Daniel Rourke /stream

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It was a tense summer day in 1835 Japan. The country’s reigning Go player, Honinbo Jowa, took his seat across a board from a 25-year-old prodigy by the name of Akaboshi…

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When science fiction writers first imagined robot invasions, the idea was that bots would become smart and powerful enough to take over the world by force, whether on their own or…

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BEIJING — What worries you about the coming world of artificial intelligence? Too often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a sci-fi thriller. People worry that developments in…

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Ever since Microsoft's chatbot Tay started spouting racist commentary after 24 hours of interacting with humans on Twitter, it has been obvious that our AI creations can fall prey to human…

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Science fiction tells us that a change in a past event, caused by the intervention of a time traveler, will open up a parallel timeline that leads to an alternate present.…

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Larry Page, one of Google’s two co-founders, once said off-handedly that Google is not about building a search engine. As he said it, “Oh, we’re really making an AI”. Google right…

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There is no sign that 2017 will be much different from 2016. Under Israeli occupation for decades, Gaza will still be the biggest open prison on Earth.

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Pop culture these days is awash in tales of AI run amok, from machines that act like humans to humans in love with machines. The reason seems clear enough: We're anxious…

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One of the big trends we’ve seen over the last five years is automation. At the same time, we’re also seeing more intelligence built into tools we already have, like phones…

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The Turing Test has a serious problem: it relies too much on deception… Consider the interrogator asking questions like these: How tall are you?
 Tell me about your parents.

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Through the past few decades of summer blockbuster movies and Silicon Valley products, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly familiar and sexy, and imbued with a perversely dystopian allure.

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In 1984, the philosopher Aaron Sloman invited scholars to describe ‘the space of possible minds’. Sloman’s phrase alludes to the fact that human minds, in all their variety, are not the…

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In central London this spring, eight of the world’s greatest minds performed on a dimly lit stage in a wood-panelled theatre. An audience of hundreds watched in hushed reverence.

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ACCORDING to some prominent voices in the tech world, artificial intelligence presents a looming existential threat to humanity: Warnings by luminaries like Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom about “the singularity” —…

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By the time she started saying “Hitler was right I hate the jews,” people had started to realize that there was something wrong with Tay.

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Artificial Intelligence is starting to turn invisible from the outside in — and vice versa. The exact effects and workings of AI technologies are becoming more challenging to perceive and comprehend for…

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Slime mold—a living network of tendrils found on rotting wood and other plant debris—is easily one of the strangest things alive. Neither plant, nor fungus, it’s a collection of individual cells…

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You hear a lot these days about the potential for impending doom as AI becomes ever smarter. Indeed, big names are calling for caution: the futurist optimism of protagonists like Ray…

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The story of IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeating world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 has been told so many times that it’s practically shorthand for the philosophical debate over man…

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At Facebook’s F8 conference in Silicon Valley, David Marcus, the company’s head of messaging, proudly demonstrated its new suite of chatbots. Users can now get in a conversation with the likes…

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What makes us different from all these things? What makes us different is the particulars of our history, which gives us our notions of purpose and goals.

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Midway through the first of five recent matches between Lee Sedol, a top-ranked professional Go player, and AlphaGo, a computer program conceived by Google DeepMind, an odd thing happened: Lee’s jaw…

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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — The move didn’t make sense to the humans packed into the sixth floor of Seoul’s Four Seasons hotel. But the Google machine saw it quite differently. The…

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It was a tense summer day in 1835 Japan. The country’s reigning Go player, Honinbo Jowa, took his seat across a board from a 25-year-old prodigy by the name of Akaboshi…

Bookmark

When science fiction writers first imagined robot invasions, the idea was that bots would become smart and powerful enough to take over the world by force, whether on their own or…

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Not too long ago humanity left behind its skeuomorphic interfaces. We became accustomed to the idea of buttons to tap on screens and swipes that moved content right or left. We…

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Ever since Microsoft's chatbot Tay started spouting racist commentary after 24 hours of interacting with humans on Twitter, it has been obvious that our AI creations can fall prey to human…

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Larry Page, one of Google’s two co-founders, once said off-handedly that Google is not about building a search engine. As he said it, “Oh, we’re really making an AI”. Google right…

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BEIJING—A mysterious character named “Master” has swept through China, defeating many of the world’s top players in the ancient strategy game of Go. Master played with inhuman speed, barely pausing to…

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Pop culture these days is awash in tales of AI run amok, from machines that act like humans to humans in love with machines. The reason seems clear enough: We're anxious…

Bookmark

One of the big trends we’ve seen over the last five years is automation. At the same time, we’re also seeing more intelligence built into tools we already have, like phones…

Bookmark

The Turing Test has a serious problem: it relies too much on deception… Consider the interrogator asking questions like these: How tall are you?
 Tell me about your parents.

Bookmark

Through the past few decades of summer blockbuster movies and Silicon Valley products, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly familiar and sexy, and imbued with a perversely dystopian allure.

Bookmark

Photo by Ars Electronica / FlickrLittle Lewis, my son, I see some evidence that you have the ability to learn science, number and proportions, and I recognize your special desire to…

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In central London this spring, eight of the world’s greatest minds performed on a dimly lit stage in a wood-panelled theatre. An audience of hundreds watched in hushed reverence.

Bookmark

Defecating ducks, talking busts, and mechanised Christs — Jessica Riskin on the wonderful history of automata, machines built to mimic the processes of intelligent life.

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Artificial Intelligence is starting to turn invisible from the outside in — and vice versa. The exact effects and workings of AI technologies are becoming more challenging to perceive and comprehend for…

Bookmark

Slime mold—a living network of tendrils found on rotting wood and other plant debris—is easily one of the strangest things alive. Neither plant, nor fungus, it’s a collection of individual cells…

Bookmark

You hear a lot these days about the potential for impending doom as AI becomes ever smarter. Indeed, big names are calling for caution: the futurist optimism of protagonists like Ray…

Bookmark

The story of IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeating world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 has been told so many times that it’s practically shorthand for the philosophical debate over man…

Bookmark

Really, really racist. The thing is, this was all very much preventable. I talked to some creators of Twitter bots about @TayandYou, and the consensus was that Microsoft had fallen far…

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What makes us different from all these things? What makes us different is the particulars of our history, which gives us our notions of purpose and goals.

Bookmark

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — The move didn’t make sense to the humans packed into the sixth floor of Seoul’s Four Seasons hotel. But the Google machine saw it quite differently. The…

Bookmark

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — At first, Fan Hui thought the move was rather odd. But then he saw its beauty. “It’s not a human move. I’ve never seen a human play…