Well, does he?

The short answer is (suprisingly):  yes.  However, it’s not often, and usually involves a long day at work, a TiVo full of shows to catch up on, and something cold, wet, with plenty of hops and/or barley. 

It took a while for me to finally figure out my stride on the Tracker here, but now that I have, I’m having trouble slowing down.  As of late, I often find myself pushing two or even three articles out per day, and those articles usually end up leading to several more ideas I’d like to share my views on.

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David Lightman: What is the primary goal?
Joshua: You should know, Professor. You programmed me.
David Lightman: C’mon. What is the primary goal?
Joshua: To win the game.

-”WarGames”, 1983

As long as humans have been envisioning the concept of robots and computers, we’ve been imagining intelligent automatons who could do more than just our bidding, but eventually think intelligently.  Volumes of plays, scripts, texts, and scientific papers are published on the subject every year. 

Long before there was a Deep Blue, Alan Turing was  dreaming up his Turing Machine concept.  We could even glance back as far as ancient Greek clockwork computers or even the ancient Jewish legend of the golem.

This morning, I came across a rather interesting article in the Boston Globe by Scott Kirsner, where he explores the subject of artificial intelligence research, as conducted by game designers.  (more…)