In the beginning, part 2. - After covering history and background in the last episode, we can relax and play with the strange ideas and concepts surrounding the theory of the big bang. The event horizon around our universe,

In the beginning, part 1. - Before 1923, the universe was thought to be static and eternal, unchanging and without beginning or end. Its size was likely just a few tens of thousands of lightyears across, with one large island of stars, our galaxy,

Logical, not biological - Evolution strategies, genetic algorithms, artificial neural networks—they’re all AI methods that were inspired by nature. But what about other methods that have nothing to do with the brain or natural selection,

Bits and brains and bots - If we could look closely at every last cell in your brain, and learn enough to simulate them on a computer, would a detailed enough simulation of your brain think? Today, we talk about artificial neural networks—an AI method...

Genetic algorithms and evolution on fast-forward - The dorg, the latest batch of digital organisms, will one day be placed in a little world to work out their destiny. The notion is to try and coax them into becoming intelligent.

Maybe, if they all work together… - Last time we talked about how the dorg, the lab’s latest batch of digital organisms, are unlikely to be able to evolve into intelligence. This week, we talk about how they might be able to do it anyway. But first,

How and why the dorg are doomed - It seems like such a simple and obvious thing. Given that we can cause computer programs and the like to evolve and evolution is what gave us our intelligence, couldn’t we give a computer intelligence by letting it ev...

Of mice and men and minds - We’ve been looking and different unusually clever creatures—ants, bees, crows, octopus, elephants, whales, sea otters, dogs, racoons and monkeys. Along the way I was hoping to figure out some general idea of how intelligenc...

Monkey brain business - Primates, from the littlest monkeys to the largest apes, have rather large brains for their size. They also have high neural density, meaning that they pack a large number of neurons into whatever size brain they have.

That’s a good dog - Alright, I agree, some dogs are smarter than others. Some dogs are downright dumb—but we still love them. Still, depending on the dog, they can show language and memory abilities as good as those shown by two year old human childre...