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A New Zealand Company Built An AI Baby That Plays the Piano (bloomberg.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the baby-steps dept.

pacopico writes: A New Zealand company called Soul Machines has built a disturbingly lifelike virtual baby powered by artificial intelligence software. According to a Bloomberg story, the baby has learned to read books, play the piano and draw pictures. The work is built off the research of Mark Sagar, the company's CEO, who is on a quest to mimic human consciousness in a machine. Sagar used to work at Weta creating lifelike faces for films like King Kong and Avatar and is now building these very realistic looking virtual avatars and pumping them full of code that not only handles things like speech but that also replicates the nervous system and brain function. The baby, for example, has virtual dopamine receptors that fire when it feels joy from playing the piano. What could go wrong?

9 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Re:When? by Katatsumuri · · Score: 3, Informative

    It already does: http://www.techrepublic.com/ar...

    But more importantly, smart AI-powered systems reduce the need for custom code. We will not have Terminator-style humanoid robots replacing programmers in their cubicles. We will just need fewer programmers.

  2. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why are all of the "AI"s so specialized?
    One can play piano, another can drive a car, another can do speech to texr, another can identify faces, etc.

    Is this really Intelligence? Is "Artificial" just a synonym for "fake"?

    1. Re:Why? by Faluzeer · · Score: 2

      They are so specialised because we do not have Artificial General Intelligence, for that matter, I do not believe we have the more limited AI yet.

  3. The most important skill by darth.hunterix · · Score: 2

    Ok, fine, piano, books, whatever. But is this AI potty trained?

    --
    What is best in life? Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
    1. Re:The most important skill by Faluzeer · · Score: 2

      Urgh...would its output be obfuscated c or perl code ;-?

  4. Re:And she won't talk back, either... by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    You should provide a link to explain it.

    Which really makes me wonder why he chose a baby, of all "human-like" things he could have done. The UV-reaction is actually stronger in humans when babies are used. That's why evil baby-dolls are a staple of horror movies.

    What's wrong with this guy?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:And she won't talk back, either... by Faluzeer · · Score: 2

    There was a recent case over in the UK where a judge found a sex doll designed to look like a child to be an obscene item.

    BBC Link :
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-4...

  6. Re:Baby Al plays piano? by guruevi · · Score: 5, Funny

    It plays a piano, should've given it an accordion, then it would be Baby Weird AI

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  7. "What could go wrong?" by OtisSnerd · · Score: 2

    Watch the movie "Ex Machina" for some examples of what could go wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...