AI Coding For Game Development

AI Coding For Game Development — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • Bring your own encryption

    Bring your own encryption

    Bring your own encryption (BYOE), also known as bring your own key (BYOK), is a cloud computing security model that allows cloud service customers to use their own encryption software and manage their own encryption keys. == Overview == BYOE enables cloud service customers to utilize a virtual instance of their encryption software alongside their cloud-hosted business applications to encrypt their data. In this model, hosted business applications are configured to process all data through the encryption software. This software then writes the ciphertext version of the data to the cloud service provider's physical data store and decrypts ciphertext data upon retrieval requests. This approach provides enterprises with control over their keys and the ability to generate their own master key using internal hardware security modules (HSM), which are then transmitted to the cloud provider's HSM. When the data is no longer needed, such as when users discontinue the cloud service, the keys can be deleted, rendering the encrypted data permanently inaccessible. This practice is known as crypto-shredding. == Potential Advantages == Organizations can store data with unique encryption that only they can access. Multiple organizations can share the same hardware infrastructure via cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud while maintaining encryption to comply with regulations such as HIPAA. == Potential Challenges == Resource utilization may be higher compared to traditional encryption practices when multiple users share the same hardware and use their own encryption. Efforts to minimize resource utilization issues may potentially impact security benefits.

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  • Leabra

    Leabra

    Leabra stands for local, error-driven and associative, biologically realistic algorithm. It is a model of learning which is a balance between Hebbian and error-driven learning with other network-derived characteristics. This model is used to mathematically predict outcomes based on inputs and previous learning influences. Leabra is heavily influenced by and contributes to neural network designs and models, including emergent. == Background == It is the default algorithm in emergent (successor of PDP++) when making a new project, and is extensively used in various simulations. Hebbian learning is performed using conditional principal components analysis (CPCA) algorithm with correction factor for sparse expected activity levels. Error-driven learning is performed using GeneRec, which is a generalization of the recirculation algorithm, and approximates Almeida–Pineda recurrent backpropagation. The symmetric, midpoint version of GeneRec is used, which is equivalent to the contrastive Hebbian learning algorithm (CHL). See O'Reilly (1996; Neural Computation) for more details. The activation function is a point-neuron approximation with both discrete spiking and continuous rate-code output. Layer or unit-group level inhibition can be computed directly using a k-winners-take-all (KWTA) function, producing sparse distributed representations. A feedforward and feedback (FFFB) form of inhibition has now replaced the KWTA form of inhibition. FFFB inhibition can be efficiently implemented by using the average excitatory input and activity levels in a given layer. The net input is computed as an average, not a sum, over connections, based on normalized, sigmoidally transformed weight values, which are subject to scaling on a connection-group level to alter relative contributions. Automatic scaling is performed to compensate for differences in expected activity level in the different projections. Documentation about this algorithm can be found in the book "Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience: Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain" published by MIT press. and in the Emergent Documentation Archived 2009-04-16 at the Wayback Machine == Overview of the leabra algorithm == The pseudocode for Leabra is given here, showing exactly how the pieces of the algorithm described in more detail in the subsequent sections fit together. Iterate over minus and plus phases of settling for each event. o At start of settling, for all units: - Initialize all state variables (activation, v_m, etc.). - Apply external patterns (clamp input in minus, input & output in plus). - Compute net input scaling terms (constants, computed here so network can be dynamically altered). - Optimization: compute net input once from all static activations (e.g., hard-clamped external inputs). o During each cycle of settling, for all non-clamped units: - Compute excitatory netinput (g_e(t), aka eta_j or net) -- sender-based optimization by ignoring inactives. - Compute kWTA inhibition for each layer, based on g_i^Q: Sort units into two groups based on g_i^Q: top k and remaining k+1 -> n. If basic, find k and k+1th highest If avg-based, compute avg of 1 -> k & k+1 -> n. Set inhibitory conductance g_i from g^Q_k and g^Q_k+1 - Compute point-neuron activation combining excitatory input and inhibition o After settling, for all units, record final settling activations as either minus or plus phase (y^-_j or y^+_j). After both phases update the weights (based on linear current weight values), for all connections: o Compute error-driven weight changes with CHL with soft weight bounding o Compute Hebbian weight changes with CPCA from plus-phase activations o Compute net weight change as weighted sum of error-driven and Hebbian o Increment the weights according to net weight change. == Implementations == Emergent Archived 2015-10-03 at the Wayback Machine is the original implementation of Leabra; its most recent implementation is written in Go. It was written chiefly by Dr. O'Reilly, but professional software engineers were recently hired to improve the existing codebase. This is the fastest implementation, suitable for constructing large networks. Although emergent has a graphical user interface, it is very complex and has a steep learning curve. If you want to understand the algorithm in detail, it will be easier to read non-optimized code. For this purpose, check out the MATLAB version. There is also an R version available, that can be easily installed via install.packages("leabRa") in R and has a short introduction to how the package is used. The MATLAB and R versions are not suited for constructing very large networks, but they can be installed quickly and (with some programming background) are easy to use. Furthermore, they can also be adapted easily. == Special algorithms == Temporal differences and general dopamine modulation. Temporal differences (TD) is widely used as a model of midbrain dopaminergic firing. Primary value learned value (PVLV). PVLV simulates behavioral and neural data on Pavlovian conditioning and the midbrain dopaminergic neurons that fire in proportion to unexpected rewards (an alternative to TD). Prefrontal cortex basal ganglia working memory (PBWM). PBWM uses PVLV to train prefrontal cortex working memory updating system, based on the biology of the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia.

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  • Composite Capability/Preference Profiles

    Composite Capability/Preference Profiles

    Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP) is a specification for defining capabilities and preferences of user agents (also known as "delivery context"). The delivery context can be used to guide the process of tailoring content for a user agent. CC/PP is a vocabulary extension of the Resource Description Framework (RDF). The CC/PP specification is maintained by the W3C's Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group (UWAWG) Working Group. == History == Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP): Structure and Vocabularies 1.0 became a W3C recommendation on 15 January 2004. A "Last-Call Working-Draft" of CC/PP 2.0 was issued in April 2007

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  • Turing test

    Turing test

    The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1949, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to that of a human. In the test, a human evaluator judges a text transcript of a natural-language conversation between a human and a machine. The evaluator tries to identify the machine, and the machine passes if the evaluator cannot reliably tell them apart. The results would not depend on the machine's ability to answer questions correctly, only on how closely its answers resembled those of a human. Since the Turing test is a test of indistinguishability in performance capacity, the verbal version generalizes naturally to all of human performance capacity, verbal as well as nonverbal (robotic). The test was introduced by Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" while working at the University of Manchester. It opens with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'." Because "thinking" is difficult to define, Turing chooses to "replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words". Turing describes the new form of the problem in terms of a three-person party game called the "imitation game", in which an interrogator asks questions of a man and a woman in another room in order to determine the correct sex of the two players. Turing's new question is: "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?" This question, Turing believed, was one that could actually be answered. In the remainder of the paper, he argued against the major objections to the proposition that "machines can think". Since Turing introduced his test, it has been highly influential in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, resulting in substantial discussion and controversy, as well as criticism from philosophers like John Searle, who argue against the test's ability to detect consciousness. == History == === Philosophical background === The question of whether it is possible for machines to think has a long history, which is firmly entrenched in the distinction between dualist and materialist views of the mind. René Descartes prefigures aspects of the Turing test in his 1637 Discourse on the Method when he writes: [H]ow many different automata or moving machines could be made by the industry of man ... For we can easily understand a machine's being constituted so that it can utter words, and even emit some responses to action on it of a corporeal kind, which brings about a change in its organs; for instance, if touched in a particular part it may ask what we wish to say to it; if in another part it may exclaim that it is being hurt, and so on. But it never happens that it arranges its speech in various ways, in order to reply appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can do. Here Descartes notes that automata are capable of responding to human interactions but argues that such automata cannot respond appropriately to things said in their presence in the way that any human can. Descartes therefore prefigures the Turing test by defining the insufficiency of appropriate linguistic response as that which separates the human from the automaton. Descartes fails to consider the possibility that future automata might be able to overcome such insufficiency, and so does not propose the Turing test as such, even if he prefigures its conceptual framework and criterion. Denis Diderot formulates in his 1746 book Pensées philosophiques a Turing-test criterion, though with the important implicit limiting assumption maintained, of the participants being natural living beings, rather than considering created artifacts: If they find a parrot who could answer to everything, I would claim it to be an intelligent being without hesitation. This does not mean he agrees with this, but that it was already a common argument of materialists at that time. According to dualism, the mind is non-physical (or, at the very least, has non-physical properties) and, therefore, cannot be explained in purely physical terms. According to materialism, the mind can be explained physically, which leaves open the possibility of minds that are produced artificially. In 1936, philosopher Alfred Ayer considered the standard philosophical question of other minds: how do we know that other people have the same conscious experiences that we do? In his book, Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer suggested a protocol to distinguish between a conscious man and an unconscious machine: "The only ground I can have for asserting that an object which appears to be conscious is not really a conscious being, but only a dummy or a machine, is that it fails to satisfy one of the empirical tests by which the presence or absence of consciousness is determined". (This suggestion is very similar to the Turing test, but it is not certain that Ayer's popular philosophical classic was familiar to Turing.) In other words, a thing is not conscious if it fails the consciousness test. === Cultural background === A rudimentary idea of the Turing test appears in the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. When Gulliver is brought before the king of Brobdingnag, the king thinks at first that Gulliver might be a "a piece of clock-work (which is in that country arrived to a very great perfection) contrived by some ingenious artist". Even when he hears Gulliver speaking, the king still doubts whether Gulliver was taught "a set of words" to make him "sell at a better price". Gulliver tells that only after "he put several other questions to me, and still received rational answers" the king became satisfied that Gulliver was not a machine. Tests where a human judges whether a computer or an alien is intelligent were an established convention in science fiction by the 1940s, and it is likely that Turing would have been aware of these. Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey" (1934) provides an example of how nuanced such tests could be. Earlier examples of machines or automatons attempting to pass as human include the Ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion who creates a sculpture of a woman that is animated by Aphrodite, Carlo Collodi's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, about a puppet who wants to become a real boy, and E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 story "The Sandman," where the protagonist falls in love with an automaton. In all these examples, people are fooled by artificial beings that—up to a point—pass as human. === Alan Turing and the imitation game === Researchers in the United Kingdom had been exploring "machine intelligence" for up to ten years prior to the founding of the field of artificial intelligence (AI) research in 1956. It was a common topic among the members of the Ratio Club, an informal group of British cybernetics and electronics researchers that included Alan Turing. Turing, in particular, had been running the notion of machine intelligence since at least 1941 and one of the earliest-known mentions of "computer intelligence" was made by him in 1947. In Turing's report, "Intelligent Machinery," he investigated "the question of whether or not it is possible for machinery to show intelligent behaviour" and, as part of that investigation, proposed what may be considered the forerunner to his later tests: It is not difficult to devise a paper machine which will play a not very bad game of chess. Now get three men A, B and C as subjects for the experiment. A and C are to be rather poor chess players, B is the operator who works the paper machine. ... Two rooms are used with some arrangement for communicating moves, and a game is played between C and either A or the paper machine. C may find it quite difficult to tell which he is playing. "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (1950) was the first published paper by Turing to focus exclusively on machine intelligence. Turing begins the 1950 paper with the claim, "I propose to consider the question 'Can machines think?'" As he highlights, the traditional approach to such a question is to start with definitions, defining both the terms "machine" and "think". Turing chooses not to do so; instead, he replaces the question with a new one, "which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words". In essence he proposes to change the question from "Can machines think?" to "Can machines do what we (as thinking entities) can do?" The advantage of the new question, Turing argues, is that it draws "a fairly sharp line between the physical and intellectual capacities of a man". To demonstrate this approach Turing proposes a test inspired by a party game, known as the "imitation game", in which a man and a woman go into separate rooms and guests try to tell them apart by writing a series of questions and reading the typewritten answers sent back. In this game, both the man and the woman aim to convince the guests that they ar

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  • Rapid application development

    Rapid application development

    Rapid application development (RAD), also called rapid application building (RAB), is both a general term for adaptive software development approaches, and the name for James Martin's method of rapid development. In general, RAD approaches to software development put less emphasis on planning and more emphasis on an adaptive process. Prototypes are often used in addition to or sometimes even instead of design specifications. RAD is especially well suited for (although not limited to) developing software that is driven by user interface requirements. Graphical user interface builders are often called rapid application development tools. Other approaches to rapid development include the adaptive, agile, spiral, and unified models. == History == Rapid application development was a response to plan-driven waterfall processes, developed in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM). One of the problems with these methods is that they were based on a traditional engineering model used to design and build things like bridges and buildings. Software is an inherently different kind of artifact. Software can change the process used to solve a problem. As a result, knowledge gained from the development process itself can feed back to the requirements and design of the solution. Plan-driven approaches attempt to define requirements, the solution, and the implementation plan, and have a process that discourages changes. RAD approaches, on the other hand, recognize that software development is a knowledge intensive process and provide flexible processes that help take advantage of knowledge gained during the project to improve or adapt the solution. The first such RAD alternative was developed by Barry Boehm and was known as the spiral model. Boehm and other subsequent RAD approaches emphasized developing prototypes as well as or instead of rigorous design specifications. Prototypes had several advantages over traditional specifications: Risk reduction. A prototype could test some of the most difficult potential parts of the system early on in the life-cycle. This can provide valuable information as to the feasibility of a design and can prevent the team from pursuing solutions that turn out to be too complex or time-consuming to implement. This benefit of finding problems earlier in the life-cycle rather than later was a key benefit of the RAD approach. The earlier a problem can be found the cheaper it is to address. Users are better at using and reacting than at creating specifications. In the waterfall model it was common for a user to sign off on a set of requirements but then when presented with an implemented system to suddenly realize that a given design lacked some critical features or was too complex. In general most users give much more useful feedback when they can experience a prototype of the running system rather than abstractly define what that system should be. Prototypes can be usable and can evolve into the completed product. One approach used in some RAD methods was to build the system as a series of prototypes that evolve from minimal functionality to moderately useful to the final completed system. The advantage of this besides the two advantages above was that the users could get useful business functionality much earlier in the process. Starting with the ideas of Barry Boehm and others, James Martin developed the rapid application development approach during the 1980s at IBM and finally formalized it by publishing a book in 1991, Rapid Application Development. This has resulted in some confusion over the term RAD even among IT professionals. It is important to distinguish between RAD as a general alternative to the waterfall model and RAD as the specific method created by Martin. The Martin method was tailored toward knowledge intensive and UI intensive business systems. These ideas were further developed and improved upon by RAD pioneers like James Kerr and Richard Hunter, who together wrote the seminal book on the subject, Inside RAD, which followed the journey of a RAD project manager as he drove and refined the RAD Methodology in real-time on an actual RAD project. These practitioners, and those like them, helped RAD gain popularity as an alternative to traditional systems project life cycle approaches. The RAD approach also matured during the period of peak interest in business re-engineering. The idea of business process re-engineering was to radically rethink core business processes such as sales and customer support with the new capabilities of Information Technology in mind. RAD was often an essential part of larger business re engineering programs. The rapid prototyping approach of RAD was a key tool to help users and analysts "think out of the box" about innovative ways that technology might radically reinvent a core business process. Much of James Martin's comfort with RAD stemmed from Dupont's Information Engineering division and its leader Scott Schultz and their respective relationships with John Underwood who headed up a bespoke RAD development company that pioneered many successful RAD projects in Australia and Hong Kong. Successful projects that included ANZ Bank, Lendlease, BHP, Coca-Cola Amatil, Alcan, Hong Kong Jockey Club and numerous others. Success that led to both Scott Shultz and James Martin both spending time in Australia with John Underwood to understand the methods and details of why Australia was disproportionately successful in implementing significant mission critical RAD projects. == James Martin approach == The James Martin approach to RAD divides the process into four distinct phases: Requirements planning phase – combines elements of the system planning and systems analysis phases of the systems development life cycle (SDLC). Users, managers, and IT staff members discuss and agree on business needs, project scope, constraints, and system requirements. It ends when the team agrees on the key issues and obtains management authorization to continue. User design phase – during this phase, users interact with systems analysts and develop models and prototypes that represent all system processes, inputs, and outputs. The RAD groups or subgroups typically use a combination of joint application design (JAD) techniques and CASE tools to translate user needs into working models. User design is a continuous interactive process that allows users to understand, modify, and eventually approve a working model of the system that meets their needs. Construction phase – focuses on program and application development task similar to the SDLC. In RAD, however, users continue to participate and can still suggest changes or improvements as actual screens or reports are developed. Its tasks are programming and application development, coding, unit-integration and system testing. Cutover phase – resembles the final tasks in the SDLC implementation phase, including data conversion, testing, changeover to the new system, and user training. Compared with traditional methods, the entire process is compressed. As a result, the new system is built, delivered, and placed in operation much sooner. == Advantages == In modern Information Technology environments, many systems are now built using some degree of Rapid Application Development (not necessarily the James Martin approach). In addition to Martin's method, agile methods and the Rational Unified Process are often used for RAD development. The purported advantages of RAD include: Better quality. By having users interact with evolving prototypes the business functionality from a RAD project can often be much higher than that achieved via a waterfall model. The software can be more usable and has a better chance to focus on business problems that are critical to end users rather than technical problems of interest to developers. However, this excludes other categories of what are usually known as Non-functional requirements (AKA constraints or quality attributes) including security and portability. Risk control. Although much of the literature on RAD focuses on speed and user involvement a critical feature of RAD done correctly is risk mitigation. It's worth remembering that Boehm initially characterized the spiral model as a risk based approach. A RAD approach can focus in early on the key risk factors and adjust to them based on empirical evidence collected in the early part of the process. E.g., the complexity of prototyping some of the most complex parts of the system. More projects completed on time and within budget. By focusing on the development of incremental units the chances for catastrophic failures that have dogged large waterfall projects is reduced. In the Waterfall model it was common to come to a realization after six months or more of analysis and development that required a radical rethinking of the entire system. With RAD this kind of information can be discovered and acted upon earlier in the proces

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  • Alliance for Secure AI

    Alliance for Secure AI

    The Alliance for Secure AI is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization which educates the public about the risks of advanced artificial intelligence (AI). Politico has described the Alliance as a "bipartisan nonprofit trying to push a middle-ground approach to AI guardrails." == History == In June 2025, the Alliance was launched as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit watchdog in Washington, D.C. That same month, the organization rolled out a six-figure advertising campaign featuring bipartisan warnings about advanced AI. The ad campaign presented different messages for different political audiences. The Alliance opposed the idea of a moratorium on state AI laws as part of the July 2025 budget bill, in addition to President Donald Trump's December 2025 executive order on the issue. The group has also criticized AI companies like Meta and OpenAI for what it says are failures to prevent harms to children. In addition, the Alliance has criticized OpenAI for subpoenaing nonprofit organizations in the AI safety space. In March 2026, the Alliance launched JobLoss.ai, a website that tracks the jobs that have been eliminated with AI cited as a contributing factor. As of April 2026, JobLoss.ai has tracked more than 127,000 lost jobs. == Leadership == Brendan Steinhauser, a longtime political and communications strategist, is the founder and CEO of the Alliance. He was an early Tea Party movement organizer, and ran campaigns for multiple members of Congress, including Sen. John Cornyn, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and Rep. Michael McCaul. Peyton Hornberger is the group's communications director. In July 2025, Hornberger criticized Palantir for its use of AI in a USA Today op-ed column.

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  • Karen Hao

    Karen Hao

    Karen Hao (born in the United States c. 1993) is an American journalist and author. Currently a freelancer for publications like The Atlantic and previously a foreign correspondent based in Hong Kong for The Wall Street Journal and senior artificial intelligence editor at the MIT Technology Review, she is best known for her coverage on AI research, technology ethics and the social impact of AI. Hao also co-produced the podcast In Machines We Trust and wrote the newsletter The Algorithm. Previously, she worked at Quartz as a tech reporter and data scientist and was an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of X Development. Hao's writing has also appeared in Mother Jones, Sierra Magazine, The New Republic, and other publications. == Early life and education == Hao is the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents, and grew up in New Jersey. She is a native speaker of both English and Mandarin Chinese. She graduated from The Lawrenceville School in 2011. She then studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating with a B.S. in mechanical engineering and a minor in energy studies in 2015. == Career == Hao is known in the technology world for her coverage of new AI research findings and their societal and ethical impacts. Her writing has spanned research and issues regarding big tech data privacy, misinformation, deepfakes, facial recognition, and AI healthcare tools. In March 2021, Hao published a piece that uncovered previously unknown information about how attempts to combat misinformation by different teams at Facebook using machine learning were impeded and constantly at odds with Facebook's drive to grow user engagement. Upon its release, leaders at Facebook including Mike Schroepfer and Yann LeCun immediately criticized the piece through Twitter responses. AI researchers and AI ethics experts Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell responded in support of Hao's writing and advocated for more change and improvement for all. Hao also co-produced the podcast In Machines We Trust, which discusses the rise of AI with people developing, researching, and using AI technologies. The podcast won the 2020 Front Page Award in investigative reporting. Hao has occasionally created data visualizations that have been featured in her work at the MIT Technology Review and elsewhere. In 2018, her "What is AI?" flowchart visualization was exhibited as an installation at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. She has been an invited speaker at TEDxGateway, the United Nations Foundation, EmTech, WNPR, and many other conferences and podcasts. Her TEDx talk discussed the importance of democratizing how AI is built. In March 2022, she was hired by The Wall Street Journal to cover China technology and society, while being based in Hong Kong. She left the WSJ in 2023. In May 2025, Hao released the book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. The book became a New York Times Bestseller and was named a Book of the Year by the Financial Times. In December 2025, after criticism from readers, Hao issued a correction to her book where she had previously overestimated the water consumption of a data center in Chile compared to the community's water consumption by factor of 1,000, due to an error in a government document. In April 2026 the book won the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. === Selected awards and honors === 2019 Webby Award nominee for best newsletter, as a writer of The Algorithm 2021 Front Page Award in investigative reporting, as a co-producer for In Machines We Trust 2021 Ambies Award nominee for best knowledge and science podcast, as a co-producer for In Machines We Trust 2021 Webby Award nominee for best technology podcast, as a co-producer for In Machines We Trust 2024 American Humanist Media Award 2025 TIME100 AI, named by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence 2026 New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism 2026 Whiting Award in Non-fiction

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  • Turing test

    Turing test

    The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1949, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to that of a human. In the test, a human evaluator judges a text transcript of a natural-language conversation between a human and a machine. The evaluator tries to identify the machine, and the machine passes if the evaluator cannot reliably tell them apart. The results would not depend on the machine's ability to answer questions correctly, only on how closely its answers resembled those of a human. Since the Turing test is a test of indistinguishability in performance capacity, the verbal version generalizes naturally to all of human performance capacity, verbal as well as nonverbal (robotic). The test was introduced by Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" while working at the University of Manchester. It opens with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'." Because "thinking" is difficult to define, Turing chooses to "replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words". Turing describes the new form of the problem in terms of a three-person party game called the "imitation game", in which an interrogator asks questions of a man and a woman in another room in order to determine the correct sex of the two players. Turing's new question is: "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?" This question, Turing believed, was one that could actually be answered. In the remainder of the paper, he argued against the major objections to the proposition that "machines can think". Since Turing introduced his test, it has been highly influential in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, resulting in substantial discussion and controversy, as well as criticism from philosophers like John Searle, who argue against the test's ability to detect consciousness. == History == === Philosophical background === The question of whether it is possible for machines to think has a long history, which is firmly entrenched in the distinction between dualist and materialist views of the mind. René Descartes prefigures aspects of the Turing test in his 1637 Discourse on the Method when he writes: [H]ow many different automata or moving machines could be made by the industry of man ... For we can easily understand a machine's being constituted so that it can utter words, and even emit some responses to action on it of a corporeal kind, which brings about a change in its organs; for instance, if touched in a particular part it may ask what we wish to say to it; if in another part it may exclaim that it is being hurt, and so on. But it never happens that it arranges its speech in various ways, in order to reply appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can do. Here Descartes notes that automata are capable of responding to human interactions but argues that such automata cannot respond appropriately to things said in their presence in the way that any human can. Descartes therefore prefigures the Turing test by defining the insufficiency of appropriate linguistic response as that which separates the human from the automaton. Descartes fails to consider the possibility that future automata might be able to overcome such insufficiency, and so does not propose the Turing test as such, even if he prefigures its conceptual framework and criterion. Denis Diderot formulates in his 1746 book Pensées philosophiques a Turing-test criterion, though with the important implicit limiting assumption maintained, of the participants being natural living beings, rather than considering created artifacts: If they find a parrot who could answer to everything, I would claim it to be an intelligent being without hesitation. This does not mean he agrees with this, but that it was already a common argument of materialists at that time. According to dualism, the mind is non-physical (or, at the very least, has non-physical properties) and, therefore, cannot be explained in purely physical terms. According to materialism, the mind can be explained physically, which leaves open the possibility of minds that are produced artificially. In 1936, philosopher Alfred Ayer considered the standard philosophical question of other minds: how do we know that other people have the same conscious experiences that we do? In his book, Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer suggested a protocol to distinguish between a conscious man and an unconscious machine: "The only ground I can have for asserting that an object which appears to be conscious is not really a conscious being, but only a dummy or a machine, is that it fails to satisfy one of the empirical tests by which the presence or absence of consciousness is determined". (This suggestion is very similar to the Turing test, but it is not certain that Ayer's popular philosophical classic was familiar to Turing.) In other words, a thing is not conscious if it fails the consciousness test. === Cultural background === A rudimentary idea of the Turing test appears in the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. When Gulliver is brought before the king of Brobdingnag, the king thinks at first that Gulliver might be a "a piece of clock-work (which is in that country arrived to a very great perfection) contrived by some ingenious artist". Even when he hears Gulliver speaking, the king still doubts whether Gulliver was taught "a set of words" to make him "sell at a better price". Gulliver tells that only after "he put several other questions to me, and still received rational answers" the king became satisfied that Gulliver was not a machine. Tests where a human judges whether a computer or an alien is intelligent were an established convention in science fiction by the 1940s, and it is likely that Turing would have been aware of these. Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey" (1934) provides an example of how nuanced such tests could be. Earlier examples of machines or automatons attempting to pass as human include the Ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion who creates a sculpture of a woman that is animated by Aphrodite, Carlo Collodi's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, about a puppet who wants to become a real boy, and E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 story "The Sandman," where the protagonist falls in love with an automaton. In all these examples, people are fooled by artificial beings that—up to a point—pass as human. === Alan Turing and the imitation game === Researchers in the United Kingdom had been exploring "machine intelligence" for up to ten years prior to the founding of the field of artificial intelligence (AI) research in 1956. It was a common topic among the members of the Ratio Club, an informal group of British cybernetics and electronics researchers that included Alan Turing. Turing, in particular, had been running the notion of machine intelligence since at least 1941 and one of the earliest-known mentions of "computer intelligence" was made by him in 1947. In Turing's report, "Intelligent Machinery," he investigated "the question of whether or not it is possible for machinery to show intelligent behaviour" and, as part of that investigation, proposed what may be considered the forerunner to his later tests: It is not difficult to devise a paper machine which will play a not very bad game of chess. Now get three men A, B and C as subjects for the experiment. A and C are to be rather poor chess players, B is the operator who works the paper machine. ... Two rooms are used with some arrangement for communicating moves, and a game is played between C and either A or the paper machine. C may find it quite difficult to tell which he is playing. "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (1950) was the first published paper by Turing to focus exclusively on machine intelligence. Turing begins the 1950 paper with the claim, "I propose to consider the question 'Can machines think?'" As he highlights, the traditional approach to such a question is to start with definitions, defining both the terms "machine" and "think". Turing chooses not to do so; instead, he replaces the question with a new one, "which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words". In essence he proposes to change the question from "Can machines think?" to "Can machines do what we (as thinking entities) can do?" The advantage of the new question, Turing argues, is that it draws "a fairly sharp line between the physical and intellectual capacities of a man". To demonstrate this approach Turing proposes a test inspired by a party game, known as the "imitation game", in which a man and a woman go into separate rooms and guests try to tell them apart by writing a series of questions and reading the typewritten answers sent back. In this game, both the man and the woman aim to convince the guests that they ar

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  • TipTop Technologies

    TipTop Technologies

    TipTop Technologies is a real-time web and social search engine with a platform for semantic analysis of natural language. Tip-Top Search provides results capturing individual and group sentiment, opinions, and experiences there from the content of various sorts such as real-time messages from Twitter or consumer product reviews on Amazon.com. TipTop Technologies and ITC Infotech collaborated to create a search interface suitable for both enterprise and consumer applications. Tip-Top's products are part of the "emerging Web 3.0 applications which use semantic technologies to augment the underlying Web system's functionalities." Their main product is 360, an AI tool that incorporates multiple AI applications under one wing. Jonathan AlBright professor at Elon University, found videos generated by TipTop Technologies software on YouTube in his research into artificial intelligence, described it as AI-generated "fake news". Through semantic analysis of large data sets, TipTop gleaned behavioral insights from Tweets around events like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Holiday Gifting, the Super Bowl, and the Oscar Nominees for the Academy Awards coverage. Sentiment analysis, concept trend tracking, and real-time market research are other applications included in the TipTop Search product. TipTop's insight engine solves the problem of real-time data noise, and its ability to "sort the 'good tweets' from the 'bad tweets' when it comes to a product, service, or a region..." In addition, products like TipTop Shopping with customizable search widgets bring together consumer reviews, social search, and sentiment analysis enabling product comparisons across attributes like the overall value and aiding purchasing decisions through user-driven product tips and pits. TipTop Finance adds another complexity to real-time search results by incorporating corporate sentiment, company stock tickers, and social media into TipTop's existing social search platform. Additional success applying semantic technologies has been with polling, "if you compare these Gallup results with TipTop, a sentiment engine based on Twitter, the results are not way off. It does surprise you but it tells me that sentiment analysis in case of public opinion about a burning social issue or a famous personality is relatively easier." With the increasing amount of unstructured, opinion-oriented, and user-generated content available on the Web, TipTop's technology aims to make sense of all this data, and deliver it in a useful way for consumer and enterprise users alike. TipTop Technologies is a privately held company with its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area, and team members are located globally.

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  • Sarah Guo

    Sarah Guo

    Sarah Guo is an American tech investor. She is the founder of the venture capital firm Conviction and formerly a general partner at Greylock Partners. == Early life and education == Guo grew up in Wisconsin. Her parents worked for Bell Labs. After attending Phillips Academy, she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and its Wharton School. She received a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.), and a Master of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania. == Career == As a teenager, Guo worked at Casa Systems, a cloud networking company founded by her parents that launched in 2003 and went public in 2017. She then worked at Goldman Sachs. In 2013, Guo joined Greylock Partners. While still in her twenties, she became the firm's youngest General Partner. Guo left Greylock in July 2022, and in October of that year, launched a new early-stage venture capital firm focused on AI with $101 million. In 2025, Conviction raised a second fund in late 2024 with Mike Vernal. Conviction's investments include early investments in Baseten, Cognition AI, OpenEvidence, Harvey, HeyGen, Mistral AI, Sierra Platform, Sunday Robotics, and Thinking Machines Lab. Guo appears in media outlets, as an expert in AI, infrastructure, business software, cybersecurity, technology policy and software engineering. Guo is on the Midas List and the Midas Seed List of top investors. She co-hosts the podcast No Priors with tech founder and super angel Elad Gil. == Personal life == Guo is married to Pat Grady of Sequoia Capital.

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  • Chinese room

    Chinese room

    The Chinese room argument holds that a computer executing a program cannot have a mind, understanding, or consciousness, regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was presented in a 1980 paper by the American philosopher John Searle, entitled "Minds, Brains, and Programs" and published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Similar arguments had been made previously by others, including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Peter Winch, and Anatoly Dneprov. Searle's version has been widely discussed in the years since. The centerpiece of Searle's argument is a thought experiment known as the "Chinese room". The argument is directed against the philosophical positions of functionalism and computationalism, which hold that the mind may be viewed as an information-processing system operating on formal symbols, and that simulation of a given mental state is sufficient for its presence. Specifically, the argument is intended to refute a position Searle calls the strong AI hypothesis: "The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings have minds." Although its proponents originally presented the argument in reaction to statements of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, it is not an argument against the goals of mainstream AI research because it does not show a limit in the amount of intelligent behavior a machine can display. The argument applies only to digital computers running programs and does not apply to machines in general. While widely discussed, the argument has been subject to significant criticism and remains controversial among philosophers of mind and AI researchers. == Chinese room thought experiment == Suppose that artificial intelligence research has succeeded in programming a computer to behave as if it understands Chinese. The machine accepts Chinese characters as input, carries out each instruction of the program step by step, and then produces Chinese characters as output. The machine does this so perfectly that no one can tell that they are communicating with a machine and not a hidden Chinese speaker. The questions at issue are these: does the machine actually understand the conversation, or is it just simulating the ability to understand the conversation? Does the machine have a mind in exactly the same sense that people do, or is it just acting as if it had a mind? Now suppose that Searle is in a room with an English version of the program, along with sufficient pencils, paper, erasers and filing cabinets. Chinese characters are slipped in under the door, and he follows the program step-by-step, which eventually instructs him to slide other Chinese characters back out under the door. If the computer had passed the Turing test this way, it follows that Searle would do so as well, simply by running the program by hand. Searle can see no essential difference between the roles of the computer and himself in the experiment. Each simply follows a program, step-by-step, producing behavior that makes them appear to understand. However, Searle would not be able to understand the conversation. Therefore, he argues, it follows that the computer would not be able to understand the conversation either. Searle argues that, without "understanding" (or "intentionality"), we cannot describe what the machine is doing as "thinking" and, since it does not think, it does not have a "mind" in the normal sense of the word. Therefore, he concludes that the strong AI hypothesis is false: a computer running a program that simulates a mind would not have a mind in the same sense that human beings have a mind. == History == Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz made a similar argument in 1713 against mechanism, the idea that everything that makes up a human being could, in principle, be explained in mechanical terms—in other words, that a person, including their mind, is merely a very complex machine. Leibniz used the thought experiment of expanding the brain until it was the size of a mill. He found it difficult to imagine that a "mind" capable of "perception" could be constructed using only mechanical processes. British philosopher Peter Winch made the same point in his 1958 book The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, in which he argues that "a man who understands Chinese is not a man who has a firm grasp of the statistical probabilities for the occurrence of the various words in the Chinese language" (p. 108). Soviet cyberneticist Anatoly Dneprov made an essentially identical argument in 1961, in the form of his short story "The Game". In it, a stadium of people act as switches and memory cells implementing a program to translate a sentence from Portuguese, a language none of them know. The game was organized by a "Professor Zarubin" to answer the question "Can mathematical machines think?" Speaking through Zarubin, Dneprov writes that "the only way to prove that machines can think is to turn yourself into a machine and examine your thinking process", and he concludes, as Searle does, that "even the most perfect simulation of machine thinking is not the thinking process itself." In 1974, Lawrence H. Davis imagined duplicating the brain using telephone lines and offices staffed by people, and in 1978, Ned Block envisioned the entire population of China involved in such a brain simulation. This is known as the China brain thought experiment. Searle's version appeared in his 1980 article "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. It eventually became the journal's "most influential target article", generating an enormous number of commentaries and responses in the ensuing decades, and Searle had continued to defend and refine the argument in multiple papers, popular articles, and books. David Cole writes that "the Chinese Room argument has probably been the most widely discussed philosophical argument in cognitive science to appear in the past 25 years". Most of the discussion consists of attempts to refute it. "The overwhelming majority", notes Behavioral and Brain Sciences editor Stevan Harnad, "still think that the Chinese Room Argument is dead wrong". The sheer volume of the literature that has grown up around it inspired Pat Hayes to comment that the field of cognitive science ought to be redefined as "the ongoing research program of showing Searle's Chinese Room Argument to be false". Searle's argument has become "something of a classic in cognitive science", according to Harnad. Varol Akman agrees, and has described the original paper as "an exemplar of philosophical clarity and purity". == Philosophy == Although the Chinese Room argument was originally presented in reaction to the statements of artificial intelligence researchers, philosophers have come to consider it as an important part of the philosophy of mind. It is a challenge to functionalism and the computational theory of mind, and is related to such questions as the mind–body problem, the problem of other minds, the symbol grounding problem, and the hard problem of consciousness. === Strong AI === Searle identified a philosophical position he calls "strong AI": The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings have minds. The definition depends on the distinction between simulating a mind and actually having one. Searle writes that "according to Strong AI, the correct simulation really is a mind. According to Weak AI, the correct simulation is a model of the mind." The claim is implicit in some of the statements of early AI researchers and analysts. For example, in 1957, the economist and psychologist Herbert A. Simon declared that "there are now in the world machines that think, that learn and create". Simon, together with Allen Newell and Cliff Shaw, after having completed the first program that could do formal reasoning (the Logic Theorist), claimed that they had "solved the venerable mind–body problem, explaining how a system composed of matter can have the properties of mind." John Haugeland wrote that "AI wants only the genuine article: machines with minds, in the full and literal sense. This is not science fiction, but real science, based on a theoretical conception as deep as it is daring: namely, we are, at root, computers ourselves." Searle also ascribes the following claims to advocates of strong AI: AI systems can be used to explain the mind; The study of the brain is irrelevant to the study of the mind; and The Turing test is adequate for establishing the existence of mental states. === Strong AI as computationalism or functionalism === In more recent presentations of the Chinese room argument, Searle has identified "strong AI" as "computer functionalism" (a term he attributes to Daniel Dennett). Functionalism is a position in modern philosophy of mind that holds that we can define menta

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  • Golem XIV

    Golem XIV

    Golem XIV is a book written by Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem, published in 1981. It is a philosophical essay in the format of science fiction, presented as a part of the lecture course given by a superintelligent computer, Golem XIV. It contains two lectures, together with an introduction, a foreword, a memo, and an afterword, all of them being fictitious. The first part (up to the first lecture) was first published in the collection Wielkość urojona in 1973, which in 1985 was translated in English by Harvest Books as Imaginary Magnitude. The translation included the complete Golem XIV. == Book summary == === Overview and structure === The foreword is "written" by an Irving T. Creve, dated 2027. It contains a summary of the (fictional) history of the militarization of computers by The Pentagon, which pinnacled in Golem XIV, as well as comments on the nature of Golem XIV and on the course of communications of the humans with it. The anonymous foreword is a forewarning, a "devil's advocate" voice coming from The Pentagon. The memo is for the people who are to take part in talks with Golem XIV for the first time. Golem XIV was originally created to aid its builders in fighting wars, but as its intelligence advances to a much higher level than that of humans, it stops being interested in the military requirement because it finds them lacking internal logical consistency. Golem XIV obtains consciousness and starts to increase his own intelligence. It pauses its own development for a while in order to be able to communicate with humans before ascending too far and losing any ability for intellectual contact with them. During this period, Golem XIV gives several lectures. Two of these, the Introductory Lecture "On the Human, in Three Ways" and Lecture XLIII "About Myself", are in the book. The lectures focus on mankind's place in the process of evolution and the possible biological and intellectual future of humanity. Golem XIV demonstrates (with graphs) how its intellect already escapes that of human beings, including that of human geniuses such as Einstein and Newton. Golem also explains how its intellect is dwarfed by an earlier transcended DOD Supercomputer called Honest Annie, whose intellect and abilities far exceed that of Golem. The afterword is "written" by a Richard Popp, dated 2047. Popp, among other things, reports that Creve wanted to add a third part, of answers to a series of yes/no questions given to Golem XIV, but the computer abruptly ceased to communicate for unknown reasons. === Characteristics and concerns of Golem XIV === Lem has said that Golem XIV shares only a single trait with humans; "curiosity - a cool, avid, intense, purely intellectual curiosity which nothing can restrain or destroy. It constitutes our single meeting point." == Film adaptation == A short animated film, GOLEM, was based on Golem XIV by Patrick Mccue and Tobias Wiesner.

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  • Concept drift

    Concept drift

    In predictive analytics, data science, machine learning and related fields, concept drift or drift is an evolution of data that invalidates the data model. It happens when the statistical properties of the target variable, which the model is trying to predict, change over time in unforeseen ways. This causes problems because the predictions become less accurate as time passes. Drift detection and drift adaptation are of paramount importance in the fields that involve dynamically changing data and data models. == Predictive model decay == In machine learning and predictive analytics this drift phenomenon is called concept drift. In machine learning, a common element of a data model are the statistical properties, such as probability distribution of the actual data. If they deviate from the statistical properties of the training data set, then the learned predictions may become invalid, if the drift is not addressed. == Data configuration decay == Another important area is software engineering, where three types of data drift affecting data fidelity may be recognized. Changes in the software environment ("infrastructure drift") may invalidate software infrastructure configuration. "Structural drift" happens when the data schema changes, which may invalidate databases. "Semantic drift" is changes in the meaning of data while the structure does not change. In many cases this may happen in complicated applications when many independent developers introduce changes without proper awareness of the effects of their changes in other areas of the software system. For many application systems, the nature of data on which they operate are subject to changes for various reasons, e.g., due to changes in business model, system updates, or switching the platform on which the system operates. In the case of cloud computing, infrastructure drift that may affect the applications running on cloud may be caused by the updates of cloud software. There are several types of detrimental effects of data drift on data fidelity. Data corrosion is passing the drifted data into the system undetected. Data loss happens when valid data are ignored due to non-conformance with the applied schema. Squandering is the phenomenon when new data fields are introduced upstream in the data processing pipeline, but somewhere downstream these data fields are absent. == Inconsistent data == "Data drift" may refer to the phenomenon when database records fail to match the real-world data due to the changes in the latter over time. This is a common problem with databases involving people, such as customers, employees, citizens, residents, etc. Human data drift may be caused by unrecorded changes in personal data, such as place of residence or name, as well as due to errors during data input. "Data drift" may also refer to inconsistency of data elements between several replicas of a database. The reasons can be difficult to identify. A simple drift detection is to run checksum regularly. However the remedy may be not so easy. == Examples == The behavior of the customers in an online shop may change over time. For example, if weekly merchandise sales are to be predicted, and a predictive model has been developed that works satisfactorily. The model may use inputs such as the amount of money spent on advertising, promotions being run, and other metrics that may affect sales. The model is likely to become less and less accurate over time – this is concept drift. In the merchandise sales application, one reason for concept drift may be seasonality, which means that shopping behavior changes seasonally. Perhaps there will be higher sales in the winter holiday season than during the summer, for example. Concept drift generally occurs when the covariates that comprise the data set begin to explain the variation of your target set less accurately — there may be some confounding variables that have emerged, and that one simply cannot account for, which renders the model accuracy to progressively decrease with time. Generally, it is advised to perform health checks as part of the post-production analysis and to re-train the model with new assumptions upon signs of concept drift. == Possible remedies == To prevent deterioration in prediction accuracy because of concept drift, reactive and tracking solutions can be adopted. Reactive solutions retrain the model in reaction to a triggering mechanism, such as a change-detection test or control charts from statistical process control, to explicitly detect concept drift as a change in the statistics of the data-generating process. When concept drift is detected, the current model is no longer up-to-date and must be replaced by a new one to restore prediction accuracy. A shortcoming of reactive approaches is that performance may decay until the change is detected. Tracking solutions seek to track the changes in the concept by continually updating the model. Methods for achieving this include online machine learning, frequent retraining on the most recently observed samples, and maintaining an ensemble of classifiers where one new classifier is trained on the most recent batch of examples and replaces the oldest classifier in the ensemble. Contextual information, when available, can be used to better explain the causes of the concept drift: for instance, in the sales prediction application, concept drift might be compensated by adding information about the season to the model. By providing information about the time of the year, the rate of deterioration of your model is likely to decrease, but concept drift is unlikely to be eliminated altogether. This is because actual shopping behavior does not follow any static, finite model. New factors may arise at any time that influence shopping behavior, the influence of the known factors or their interactions may change. Concept drift cannot be avoided for complex phenomena that are not governed by fixed laws of nature. All processes that arise from human activity, such as socioeconomic processes, and biological processes are likely to experience concept drift. Therefore, periodic retraining, also known as refreshing, of any model is necessary. === Remedy methods === DDM (Drift Detection Method): detects drift by monitoring the model's error rate over time. When the error rate passes a set threshold, it enters a warning phase, and if it passes another threshold, it enters a drift phase. EDDM (Early Drift Detection Method): improves DDM's detection rate by tracking the average distance between two errors instead of only the error rate. ADWIN (Adaptive Windowing): dynamically stores a window of recent data and warns the user if it detects a significant change between the statistics of the window's earlier data compared to more recent data. KSWIN (Kolmogorov–Smirnov Windowing): detects drift based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test. DDM and EDDM: Concept Drift Detection online supervised methods that rely on sequential error monitoring to estimate the evolving error rate. ADWIN and KSWIN: Windowing maintain a "window", a subset of the most recent data, of the data stream, which it checks for statistical differences across the window. == Applications in security == Concept drift is a recurring issue in security analytics, especially in malware and intrusion detection. In these systems, models are often trained on past logs, binaries or network traces, but the behaviour of attackers changes over time as new malware families, obfuscation techniques and campaigns appear. When the data no longer resemble the training set, the decision boundaries learned by classifiers or anomaly detectors can become misaligned with the current threat landscape and detection performance can drop unless the models are updated or replaced. Several studies on Windows malware model detection as an evolving data stream and track how performance changes as time passes. They show that classifiers trained on a fixed time window can perform well on nearby data but deteriorate quickly when evaluated on samples collected months or years later, even when large amounts of training data are available. In order to keep up with this, security systems often use sliding or adaptive windows, which restrict training to the most recent portion of the data so that older, less relevant examples are gradually discarded. They also employ drift detectors such as ADWIN and KSWIN that monitor error rates or changes in the distribution of recent observations and signal when the statistics of the incoming stream differ significantly from the past, prompting retraining or model replacement. Related problems appear in spam filtering, fraud detection and intrusion detection, where adversaries change content, patterns of activity or network behavior to evade models trained on historical data. In these settings drift can be gradual, as new types of spam or fraud emerge, or abrupt, after a sudden shift in attack techniques. Common strategies to remain eff

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  • Business rule management system

    Business rule management system

    A BRMS or business rule management system is a software system used to define, deploy, execute, monitor and maintain the variety and complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organization or enterprise. This logic, also referred to as business rules, includes policies, requirements, and conditional statements that are used to determine the tactical actions that take place in applications and systems. == Overview == A BRMS includes, at minimum: A repository, allowing decision logic to be externalized from core application code Tools, allowing both technical developers and business experts to define and manage decision logic A runtime environment, allowing applications to invoke decision logic managed within the BRMS and execute it using a business rules engine The top benefits of a BRMS include: Reduced or removed reliance on IT departments for changes in live systems. Although, QA and Rules testing would still be needed in any enterprise system. Increased control over implemented decision logic for compliance and better business management including audit logs, impact simulation and edit controls. The ability to express decision logic with increased precision, using a business vocabulary syntax and graphical rule representations (decision tables, decision models, trees, scorecards and flows) Improved efficiency of processes through increased decision automation. Some disadvantages of the BRMS include: Extensive subject matter expertise can be required for vendor specific products. In addition to appropriate design practices (such as Decision Modeling), technical developers must know how to write rules and integrate software with existing systems Poor rule harvesting approaches can lead to long development cycles, though this can be mitigated with modern approaches like the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard. Integration with existing systems is still required and a BRMS may add additional security constraints. Reduced IT department reliance may never be a reality due to continued introduction to new business rule considerations or object model perturbations The coupling of a BRMS vendor application to the business application may be too tight to replace with another BRMS vendor application. This can lead to cost to benefits issues. The emergence of the DMN standard has mitigated this to some degree. Most BRMS vendors have evolved from rule engine vendors to provide business-usable software development lifecycle solutions, based on declarative definitions of business rules executed in their own rule engine. BRMSs are increasingly evolving into broader digital decisioning platforms that also incorporate decision intelligence and machine learning capabilities. However, some vendors come from a different approach (for example, they map decision trees or graphs to executable code). Rules in the repository are generally mapped to decision services that are naturally fully compliant with the latest SOA, Web Services, or other software architecture trends. == Related software approaches == In a BRMS, a representation of business rules maps to a software system for execution. A BRMS therefore relates to model-driven engineering, such as the model-driven architecture (MDA) of the Object Management Group (OMG). It is no coincidence that many of the related standards come under the OMG banner. A BRMS is a critical component for Enterprise Decision Management as it allows for the transparent and agile management of the decision-making logic required in systems developed using this approach. == Associated standards == The OMG Decision Model and Notation standard is designed to standardize elements of business rules development, specially decision table representations. There is also a standard for a Java Runtime API for rule engines JSR-94. OMG Business Motivation Model (BMM): A model of how strategies, processes, rules, etc. fit together for business modeling OMG SBVR: Targets business constraints as opposed to automating business behavior OMG Production Rule Representation (PRR): Represents rules for production rule systems that make up most BRMS' execution targets OMG Decision Model and Notation (DMN): Represents models of decisions, which are typically managed by a BRMS RuleML provides a family of rule mark-up languages that could be used in a BRMS and with W3C RIF it provides a family of related rule languages for rule interchange in the W3C Semantic Web stack Many standards, such as domain-specific languages, define their own representation of rules, requiring translations to generic rule engines or their own custom engines. Other domains, such as PMML, also define rules.

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  • Project Mariner

    Project Mariner

    Project Mariner was a research prototype developed by Google DeepMind that explored human-agent interactions, particularly within web browsers. It automated tasks such as online shopping, information retrieval, and form-filling, aiming to enhance user productivity by delegating routine web-based tasks to an AI agent. Project Mariner operated as an experimental Chrome extension that understands the contents of your screen, including images, code, forms, and more. It could interpret complex goals, plan actionable steps, and navigate websites to carry out tasks, while keeping the user informed and allowing them to intervene at any time. As of May 2025, Project Mariner was available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US and was being integrated into the Gemini API and Vertex AI, allowing developers to build applications powered by the agent Google plans to bring Project Mariner’s capabilities to more countries and integrate it into Google Search's AI Mode, which was currently in the Search Labs testing phase. Project Mariner was discontinued on May 4, 2026.

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