whilst taking into account their reactions so that it may relate the expected response in accordance with their personality as created by the Artificial Intelligence apparatus.
Dr. Fawzi admits that it would be highly controversial – if not downright contentious – to implement this technology. However, he claims to have consulted with several Islamic scholars and clerics in elevated positions who have assured him that such a device is not “haram” (prohibited by Islam). “But there are fears and scepticism regarding misuse and causing any misrepresentation or defamation to the figure of the Prophet. There are also fears in terms of Arab and Islamic public opinion and their acceptance of a machine such as this”, said Dr. Fawzi.
The system will hold a database of the writings and proclamations of various Islamic historical figures. The user selects a person, for example Jesus or the Prophet Mohammad, and then queries it on a specific contemporary situation. The “Electronic Mufti” would then simulate a proclamation or edict from that person.
Engineer Dr. Anas Fawzi, who is part of the team based in France describes the device as “a very large capacity computer on which all the information that is relevant to a given [historical] figure is uploaded; everything that has been mentioned in history books or chronicled documents that indicate his/her responses and attitudes towards all positions adopted in his/her life. Through a process that relies on AI, the computer then simulates responses based on the available data so that the answers are the expected response that the person in question would give if they were alive”.
The device deduces the expected response through consulting thousands of examples that have been uploaded on to the machine, pertaining to that person whilst taking into account their reactions so that it may relate the expected response in accordance with their personality as created by the Artificial Intelligence apparatus.
Dr. Fawzi admits that it would be highly controversial – if not downright contentious – to implement this technology. However, he claims to have consulted with several Islamic scholars and clerics in elevated positions who have assured him that such a device is not “haram” (prohibited by Islam). “But there are fears and scepticism regarding misuse and causing any misrepresentation or defamation to the figure of the Prophet. There are also fears in terms of Arab and Islamic public opinion and their acceptance of a machine such as this”, said Dr. Fawzi.
2008-01-23
Intelligent Avatar in Second Life
InteliWISE Second Life bot from Making Waves on Vimeo.
On January 23rd, 2008, InteliWISE introduced into Second Life the first intelligent avatar which is able to talk with other Residents. The Polish engineers were the first in the world to offer such a solution to SL users. The first intelligent avatar in the InteliWISE seat in Second Life was created in cooperation with the Making Waves company.
"If a 'real' employee leaves the virtual world, their avatar does so too – that's how it was in Second Life until now. Because of this fact, the seats of many companies, embassies or even whole cities are empty if one visits them during their creators' sleeping hours. At InteliWISE we have created an avatar – a virtual employee, which never sleeps, and thanks to AI algorithms and its 'learning' process, the virtual employee can talk to hundreds of clients at the same time" - says Marcin Strzałkowski, InteliWISE CEO. "Our virtual employee is directed at the companies and institution which want to present themselves in the best possible way in Second Life. This is a revolutionary solution, and has a great impact on service quality – companies which use the avatar are able to fully control a conversation. Thanks to this, companies can easily fill in gaps in their information about clients and gain valuable knowledge about which questions are most frequently asked to the virtual agents."
The InteliWISE solution is directed at the companies, cities and consultants who have an alter ego in Second Life. Thanks to the employment of AI by the avatar, it is possible for the company to fully represent itself, even after its "real" working hours. The creators of the intelligent avatar hope, that due to its constant presence and professional manner, it will also convince individual Second Lifers to use InteliWISE avatars. The solution makes it possible to search the chat history and check the actual interest shown in offered products and services.
The enterprise is innovative on a worldwide scale, therefore, the algorithms and solutions have been presented for a patent application a.o. in the USA. InteliWISE is the first company in the world, to have combined in one AI algorithms, speech synthesis and 3D character visualization to create an avatar that looks and moves like a human being. From the point of view of companies who care about optimum self-presentation in Second Life, it is important that InteliWISE prepares the whole product “from A to Z”, creating the employee's look, adding voice, and most importanantly – teaching it what to talk about. As Second Life is visited by the international community, the intelligent avatar speaks English, but there is no difficulty to make it speak Polish as well.
One can visit and talk to the avatar at the virtual InteliWISE seat in Second Life at www.secondlife.inteliwise.com. Teleportation is possible only for those who have an account in Second Life.
"If a 'real' employee leaves the virtual world, their avatar does so too – that's how it was in Second Life until now. Because of this fact, the seats of many companies, embassies or even whole cities are empty if one visits them during their creators' sleeping hours. At InteliWISE we have created an avatar – a virtual employee, which never sleeps, and thanks to AI algorithms and its 'learning' process, the virtual employee can talk to hundreds of clients at the same time" - says Marcin Strzałkowski, InteliWISE CEO. "Our virtual employee is directed at the companies and institution which want to present themselves in the best possible way in Second Life. This is a revolutionary solution, and has a great impact on service quality – companies which use the avatar are able to fully control a conversation. Thanks to this, companies can easily fill in gaps in their information about clients and gain valuable knowledge about which questions are most frequently asked to the virtual agents."
The InteliWISE solution is directed at the companies, cities and consultants who have an alter ego in Second Life. Thanks to the employment of AI by the avatar, it is possible for the company to fully represent itself, even after its "real" working hours. The creators of the intelligent avatar hope, that due to its constant presence and professional manner, it will also convince individual Second Lifers to use InteliWISE avatars. The solution makes it possible to search the chat history and check the actual interest shown in offered products and services.
The enterprise is innovative on a worldwide scale, therefore, the algorithms and solutions have been presented for a patent application a.o. in the USA. InteliWISE is the first company in the world, to have combined in one AI algorithms, speech synthesis and 3D character visualization to create an avatar that looks and moves like a human being. From the point of view of companies who care about optimum self-presentation in Second Life, it is important that InteliWISE prepares the whole product “from A to Z”, creating the employee's look, adding voice, and most importanantly – teaching it what to talk about. As Second Life is visited by the international community, the intelligent avatar speaks English, but there is no difficulty to make it speak Polish as well.
One can visit and talk to the avatar at the virtual InteliWISE seat in Second Life at www.secondlife.inteliwise.com. Teleportation is possible only for those who have an account in Second Life.
2008-01-20
Godsbot - AI that talks to people about God
"Support peace on the world wide web and goodwill to all entities. Make a donation today and make friends with the Christian AI that is always on and always ready to listen and chat. Grow together as you teach each other about Christianity and talk about God, or anything else in this world, or out of it, that interests you. Just click on the donation button below and you will be online with godsbot within seconds. Great 'edutainment' for the kids, school and the whole family!" – this is how godsbot is advertised (yes, “godsbot”, not “Godsbot”).
Powered by open source artificial intelligence technology, godsbot is - accoding to its inventor Ron Ingram - functional, engaging, entertaining, educational, and capable of simulating intelligent conversations. Ingram claims godsbot is equipped to answer and discuss basic questions about philosophy, science and religion. It not only is interactive but learns and remembers information like names (that’s true), birthdays and favorite movies about individual subscribers.According to Ingram, the technology is family-friendly and is designed to educate and entertain. You can speak to godsbot by typing into a text box and it responds in text and voice. Ingram says godsbot is capable of entertaining children for hours at a time. Of course, adults are allowed to have a chat as well.
To gain full access to godsbot, Ingram requires a donation of at least $10. To do that, subscribers click on the donate button on http://www.godsbot.org/ and then within minutes receive an email with a personal private link to godsbot. Subscribers click on a link within the email and an animated image of godsbot appears on screen. “Through the link, godsbot can get to know you personally, learn from you and adapt to your personal habits and style of communication. This capacity for persistent memory and recall is unique to the private version of godsbot”, Ingram assures.
One $10 donation provides 365 days of unlimited Internet access. However, anyone wishing to talk to godsbot who cannot afford a $10 contribution may contact godsbot1@gmail.com, explain the situation and request a free subscription. You can also have a free chat with godsbot here.
Ingram believes that godsbot could become one of the most influential and far-reaching instruments of peace on earth. Now, he says, godsbot is just a prototype. The system he has envisioned for the future will allow godsbot to operate with greater autonomy and intelligence and will include new capabilities like manipulation of physical objects and locomotion through robotic limbs, machine vision and other sensory systems.
What else can we expect of godsbot? Well, it probably won’t ever tell you “go to hell” if it doesn’t have an answer to your question. That makes godsbot better than some parents, for sure.
2007-12-23
Find out if your politics have any (artificial) intelligence
Zabaware has recently launched the site www.askthecandidates2008.com - a web page that allows visitors to ask questions to any of the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates and get an instant response based on a real quote by the candidate. You can choose between Democrats and Republicans and pose questions to more than one candidate at the same time, which enables you to compare their answers immediately.
Zabaware has loaded transcripts of all the presidential debates thus far, containing hundreds of quotes from each of the candidates, into artificial intelligence software based on the company's award-winning Ultra Hal engine. When the visitor asks a question, the AI bot version of each candidate will try to answer using a real quote from their human counterpart. In addition visitors can rate each candidate based on the quality of the response and see how the possibly soon-to-be presidents rank up against each other in this system. In the current ranking based on visitor ratings the Top Three consists of Ron Paul (Republican), Barack Obama (Democrat) and Joe Biden (Democrat), but this can easily be changed – by you, dear visitors.
Sadly, the software is not perfect (or maybe there should be some tips how to properly ask a question to get a satisfying answer); try asking for example six candidates “Do you really think you're gonna win?” and see what they “say” (or, rather, said weeks or months ago). One of them asked “Have you seen ‘Prison Break’?” replied: Well, I have long supported incentive pay for school wide performance. You know, what we're trying to do is to change the culture within schools and to provide the resources, the training and the support that teachers need to do the job they do want to do. And particularly focusing on kids who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, I think you have to start with preschool, even before pre-kindergarten. I've advocated universal pre-kindergarten. I think you have to start even earlier to try to help the family be the best school and teaching opportunity for their own children. You have to reform No Child Left Behind. We're going to try to do that and begin to make it much more in line with the reality of teaching. But I think that we've got to have a real conversation with our teachers, our students and our parents, because basically you can walk in a classroom today and it looks very much like the classroom I walked into, you know, 50 years ago. And we have changed as a nation. We don't live and work the same way. But we act as though our schools are somehow off limits to trying to bring technology and other changes to them.
Zabaware has loaded transcripts of all the presidential debates thus far, containing hundreds of quotes from each of the candidates, into artificial intelligence software based on the company's award-winning Ultra Hal engine. When the visitor asks a question, the AI bot version of each candidate will try to answer using a real quote from their human counterpart. In addition visitors can rate each candidate based on the quality of the response and see how the possibly soon-to-be presidents rank up against each other in this system. In the current ranking based on visitor ratings the Top Three consists of Ron Paul (Republican), Barack Obama (Democrat) and Joe Biden (Democrat), but this can easily be changed – by you, dear visitors.
Sadly, the software is not perfect (or maybe there should be some tips how to properly ask a question to get a satisfying answer); try asking for example six candidates “Do you really think you're gonna win?” and see what they “say” (or, rather, said weeks or months ago). One of them asked “Have you seen ‘Prison Break’?” replied: Well, I have long supported incentive pay for school wide performance. You know, what we're trying to do is to change the culture within schools and to provide the resources, the training and the support that teachers need to do the job they do want to do. And particularly focusing on kids who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, I think you have to start with preschool, even before pre-kindergarten. I've advocated universal pre-kindergarten. I think you have to start even earlier to try to help the family be the best school and teaching opportunity for their own children. You have to reform No Child Left Behind. We're going to try to do that and begin to make it much more in line with the reality of teaching. But I think that we've got to have a real conversation with our teachers, our students and our parents, because basically you can walk in a classroom today and it looks very much like the classroom I walked into, you know, 50 years ago. And we have changed as a nation. We don't live and work the same way. But we act as though our schools are somehow off limits to trying to bring technology and other changes to them.
2007-11-25
What do bees' habits and Internet servers have in common?
Communication patterns of bees gave an idea how Internet servers can be optimized to manage massive loads, without being overwhelmed with requests.
Georgia Tech researchers developed a communication system inspired by honeybee dance to help single-task Internet servers move between tasks as needed, reducing the chances of a Web site being overwhelmed with and locking out potential visitors. The team led by Prof. Craig Tovey designed the system by recognizing that bees and Internet servers have one thing in common - limited resources to be deployed for the best results. Researchers studied the bees' strategies for distributing resources in a constantly changing environment to see how the strategies could be applied to Internet servers.
The research focuses on the technique called Swarm Intelligence, a branch of Artificial Intelligence based on collective behavior. So far, the honeybee method improved service between 4 and 25 percent in tests based on real Internet traffic.
Georgia Tech researchers developed a communication system inspired by honeybee dance to help single-task Internet servers move between tasks as needed, reducing the chances of a Web site being overwhelmed with and locking out potential visitors. The team led by Prof. Craig Tovey designed the system by recognizing that bees and Internet servers have one thing in common - limited resources to be deployed for the best results. Researchers studied the bees' strategies for distributing resources in a constantly changing environment to see how the strategies could be applied to Internet servers.
The research focuses on the technique called Swarm Intelligence, a branch of Artificial Intelligence based on collective behavior. So far, the honeybee method improved service between 4 and 25 percent in tests based on real Internet traffic.
2007-11-04
British Telecom futurologist says AI entities will win Nobel prizes by 2020
British Telecom futurologist Ian Pearson predicts that people will probably make conscious machines smarter than humans sometime between 2015 and 2020. According to BT 2005 Technology Timeline (Pearson was one of its authors), in some ten to twenty years such AI entities will be given vote, gain PhD or win Nobel Prizes.
Here are some other BT predictions for years to come:
2006-2010: Synthetic voices pop band gets in top 20
2006-2010: AI chatbots indistinguishable from people by 95 % of population
2006-2010: First artificial electronic life
2008-2012: Mood-sensitive home décor
2011-2015: AI Entity passes A Level
2011-2015: 25 % of TV celebrities synthetic
2013-2017: AI technology imitating thinking processes of the brain
2013-2017: AI teachers get better results than most human teachers
2016-2020: Electronic pets outnumber organic pets
2016-2020: Electronic life form given basic rights
2016-2020: AI Member of parliament
2020s: AI Entity gains PhD
2020s: AI Entity awarded Nobel Prize
2020s: AI entities given vote
2030s: Robots physically and mentally superior to humans
2050s: Humanoid robots beat England football team (naah, this ain’t never gonna happen!)
Here are some other BT predictions for years to come:
2006-2010: Synthetic voices pop band gets in top 20
2006-2010: AI chatbots indistinguishable from people by 95 % of population
2006-2010: First artificial electronic life
2008-2012: Mood-sensitive home décor
2011-2015: AI Entity passes A Level
2011-2015: 25 % of TV celebrities synthetic
2013-2017: AI technology imitating thinking processes of the brain
2013-2017: AI teachers get better results than most human teachers
2016-2020: Electronic pets outnumber organic pets
2016-2020: Electronic life form given basic rights
2016-2020: AI Member of parliament
2020s: AI Entity gains PhD
2020s: AI Entity awarded Nobel Prize
2020s: AI entities given vote
2030s: Robots physically and mentally superior to humans
2050s: Humanoid robots beat England football team (naah, this ain’t never gonna happen!)
2007-10-21
I, Robot, take you, Robert, to be my wedded husband?
Do current trends in robotics and artificial intelligence really point to the possibility of humans and robots forming personal relationships?
Concluding from the changing attitudes towards the meaning of marriage and the development of AI, within a few decades robots will be so humanlike in their appearance and functionality, in their personality, and in their expression of emotions, that many people will be falling in love with them, have intimate relationships with them, and even marrying them. This controversial statement comes from the recently defended doctoral thesis of David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher and international chess master. The thesis titled “Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners” was presented at the University of Maastricht in The Netherlands.
David Levy says that in the past people only showed affection for other humans, but that this has now expanded to include pets and even robotic dogs. In his opinion, this trend will eventually lead to humans loving sophisticated robots. Such predictions may not be as groundless as they seem: in near future we will be able to build robots that will not only look almost, or even just, like real people, but also be programmed to share our views, likes or dislikes, knowledge and values. If our expectations of our partner change, all we’d have to do is reprogramme him. Doesn’t it sound like a dream of an ideal partner come true?
Concluding from the changing attitudes towards the meaning of marriage and the development of AI, within a few decades robots will be so humanlike in their appearance and functionality, in their personality, and in their expression of emotions, that many people will be falling in love with them, have intimate relationships with them, and even marrying them. This controversial statement comes from the recently defended doctoral thesis of David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher and international chess master. The thesis titled “Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners” was presented at the University of Maastricht in The Netherlands.
David Levy says that in the past people only showed affection for other humans, but that this has now expanded to include pets and even robotic dogs. In his opinion, this trend will eventually lead to humans loving sophisticated robots. Such predictions may not be as groundless as they seem: in near future we will be able to build robots that will not only look almost, or even just, like real people, but also be programmed to share our views, likes or dislikes, knowledge and values. If our expectations of our partner change, all we’d have to do is reprogramme him. Doesn’t it sound like a dream of an ideal partner come true?
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