After defeating the all-time human champions of the game show, Jeopardy in 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer was scheduled for an upgrade. Wanting to give it access to a broader vocabulary, its programmers introduced the AI to the Urban Dictionary, a web-based collection of cultural phrases and slang. Unfortunately, because of […]
In writing my latest book, Future Minds: The Rise of Intelligence from the Big Bang to the End of the Universe, it was essential to properly define intelligence in an appropriate context. However, my research led me to over 200 different definitions of this nebulous word, most of which were […]
There’s something very satisfying about waking up in the morning to find you’ve been featured in a New York Times article. Writer, consultant and workplace expert, Alexandra Levit spoke with me earlier this summer about some of the ways increasingly emotionally aware technology will change our work environment. Given the […]
I haven’t been writing articles or posting for a good few months, because I’ve been head down completing my new book. Heart of the Machine is now complete and going through final edits with my publisher, Skyhorse Publishing, one of the fastest growing independent publishers in the country. Toys that […]
Since the advent of the computer age and quite possibly before, popular media has seized on the idea of a superintelligent machine and turned it into a clichéd tale of warning. Too often a monolithic mind with an ill-defined need for global destruction or domination is eventually thwarted because a […]
My new article “How Your Computer Will Read You Like A Book – And Then Sell You Stuff” is up at Fast Company’s Futurist Forum. In it, I talk about ‘affective computing‘ – systems that read, interpret and even simulate human emotion. This is going to change our relationship with […]
I’m beginning a short series at Psychology Today about the ongoing advances being made in machine intelligence. I’d originally thought about using “The Ascent of Machine” for the series title — after Jacob Bronowski’s wonderful work, “The Ascent of Man”, which I found so inspiring when it first came out. […]
Earlier this week, Charles Stross posted his thoughts on why he doesn’t think the Technological Singularity will happen. If you’re not familiar with the concept, the Technological Singularity is defined as that point in the future when a self-improving artificial general intelligence (AGI) achieves superintelligence. As Stross recommends, if you’re […]
On January 13, 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer competed in a practice round of Jeopardy, the long-running trivia quiz show. Playing against the program’s two most successful champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, Watson won the preliminary match. Is this all a big publicity stunt? Of course it is. But it […]
A number of recent stories illustrate the rapid progress that’s being made in many different fields linked to artificial intelligence: Europe’s four-year AMARSi project (Adaptive Modular Architecture for Rich Motor Skills) could lead to humanoid robots that quickly acquire skills from human co-workers as well as their environments. AMARSi project […]