Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have given Honda’s humanoid robot, ASIMO, the ability to walk towards a goal position while avoiding stationary and moving obstacles.
This could be the coolest, most expensive game of Frogger ever played!
Monthly Archive for August, 2009
While I was away people were often interested to learn that I studied AI, but there were a couple of times when (otherwise very intelligent) people told me they were convinced that sufficiently advanced systems could only be used to enslave/exterminate humanity. One even went so far as to compare my honours project to vivisection. She seemed appalled that I took as a compliment the suggestion that I had created a system with sophistication comparable to a thinking and feeling animal.
The critics of AI might not be so wrong though because, according to the Telegraph,
Terrorists could one day use an army of robot “suicide bombers” to attack British targets
Schneier calls it a “movie-plot threat”, but I suppose it’s good to know that someone in the Home Office is planning for the rise of the Cylons…
My fantasy NFL league held its draft this afternoon. I think I came out of it with a pretty good team for once, but mostly due to some really strange moves in the first couple of rounds!
For those unfamiliar with fantasy American football, the idea is to pick a team of players who score points based on their statistical performance throughout the NFL season. The teams are picked using a draft system, where players take turns picking one NFL player at a time until the rosters are filled, which usually takes 14 rounds. In our fantasy draft, the picking order alternates between rounds so that the player with the last pick in one round gets the first pick in the next (For example, in my 12-team league I was picking at #3 in the odd-numbered rounds and at #10 in the even ones).
Generally, running backs are the highest scoring position (and thus, are taken first), followed by a couple of elite quarterbacks and a number of wide receivers. Kickers and defences (mostly) don’t score many points and are usually taken in the last couple of rounds to fill compulsory roster spots.
With third pick I had expected to get an elite running back in the first round, then miss the majority of the top backs and have a shot at Drew Brees, Peyton Manning or Tom Brady at quarterback in the bottom of the second. Only half of that happened…
Brees and Peyton Manning went off the board with the first two picks, leaving me with Adrian Peterson who is generally considered the best fantasy pick of the last few seasons! The first real surprise was the Steelers defence going at #6, followed by Ben Roethlisberger (A huge reach for a solid back-up fantasy quarterback)! Brady was taken at #9, which I thought was a bit of a reach, but understandable with the top two QBs gone. The last pick of the first round was the Patriots defence, which is a bit of a mystery to me, especially with so many of the top running backs still available.
Not that I’m complaining of course. The odd first round meant I was able to get another quality RB at the bottom of the second, and an elite receiver in the third. Add a serviceable quarterback in Tony Romo and I’ve the makings of a pretty good team this year. Hopefully…
I installed K2 a while ago, I quite like it. Unfortunately a Wordpress update seems to have broken something somewhere.
I’ve just installed K2 RC 8, which appears to have fixed things but the nice boring, blue theme I was using doesn’t display properly. It’s probably something I could fix but as I don’t really want to spend my weekend diving into CSS code, I’m just using the other theme that ships with K2.
It’s a bit darker than I would have liked, but it’s still pretty cool!
Dr Ben Goldacre writes the Bad Science blog, which manages to be both funny and depressing (In a how-can-people-be-so-stupid sort of way) at the same time.
He is/was on the Radio 4’s The Now Show this week, which is also very funny.
If you have access to the BBC iPlayer thing, you might be able to listen to it (again).
