My experience with StarCraft was probably the stupidest possible: I really liked the books. Sure, I played the games, but mostly I played single-player because I was not very good, and enjoyed the story. But for some reason, it was Sarah Kerrigan’s tale told through the novelization that resonated with me the most.
In recent weeks, a story about experimental Facebook machine learning research has been circulating with increasingly panicky, Skynet-esque headlines.
Researchers at MIT have developed deep-learning algorithm that can compile a list of ingredients and even recommend recipes after looking at photos of food. The artificially intelligent system still needs some fine tuning, but this tool could eventually help us learn to cook, count calories, and track our eating…
On Thursday, researchers at Stanford University introduced the latest thing in AI diagnostics: an algorithm that can sift through hours of heart rhythm data gathered by wearable monitors to determine whether a patient has an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia. The algorithm, the researchers say, is not only as good as…
Researchers in the UK used machine learning algorithms to analyze 1.6 million tweets in London during the infamous 2011 riots, which resulted in widespread looting, property destruction and over 3,000 arrests. According to the researchers, analyzing Twitter data to map out where violence occurred in London boroughs…
Shimon—a four-armed marimba playing robot—has been around for years, but its developers at Georgia Tech have recently taken this futuristic musical machine to the next level. Using deep learning, the robot can now study large datasets from well-known musicians, and then produce and perform its own original…
Most people know the “I’m not a robot” single-click version of CAPTCHA which is able to identify that a user is human by the way that they move their mouse. Researchers have now found a way to apply that principle to catching identity thieves in the act.
With each passing breakthrough in artificial intelligence, we’re asking our machines to make increasingly complex and weighty decisions. Trouble is, AIs are starting to act beyond our levels of comprehension. In high frequency stock trading, for example, this had led to so-called flash crashes, in which algorithms…
Google always uses its annual I/O developer conference as a place to trot out some of its biggest and most exciting product updates. You’d be forgiven for feeling like this year was kind of a dud. There were no new gadgets, no new moonshot projects, and not even cool new swag like Google Cardboard headsets. The…
Humans aren’t nearly as creative as we think. Craft brewers, for example, have run out of fun names and are sending each other cease and desist letters for coming up with the same ideas. So, what if we let computers come up with new names for us?
In an important advance that takes us one step closer to the inevitable robopocalypse, MIT researchers have developed a system that teaches robots how to acquire new skills—and then teach those skills to different types of robots.
Over the past few weeks, Facebook and Instagram feeds have been flooded with creepily realistic facial transformations produced by “FaceApp,” a free app for iOS and Android whose filters add smiles to photos, alter faces to make them older or younger, and even make them “male” or “female.” The app’s startling…
Like an athlete trying to push their body to its extreme limits, artist Damien Henry was curious what would happen if you asked a predictive algorithm to calculate the next frame of video in a sequence, again and again and again, over 100,000 times.
Human character animation has gotten much better over the years, but it’s still one of the most recognizable issues when enjoying video games. Animations are normally a predetermined set of canned motions, and while real enough looking in the right setting, can totally break the immersive experience when they stray…
A well-photographed headshot can help make or break an actor or model’s career, which is why performers will often spends thousands of dollars to hire a talented photographer. Your selfies, on the other hand, look like they were snapped in the back of a taxi at two in the morning. Luckily, Adobe says it can help you…
It’s all but certain that human workers in factories and fulfillment centers are a dying breed. The last nail in their coffin might be a new robotic arm from a company called RightHand Robotics that’s not only able to teach itself how to pick up objects it’s never handled before, but it can also share what it learns…
CAPTCHA’s are an irritating but necessary evil. The system that is used to verify whether or not a user is human has been around a while and it had to evolve because machines were getting better at reading the text than humans. With its latest iteration, Google says you’ll no longer have to input anything at all.
If you’re a miserable drawer, have no fear—a new website takes your doodles and, using a machine learning algorithm, turns them into cats. Or nightmares.
When an app claims to be powered by “artificial intelligence” it feels like you’re in the future. What does that really mean, though? We’re taking a look at what buzzwords like AI, machine learning, and neural networks really mean and whether they actually help improve your apps.
The idea behind Google Experiments’ Quick, Draw! is to teach a neural network to recognize everyday objects based on the rushed scribbles of flawed humans. If it can figure out what I’m drawing, it can do anything.
