Alan M. Turing
Alan Turing |
Alan Turing is considered to be the grandfather of computer science. His early contributions led innovations down the line that led to artificial intelligence and artificial life. He believed strongly in the ability to make machines think. He is famous for his work during WWII, when he built COLOSSUS, which cracked the Nazis' codes, for his Turing machine, a simple computer that approached problems in a logical way, and for a test he came up with called the Turing Test. The Turing Test is now a part of the annual Loebner Prize, which offers 100,000 dollars to any program which passes. The Turing test involves an interrogator, a computer, and a real person. The interrogator asks questions over the keyboard and either the computer or person answers. After interviewing both, if the interrogator does not know which is the computer than the computer has passed. A computer has never passed the test to date. Click here for a transcript of 1996's winner and you'll see we're still a ways off.
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Christopher Langton
Christopher Langton |
Christopher Langton was interested in creating simple life, not something complex. He accomplished his goal with his project known as Langton's loops. These loops contained digital genetic information which was copied to the next generation, as well as instructions for reproducing. His loops did a very good job mimicing simple life forms.
Another program he made was Vants, virtual ants. These ants ran around the screen leaving trails and making patterns in much the same way real ants leave food trails.
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Thomas Ray
Thomas Ray |
Is a biologist who now studies digital evolution in Japan. He is most famous for his project called Tierra, a computer simulation using a genetic algorithm to in an environment where creatures compete for machine resources. Natural selection and evolution emerge creating life-like results. Many scientists doubted his project would work, but on January 3, 1990 it ran for the first time and produced amazing results which kept him busy for a long time afterwards.
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Rodney Brooks
Rodney Brooks |
Rodney brooks is a very ambitious man who pushes the bounds of technology. He's a person who wants to create something no one's done before. When he was told that robots could not maneuver themselves without the ability to reason, he build insect like robots that could do that and more without thinking. They simply reacted to stimulus, simply.
His newest project, Cog, is a humanoid robot, who he hopes will learn nearly everything it needs to know, like moving and seeing, on it's own once it is turned on. It's a vey ambitious project, and he has received a lot of critisism about it, and he likes it that way.
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Cog |
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