Intelligent machines
From Free net encyclopedia
The progressive incorporation of increasingly complex information architecture, microchips and software into a wide variety of machines - from computing devices to automobiles, robots, and industrial machinery has led to a proliferation of intelligent machines.
The Center for Intelligent Machines (CIM) [1], at McGill University, which was established in 1985, offers a concise definition of intelligent machines:
- "Intelligent machines are capable of adapting their goal-oriented behaviour by sensing and interpreting their environment, making decisions and plans, and then carrying out those plans using physical actions"
The scope of CIM's research includes: ambulatory robotics, artificial perception, computation, visualization and realization, content-based image retrieval, control and decision support systems haptic interfaces - systems incorporating software and hardware components that concern the sense of touch - industrial automation, mobile robotics, motor vision, shape analysis, probabilistic inference techniques, robotic mechanical systems, and shared reality and intelligent environments.
The Internet
When considered as a whole - i.e. including its human, organizational, computational, networking and protocol components - the Internet itself can be understood as an intelligent machine, even a living machine. A key aspect of the intelligence of the Internet was the initial decision - originally made in the context of Cold War concerns of the need for a communications system that could survive if any of its nodes were destroyed. This led to the design - originally as Arpanet - of the Internet as a seamless interoperable network of networks that is defined by Internet Protocols that incorporate intelligent, consensus-based decision-making processes.
Convergence of biology & technology
A far-reaching perspective on intelligent machines is offered in a February 2004 feature article on Living Machines [2] in Wired Magazine (Issue 12-02) addressing ways in which:
- "Technology and biology are converging fast. The result will transform everything from engineering to art - and redefine life as we know it."
See also: living machines, industrial ecology.
