4,511 research outputs found
Humans, robots and values
The issue of machines replacing humans dates back to
the dawn of industrialisation. In this paper we examine what is
fundamental in the distinction between human and
robotic work by reflecting on the work of the classical political economists and engineers. We examine the
relationship between the ideas of machine work and
human work on the part of Marx and Watt as well as their role
in the creation of economic value. We examine the
extent to which artificial power sources could feasibly
substitute for human effort in their arguments.
We go on to examine the differing views of Smith and
Marx with respect to the economic effort contributed
by animals and consider whether the philosophical
distinction made between human and non-human work
can be sustained in the light of modern biological
research. We emphasise the non-universal
character of animal work before going on to discuss
the ideas of universal machines in Capek and Turing giving as a counter example a cloth-folding
robot being developed in our School.
We then return to Watt and discuss the development
of thermodynamics and information theory. We show
how recent research has led to a unification not
only of these fields but also a unitary understanding
of the labour process and the value-creation process.
We look at the implications of general robotisation for profitability and the future
of capitalism. For this we draw on the work of
von Neumann not only on computers but also in
economics to point to the {\em real} threat posed
by robots
On The Foundations of Digital Games
Computers have lead to a revolution in the games we play, and, following this, an interest for computer-based games has been sparked in research communities. However, this easily leads to the perception of a one-way direction of influence between that the field of game research and computer science. This historical investigation points towards a deep and intertwined relationship between research on games and the development of computers, giving a richer picture of both fields. While doing so, an overview of early game research is presented and an argument made that the
distinction between digital games and non-digital games may be counter-productive to game research as a whole
Kolmogorov Complexity of Categories
Kolmogorov complexity theory is used to tell what the algorithmic
informational content of a string is. It is defined as the length of the
shortest program that describes the string. We present a programming language
that can be used to describe categories, functors, and natural transformations.
With this in hand, we define the informational content of these categorical
structures as the shortest program that describes such structures. Some basic
consequences of our definition are presented including the fact that equivalent
categories have equal Kolmogorov complexity. We also prove different theorems
about what can and cannot be described by our programming language.Comment: 16 page
From the buzzing in Turing’s head to machine intelligence contests
This paper presents an analysis of three major contests for machine intelligence. We conclude that a new era for Turing’s test requires a fillip in the guise of a committed
sponsor, not unlike DARPA, funders of the successful 2007
Urban Challenge
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