The robot as cub reporter: law\u27s emerging role in cognitive journalism

Today\u27s journalist is immersed in news production that no longer treats robot-written news as a mere reference tool. Major news corporations are reshaping the journalism business to reflect the increasingly dominant role of algorithms and its consequent decrease in human curation. With data so integral to today\u27s news storytelling and the arrival of machines that are learning to \u27sense, think and act\u27 like their creators, we are called to deliberate on the legitimacy of law to address human risks and responsibilities when humans are harmed physically, socially, financially or professionally. This paper argues that we are entering the age of cognitive journalism that affects the legal personhood question and examines policy initiatives on both sides of the Atlantic for legal norms to inform a law for machines that learn from mistakes and teach other machines. Legal issues raised by driverless cars, human cloning, drones and nanotechnology are examined for what they can offer to an emerging law of the robot. The paper concludes with a call for research that will bring a more nuanced understanding of the legitimate place of law in cognitive journalism

The Sixth Annual Workshop on Space Operations Applications and Research (SOAR 1992)

This document contains papers presented at the Space Operations, Applications, and Research Symposium (SOAR) hosted by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) on 4-6 Aug. 1992 and held at the JSC Gilruth Recreation Center. The symposium was cosponsored by the Air Force Material Command and by NASA/JSC. Key technical areas covered during the symposium were robotic and telepresence, automation and intelligent systems, human factors, life sciences, and space maintenance and servicing. The SOAR differed from most other conferences in that it was concerned with Government-sponsored research and development relevant to aerospace operations. The symposium's proceedings include papers covering various disciplines presented by experts from NASA, the USAF, universities, and industry

Design, decisions and dialogue

This thesis presents a design for an Intelligent Educational System to support the teaching of design evaluation in engineering. The design consists of a simple computerbased tool (or 'learning environment') for displaying and manipulating infonnation used in the course of problem solving, with a separate dialogue component capable of discussing aspects of the problem and of the problem solving strategy with the user. Many of the novel features of the design have been incorporated in a prototype system called WOMBAT. The main focus of this research has been on the design of the dialogue component. The design of the dialogue component is based on ideas taken from recent work on rational agency. The dialogue component has expertise in engaging in dialogues which support collaborative problem solving (involving system and user) in domains characterised as justified beliefs. It is capable of negotiating about what to do next and about what beliefs to take into account in problem solving. The system acquires problem-related beliefs by applying a simple plausible reasoning mechanism to a database of possible beliefs. The dialogue proceeds by turn-taking in which the current speaker constructs their chosen utterance (which may consist of several propositions and questions) and explicitly indicates when they have finished. When it is the system's turn to make an utterance, it decides what to say based on its beliefs about the current situation and on the likely utility of the various possible responses which it considers appropriate in the circumstances. Two aspects of the problem solving have been fully implemented. These are the discussion about what criteria a decision should be based on and the discussion about what decision step should be taken next. The system's contributions to the interaction are opportunistic, in the sense that at a dialogue level the system does not try to plan beyond the current utterance, and at a problem solving level it does not plan beyond the next action. The results of a formative evaluation of WOMBAT, in which it was exposed to a number of engineering educators, indicate that it is capable of engaging in a coherent dialogue, and that the dialogue is seen to have a pedagogical purpose. Although the approach of reasoning about the next action opportunistically has not proved adequate at a problem solving level, at a dialogue level it yields good results

Japanese EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Development in the Production of Speech Acts Drawing on ACT-R Model and Skill Acquisition Theory

This mixed-methods quasi-experimental study explored the development of pragmatic competence of lower-proficiency EFL learners in their university English classes in Japan. Although pragmatic competence has emerged as a key topic within the field of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP), almost all studies have examined L2 learners’ language use rather than pragmatic development focusing on learning outcomes than process. This study investigates both learners’ language use and development, in order to draw a more comprehensive picture of pragmatic development. It also attempts to identify the mechanisms that drive this development by employing a framework of Adaptive Control Thought-Rational (ACT-R) theory in tandem with skill acquisition theory, which is a promising but underexplored framework in the L2 pragmatic development context. As such, this study aims to fill a gap in the research literature and make a theoretical contribution by showing the potential of the framework to account for learners’ pragmatic development. For this study, I recruited 120 Japanese EFL learners making up four intact classes to examine the development over one term (14 weeks) of their skills for producing speech acts after receiving pragmatic instruction. The development was examined both in terms of knowledge and processing ability with more focus on the latter to produce speech acts. Four types of speech acts were chosen for this experiment: request and refusal speech acts, for which specific instruction was provided; and complaint and disagreement speech acts, for which no instruction was provided. Request and refusal were selected as they were most widely studied, and complaints and disagreements were selected as they are relatively similar in nature to request and refusal speech acts and a good candidate to examine learners’ ability of knowledge extension. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were employed to see how much learners improved their production of request and refusal speech acts - in light of the effectiveness of instruction they had received. A similar analysis was carried out on the uninstructed speech acts of complaint and disagreement to assess their capability to extend their learned knowledge from request and refusal making to the production of new speech acts, namely to assess their processing capability. The results showed that the participants in the treatment groups (TGs) improved in the production of both instructed and uninstructed speech acts by developing their knowledge and processing ability. The development of such knowledge was assessed by measuring the TGs’ improvement in the use of politeness strategies, which are associated with declarative knowledge. As for the development of their processing ability, this was assessed in two ways: in terms of their ability to select contextually appropriate strategies and to apply their learned knowledge sufficiently to produce uninstructed speech acts, these being associated with procedural knowledge. Since the application of the learned speech act schema enables learners to produce ostensibly ‘new’ speech acts with relative ease, not from scratches. This frees up most of the working memory to be available for other purposes, such as planning what to say next, and looking for more sophisticated expressions. This was reflected in the results of this experiment that showed, following instruction, the use of a wider range of strategies and more sophisticated lexical and syntactic expressions. However, the results did show that the participants were still in an early stage of proceduralisation and needed further practice to improve their processing ability to move toward automatisation. This study has pedagogical, theoretical, and methodological implications. Pedagogically, there are several implications afforded by a clearer understanding of learning processes that can be used to revise the EFL curriculum. Theoretically, by showing how pragmatic competence develops in an EFL classroom, this study shows the potential of the ACT-R model, partially revised to apply to this study, to elucidate the operational mechanism of pragmatic ability. Methodologically, this study shows how the application of the revised model I formulated through adaptation and clarification of a range of interpretations of the ACT-R model can better account for proceduralisation in pragmatic development, raising implications for allowing related research to move forward in an otherwise muddled ongoing discussion in the field

The 1989 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence

The following topics are addressed: mission operations support; planning and scheduling; fault isolation/diagnosis; image processing and machine vision; data management; and modeling and simulation

The role of community pharmacists as advisors on prescription medication

This thesis describes the historical and functional evolution of British community pharmacists showing the succession of a compounding role by a supply function with incumbent bureaucracy. Development of a role as advisors on prescription medication is reviewed and the potential benefit explored by reviewing patients' lack of understanding about their medication following advice from general medical practitioners. Although ethical directives and specific guidance could be identified for the application and use of additional labels, little was found for provision of verbal advice. No comprehensive research was found to describe the prescription medication advisory role of community pharmacists. The present thesis primarily addresses this lack of knowledge. For a total of 651/2 days between June 1988 and February 1989 the discussions of twenty of twenty four randomly selected community pharmacists which involved prescription medication were tape recorded, transcribed and the circumstances observed. For half this time a poster advertising community pharmacists' advisory service was displayed. Verbal advice was provided by the community pharmacist to 473 of 3519 individuals involved with prescription medication. Two types of community pharmacists were identified, proactive and reactive. Irrespective of type, a constant level of requests for advice was noted. Overall, display of the poster was not associated with any significant effect on the quantity of advice; however, it was associated with changes in the nature of advice with greater emphasis on 'Specific problem' and 'Side effects' over 'What is prescribed' and 'What to do with it'. Although reiteration of the prescribers' directions and verbalising additional label warnings accounted for the majority of verbal advice, qualitative analysis revealed an element of independent judgement. The sociological literature on the professions provides an understanding for the observations. It is argued that guidance for verbal advice provided in the British National Formulary may facilitate community pharmacists' prescription medication advisory role

Communicative humanoids : a computational model of psychosocial dialogue skills

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-238).Kristinn Rúnar Thórisson.Ph.D