The waking fantasy of the ages is that some external force will take care of all our needs. And, for those who rightly eschew slavery in all its forms, that has meant hoping for a scientific invention or dreaming of some magical intervention. But there’s a catch. As a writer, I yearn for an automatic…
On May 11, 1997, something utterly unexpected happened to then-world chess champion Garry Kasparov: He conceded defeat in the last of six chess games with the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, losing the match. It wasn’t the first time Kasparov had faced off with a machine. In 1985, he beat 32 computerized opponents at the same…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked the Great Wall of China at the end of a state visit to China. During the visit, which ended Wednesday, the University of Haifa signed an agreement with the Hangzhou Wahaha Group, a Chinese conglomerate, and the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences that…
Marvin Minsky, the artificial intelligence pioneer who helped make machines think, leading to computers that understand spoken commands and beat grandmasters at chess, has died at the age of 88, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said. Minsky, who died on Sunday, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, the school said. Minsky had “a monster brain,” MIT colleague…
The Maharal of Prague brings the Golem to life / Tumblr (JTA) — Stephen Hawking is much in the news these days. His personal story, the subject of the recently released film “The Theory of Everything,” is already spoken of as an Oscar contender. Diagnosed in 1963 with the dreaded Lou Gehrig’s disease and given two…
(JTA) — Last week, the Anti-Defamation League released a list of “Best Practices” to counter hate speech on the Internet. Sober and serious, it includes suggestions like “Share knowledge and help develop educational materials and programs that encourage critical thinking in both proactive and reactive online activity” and “Respond to user reports in a timely manner.”…
(JTA) — Robots can hold a conversation, but should they count in a minyan? A chatbot at Britain’s University of Reading was heralded this week as passing the Turing test, showing a conversational ability that managed to fool people into thinking it was human. Using the fictional identity of 13-year-old Ukrainian boy with the name…
Eugene Goostman is 13 years old. Eugene Goostman is Jewish. He’s from Ukraine. And, oh yes, Eugene Goostman is a computer program. On June 7, Eugene became the first computer program to pass the iconic Turing test of artificial intelligence, tricking several human judges into believing he was human. Alan Turing, the father of computer…
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