Recent Examples of AI - Emergent Wiki

1. Some Recent Examples of AI

I found two interesting recent examples of AI. Here is a very timely one in which our fellow Swarthmore faired well: Search and rescue robots. (See also this article I found in Swarthmore's student paper, the other site might ask you to register.) A bunch of teams competed to develop (mostly or all automatous?) search and rescue robots. The other interesting example, if a bit more far-fetched, is an article about virtual astronauts to assist human astronauts on long trips. Seems right out of sci-fi. -- Andrew 9/2/04
I found an article about the use of a computer to take a second look at mammograms to point out to the radiologist places to double-check for cancer. They found that this program caught quite a few (20% in most studies) cancers that were missed by radiologists. Of course, it also points out things that aren't cancer - things that fall into the questionable area of abnormalities - so it'll always be important for a radiologist to make the final call, but since computers are consistent (and since "A computer never gets tired, or hungry"), they're a wonderful second opinion to aid the radiologist and direct them to re-examine potential problem spots. And they're saving lives. ~ Kathy
Last week we discussed how AI technologies were being implemented in various applications ranging from the most mundane things like solving crossword puzzles and grading essays to logistically planning the shipment of weapons and materials during the Gulf War. When I first learned that AI software was used to grade essays such as the one administered by the College Board, I found myself doubting my own beliefs. At the time, I was a senior in high school and the pressures of standardized tests were beginning to take their toll on me. An avid programmer and someone excited about technology, I found it rather ironic that the thought of computers grading a test that could potentially determine my future left me apprehensive and hesitant. During the last lecture, we also discussed how AI could be broken down: systems that think like humans, systems that act like humans, systems that think rationally and systems that act rationally. Breaking AI into these different areas provided a better understanding about what AI actually means. The example of applied AI that I chose is one that is becoming increasingly popular in movies. No, I’m not referring to the 80’s classic, Weird Science. The Lord of the Rings trilogy made exceptional use of AI software as mentioned in this article. The most awe-inspiring scenes of this trilogy were the fight scenes. The overwhelming fight scenes with hundreds of thousands of men and Orcs going into battle left every movie-goer breathless. Needless to say, this effect could not have been achieved without the help of AI. According to the article, a software development company gave each of the combatants a little bit of AI so that they could fight independently—meaning all of their moves were ‘autonomous’ and unpredictable. The idea that each of the warriors fought without the direct instruction from a director or programmer adds to the overall reality of the fight scenes. I believe Hollywood will continue to embrace the idea of AI in their movies and I think it’s safe to say that movies of this nature will become increasingly realistic over the next few years. ~ Sandeep (Sunny) Singh, 5 September 2004
I found an extension of the essay-grading systems in this article about the Turbo Recruit program. This program is used by companies for checking job applications. If an applicant's CV does not contain certain words then they are automatically sent a rejection letter, minimizing the number of interviews a company has to perform. -- Christina
Here is an article about Hearing Aids with Artificial Intelligence. This new hearing aid from Oticon, the Syncro, which costs $2,000 to $3,000, uses an algorithm to adapt to the wearer's environment by constantly adjusting its digital sound processor's signal-to-noise ratio. The software in the hearing aid aims to mimic natural hearing, in which the brain is constantly scanning for meaningful sounds and screening out noise. -- Darby
Here is an interesting article on Sony's new plan to try and create appliances that can communicate with human. Their hope is to combine artificial intelligence and robotic technology inorder to create wiser products for consumers. Sony's goal is to create a robot that can mature and learn from its environment and experiences. It will be very interesting to see Sony's results. Another interesting point in this article is from Toshitada Doi Sony's new director and president of Sony Intelligence Dynamics Laboratories Inc. who is in charge of developing this product he says "Talking about artificial intelligence--you compare humans with machines. But a machine is a machine. It will never be human." Check out the article at IN THE NEWS / Engineer breaking ground in robotics. --Audrey
Eric Brill is a researcher in the field of computational linguistics. He has designed an AI question answering system for Microsoft called Ask Microsoft Research. Also, here is the link to his technical explanation of his process for synthesizing natural language questions: From Factoid to Fact. Brill's solution uses a set of 1 million question/answer pairs taken from online FAQs to train give his AI. That data is used to tell the AI "Given this type of question, what type of response is needed." The paper gets technical, of course, but even if the implementation is complicated the reasons behind it are coherent. -Ben 9/7/04