Waxy.org
Waxy.org is the sandbox of Andy Baio, an independent journalist and programmer living in Portland, Oregon. I created Upcoming.org and some other stuff too.

Contact Me: log@waxy.org or waxpancake on AIM

The Machine That Changed the World: The Thinking Machine

Posted Jun 6, 2008 (Updated Jun 11, 2008)

The fourth episode of The Machine That Changed the World covers the history of artificial intelligence and the challenges that come from trying to teach computers to think and learn like us.

(Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)

Key People/Concepts:
Jerome B. Wiesner, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Oliver Selfridge of Lincoln Labs, Claude Shannon, Freddy Robot at the University of Edinburgh, Sir James Lighthill, Terry Winograd's SHRDLU, Edward Feigenbaum's work on expert systems, Doug Lenat's Cyc project, Oliver Sacks, neural networks, NETtalk

Interviews:
Marvin Minsky (MIT), Hubert Dreyfus (UC Berkeley), Edward Feigenbaum (Stanford University), Hans Moravec (Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute), Doug Lenat (University of Texas, Austin), Dean Pomerleau (Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute), Terrence Sejnowski (Salk Institute)

Next up...
The last episode: The World at Your Fingertips. Computer networks, including the Internet, and their global impact on communication and privacy.

3 Comments (Add Yours)

Jun 8, 2008
9:09 AM  
Cristiano Betta wrote:

Wow, this part is actually quite heavy on AI and Neural Networking theory.


Sep 7, 2008
3:30 AM  
Mahone Dunbar wrote:

Thanks for posting this. I watched, and taped, the original program back in the nineties; however, this chapter on attempts to build an AI failed to tape for some reason. My subsequent attempts to get PBS to run the series again, or buy a copy of the series online, failed. Many thanks for giving me a second shot at watching a very informative piece of work. I was amazed at how much computers have advanced since the original series aired in 1992. The one thing I think wasn't distinguished in the program was the difference between intelligence and consciousness. Computers are definitely intelligent. The true goal of AI research is to make a machine that either achieves "consciousness" or can mimic it so perfectly.


Oct 9, 2008
12:35 PM  
Bruce Wolf wrote:

Thanks a lot for posting these episodes. I have been looking for a DVD of this series - ever since the VHS tape went off the market. I had taped the series onto VHS tape myself, but I watched it so many time, it became unplayable.

Thanks again...


 

Leave a comment





Waxy Links
Ads via The Deck
July 3, 2009
Kevin Kelly's Death Clock in Futurama — this might seem morbid to some, but I find it inspiring
July 2, 2009
Paul Lamere's Coolness Index — are female singers uncool?
Kickstarter's Big Day — 13 projects ended on July 1, raising an average 188% of their goals
Anil Dash on Malcolm Gladwell's criticism of Chris Anderson's Free — I read through Gladwell's New Yorker piece twice, and the arguments seem petty and off base
72-year-old retired boxer beats up knife-wielding knucklehead — the inane Facebook photos make this story even more delicious
July 1, 2009
Pez sues Burlingame Museum of Pez for copyright infringement — so disappointing
RIAA wins lawsuit against Usenet.com — judge rules Betamax case doesn't apply; every other Usenet provider is next
June 30, 2009
EveryBlock releases source code — it was a requirement of their funding from the Knight Foundation
Hype Machine detects cheating on charts, names names — one of the bands responds in the comments and gets schooled by Anthony (via)
Ze Frank on black, white, and shades of green — I'm loving this series
China bans gold farming, real-world sale of virtual goods — Eurogamer estimates 1 million Chinese gold farmers with worldwide trade worth more than US$10 billion annually (via)
The Pirate Bay sold to publicly-traded Swedish gaming company — Brokep's statement is delusional; being acquired will almost certainly kill the site
Michael Rubin's "Droidmaker" book now available for free download! — authoritative 518-page history of Lucasfilm, the creation of Pixar, and much more (via)
June 29, 2009
Jason Rohrer interviewed about "selling out" to make iPhone and ad games — he recently switched from free, open-source games; also, EA claims Spielberg's LMNO isn't cancelled
Nedroid's Cosby Experiment — view all 190 Cosbys
How the NYT kept their reporter's Taliban kidnapping off Wikipedia for seven months — they collaborated with Jimmy Wales directly to freeze the entry; NPR asks if it was ethical (via)
David Fincher may direct Facebook film, adapted by Aaron Sorkin — possibly starring Michael Cera or Shia LaBeouf as Zuckerberg; this sounds familiar (via)
Quarrygirl's undercover investigation of non-vegan ingredients used at L.A.-area vegan restaurants — outstanding blog reporting, with industrial food testing from 17 different restaurants and research into suppliers
June 28, 2009
James Barnett's oil paintings of landscapes from video games — looking at the paintings, I felt like I'd actually visited those locations in real-life (via)
WSJ interviews Brenda Brathwaite about "Train," a board game about the Holocaust — not all games need to be fun (via)
June 27, 2009
How Rob Manuel accidentally started a Michael Jackson moonwalk flashmob — I'm in London right now, and I've seen several massive vigils and tributes on the streets (via)
Top teams join forces to win Netflix Prize — check the leaderboard for the first score to break the 10% improvement threshold (via)
Wired on the success of Nike+ — backstory on how it works and the Hawthorne effect; simply measuring something can change its behavior (via)
June 26, 2009
Imeem to delete all user-added photos and videos, with five days' notice — with no way to back up videos at all (via)
Shnabubula's chiptune tribute to Michael Jackson — also: Virt's incredible VRC6 cover of Thriller
June 25, 2009
Metafilter user highlights 20 years of Elvis Costello's "adenoidal" voice in the NYT — Stephen Holden and Neil Strauss have a limited musical vocabulary (via)
June 24, 2009
Flashterm, free telnet client for the web — I love his gallery page, full of BBSes
Peter Nitsch's Flash port of AA-Lib, image-to-ASCII art library — the demo is fun; also: his real-time video conversion to ASCII (via)
Simon Willison's four lessons from the Guardian's journalism crowdsourcing experiment — they deliberately made it game-like to encourage participation (via)
June 22, 2009
Ze Frank's That Makes Me Think Of... — first of a series on Time.com, reminiscent of The Show (via)

Andy Baio lives here. Some rights reserved, for your pleasure.