Worth Watching: Robot Hides in Walls, Punches Through at Will

Zwischenräume - Interstitial Spaces from petra gemeinboeck on Vimeo.

I can't quite tell you why this video gave me chills. After all, "Zwischenräume" is an art project -- not some incidious robotics experiment.

But still: There's something exceedingly creepy about a robot that hides within a wall, punches through whenever it wants and inspects what's on the other side.

According to the artist, "the installation embeds a group of autonomous robots into the walls of a gallery. They punch holes through the walls to inspect what’s outside, signal each other and conspire ... as if the walls had ears and a hammer to pierce holes for their eyes to see."

Ok, now it's even creepier.

Hackers Stole Your Credit Card? Robots Are On the Case

When a hacker steals your credit card number, email password or Social Security number, they know where to go to make use of it: a vast world of underground chat rooms and forums, where hackers buy and sell the data that gives them access to your money.

How can law enforcement even begin cracking into this enormous hacker network? Never fear: The robot informant is on the case.

CSIdentity, an Austin-based security firm, has created artificial intelligence software that poses as a hacker, interacts with members of these underground chat rooms and, if successful, solicits stolen data, which is then sent back to investigators.

Joe Ross, the president of CSIdentity, said the company’s analyst team designed the chatbots by analyzing the dialog in hacker chatrooms, paying close attention to patterns in the interactions and lingo.

The bots use “fuzzy pattern recognition” to keep up with the lightning-quick conversations. That way, they can make sense of words that are expressed in different ways. (Who knew that a “fullz” would refer to a stolen credit card number and security code?)

Unfortunately, hackers are already on to the game. They keep an eye out for chatters that seem … well, robotic … and will vacate a chatroom if one seems suspicious. However, that pushes companies like CSIdentity to up their efforts even more. And when confused, the bots can always fall back on a swear word to throw off hackers in a profanity-riddled forums.

God, Self-awareness, Insults: What Comes Up When Two Robots Talk?

What happens when you set up a conversation between two artificial intelligence entities?

This was the question that led the Cornell Creative Machines Lab to film a chat between two Cleverbots--those online AI programs that are meant to entertain and aid in web searches.

See the fascinating video to discover what the bots talk about. They quickly cover the idea of God, the truth of their own identities and--frighteningly--their desire to have a body of their own.

Interestingly, the Cornell lab that ran this little experiment states that it's mission is to create autonomous systems that can automatically design and create other machines. Spooky!

Robots on the Radio, Coming Soon to Airwaves Near You

We’ve all experienced those annoying customer service robots when calling companies like AT&T or Verizon. Now, get ready to hear a similarly not-so-soothing robotic voice playing DJ on the radio.

Denise, an artificial intelligence program built by Guile 3D Studio, will hit the airwaves in San Antonio on Aug. 24. The droid was developed to act as a virtual assistant that can answer phone calls, check e-mail, make appointments and more. But now, KROV is putting “her” on the air. It’s just the latest example of robots having the potential to squeeze humans out of their jobs.

Dominique Garcia is the radio personality who bought Denise (for only $200!) and tweeked the AI to serve as a DJ. Not surprisingly, Garcia said that plenty of DJs are upset with him.

But Denise hasn’t completely taken over the job of a DJ. She still needs someone to write her script and line up the playlist. The robot can’t fill airspace on the fly—but she can tell a joke when asked, look up things on the Internet and even provide the weather forecast. (I can see it now: robot meteorologists.)

Of course, the draw for radio stations is the financial benefits of de-humanizing its DJs. Even now, a low-paying operator job would cover all the programming needs for Denise. And, eventually, the AI might be advanced enough to make that job obsolete as well.

That’s great for radio stations. But what about us listeners? I for one don’t want to hear Denise’s robotic voice when I’m sleepily struggling through my morning commute. And I doubt that today’s AI will even come close to a human DJ in personality, humor and relatability.

What are your thoughts? Will you be tempted to tune in to Denise’s first show on Aug. 24?

Robot Uses AI, 3-D Scanning to Sort Recyclable Waste

In celebration of Earth Day 2011, meet the ZenRobotics Recycler, a revolutionary new autonomous robot that sorts waste for recycling.

The Recycler system targets objects from a waste stream, such as valuable raw materials, contaminants and other items, using multiple sensors. The robot's artificial intelligence technology employs a combination of full-spectrum cameras, NIR, 3-D scanning and more to ID each item. It then grabs and lifts object from the stream, sorting them into appropriate bins.

According to EcoGeek, an environmental technology blog, nearly 100 percent of waste from construction winds up in landfills. Much of this could be reused or recycled. Now, thanks to AI, that has become possible.