Mind-controlled exoskeleton opens World Cup; AI will crash the stock market; Cortana's personality
- The 2014 World Cup kicked off yesterday with a futuristic twist on the opening ceremonies. A paraplegic kicked a soccer ball using an exoskeleton designed by the Walk Again Project:
The exoskeleton -- a system comprising a helmet implanted with a microchip that sticks out from the underside; a T-shirt loaded with sensors; metal leg braces; and a battery worn in a backpack -- is set in motion when the user envisions himself making the kick. The chip translates those electronic commands to a digital language that powers the skeleton, which then moves accordingly. The T-shirt vibrates to enhance the user's sensation of movement (and eliminate the need to look at his feet to see if he's stepping forward).
- Unfortunately, as io9 reports, the moment was not well-covered by TV networks:
Talk about dropping the ball. Earlier today, Juliano Pinto — a 29 year-old paraplegic — successfully kicked off the 2014 FIFA World Cup by using a mind-controlled exoskeleton. But sadly, most TV networks failed to show it.
After months of hype, the official broadcast of the opening ceremonies showed only a fraction of it, while some TV networks missed the event altogether. Commentators criticized the organizers for casting aside the moment in favor of performing acts.
- Thomas Frey at the Futurist Speaker blog forecasts the coming AI crash wars:
The invasion of high-frequency trading machines is now forcing capitalism far away from anything either Adam Smith or the founders of the NYSE could possibly find virtuous.
We’re not about to let robots compete in the Olympics, driverless cars race in the Indianapolis 500, or automated machines play sports like football, basketball, or baseball. So why is it we allow them to play a role in the most valuable contest of all, the world wide stock exchange?
With crude forms of AI now entering the quant manipulator’s toolbox, we are now teetering dangerously close to a total collapse of the stock market, one that will leave many corporations and individuals financially destitute.
- Microsoft has announced their version of apple's Siri virtual assistant. coming to Windows smartphones: Named Cortana, after the AI character from the Halo video game series, she is coming to Windows smartphones, and as Brad Molen at engadget reports, developers programmed her with a distinct personality:
Confident, caring, competent, loyal; helpful, but not bossy: These are just some of the words Susan Hendrich, the project manager in charge of overseeing Cortana's personality, used to describe the program's most significant character traits. "She's eager to learn and can be downright funny, peppering her answers with banter or a comeback," Hendrich said. "She seeks familiarity, but her job is to be a personal assistant." With that kind of list, it sure sounds like Hendrich's describing a human. Which is precisely what she and her team set out to do during Cortana's development; create an AI with human-like qualities.
Microsoft's decision to infuse Cortana with a personality stemmed from one end goal: user attachment. "We did some research and found that people are more likely to interact with [AI] when it feels more human," said Hendrich. To illustrate that desired human-machine dynamic, Hendrich pointed to her grandmother's experience with a Roomba vacuum: "She gave a name and a personality to an inanimate object, and it brought her joy." That sense of familiarity is exactly what Microsoft wants Window Phone users to feel when interacting with Cortana on their own devices.