Technology, features and articles | Educational Science

May 17, 2017

How Bots Acting Randomly Can Help Speed Human Problem-Solving

Software bots that occasionally act randomly can help groups of humans solve collective-action problems faster, new research has shown. Playing a game with someone unpredictable can be annoying, particularly when you're on the same team. But in an online game designed to test group decision-making, adding computer-controlled players that sometimes...

May 31, 2017

Apple Co-Founder Bets on Tesla for Next Tech Breakthrough

Apple may have long ago cemented its status as a technology titan, but Steve Wozniak thinks the next major technological innovation won't come from the company he co-founded. In a recent interview with Bloomberg Canada, Wozniak discussed advancements in the technology sector. One major topic was artificial intelligence, which he...

Jun 1, 2017

Brain-Hacking Tech Gets Real: 5 Companies Leading the Charge

There's been a lot of hype coming out of Silicon Valley in recent months about technology that can meld the human brain with machines. But how will this tech help society, and which companies are leading the charge? Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made waves in March when he...

Jun 13, 2017

Apple CEO Reveals Tech Giant Is Working on AI for Self-Driving Cars

Apple has spent years working on a car project that has been kept shrouded in secrecy — until now. During an interview with Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the auto industry is experiencing disruption from three avenues: electric cars, ride-sharing companies and self-driving technology. And driverless cars, Cook revealed,...

Jun 22, 2017

Blooming Beasts: Dinosaurs Are Coming Up Roses in AI Artwork

A programmer recently turned to artificial intelligence to create positively charming images of so-called botanical dinosaurs, representations of tyrannosaurs, stegosaurs, triceratops and others, all constructed entirely out of flowers. To generate the unusual effect, coder Chris Rodley used a web app that employs a technique known as style transfer, in...

Jun 30, 2017

Artificial Synapses Could Lead to Smarter AI

Heads up, humanity. Artificial intelligence may be about to get a lot smarter. An international team of scientists has developed a new kind of synthetic synapse for artificial intelligence systems using the neural network model. In artificial neural networks, computing systems are designed to emulate the function of the human...

Jul 17, 2017

Elon Musk: Regulate AI Before Robots Start 'Killing People'

Elon Musk thinks the government needs to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) now, before it becomes dangerous to humanity, the entrepreneur told a gathering of state governors over the weekend. I have exposure to the very cutting-edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned about it, Musk told attendees...

Aug 16, 2017

Elon Musk: AI Poses Bigger Threat to Humanity Than North Korea

Simmering tensions between the United States and North Korea have many people concerned about the possibility of nuclear war, but Elon Musk says the North Korean government doesn't pose as much of a threat to humanity as the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). The SpaceX and Tesla CEO tweeted on...

Aug 30, 2017

Artificial Intelligence Pens Next Installment of 'Game of Thrones' Novels

Avid fans of writer George R.R. Martin's fantasy epic A Song of Ice and Fire — brought to the screen in the HBO series Game of Thrones — are facing a bit of a wait before they can find out what happens next in Westeros. The TV series just concluded...

Sep 26, 2017

To Keep AI from 'Eating a Table,' Scientists Make It Read Wikipedia

Though artificial intelligence is often maligned by futurists and others as something to fear, what about the everyday, humdrum actions a robot may have to carry out, such as knowing you can put food on a table but you can't eat the table? Turns out, AI is not yet sophisticated...

Oct 6, 2017

Recipe for a Replicant: 5 Steps to Building a Blade Runner-Style Android

Building a replicant (Image credit: Copyright 2017 ALCON ENTERTAINMENT, LLC)Blade Runner 2049 hits theaters on Friday, Oct. 6. The sci-fi thriller will serve as a distant sequel to the original Blade Runner film from 1982, in which a faction of advanced humanoid robots become murderous in their quest to increase...

Oct 31, 2017

'I Wake Up in a Pool of Blood': These Horror Stories Were Written by an AI

I wake up in a pool of blood. I was trapped in this hospital bed. I think I'm being stalked. In horror stories, phrases like these conjure up scenes that can make your blood run cold or cause your heart to beat a little faster. But the author of these...

Nov 27, 2017

Elon Musk: Say 'Sweet Dreams,' Humanity

Elon Musk has once again warned about the dangers of unchecked artificial intelligence, this time in response to a viral video of a robot doing amazing acrobatic feats. Twitter user Alex Medina, a designer for Vox Media, posted a clip of a Boston Dynamics humanoid robot called Atlas doing a...

Dec 10, 2017

Will Artificial Intelligence Become Conscious?

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Forget about today's modest incremental advances in artificial intelligence, such as the increasing abilities of cars to drive themselves. Waiting in the wings might be a groundbreaking development: a...

Jan 26, 2018

A Computer with Just 2 'Neurons' Can Learn to Ride a Bike

It doesn't take a whole lot of brain to ride a bicycle. In fact, it takes just two neurons — or, to be precise, two nodes on a digital neural network. Matthew Cook, a researcher at the Institute for Neuroinformatics in Zurich, showed this in a self-published report from 2004,...