CSC 320 A.I. Blog

Freedom vs. safety. Both are conditions typically sought after by humans, yet we often find that they are at odds with another. With every bit of safety gained, we usually lose an equal amount of freedom, and vice versa. Finding a perfect balance between the two has been a longstanding struggle in human civilizations, and one that seems has not yet been resolved. This conflict has only been amplified with the recent explosion in technological progress, with modern smartphones being able to record and track your every location, call and text conversation. Governments have been able to use this technology to track down criminals and help keep us 'safe', but now it is harder than ever to stay off the grid. Now AI seem to be testing the boundaries further than ever before. Image Source Just recently, London's Metropolitan Police Force (Met) has officially rolled out their  live facial recognition  system across London. This came after a multi-year trial period in Sout...

        In modern soccer, descriptive data analysis has shown the usefulness and advantages it can bring to this sport. Statistics is helping managers of soccer clubs in transferring, analyzing matches, improving players, planning tactics, etc… But now, artificial intelligence is proving that it is the real game-changer that can take this sport to the next level. Data can show only numbers and charts; artificial intelligence thinks and gives advice. Club managers who make good use of artificial intelligence are having huge advantages over their competitors.         First of all, artificial intelligence can pre- and post-analyze matches, as well as giving facts that can help players improve themselves. An English soccer club had been working with IBM on an artificial intelligence project to improve the players and team performance. The best part about it was that the tool had no emotion, which means there was no bias in decision making. The player...

A common issue that arises in discussions about A.I. is that of emotion and sympathy. Everyone is aware of the fear that A.I., whether robots or software could possibly turn on humans if they get intelligent enough to attain sentience - or even before then. But just as likely as that is, is it not also possible for them to feel empathy and maybe even care for us and maybe even each other? This is a subject brought up in various works of fiction containing robots with feelings such as I, Robot , WALL-E , and Detroit: Become Human . Source Well, it seems that robots are being built which “feel pain” depending on the level of impact they receive. This is done by connecting sensors within an artificial soft skin to the robot, which in turn displays different emotions based on how hard it is hit. Affetto is a robot housed at Osaka University in Japan, where a team of engineers has enabled this almost too real-looking child’s head to make a number of facial expressions in res...

The creative capacity of technology has been debated and considered from a multitude of angles. One side argues that creativity requires imagination and original thinking, which is something that couldn’t possibly exist in an entity whose entire existence has been pre-programed. On the other side, AI has created original artwork, music, and poetry, stretching the boundaries of what it truly means to be creative. Creativity, being something expressive unique and eccentric, seems to become so much more narrow and confining when we claim that it is only something human beings can achieve. Keeping both sides of this debate in mind, one woman is attempting to stretch the limits of human and artificial creativity and explore ideas brought up by both arguing sides through the creation of, and collaboration with robots. Sougwen Chung is an artist in New York who creates her artwork in collaboration with AI technology. She describes how she, “made work alongside machines...