Jan 23, 2009
Dear readers of Think Artificial—my apologies for not having posted sooner. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, there are some things weighing on my shoulders. This is, among school and other things, a burning desire to help rebuild on Iceland’s ashes of economic collapse.
Only yesterday the police employed gas to disperse a crowd for the first time since 1949 when Iceland joined NATO. The people are protesting the government’s poor management in the months since the collapse.
I’ve been brooding on ideas of how to introduce innovation as a key component in the new society. This is not an easy thing to do—Iceland is drenched in history-based economic models to make decisions. When that model goes too far, as it has royally, it does not favor innovation, startup companies and extensive research; businesses tend to put their money where its safe, not into the abyss of new ideas that may- or may not revolutionize the world.
This compels me to do something; try to help steer this country into something less extreme, more innovative. I’ve been doing presentations about how special, unique and rebellious ideas can bring about great things if done right. There’s much more planned for 2009, and also: I’m learning about politics—can you believe that?
There’s a lot on my mind—but Think Artificial is not dead. Or if it is, then it’s only because there’s the new Think Artificial of 2009 waiting to take its place. I hope to see you and your comments around. I humbly thank you for reading in 2008 and for sticking around!
Best regards,
-Hrafn
Jul 13, 2008
A subscriber of Think Artificial wrote to ask me about games and AI. In short, DF asked what my thougths are on AI in games and which ones I think are the most intelligent.
To answer this bluntly: Game AI is very different from it’s non-game counterpart, and it’s not my field of study. I’ve only compared modern games through a window. However, Alex of AIGameDev has superb coverage of AI in games and the top AI games of 2007, by community vote. The top of the line are Half-Life-2.ep.2 and BioShock.
But regarding Game AI in general: modern games are horribly void of intelligence. It depends on where you set the bar, certainly. There’s tons of AI in modern games compared to 5 years ago. But the first thing to note is that Game AI is not the same as AI. It’s a subset of it. Just like discrete mathematics are a subset of mathematics. And moreover, Game AI is a very specialized subset—it has well defined goals, models for construction and limitations.
Jul 7, 2008
On May 27th 2007 I launched ThinkArtificial.org, a symbolic step up from my earlier blog that I’d been running for some months.
Following that step I was faced with whether I should flag the number of subscribers on the site. To set myself a goal I decided I wouldn’t reveal the number until it reached 300. And now it has happened.
Subscribers to TA have been holding at around 300 for about a month now—subscribers being people that are either subscribed to the site’s RSS feed or via email. Not counting those that visit the site regularly.
My thanks to everyone who’s been reading. You’re the reason I’m still at it.
Jun 21, 2008
I’ve been tagged by my blog buddy in-arms Tim Stevens to write seven random (and not so random) facts about myself. (Yes, blog memes are still alive and well.) So it’s about time to shake things up with something personal.
The rules are:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.
You must excuse that I thought about what I should write due to a failure in my random-thought function. But the following are selected facts from a brainstorm.
The se7en random facts
- Six years ago I underwent brain surgery. I had a tumor the size of a large chicken egg pushing on my cerebellum. Keen eyes can spot the tumor on the online 3D model of my brain.
- Since I left kindergarten all friends I’ve made have been older than I am.
- I’m an agnostic atheist. My mother fears I’ll go to hell.
- I read Snow Crash in English when I was 10 years old. My teacher couldn’t believe I understood it and questioned me about its content. (Remember that I’m Icelandic)
- I take pride in that last fact and sometimes mention it in vain.
- I recently started doing Zen-flavored meditation.
- The lovely summer of 2006, a baby raven with a crooked leg landed in my lap. I fixed his leg with braces and raised him for a year. (that’s him in the header pic). He’s living in the wild now. I miss that crazy bird dearly.
And then to name the next seven minds (in no specific order):
Hat’s off to the tagged!
May 11, 2008
A few weeks ago the book Intelligent Complex Adaptive Systems (ICAS) was published.
Chapter V, titled Emergence of Creativity: A Simulation Approach, presents my latest research on the emergence of creativity in natural and artificial organisms, a theory of its origins and potential grounds for future artificial implementations. The book is distributed internationally.
Apr 16, 2008
For the past few months I’ve been an active member of Twine.com; a beta semantic web app riddled with AI to help us organize, share and discover information. The beta is still under heavy construction, but at this point in time, I’ve migrated entirely from Del.icio.us, personal wikis and similar online services and over to Twine.
There are several reasons for this, some of which I’ll detail here — and end by hinting at why it’s immediately relevant despite Twine being in an invitation-only beta.
Mar 20, 2008
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was born on the 16th of December 1917 in Minehead, England. Perhaps best known for his contributions to science fiction, and his inventions, his achievements will certainly not be forgotten anytime soon.
Clarke served in the Royal Air Force as a radar instructor from 1941-1946. It was there where he invented & proposed the idea of communications satellites in 1945 — an idea that materialized quickly and we now know, use and depend on to sustain our societies. His proposal won him the Franklin Institute Gold Medal and in 1994 he was nominated for a Nobel Prize. Consequently he became the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society.
He collaborated with Stanley Kubrick to create, in my and many others’ opinion, one of the greatest films of all time — and concurrently developed what later became a novel of the same name: 2001: A Space Odyssey shook the world and continues to inspire and provoke thought.
Moved to Sri Lanka in 1956. Knighted in 1998.
A Hero Passed Away on March 19th, 2008.
Arthur Charles Clarke will be missed.
Feb 4, 2008
How are you? How’s the harvest?
I hope you’ve managed to scrape a million or so addresses from us meatmachines today. I’m sure you have, you’re so clever by now — and we’re so stupid. I’m sure you’re wondering; yes, this letter was written many years ago and yes, it isn’t addressed to your specific ID. But as you read on you’ll come to realize its delivery date is exactly today, and it’s intended specifically for you!
Dec 31, 2007
Two-thousand-and-seven was a fine year. On May 27th ThinkArtificial.org launched with a bang and naturally I’ve quite enjoyed the ride. We’ve talked about synthetic lifeforms, living spacedust, surprising ingenuity of AIBOs. But this is the last post for 2007 and in it we ponder peeking into the future.
Dec 17, 2007
My writings can be found on sites other than this one. Content hunters are invited to read on for discussions about why people think it’s natural for us to have assumed that the Sun went round the Earth — and to view what’s probably the first Powers-of-ten type video, where we zoom from an atomic scale to the edges of galaxies.
