Oliver Bendel, Author at ROBOPHILOSOPHY

October 20, 2020October 20, 2020

AI in Medical Robotics

The Emmy Noether Research Group “The Phenomenon of Interaction in Human-Machine Interaction” and the Institute of Ethics, History, and Theory of Medicine (LMU Munich) host a lecture series “on some of the pressing issues arising in the context of implementing and using AI in medicine”. “Each date will consist of three short talks by renowned experts in the respective fields followed by a roundtable discussion. All lectures are held online (Zoom) until further notice.” (Website The Philosophy of Human-Machine Interaction) On 19 November 2020 (18.00-19.30) the topic will be “AI in Medical Robotics”. Speakers will be Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland), Prof. Dr. Manfred Hild (Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin) and Dr. Janina Loh (University of Wien). The presentation language is German. More information via interactionphilosophy.wordpress.com.

October 17, 2020October 17, 2020

Service Robots in Epidemics and Pandemics

On October 14, 2020 the article “Der Einsatz von Servicerobotern bei Epidemien und Pandemien” (“The use of service robots in epidemics and pandemics”) by Oliver Bendel was published in HMD – Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik. From the abstract: “Robots have always been used to carry out dangerous tasks or tasks that are not manageable for us. They defuse bombs, transport hazardous materials and work their way into areas inaccessible to humans. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that even service robots, which are not actually intended for special cases, can provide helpful services in the care of isolated persons and in the containment of diseases. This paper presents four types of service robots. Then it gives examples of robot use during the coronavirus crisis in 2020. Finally, the question in which extent and in what way the robot types can cooperate and whether some of them can be developed into generalists is examined. Business models and operating opportunities are also discussed. The paper shows that cohorts of robots could be vital in the future.” It is part of Volume 57, Issue 6 (December 2020) with a focus on robotics and is available here for free as an open access publication (in German).

October 4, 2020October 4, 2020

AI in the Art of Film

“Agence” by Transitional Forms (Toronto) is the first example of a film that uses reinforcement learning to control its animated characters. MIT Technology Review explains this in an article published on October 2, 2020. “Agence was debuted at the Venice International Film Festival last month and was released this week to watch/play via Steam, an online video-game platform. The basic plot revolves around a group of creatures and their appetite for a mysterious plant that appears on their planet. Can they control their desire, or will they destabilize the planet and get tipped to their doom? Survivors ascend to another world.” (MIT Technology Review, 2 October 2020) The film could be another example of how art and artificial intelligence belong together. Its director also expresses himself in this direction: “I am super passionate about artificial intelligence because I believe that AI and movies belong together …” (MIT Technology Review, 2 October 2020). Whether the audience shares the enthusiasm in this case and in other areas, the future must show.

October 4, 2020October 4, 2020

Dangerous Machines or Friendly Companions?

“Dangerous machines or friendly companions? One thing is clear: Our fascination with robots persists. This colloquium in cooperation with TA-SWISS will continue to pursue it.“ This is what it says in the teaser of a text that can be found on the website of the Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel (HeK). “In science fiction films they are presented both as dangerous machines threatening human survival and as friendly companions in our everyday lives. Human-like or animal-like robots, such as the seal Paro, are used in health care, sex robots compensate for the deficits of human relationships, intelligent devices listen to our conversations and take care of our needs …“ (Website HeK) And further: “This event is part of a current study by TA-SWISS which deals with the potentials and risks of social robots that simulate empathy and trigger emotions. The focus is on the new challenges in the relationship between man and machine. At the colloquium, the two scientists Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel and Prof. Dr. Hartmut Schulze and the Swiss artist Simone C. Niquille will provide brief inputs on the topic and discuss the questions raised in a panel discussion.” (Website HeK) More information via www.hek.ch/en/program/events-en/event/kolloquium-soziale-roboter.html.

September 22, 2020January 1, 2021

Towards SPACE THEA

September 6, 2020September 6, 2020

A Spider that Reads the Whole Web

Diffbot, a Stanford startup, is building an AI-based spider that reads as many pages as possible on the entire public web, and extracts as many facts from those pages as it can. “Like GPT-3, Diffbot’s system learns by vacuuming up vast amounts of human-written text found online. But instead of using that data to train a language model, Diffbot turns what it reads into a series of three-part factoids that relate one thing to another: subject, verb, object.” (MIT Technology Review, 4 September 2020) Knowledge graphs – which is what this is all about – have been around for a long time. However, they have been created mostly manually or only with regard to certain areas. Some years ago, Google started using knowledge graphs too. Instead of giving us a list of links to pages about Spider-Man, the service gives us a set of facts about him drawn from its knowledge graph. But it only does this for its most popular search terms. According to MIT Technology Review, the startup wants to do it for everything. “By fully automating the construction process, Diffbot has been able to build what may be the largest knowledge graph ever.” (MIT Technology Review, 4 September 2020) Diffbot’s AI-based spider reads the web as we read it and sees the same facts that we see. Even if it does not really understand what it sees – we will be amazed at the results.

August 30, 2020August 30, 2020

Machine Dance

Which moves go with which song? Should I do the Floss, the Dougie or the Robot? Or should I create a new style? But which one? An AI system could help answer these questions in the future. At least the announcement of a social media platform raises this hope: “Facebook AI researchers have developed a system that enables a machine to generate a dance for any input music. It’s not just imitating human dance movements; it’s creating completely original, highly creative routines. That’s because it uses finely tuned search procedures to stay synchronized and surprising, the two main criteria of a creative dance. Human evaluators say that the AI’s dances are more creative and inspiring than meaningful baselines.” (Website FB) The AI system could inspire dancers when they get stuck and help them to constantly improve. More information via about.fb.com/news/2020/08/ai-dancing-facebook-research/.

August 27, 2020August 27, 2020

Launch of the Interactive AI Magazine

AAAI has announced the launch of the Interactive AI Magazine. According to the organization, the new platform provides online access to articles and columns from AI Magazine, as well as news and articles from AI Topics and other materials from AAAI. “Interactive AI Magazine is a work in progress. We plan to add lot more content on the ecosystem of AI beyond the technical progress represented by the AAAI conference, such as AI applications, AI industry, education in AI, AI ethics, and AI and society, as well as conference calendars and reports, honors and awards, classifieds, obituaries, etc. We also plan to add multimedia such as blogs and podcasts, and make the website more interactive, for example, by enabling commentary on posted articles. We hope that over time Interactive AI Magazine will become both an important source of information on AI and an online forum for conversations among the AI community.” (AAAI Press Release) More information via interactiveaimag.org.