{"id":345,"date":"2004-09-15T07:08:36","date_gmt":"2004-09-15T13:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/?p=345"},"modified":"2004-09-15T07:08:36","modified_gmt":"2004-09-15T13:08:36","slug":"basic-machine-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/2004\/09\/15\/basic-machine-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Basic Machine Intelligence?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Smart machines on the horizon?<\/p>\n<p>Artificial intelligence, in all its various forms, has been a standard of science-fiction for quite some time.  It intrigues us and frightens us at the same time.  The idea that a thing created by mankind could eventually out think us is a bi terrifying, but also somewhat attractive.  Seductive, if you will.<br \/>\nWell, we may be on our way.  According to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wired\/archive\/12.08\/robot.html?pg=1&#038;topic=robot&#038;topic_set=\">this article on WiredNews.com<\/a>, a Welsh scientist has created a simple, but smart, robotic lab assistant.  Ross King, a researcher at the University of Wales, has modified some standard equipment in a chemistry lab to build in some basic intelligence.  It&#8217;s an automated testing machine.  Put simply, it runs through thousands of variations on a single, simple experiment automatically, so that a human researcher doesn&#8217;t need to do the &#8220;leg work&#8221;, so to speak.  But, that&#8217;s not the interesting part.  Apparently, Professor King has worked up a program that looks at the data along the way and follows the most promising patterns first.  The trick is, apparently, getting the details of what &#8220;promising&#8221; means worked out and into the program.  The rest, well, just sort of happens.  It&#8217;s not very smart, but it&#8217;s a start.  <\/p>\n<p>So, now, as a writer, what does that mean?  Where will it go?  I don&#8217;t know, but lots of people have written about it for a long time.  Read the article and decide for yourself.  Then, write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Smart machines on the horizon? Artificial intelligence, in all its various forms, has been a standard of science-fiction for quite some time. It intrigues us and frightens us at the same time. The idea that a thing created by mankind could eventually out think us is a bi terrifying, but also somewhat attractive. Seductive, if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,28,30],"tags":[490,491,489],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-current-events","category-science-and-technology","category-science-fiction","tag-basic-machine-intelligence","tag-ross-king","tag-university-of-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}