AI now...
Less than a week after Los Alamos National Laboratory's Roadrunner supercomputer began operating at world-record petaflop-per-second data-processing speeds, Los Alamos researchers are already using the computer to mimic extremely complex neurological processes.
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South Africa has long had a proud tradition of cutting edge technology development. Industrial and commercial applications developed in SA have found their way into major markets across the globe. Artificial intelligence is fast becoming a high growth sector in the technology industry and South Africa has a small but growing niche community working in this field.
Edd Hifeng barely merits a second glance in Second Life. A steel-gray robot with lanky limbs and linebacker shoulders, he looks like a typical avatar in the popular virtual world.
But Edd is different.
His actions are animated not by a person at a keyboard but by a computer. Edd is a creation of artificial intelligence, or AI, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who endowed him with a limited ability to converse and reason. It turns out Second Life is more than a place where pixelated avatars chat, interact and fly about. It's also a frontier in AI research because it's a controllable environment where testing intelligent creations is easier.