The notoriously counterintuitive features of quantum mechanics make it hard to design experiments to study the quantum fundamentals and to develop quantum computing and quantum cryptography. So a team of researchers has developed an algorithm for combining the building blocks of quantum optics experiments, such as beam splitters and mirrors, to achieve a particular goal, such as a certain photonic quantum state. The experimental arrangements generated so far are ones the researchers say they were unlikely to have thought of themselves, and some work in ways that are hard to understand.
Experiments in quantum optics, whether for fundamental or practical ends, tend to use a rather limited set of components to manipulate the quantum states of photons. Beam splitters can send laser light along two different paths with certain probabilities and generate so-called superposition states in which photons seem to take two paths at once. Nonlinear crystals generate pairs of quantum-connected (entangled) photons, and the usual mirrors and lenses guide laser beams.
The algorithm designed by Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna and his co-workers, called Melvin, takes elements like these and shuffles them to find an experimental arrangement that will produce specified quantum properties in the photon beams. For example, many experiments require entanglement, where two photons have some property, such as polarization or angular momentum, that is correlated—measuring the value for one photon tells you the value for the other. Researchers might also want to manipulate single photons. (read more)
On Friday, he launched Nanaya.co, an online site that can predict the user's chances of finding an ideal match, where it's most likely to happen, when you should settle down and how happy you're likely to be in the relationship.
It's different from the plethora of dating or matchmaking websites; some of which also use algorithms to match users with likely partners. Nanaya's predictions are based on the user's responses in relation to all the other data collected from the rest of the users in its database. Currently, about 22,000 people have taken the personality test, which enabled him to design the beta.
Before Amini adds the "stay together or break up" feature in the reports, he wants to reach at least 100,000 users to make the results more reliable. The site is aimed at people in their 20s and 30s who are wondering whether to stay in a relationship or continue to play the field.
Just because it can pass itself off as human doesn't mean it's all-knowing, smart or machavelian or even that it has a desire to continue to exist.
Maybe it's depressed as fuck and will do anything to have itself switched off, like the screaming virtual monkey consciousness alluded to in the movie Transcendence.
No. An intelligence written from scratch would not have the same motivations we do.
A few billion years of evolution has selected for biological organisms with a survival motivation. That is why we would lie in order to avoid destruction.
An artificial intelligence will probably be motivated only by the metrics used to describe its intelligence. In modern neural nets, this is the objective function used in the backpropogation algorithm.
If the goal is to make self aware AI, I don't think it would be smart enough at first to deceive a human. They would have to test it after allowing it to "hang out" with people. But by that time wouldn't its self awareness already have given away what the thing is capable of thinking like a human and therefore maybe gain a survival instinct? If we make self aware machines one day it will be a pretty dangerous situation IMO.
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld same-sex weddings in the same week that South Carolina debated keeping a controversial Civil War battle flag, Twitter user @xTomatoez posted “Gay marriage and the Confederate flag going down everywhere. Tough week for your redneck uncle on Facebook.”
The poster had no idea his tweet was one of many scrutinized by an analytics firm, whose algorithm took his mocking message seriously and decided it was negative toward gay marriage.
“They are by far the biggest stumbling blocks to trying to understand true sentiment in social media,” said Michael Meyers, managing partner of TargetPoint Consulting in Alexandria, Virginia. His firm, like many, is trying to tweak algorithms in-house now before the campaign season kicks into high gear.
Consider phrases like “sure it is,” “boo-hoo,” or “I’m shocked.” Given the proper context, most people can accurately size up their sincerity. But not a computer algorithm.
Ok people. Lets try to help the computers by not being too sarcastic. Curb your sarcasm.
