%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fredirect.viglink.com%2F%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.slate.com%252Farticles%252Ftechnology%252Ffuture_tense%252F2016%252F07%252Fthe_difference_between_robot_generated_art_and_human_generated_art_is_that.html%26key%3Dddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 r0B0t: There's a Clear Difference Between Robot-Generated and Human-Generated Art
Accomplishments in artificial intelligence often suffer from the problem of moving goalposts: As soon as a machine or algorithm can accomplish something that has traditionally been the province of humans, we generally dismiss it. To replicate something with a machine is to show that it has always been mechanical, we just had the wrong machines. One aspect of human behavior that has reliably eluded mechanical reproduction is the creation of art. In the wonderful Spike Jonze movie Her, we are presented with a future in which A.I. is so advanced that it can produce an operating system that its hero falls in love with, but even that level of technological achievement is not enough to mechanize his job as a writer of romantic correspondence. Or as summarized more or less by many a person: “Sure, a computer can win at Go. But it could never write a poem or compose music that would make you weep!”
Well, we have some potentially disturbing news for those of you hanging your hats on those kinds of declarations. Google recently announced that their Magenta project, which makes use of new hot advances in machine learning called “deep neural nets,” has created a 90-second melody based on the input of four notes. (No word on whether it has made anyone cry, though.) A small competition we ran several weeks ago at Dartmouth College, the Turing Tests in Creative Arts, shows just how close we are to making robots who can make art. Our goal was to challenge the A.I.interested world to come up with software that could create either sonnets, short stories, or dance music that would be indistinguishable to a human audience from the same kinds of artistic output generated by humans. While we didn't get many submissions, those that did come in were very thoughtful, especially in the case of sonnets and dance music.
The dance music portion compared algorithmic DJ-ing to human DJ-ing. The human DJs were hidden from sight as students listened and danced. After each set, the dancers were asked to guess human or machine; two entries were statistically indistinguishable from the human DJs. This is interesting but perhaps not surprising. All of us, especially those who are college-age, have been listening (perhaps primarily) to computationally inflected and composed music for a long time. This artistic form is one that has already blended into computer-based production; our perception of the nature, and production, and attribution of art and culture evolves with acculturation.
In the case of the literary challenges, a panel of judges each reviewed a collection of sonnets or short stories and were asked to pick out those that were generated by a machine. While there were no winners for sonnets or stories (i.e., the judges were able to distinguish the machine-generated sonnets), in the case of the former, the programs were so smart and sophisticated that we couldn't help but wonder if in a future running of the competition we would have a winner.
The sheer number of sonnets an A.I. bot can generate is astounding (countably infinite if you want to get technical!). The winning entry, from a team at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute was fantastic, and the runner-up from University of California at Berkeley also produced interesting work.
Here is an example of what Berkeley's generator came up with:
Kindred pens my path lies where a flock of feast in natures mysteries an adept you are my songs my soft skies shine above love after my restless eyes I have kept.
A sacrament soft hands that arch embowed stealing from nature her calm thoughts which throng their little loves the birds know when that cloud anticipation is the throat of song.
I love you for in his glorious rise on desert hills at eve are musical the ancients knew a way to paradise pulses of the mystic tale no fable.
With sudden fear when immortality might be like joy the petty billows try.
Of reckless ones haggard and spent withdraws like clouds that gather and look another know that neer again the fierce tigers jaws the universe which was either neither.
Bed the peasant throws him down with fetters who could have guessed thine immortality not alone that thou no form of natures you for love hath stained if to have served by.
Random from the orient view unveils I would I bind thee by its hostile threat I sit beneath thy looks resigned that smiles and many maiden gardens yet unset.
This shade of crimson hue rushed on the thin alpine flood above the dune stood the grin.
So what if an art-producing machine could pass as human? Or more accurately, so what if the output of a program, created by humans, could produce art that an average person would accept as human-generated? This more detailed description is important, for cast in that manner, it reveals the artistic output for what it is—not the thoughtless and mechanistic production of an emotionless entity, but rather a natural next step in the already-rich collaboration between machine and human when it comes to producing art.
Yes, that's right: Machines and humans have been working together to make art for some time. The presence of machine has already been particularly influential in the realm of literary products. When the technology of writing came to be (requiring the invention or discovery of mark-making tools and surfaces to record and store meaningful signs), new possibilities in narrative form arose—narratives where perhaps memorization need not influence the product. Movable type and the printing press was another great influence, then the typewriter, democratizing forces in the creation of literature, bringing new voices and forms to the written medium. Most recently, consider the effects of word processing or “authoring” software on literary production. Who among us doesn't feel compelled to change things so that we will satisfy Microsoft Word and produce a document clean of its automatically determined infelicitous word choices! Don't kid yourself, for many of the documents we turn out are already collaborations with machines and, arguably, always have been.
Of course, some literary products lend themselves more readily to machine collaboration than others. Short narratives about the outcome of a baseball game can be readily created from a reasonably detailed box score. The same is true of certain financial reports. These kinds of products are in essence formulaic, but the same is true of some forms of poetry like the sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet is basically a high-level algorithm: three four-line stanzas in iambic pentameter, each with rhyme scheme ABAB, ending with a rhyming couplet. It's just that for centuries, humans have been the ones executing the pattern. Now, with a good deal of thought and some creative applications of natural language processing principles, a smart team of information scientists can engage a machine as a collaborator. Part of the winning entry sifts through opening words as well as a database of near-rhymes, the latter a tacit acknowledgment that a signature of the human implementation is the ability to not always follow the rules. It's cleverer than the Microsoft Word Assistant, but is hardly a solitary poetry-creating automation. The human might not be in the loop after the input is given, but the human is surely deeply represented in the design. And that is why it is successful.
So what still remains for machines to conquer? One of the judges remarked that the sonnets he picked out as machine-made didn't seem to be about anything—even if the words all went together well and there were coherent phrases or even fully formed lines around a given subject. In short, what was lacking was a narrative. Narrative is difficult to articulate in an algorithm (but we'll continue to aim for it in next year's competition). In fact, as the essence of storytelling, it is arguably one of the most human of activities. Thus, while these experiments surely celebrate successes in the context of human creativity on the computer, in their failings, they ultimately may help us recognize and celebrate what it means to be human.
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fredirect.viglink.com%2F%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.washingtonpost.com%252Fnews%252Fspeaking-of-science%252Fwp%252F2016%252F06%252F30%252Fthe-rosetta-orbiters-days-are-officially-numbered%252F%26key%3Dddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 r0B0t: The Rosetta orbiter's days are officially numbered
Mark your calendars and stock up on tissues: On Sept. 30, the European Space Agency's Rosetta orbiter will crash into a cometary cemetery. After two years circling Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and doing some great science, the spacecraft will be no more. Rosetta is perhaps most famous for being the mothership of Philae, a robot that made history as […] robots
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhosted2.ap.org%2FAPDEFAULT%2Fb2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de%2FArticle_2016-07-04-US-SCI--Journey%2520to%2520Jupiter%2Fid-aec7284076d44804adcff7f3fee4bc6f&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 NASA's Juno spacecraft prepares for cosmic date with Jupiter
%feed http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/pia20706/juno-closes-in-on-jupiter Juno Closes in on Jupiter This is the final view taken by the JunoCam instrument on NASA's Juno spacecraft before Juno's instruments were powered down in preparation for orbit insertion on July 4. astronomy
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%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhosted2.ap.org%2FAPDEFAULT%2Fb2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de%2FArticle_2016-07-04-US-SCI--Journey%2520to%2520Jupiter%2Fid-84a259ca694947af93408bf2304b2f2f&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 NASA's Juno spacecraft prepares for cosmic date with Jupiter
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fthe-conversation-us%2Fplaying-a-science-based-v_b_10806840.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Playing a science-based video game? It might be all wrong Playing 'Spore' is a good way to explore evolution.'Spore' screenshot
You look down from the sky, manipulating the world and seeing how it responds to your changes. You are able to alter vegetation and climate while watching their effects on the surrounding organisms. In this way, and many others, digital games provide excellent opportunities for players to learn about complicated subjects, including the concept of evolution through natural selection. Even games designed for fun and not specifically for education can provide rich, concise, dynamic representations of complex science, technology, engineering and math topics.
Since I was young, digital games have successfully supplemented the educational process in a range of topics, including math, science and biology. Research shows that if these games are going to actually teach those concepts, they must represent them accurately. Games that include incorrect depictions teach the wrong lessons.
Since Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, evolution has been understood as a process based on genetic differences between individual organisms of the same species. There are three key principles:
Organisms with genetic advantages for their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, while organisms whose genes make their bodies less suited will die more quickly and reproduce less effectively.
Because these characteristics are genetic, they are passed on to offspring.
Organisms with genes that improve their survival will have more successful offspring, which will in turn pass on their advantages to the next generation.
Some colleagues and I looked into how well current games could serve as educational tools, specifically about evolution. We examined how Darwinian evolution was represented in 22 games, which we located either through game databases like GameSpot or IGN, or through Google searches. Most games got evolution at least partly wrong. Only five accurately represented all three key principles of evolution.
The five that got it right
A screen-capture of a Norn interacting with its environment in 'Creatures 2,' developed by Creatures Labs and published by Mindscape. Wikipedia
"Creatures" provides a rare example of the three principles. In that game, players create cartoon-like creatures called "norns," through a process that allows norns to be altered not just in terms of appearance, but at the genetic level. For the most accurate representation of evolution, the game offers a play mode called "wolfling run." In that mode, players cannot directly affect their norns, but can observe their relative fitness for a particular in-game scenario. The potential variations in both norn creation and the environment they must survive in provide for an astonishing number of evolutionary possibilities.
Maxis, best known for creating the "SimCity" game series, and its spinoff "The Sims" collection, also made a set of games called "SimEarth" and "SimLife." Like "SimCity," both give players top-down control of a world. "SimEarth" was designed for players to make major changes to the weather, landscape and animals to create an environment. Players were then able to see how the animals would fare in this created environment. "SimLife" was more specific: it has players engage with the animals (rather than merely creating them) to learn about the biology surrounding their survival.
A screen-capture of 'Who Wants to Live a Million Years,' playable on the Science Channel website. from sciencechannel.com
We also found two academically oriented games that loosely presented the three mechanics of evolution: "Selection Game" and "Who Wants to Live a Million Years" (which was later renamed "Charles Darwin's Game of Survival"). The two games were designed to be simple tools that could be played quickly in places like museums. Despite the limited mechanics present in such games, they still clearly show each element of the evolution process.
Market success doesn't mean accuracy
The most commercially popular game we found didn't quite get evolution right. "Spore" left out something many other games did, too: Organisms' genetic differences didn't affect their survival rates. Instead, organisms whose genes were unfit for the environment would not necessarily die more often, in keeping with evolutionary principles. Rather, players could intervene and increase an organism's likelihood for success by, say, helping it move more intelligently and strategically, beyond the scope of its genetically predisposed movements.
Nevertheless, "Spore" does a reasonable job presenting the broader concept of evolution to players, and is the best such game made this century. ("Creatures," "SimEarth," and "SimLife" are all from the 1990s.) "Spore" is also still available for purchase, so it is the only game readily usable by the average educator or student.
But other findings were disappointing. Most games inaccurately portrayed evolution, usually in the same way Spore did - allowing player intervention to save organisms that were unfit for survival.
For these other games, evolution becomes more akin to mutation during a single organism's life than a process that occurs through generations. In "E.V.O.: Search for Eden" and "L.O.L.: Lack of Love," players earn points they can spend to modify their organisms. In "Eco," at the end of each level, the player arbitrarily changes an attribute, though not necessarily one that affects an organism's survival prospects. In each of these cases, what the game calls "evolution" is actually external genetic manipulation, rather than inheriting particular traits.
These inaccuracies may confuse those unsure of what evolution actually is. If other scientific subjects are similarly poorly depicted in video games, the potential educational benefits of these games could be lost. However, as game designers become more adept at modeling scientific themes, it could herald an educational revolution.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgo.theregister.com%2Ffeed%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2016%2F07%2F04%2Fdown_to_earth_nasas_kilokitty_balloon_lands_after_46_days%2F&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Down to Earth: NASA's kilo-kitty balloon lands after 46 days
100 day target still out of reach
NASA's super-pressure balloon project has once again fallen short of its 100-day target, but still managed to set some records on the way.…
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%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seattletimes.com%2Fnation-world%2Fphotos-of-the-day-july-4-2016%2F%3Futm_source%3DRSS%26utm_medium%3DReferral%26utm_campaign%3DRSS_photos-of-the-day&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Photos of the Day: July 4, 2016 Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world. images
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%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2F500px.com%2Fphoto%2F161491073%2Fgirl-and-lady-by-superchinois801&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 girl and lady by superchinois801
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fredirect.viglink.com%2F%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.bbc.co.uk%252Fnews%252Ftechnology-36707518%26key%3Dddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 r0B0t: Robot arm wins Amazon's tech award A mechanical arm created by a Dutch team of roboticists wins Amazon's Picking Challenge award. robots
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%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fredirect.viglink.com%2F%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fnews.google.com%252Fnews%252Furl%253Fsa%253Dt%2526fd%253DR%2526ct2%253Dus%2526usg%253DAFQjCNHqeh_opS_ypHgyPBwhdOT8FV_kKg%2526clid%253Dc3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331%2526ei%253DQ8l6V6iSO8KS1Ab7_by4Cw%2526url%253Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.theglobeandmail.com%252Flife%252Ffashion-and-beauty%252Fbeauty-and-the-bot-artificial-intelligence-is-the-key-to-personalizing-aesthetic-products%252Farticle30740401%252F%26key%3Dddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 r0B0t: Beauty and the bot: Artificial intelligence is the key to personalizing aesthetic products - The Globe and Mail
Beauty and the bot: Artificial intelligence is the key to personalizing aesthetic products The Globe and Mail Physical beauty is subjective and often difficult to define. But for the robot jury of Beauty.AI, an online competition billed as “the first international beauty contest judged by artificial intelligence,” beauty is calculated by a set of complex ...
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Robots could replace low-skilled migrant workers Daily Mail Summarising the findings, author Adam Corlett explained: 'Looking at those sectors with the highest proportion of EU migrants, we find that some such as cleaning and domestic staffing face relatively low prospects for automation, while others ...
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Playing 'Spore' is a good way to explore evolution.![]("https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/126097/area14mp/image-20160610-29229-23s61w.PNG")
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