Robot Overlords Require Chores In Return For Technological Access

February 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

Looks like you might not be fully immersed in the digital world if you didn’t complete your chores. The members of the LVL1 Hackerspace have put together a lot of automation for their lair, but nothing drives home the utility of the system they call MOTHER like the shenanigan-preventing trash removal system. Or in layman’s turns, being nagged by MOTHER until you empty the trash can.

So here’s a bit of background first. Remember that sensor array that just had way too many environmental sensors on it? That is just one way that the automation system (MOTHER) measures its surroundings. It seems the hackerspace has been building a pile of scripts to interface with just about every aspect of the community.

For instance, the night before trash colletion the system starts by letting members know it’s trash night and someone needs to empty the garbage. There’s a pressure sensor under the can which alerts MOTHER to the fact that it has been moved. But what if nobody moves the can? Say goodbye to Google. Yep, it’ll block all Google searches until the chore is done. And that’s just one punishments in its bag of tricks.

So what if you just move the can and don’t take it out? No dice. MOTHER is also monitoring the garage door which needs to be open to get the extra-large can out to the dumpster. You’ve got five minutes to do that before she starts getting nasty.

[Thanks Jonathan]

Want To Learn Artificial Intelligence? Good.

September 5, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 39 Comments

In a little more than a month, tens of thousands of people around the world will attend a class on Artificial Intelligence at Stanford. Registration for this class is still open for both class ‘tracks’. The “basic” track is simply watching lectures and answering quizzes, or a slightly more advanced version of MIT OpenCourseware or Khan Academy. The “advanced” track is the full class, requires homework and exams, and aspires to Stanford difficulty.

With thousands of people taking this class, there’s bound to be a few study groups popping up around the web. The largest ones we’ve seen are /r/aiclass on Reddit and the stack overflow style aiqus. The most common reply to ‘what language should I learn from this class?’ is Python, although there’s an online code repo that has the text’s working code in Lisp, Java, C++ and C#.

If AI doesn’t float your boat, there are two more classes being taught from Stanford this fall: machine learning and introduction to databases. Any way you look at it, you’re getting to take a class from one of the preeminent instructors in the field for free. Do yourself a favor and sign up.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in. You can stop now.

AI Via Super Mario Evolution

November 5, 2010 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

Can Super Mario teach you to think? That’s the idea behind using a simple version of the game to teach artificial intelligence. [Oddball] calls this The Mario Genome and wrote at program that can take on the level with just two controls, right and jump. He gave the script 1000 Marios to run through the level. It then eliminates the 500 least successful and procreates back to 1000 using the 500 most successful. In this way the program completed the level in 1935 generations and completed it in the quickest possible time in 7705 generations. He’s posted the script for download so that you can try it yourself. It’s an interesting exercise we’d love to see applied to more random games, like Ms. Pac-Man.

[via Reddit]