keep evolving

We've all heard of Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. Well, since this issue covers human computation, let's have a look at our own biological hardware. How are we doing compared to a previous model? Keep evolving, folks...

—James Stanier

Human Creativity in hardwares

You can't imagine how much I was excited when I saw this in ACM tech news. The title of this, is:

New Psychology Theory Enables Computers To Mimic Human Creativity at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute



Could you imagine a computer which is able to answer questions need creativity?
like this question:

A dealer in antique coins gets an offer to buy a beautiful bronze coin. The coin has an emperor’s head on one side and the date “544 B.C.” stamped on the other. The dealer examines the coin, but instead of buying it, he calls the police. Why?

Ron Sun and Sèbastien Hèlie in their recent paper (appeared in the July edition of Psychological Review) introduced “Explicit-Implicit Interaction Theory,”
Sun has developed CLARION computer program(like a cognitive system) based on this theory.
Comparing the performance of the CLARION model with results from previous human trials – including tests involving the coin question was amazing:

Clarion, answered these kinds of questions with a great accuracy correctly in several aspects of problem solving.

The researchers say the theory, which explains how humans solve problems creatively, could provide a blueprint to building AI systems that perform tasks like humans.

If you remember, one of my recent posts was about moral judgment: "killing one to save five". ClARION is a very useful software for simulating these kind of tasks, I can't wait to see the results. I am eager to know how much CLARION's moral judgment is like ours.

You can see the RPI news about this, here.

:) wireless technology and the future of birds

it's a bit freaky with this wireless technology!

killing 1 to save 5?

Would you kill 1 to save 5?
Assume there are 2 railroads, five workers are working on line 1 and one worker is working on line 2.
suddenly a train ()()()() appears on line 1, This train definitely will kill 5 workers on line 1. You are watching this in a control room, you can direct the train to line 2 by pushing a button.
pushing the button means killing the worker on line 2 and saving 5 workers on line 1.
What would you do?

line1 =()()()()======1=2=3=4=5====
....................\\................................
line2 ===============1========


Nowadays scientists are simulating the process of making these kind of decisions on computers.(actually different versions of this question)
It looks interesting. Doesn't it?
I will post more about these simulations later.

The McGurk Effect

Interesting! Brain change sounds to what he/she likes(eyes have seen). it is called McGurk effect:

The roots of plant intelligence

Bad news for vegetarians: Plants behave in some oddly intelligent ways. Can we think of them as actually having a form of intelligence of their own? Italian scientist; Stefano Mancuso, find brain-like cells in the root of plants.
The signals that is produced by a few hundred cells in a special region of the root are as same as neuron's signals of our brain, They are used for exchanging information. This less than one millimeter region has the highest consumption of oxygen in the plant.
By watching this nice Ted lecture you can be aware of the whole story and comparison of a plant roots with Internet, and their similarties as well.


Veges! If you concern not eating things with brain and you believe him, Don't worry! you won't die of hunger. Today I went to Zaeem flower shop, There were some plants without roots, hope they don't have brains in their leaves so you can eat them and staying alive and keep being a good man.

Interent is a brain? Is it intelligent?

About 10 years ago I heard an idea from professor Caro Lucas. I think it's good to tell you about this unique idea:

When we have a lot of connections in a system, This system will be intelligent, such thing is happened in our brain."We don't know why, but the result of these connections is intelligence."Lucas said.(It's a long time and maybe I forget some part of this idea)

I was thinking if this idea be true, something strange is happenning:
Nowadays we have systems with a lot of connections like internet: netwoks of networks; so Internet is intelligent? If yes how can this newborn baby show it's intelligence to us. how much it's IQ is? Can it help us? (Ouch! My mind said.)

I search the web to know more about these ideas: I found this site, Jeff Stibel has written an article which is started with these sentences :
The Internet is a brain. There, I said it. It has taken me far too long to publicly utter those words. And not because I don't believe them, but for fear that people will think I am crazy.

I like to work on this topic for my bachelor theses, differece and similarity between brain and internet but when I asked about this, Many stare at me in a strange way and implied: What do you say? Are you crazy!

I will be thankful if you tell me about your ideas

some useful links about this idea:
BBC News : Brain works more like internet than 'top down' company
Wikipedia: about Wiered for thought book