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Robot Balloon Escapes In Britain
tjake writes "Theres an interesting story running about a intelligent robot balloon that escaped its handlers while being transported around the Magna Science Adventure Centre. "The flyborg has a computerised brain which allows it to avoid obstacles. " It was freed by "a very strong freak gust of wind which ripped the airship out of the hands of its handlers". I'm thinkin, is this a random mistake or the start of the attack?"
Well that's an interesting point of view. I guess voice recognition software and translation software don't exist, to name a couple of prevalent (if imperfect) examples. Or were they around in the 40s?
AI has come a long way. For instance, expert systems have become useful tools in many fields. Machine learning techniques have been used to improve elevator control algorithms. In fact, just the other day, there was a story on /. in which people were arguing that AI that takes video as input and uses that to track cars, people, etc. is not far away.
There's an interesting quote at the end of a Wired article in which Marvin Minsky (one of the early AI giants) argues that AI hasn't improved since the 70s (though I think he's defining AI as a very narrow problem):
(Prof. Pollack is a professor of AI at the University of Michigan. FULL DISCLOSURE: I (sometimes) work for Prof. Pollack).
I think you're running into that trap. AI has come a long way. Sure, some problems have had relatively little progress (e.g. an AI that is a "total person" or at least one that passes the Turing test), but researchers in various areas--planning, learning, etc. have made great strides.
Matt
Um, excuse me... are you fucking stupid?
N2O is not nitrous dioxide.
Get off the God damned short bus and into the oven, you cock mongering chode loader.