While looking for something totally unrelated to AI, I came across this article on asharq alawsat - ‘the Leading Arabic Daily English edition’.
Can a Machine Issue Islamic Fatwas?
There isn’t enough detail in the article to glean anything specific about the programming of the Electronic Mufti, but it does raise some interesting issues in metaethics.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been referring to that little guy in Men In Black whenever I have to debunk the homunculus theory of the mind (usually on the first day of my ‘Minds and Machines’ course). So I decided to actually bring the video with me to class:
(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.)
If you want to use it, the url is http://inquiry.mcdaniel.edu/videos/MIBHumunculus.swf

I have found that one of the best ways to introduce functionalism to students is to take the Mind Project’s AI program, “Larry Learner” into the classroom and engage the students. There are two versions of the program that plays a game called Last One Loses. The trick when using it in the classroom is to start with the first version — that is hardwired with the winning algorithm. The vast majority of students will insist that it is not intelligent and after giving their own reasons why, will almost unanimously agree that Larry is not intelligent and the human author of the Larry program, Tony Kuzola, IS intelligent because he had to figure out — by trial and error — what the winning moves were and then he simply encoded it into the Larry program. But now you have the students where you want them. Because the second version of Larry, the “learning” version, does itself learn by trial and error what the winning moves are and thus has the very property that was sufficient for attributing intelligence to the human being.

Ray Kruzweil has predicted ‘human-level’ AI by 2029. The BBC article is here:
Machines ‘to match man by 2029′

I’m not an AI skeptic - I wouldn’t be in this specialization if I were - but I get really sick of these predictions. My father tells a (possibly) apocryphal story of sitting in Marvin Minsky’s course back in 1955 (or so). Minsky gets up, hammers his first on the podium, and announces “we’ll have artificially intelligent machines within 5 years!” Sometime in the middle 80’s, Minsky was interviewed by Parade magazine (or some other such tabloid) and he was quoted as saying “we’ll have artificially intelligent machines within 5 years!” While I understand the need for popular outreach (I’ve written for Philosophy and the Grateful Dead, for goodness sakes) for both pedagogy and funding, I wish that our ’spokespeople’ would be more careful.

Hurray! Scientists in Italy have achieved the greatest (to my mind) challenge in AI:
Scientists Create Coffee-Making Robot

OK, so that title is a little bit of a double-entendre, and an inaccurate at that - but it was the best I could do on short notice:
‘Science Daily’ has an article interviewing Selmer Bringsjord on his creation of an artificial reasoner on second life:
Bringing Second Life To Life: Researchers Create Character With Reasoning Abilities Of A Child
and
AI-Based Virtual Child Plays in Second Life and Child-like intelligence created in Second Life

I saw this one in the Post this morning.

(Click to view full-sized image at Dilbert Archive Home>

There’s a good article in the NYTimes on research by Lera Boroditsky and colleagues on the influence of language categories on perception. If you were there, I’m sure you’d remember her presentation at the SPP in Edmonton. I think every person in the room had their hand up for a question. I’ve never seen anything like it. Anyway - I, like many of the people there, believe her research to be solid and interesting, but worry about the conclusion drawn. I won’t bias your reading, however: When Language Can Hold the Answer

I’ve actually been avoiding this story for a week, but a colleague of mine sent it to me, so I guess it is time to post it.
Mark Changizi at RPI (and may I say: damn, do they have a good PR department) is being reported as having ‘proven that some people can see into the future’ or having ‘discovered the key to all optical illusions’, depending on who you read:
Crystal (Eye) Ball: Visual System Equipped With ‘Future Seeing Powers’ (Science Daily.com - a copy of the original press release, which can be found: at RPI)
Key to All Optical Illusions Discovered (Yahoo News)
I Can See The Future - And Apparently, So Can You (shortnews.com)
Scientist: Humans Can See Into Future (Fox News.com)

The state of PA has granted UPenn, Temple and Pitt $10 million to develop a national center on science instruction. The center is supposed to unite the Graduate School of Education at Penn with the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center at Temple; and the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center.

Story from Marketwatch:Governor Rendell Announces $10 Million Grant to Expand Science Education
Press Release from Penn: Penn and Other Institutions Receive $10 Million Grant to Establish Center for Cognition and Science Instruction

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Paul Bloom's Intro to Psych course at Yale is available on line: it should be particularly helpful to any student treading in the dangerous waters of interdisciplinary understanding of language and development:Academic Earth - Introduction to Psychology

Much press coverage of this one. Here we go:

• Ray Kurzweil to head futurology school backed by Nasa and Google | Science | guardian.co.uk
• Wired Campus: Founder of Singularity University Talks About His Unusual New Institution - Chronicle.com
• Kurzweil to found 'Singularity Uni' in Silicon Valley • The Register
• Singularity U.: No Frats, Just Breakthroughs - BusinessWeek
• Unique university coming to Bay Area this year

Reported by Boing Boing:
Hollywood film about amnesiac H.M. may happen - Boing Boing

Tony's review of Wallach & Allen's recent book Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong is on Philosophy Now:
Philosophy Now - Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong by Wendall Wallach and Colin Allen

I've actually been avoiding instances of this story, as I wrote my dissertation on color perception, and spend a great deal of time telling people that I do NOT study color's affective qualities.Anyway, the story has legs, so here are the links:

• Color Study Looks at Effects of Red and Blue - NYTimes.com
• VOA News - Study Finds Color Boosts Brain Performance
• Color your world: Hues have influence on mood, choices : Editorials : Anderson Independent-Mail

More on the way, no doubt.

DARPA has funded IBM's SyNAPSE program to "investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in neuromorphic electronic devices that are scalable to biological levels."
Here's the grant release at DARPA: Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) - BAA08-28 - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities
 
And here's the Press Release at IBM:

IBM Press room - 2008-11-20 IBM Seeks to Build the Computer of the Future Based on Insights from the Brain - United States
 
Someone with a better understanding of electro-chemical-nano-engineering than me has to tell me if this has any actual impact on the theory of computability, or if this is just going to be a significant increase in the speed of computation. Gualtiero over at Brains?

An interesting pop-cog sci book, which may be useful both as an introductory tool in Cog Sci and Critical Thinking:
'How We Decide,' by Jonah Lehrer - From the San Francisco Gate

A few weeks ago, a post on the Evolution of Religion over at Suicide Girls came to my attention through PZ Myers' excellent blog pharyngula. [Note: Suicide Girls' web site contains photos of punk girls in various stages of undress, so if that offends your sensibilities, don't click on the 'general' link I've provided.]
I've been following this developing field for a few years now, and am happy to see it covered in the 'popular' blogs. R. Elisabeth Cornwell (U Colorado) has offered a second part "Why Women are Bound to Religion: An Evolutionary Perspective" seeking an explanation for why women tend to be more religious, even while religions tend to be misogynistic. Her argument, essentially, seems to be that the burden of ensuring the survival of offspring falls disproportionally on women, and hence women will be more susceptible to the social benefits of being religious.

Excellent news out of our own Ken Livingston's Interdisciplinary Robotics Research Laboratory (IRRL):

Vassar alumnus and research associate, scores in worldwide programming competition - Mid-Hudson News Network

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