Category Archives: Artificial Intelligence
2001: A Space Odyssey and our fascination with (killer) AI
50 years ago, on April 2, 1968, the film 2001: A Space Odysseyhad its world premiere at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. Reflecting the mixed reactions to the film, Renata Adler wrote in The New York Times that it was “somewhere between hypnotic … Continue reading
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Debating the Impact of AI on Jobs
One of this week’s milestones in the history of technology sets the tone to two centuries of debating the impact of machines and artificial intelligence on human work and welfare. On February 27, 1812, Lord Byron gave his first … Continue reading
Reacting to New Technologies: AI, Fake News, and Regulation
A number of this week’s [February 19, 2018] milestones in the history of technology demonstrate society’s reactions to new technologies over the years: A discussion of AI replacing and augmenting human intelligence, a warning about the abundance of misinformation on … Continue reading
Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Facebook, Radio, Turing
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Deep Blue and Deep Learning: It’s all About Brute Force
There are interesting parallels between one of this week’s milestones in the history of technology and the current excitement and anxiety about artificial intelligence (AI). On February 10, 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue became the first machine to win a chess game … Continue reading
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Smart Machines Rising
A number of this week’s milestones in the history of technology highlight the role of mechanical devices in automating work, augmenting human activities, and allowing many people to participate in previously highly-specialized endeavors—a process technology vendors like to call “democratization” … Continue reading
Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Photography, Robots
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Triumph of the Robots
Today in 2004, Dan Pulcrano of the Metro published “Triumph of the Robots: When Google tweaks its search rankings, whole economies tremble in fear”: The rapid ascent of invisible robots is a unforeseen twist in the sci-fi playbook. The theme of … Continue reading
Alan Turing On Computable Numbers
Today in 1936, Alan Turing delivered to the London Mathematical Society his paper “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” In the paper, Turing described the Universal Machine, which later became known as the Turing Machine. This was an idealized … Continue reading
General Meetings of The Boston Computer Society (Video)
“These are a few brief samples from more than 20 hours of The Boston Computer Society General Meetings. Each meeting featured a leading personal computer industry visionary introducing a new product or technology to the world’s largest personal computer user … Continue reading
Posted in Apple, Artificial Intelligence, Computer history, Robots
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Milestones in Computing History
Today in 1946, the Subcommittee on Large-Scale Computing Devices (LCD) of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) was formed, evolving in 1963 into the IEEE, and by 2010, serving more than 395,000 members in 160 countries. Also today, in … Continue reading
Alan Turing 1912-1954
Today in 1954, Alan Turing died from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined that his death was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. Check … Continue reading
The Story of Information 