DailyDirt: No 9000 Computer Has Ever Made A Mistake Or Distorted Information...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The "Singularity" describes a future when technology obtains superhuman intelligence -- and when people won't be able to outwit their technological creations. So far, humans have lost to computers playing chess and Jeopardy! (and a few other games) -- but machines aren't our overlords just yet. Here are a few more datapoints pointing to better and better artificial intelligence.

• Artificial intelligence projects are slowly encroaching into the fields of science.. and law. We'll have to automate the creation of bad lawyer jokes to keep up. [url]
• Ray Kurzweil predicts automated language translations that are as good as human translations by the year 2029 I predict there will be exponential growth of hilariously bad translated text in 2030. [url]
• Workplace robots could be more helpful if they just had better machine vision. Industrial robots could expand beyond repetitive tasks if they could see and recognize changes. [url]
• Maybe we can distract our future computerized masters by pitting them against each other (playing Ms Pac-Man?). The only winning move is not to play... [url]
• To discover more interesting robot-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  
By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: artificial intelligence, kurzweil, pac-man, singularity, translations

DailyDirt: Gaming Can Hurt For Real

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Usually video games are played to escape from reality. The distraction from real life is supposed to be entertaining and fun. But every so often there are stories of folks who take their games a bit too far and end up getting hurt physically. Video games are getting more and more realistic all the time -- but that doesn't seem to matter that much. Here are a few game-related stories for your amusement:

Nintendo says 3D games could be bad for the development of young kids' eyes. These warnings, though, are probably only going to attract more kids to play "dangerous" 3D games. [url]

A 23-year-old man tries to play Frogger on an actual 4-lane highway -- and gets hit by an SUV. The awesome 2D graphics of Frogger must be at least partially to blame. [url]

L.A. Noire is a realistic-looking video game that has collected a lot of facial expressions. Players are supposed to be able to tell when video game characters are lying, but I wouldn't play poker with this technology just yet. [url]

Understanding Pac-Man's algorithms might help you master the game. Maybe someone will write a program that can play Pac-Man perfectly -- that program might figure out, though, that the best strategy is not to play. [url]

Filed Under: frogger, l.a. noire, pac-man, video games
Companies: nintendo

E-Voting Machine Easily Reprogrammed To Play Pac-Man

from the wokka-the-vote dept

Tim Lee points us to Alex Halderman and Ariel Feldman's latest demonstration of the hackability of e-voting machines: they reprogrammed a Sequoia machine that was used in the 2008 elections to play Pac-Man: The really important point is that they did this in three afternoons (and remember, these machines are often left totally unguarded, in the open at polling places for days before elections) without breaking any of the "tamper-resistant" seals that are supposed to alert anyone to any foul play. As Halderman noted:

We could have reprogrammed it to steal votes, but that's been done before, and Pac-Man is more fun!

So now my only question is whether or not they get a cease and desist from NAMCO.

Filed Under: e-voting, pac-man, security
Companies: sequoia