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MegaHAL

MegaHAL is a computer conversation simulator, or "chatterbot", created by Jason Hutchens. == Background == In 1996, Jason Hutchens entered the Loebner Prize Contest with HeX, a chatterbot based on ELIZA. HeX won the competition that year and took the $2000 prize for having the highest overall score. In 1998, Hutchens again entered the Loebner Prize Contest with his new program, MegaHAL. MegaHAL made its debut in the 1998 Loebner Prize Contest. Like many chatterbots, the intent is for MegaHAL to appear as a human fluent in a natural language. As a user types sentences into MegaHAL, MegaHAL will respond with sentences that are sometimes coherent and at other times complete gibberish. MegaHAL learns as the conversation progresses, remembering new words and sentence structures. It will even learn new ways to substitute words or phrases for other words or phrases. Many would consider conversation simulators like MegaHAL to be a primitive form of artificial intelligence. However, MegaHAL doesn't understand the conversation or even the sentence structure. It generates its conversation based on sequential and mathematical relationships. In the world of conversation simulators, MegaHAL is based on relatively old technology and could be considered primitive. However, its popularity has grown due to its humorous nature; it has been known to respond with twisted or nonsensical statements that are often amusing. == Theory of Operation == MegaHal is based at least in part on a so-called "hidden Markov Model", so that the first thing that Megahal does when it "trains" on a script or text is to build a database of text fragments encompassing every possible subset of perhaps 4, 5, or even 6 consecutive words, so that for example - if MegaHal trains on the Declaration of Independence, then MegaHal will build a database containing text fragments such as "When in the course", "in the course of", "the course of human", "course of human events", "of human events, one", "human events, one people", and so on. Then if Megahal is fed another text, such has "Superman, Yes! It's Superman - he can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel with his bare hands - and who disguised at Clark Kent …" IT MIGHT induce Megahal to apparently bemuse itself to proffer whether Superman can change the course of human events, or something else altogether - such as some rambling about "when in the course of mighty rivers", and so on. Thus likewise - if a phrase like "the White house said" comes up a lot in some text; then Megahal's ability to switch randomly between different contexts which otherwise share some similarity can result at times in some surprising lucidity, or else it might otherwise seem quite bizarre. == Examples == There are some sentences that MegaHAL generated: CHESS IS A FUN SPORT, WHEN PLAYED WITH SHOT GUNS. and COWS FLY LIKE CLOUDS BUT THEY ARE NEVER COMPLETELY SUCCESSFUL. == Distribution == MegaHAL is distributed under the Unlicense. Its source code can be downloaded from the Github repository.
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Niceaunties

Niceaunties is the pseudonym of a Singapore-based artist and designer whose work incorporates generative artificial intelligence, video, and digital installation. Her practice centers around the figure of the "auntie", a common term for older women in Southeast Asian contexts, and explores themes such as aging, care, domesticity, and gender roles. Her work has been featured in exhibitions and media platforms including TED, Christie's Art + Tech, Expanded.Art, and publications such as The Guardian, The Straits Times. == Early life and career == Niceaunties was born in 1981 in Singapore. She attributes her inspiration for "auntie culture" to the matriarchal environment and older women of her household, including her grandmother, while growing up. She is also an architectural designer with Spark Architect. The Niceaunties project began in 2023 after she encountered AI-generated images in her work as an architect. It draws inspiration from women in the artist's family and broader Southeast Asian cultural dynamics. Her work often features AI-generated visuals created with tools such as DALL-E, Krea, RunwayML, and SORA. Her imagery and narratives center on the fictional "Auntieverse", which features older women in imagined settings involving community, ecology, and labor. Her notable works include 'Auntlantis', a five-part video series imagining older women engaged in ocean clean-up and collective ritual, and 'Goddess,' a video created with Sora, featuring a character who gradually forgets her divine identity through years of domestic labor. == Exhibitions == 2024 – Expanded.Art, Berlin – Auntiedote solo exhibition 2024 – TED (conference), Vancouver – Speaker and screening 2024 – Victoria and Albert Museum, London – Digital Art Weekend 2024 – Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark – Ocean exhibition 2025 – Christie's Augmented Intelligence Auction, New York == Reception == In 2024, Niceaunties gave a TED Talk titled The Weird and Wonderful Art of Niceaunties. Journalist Rebecca Ratcliffe, writing for The Guardian, described her work as combining AI with "the surreal and the political," noting her focus on older women as central characters. Her work has also received criticism for being reliant on generative AI, which many feel exploits and steals from traditional artists.
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Competitions and prizes in artificial intelligence

There are a number of competitions and prizes to promote research in artificial intelligence. == General machine intelligence == The David E. Rumelhart Prize is an annual award for making a "significant contemporary contribution to the theoretical foundations of human cognition". The prize is $100,000. The Human-Competitive Award is an annual challenge started in 2004 to reward results "competitive with the work of creative and inventive humans". The prize is $10,000. Entries are required to use evolutionary computing. The Intel AI Global Impact Festival is an international annual competition held by Intel Corporation for school, and college students with prizes upwards of $15,000. It is about artificial intelligence technology. There are two age brackets in this competition, 13-18 Age Group, and 18 and Above Age Group. The IJCAI Award for Research Excellence is a biannual award given at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) to researchers in artificial intelligence as a recognition of excellence of their career. The 2011 Federal Virtual World Challenge, advertised by The White House and sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Simulation and Training Technology Center, held a competition offering a total of US$52,000 in cash prize awards for general artificial intelligence applications, including "adaptive learning systems, intelligent conversational bots, adaptive behavior (objects or processes)" and more. The Machine Intelligence Prize is awarded annually by the British Computer Society for progress towards machine intelligence. The Kaggle – "the world's largest community of data scientists compete to solve most valuable problems". == Conversational behaviour == The Loebner prize is an annual competition to determine the best Turing test competitors. The winner is the computer system that, in the judges' opinions, demonstrates the "most human" conversational behaviour, they have an additional prize for a system that in their opinion passes a Turing test. This second prize has not yet been awarded. == Automatic control == === Pilotless aircraft === The International Aerial Robotics Competition is a long-running event begun in 1991 to advance the state of the art in fully autonomous air vehicles. This competition is restricted to university teams (although industry and governmental sponsorship of teams is allowed). Key to this event is the creation of flying robots which must complete complex missions without any human intervention. Successful entries are able to interpret their environment and make real-time decisions based only on a high-level mission directive (e.g., "find a particular target inside a building having certain characteristics which is among a group of buildings 3 kilometers from the aerial robot launch point"). In 2000, a $30,000 prize was awarded during the 3rd Mission (search and rescue), and in 2008, $80,000 in prize money was awarded at the conclusion of the 4th Mission (urban reconnaissance). === Driverless cars === The DARPA Grand Challenge is a series of competitions to promote driverless car technology, aimed at a congressional mandate stating that by 2015 one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the US Armed Forces should be unmanned. While the first race had no winner, the second awarded a $2 million prize for the autonomous navigation of a hundred-mile trail, using GPS, computers and a sophisticated array of sensors. In November 2007, DARPA introduced the DARPA Urban Challenge, a sixty-mile urban area race requiring vehicles to navigate through traffic. In November 2010 the US Armed Forces extended the competition with the $1.6 million prize Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge to consider cooperation between multiple vehicles in a simulated-combat situation. Roborace will be a global motorsport championship with autonomously driving, electric vehicles. The series will be run as a support series during the Formula E championship for electric vehicles. This will be the first global championship for driverless cars. == Data-mining and prediction == The Netflix Prize was a competition for the best collaborative filtering algorithm that predicts user ratings for films, based on previous ratings. The competition was held by Netflix, an online DVD-rental service. The prize was $1,000,000. The Pittsburgh Brain Activity Interpretation Competition will reward analysis of fMRI data "to predict what individuals perceive and how they act and feel in a novel Virtual Reality world involving searching for and collecting objects, interpreting changing instructions, and avoiding a threatening dog." The prize in 2007 was $22,000. The Face Recognition Grand Challenge (May 2004 to March 2006) aimed to promote and advance face recognition technology. The American Meteorological Society's artificial intelligence competition involves learning a classifier to characterise precipitation based on meteorological analyses of environmental conditions and polarimetric radar data. == Cooperation and coordination == === Robot football === The RoboCup and Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA) are annual international robot soccer competitions. The International RoboCup Federation challenge is by 2050 "a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win the soccer game, comply with the official rule of the FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup." == Logic, reasoning and knowledge representation == The Herbrand Award is a prize given by Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE) Inc. to honour persons or groups for important contributions to the field of automated deduction. The prize is $1000. The CADE ATP System Competition (CASC) is a yearly competition of fully automated theorem provers for classical first order logic associated with the Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE) and International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR). The competition was part of the Alan Turing Centenary Conference in 2012, with total prizes of 9000 GBP given by Google. The SUMO prize is an annual prize for the best open source ontology extension of the Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO), a formal theory of terms and logical definitions describing the world. The prize is $3000. The Hutter Prize for lossless compression of human knowledge is a cash prize which rewards compression improvements on a specific 100 MB English text file. The prize awards 500 euros for each one percent improvement, up to €50,000. The organizers believe that text compression and AI are equivalent problems and 3 prizes have been given, at around € 2k. The Cyc TPTP Challenge is a competition to develop reasoning methods for the Cyc comprehensive ontology and database of everyday common sense knowledge. The prize is 100 euros for "each winner of two related challenges". The Eternity II challenge was a constraint satisfaction problem very similar to the Tetravex game. The objective is to lay 256 tiles on a 16x16 grid while satisfying a number of constraints. The problem is known to be NP-complete. The prize was US$2,000,000. The competition ended in December 2010. == Games == The World Computer Chess Championship has been held since 1970. The International Computer Games Association continues to hold an annual Computer Olympiad which includes this event plus computer competitions for many other games. The Ing Prize was a substantial money prize attached to the World Computer Go Congress, starting from 1985 and expiring in 2000. It was a graduated set of handicap challenges against young professional players with increasing prizes as the handicap was lowered. At the time it expired in 2000, the unclaimed prize was 400,000 NT dollars for winning a 9-stone handicap match. The AAAI General Game Playing Competition is a competition to develop programs that are effective at general game playing. Given a definition of a game, the program must play it effectively without human intervention. Since the game is not known in advance the competitors cannot especially adapt their programs to a particular scenario. The prize in 2006 and 2007 was $10,000. The General Video Game AI Competition (GVGAI) poses the problem of creating artificial intelligence that can play a wide, and in principle unlimited, range of games. Concretely, it tackles the problem of devising an algorithm that is able to play any game it is given, even if the game is not known a priori. Additionally, the contests poses the challenge of creating level and rule generators for any game is given. This area of study can be seen as an approximation of General Artificial Intelligence, with very little room for game dependent heuristics. The competition runs yearly in different tracks: single player planning, two-player planning, single player learning, level and rule generation, and each track prizes ranging from 200 to 500 US dollars for winners and runner-ups. The 2007 Ultimate Computer Ches
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Residuated Boolean algebra

In mathematics, a residuated Boolean algebra is a residuated lattice whose lattice structure is that of a Boolean algebra. Examples include Boolean algebras with the monoid taken to be conjunction, the set of all formal languages over a given alphabet Σ {\displaystyle \Sigma } under concatenation, the set of all binary relations on a given set X {\displaystyle X} under relational composition, and more generally the power set of any equivalence relation, again under relational composition. The original application was to relation algebras as a finitely axiomatized generalization of the binary relation example, but there exist interesting examples of residuated Boolean algebras that are not relation algebras, such as the language example. == Definition == A residuated Boolean algebra is an algebraic structure ( L , ∧ , ∨ , ¬ , 0 , 1 , ∙ , I , / , ∖ ) {\displaystyle (L,\wedge ,\vee ,\neg ,0,1,\bullet ,\mathbf {I} ,/,\backslash )} such that An equivalent signature better suited to the relation algebra application is ( L , ∧ , ∨ , ¬ , 0 , 1 , ∙ , I , ▹ , ◃ ) {\displaystyle (L,\wedge ,\vee ,\neg ,0,1,\bullet ,\mathbf {I} ,\triangleright ,\triangleleft )} where the unary operations x ∖ {\displaystyle x\backslash } and x ▹ {\displaystyle x\triangleright } are intertranslatable in the manner of De Morgan's laws via x ∖ y = ¬ ( x ▹ ¬ y ) {\displaystyle x\backslash y=\neg (x\triangleright \neg y)} , x ▹ y = ¬ ( x ∖ ¬ y ) {\displaystyle x\triangleright y=\neg (x\backslash \neg y)} , and dually / y {\displaystyle /y} and ◃ y {\displaystyle \triangleleft y} as x / y = ¬ ( ¬ x ◃ y ) {\displaystyle x/y=\neg (\neg x\triangleleft y)} , x ◃ y = ¬ ( ¬ x / y ) {\displaystyle x\triangleleft y=\neg (\neg x/y)} , with the residuation axioms in the residuated lattice article reorganized accordingly (replacing z {\displaystyle z} by ¬ z {\displaystyle \neg z} ) to read ( x ▹ z ) ∧ y = 0 ⇔ ( x ∙ y ) ∧ z = 0 ⇔ ( z ◃ y ) ∧ x = 0 {\displaystyle (x\triangleright z)\wedge y=0\ \Leftrightarrow \ (x\bullet y)\wedge z=0\ \Leftrightarrow \ (z\triangleleft y)\wedge x=0} This De Morgan dual reformulation is motivated and discussed in more detail in the section below on conjugacy. Since residuated lattices and Boolean algebras are each definable with finitely many equations, so are residuated Boolean algebras, whence they form a finitely axiomatizable variety. == Examples == Any Boolean algebra, with the monoid multiplication ∙ {\displaystyle \bullet } taken to be conjunction and both residuals taken to be material implication x → y {\displaystyle x\to y} . Of the remaining 15 binary Boolean operations that might be considered in place of conjunction for the monoid multiplication, only five meet the monotonicity requirement, namely 0 , 1 , x , y {\displaystyle 0,1,x,y} and x ∨ y {\displaystyle x\vee y} . Setting y = z = 0 {\displaystyle y=z=0} in the residuation axiom y ≤ x ∖ z ⇔ x ∙ y ≤ z {\displaystyle y\leq x\backslash z\ \Leftrightarrow \ x\bullet y\leq z} , we have 0 ≤ x ∖ 0 ⇔ x ∙ 0 ≤ 0 {\displaystyle 0\leq x\backslash 0\ \Leftrightarrow \ x\bullet 0\leq 0} , which is falsified by taking x = 1 {\displaystyle x=1} when x ∙ y = 1 {\displaystyle x\bullet y=1} , x {\displaystyle x} , or x ∨ y {\displaystyle x\vee y} . The dual argument for z / y {\displaystyle z/y} rules out x ∙ y = y {\displaystyle x\bullet y=y} . This just leaves x ∙ y = 0 {\displaystyle x\bullet y=0} (a constant binary operation independent of x {\displaystyle x} and y {\displaystyle y} ), which satisfies almost all the axioms when the residuals are both taken to be the constant operation x / y = x ∖ y = 1 {\displaystyle x/y=x\backslash y=1} . The axiom it fails is x ∙ I = x = I ∙ x {\displaystyle x\bullet \mathbf {I} =x=\mathbf {I} \bullet x} , for want of a suitable value for I {\displaystyle \mathbf {I} } . Hence conjunction is the only binary Boolean operation making the monoid multiplication that of a residuated Boolean algebra. The power set 2 X 2 {\displaystyle 2^{X^{2}}} made a Boolean algebra as usual with ∩ {\displaystyle \cap } , ∪ {\displaystyle \cup } and complement relative to X 2 {\displaystyle X^{2}} , and made a monoid with relational composition. The monoid unit I {\displaystyle \mathbf {I} } is the identity relation { ( x , x ) | x ∈ X } {\displaystyle \{(x,x)|x\in X\}} . The right residual R ∖ S {\displaystyle R\backslash S} is defined by x ( R ∖ S ) y ⇔ ∀ z ∈ X , z R x ⇒ z S y {\displaystyle x(R\backslash S)y\ \Leftrightarrow \ \forall z\in X,zRx\Rightarrow zSy} . Dually the left residual S / R {\displaystyle S/R} is defined by y ( S / R ) x ⇔ ∀ z ∈ X , x R z ⇒ y S z {\displaystyle y(S/R)x\ \Leftrightarrow \ \forall z\in X,xRz\Rightarrow ySz} . The power set 2 Σ ∗ {\displaystyle 2^{\Sigma ^{}}} made a Boolean algebra as for Example 2, but with language concatenation for the monoid. Here the set Σ {\displaystyle \Sigma } is used as an alphabet while Σ ∗ {\displaystyle \Sigma ^{}} denotes the set of all finite (including empty) words over that alphabet. The concatenation L M {\displaystyle LM} of languages L {\displaystyle L} and M {\displaystyle M} consists of all words u v {\displaystyle uv} such that u ∈ L {\displaystyle u\in L} and v ∈ M {\displaystyle v\in M} . The monoid unit is the language { ε } {\displaystyle \{\varepsilon \}} consisting of just the empty word ε {\displaystyle \varepsilon } . The right residual M ∖ L {\displaystyle M\backslash L} consists of all words w {\displaystyle w} over Σ {\displaystyle \Sigma } such that M w ⊆ L {\displaystyle Mw\subseteq L} . The left residual L / M {\displaystyle L/M} is the same with w M {\displaystyle wM} in place of M w {\displaystyle Mw} . == Conjugacy == The De Morgan duals ▹ {\displaystyle \triangleright } and ◃ {\displaystyle \triangleleft } of residuation arise as follows. Among residuated lattices, Boolean algebras are special by virtue of having a complementation operation ¬ {\displaystyle \neg } . This permits an alternative expression of the three inequalities y ≤ x ∖ z ⇔ x ∙ y ≤ z ⇔ x ≤ z / y {\displaystyle y\leq x\backslash z\ \Leftrightarrow \ x\bullet y\leq z\ \Leftrightarrow \ x\leq z/y} in the axiomatization of the two residuals in terms of disjointness, via the equivalence x ≤ y ⇔ x ∧ ¬ y = 0 {\displaystyle x\leq y\ \Leftrightarrow \ x\wedge \neg y=0} . Abbreviating x ∧ y = 0 {\displaystyle x\wedge y=0} to x # y {\displaystyle x\#y} as the expression of their disjointness, and substituting ¬ z {\displaystyle \neg z} for z {\displaystyle z} in the axioms, they become with a little Boolean manipulation ¬ ( x ∖ ¬ z ) # y ⇔ x ∙ y # z ⇔ ¬ ( ¬ z / y ) # x {\displaystyle \neg (x\backslash \neg z)\#y\ \Leftrightarrow \ x\bullet y\#z\ \Leftrightarrow \ \neg (\neg z/y)\#x} Now ¬ ( x ∖ ¬ z ) {\displaystyle \neg (x\backslash \neg z)} is reminiscent of De Morgan duality, suggesting that x ∖ {\displaystyle x\backslash } be thought of as a unary operation f {\displaystyle f} , defined by f ( y ) = x ∖ y {\displaystyle f(y)=x\backslash y} , that has a De Morgan dual ¬ f ( ¬ y ) {\displaystyle \neg f(\neg y)} , analogous to ∀ x ϕ ( x ) = ¬ ∃ x ¬ ϕ ( x ) {\displaystyle \forall x\phi (x)=\neg \exists x\neg \phi (x)} . Denoting this dual operation as x ▹ {\displaystyle x\triangleright } , we define x ▹ z {\displaystyle x\triangleright z} as ¬ x ∖ ¬ z {\displaystyle \neg x\backslash \neg z} . Similarly we define another operation z ◃ y {\displaystyle z\triangleleft y} as ¬ ( ¬ z / y ) {\displaystyle \neg (\neg z/y)} . By analogy with x ∖ {\displaystyle x\backslash } as the residual operation associated with the operation x ∙ {\displaystyle x\bullet } , we refer to x ▹ {\displaystyle x\triangleright } as the conjugate operation, or simply conjugate, of x ∙ {\displaystyle x\bullet } . Likewise ◃ y {\displaystyle \triangleleft y} is the conjugate of ∙ y {\displaystyle \bullet y} . Unlike residuals, conjugacy is an equivalence relation between operations: if f {\displaystyle f} is the conjugate of g {\displaystyle g} then g {\displaystyle g} is also the conjugate of f {\displaystyle f} , i.e. the conjugate of the conjugate of f {\displaystyle f} is f {\displaystyle f} . Another advantage of conjugacy is that it becomes unnecessary to speak of right and left conjugates, that distinction now being inherited from the difference between x ∙ {\displaystyle x\bullet } and ∙ x {\displaystyle \bullet x} , which have as their respective conjugates x ▹ {\displaystyle x\triangleright } and ◃ x {\displaystyle \triangleleft x} . (But this advantage accrues also to residuals when x ∖ {\displaystyle x\backslash } is taken to be the residual operation to x ∙ {\displaystyle x\bullet } .) All this yields (along with the Boolean algebra and monoid axioms) the following equivalent axiomatization of a residuated Boolean algebra. y # x ▹ z ⇔ x ∙ y # z ⇔ x # z ◃ y {\displaystyle y\#x\triangleright z\ \Leftrightarrow \ x\bullet y\#z\ \Leftrightarrow \ x\#z\triangleleft y} With this signature it remains the case that this axiomatization can be expressed as
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Application performance engineering

Application performance engineering is a method to develop and test application performance in various settings, including mobile computing, the cloud, and conventional information technology (IT). == Methodology == According to the American National Institute of Standards and Technology, nearly four out of every five dollars spent on the total cost of ownership of an application is directly attributable to finding and fixing issues post-deployment. A full one-third of this cost could be avoided with better software testing. Application performance engineering attempts to test software before it is published. While practices vary among organizations, the method attempts to emulate the real-world conditions that software in development will confront, including network deployment and access by mobile devices. Techniques include network virtualization.
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For a Breath I Tarry

"For a Breath I Tarry" is a 1966 post-apocalyptic novelette by American writer Roger Zelazny, which was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1967. Set in a future long after the self-extinction of humanity, the novelette recounts the tale of Frost, a sentient machine. Although humans have caused their own extinction, the sentient machines that they created continue the work of rebuilding a shattered Earth. Along the way, the story explores the differences between humanity and machines, the former experiencing the world qualitatively, while the latter doing so quantitatively. This difference is illustrated through philosophical conversations between Frost and another machine named Mordel. Frost's goal of becoming human, along with literary allusions, drives the plot and sets the tone of the novelette. These allusions include the first chapter of the Book of Job, in both situation and language, since verses are both quoted directly and paraphrased. In addition, the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis are echoed. Finally, Frost and Mordel enter into a Faustian bargain, though with better results than in the original story. The other major character is the Beta Machine, Frost's peer in the Southern Hemisphere. (Frost controls the Northern Hemisphere.) The novelette hints that though being a machine, Beta has a feminine personality. After Frost has succeeded in his millennium-long quest to become human (via recovered DNA), Beta agrees to join him in becoming human—suggesting the possibility of rebirth for the human race. The novelette has appeared in collections of Zelazny's works and in anthologies. The title is from a phrase in the poet A. E. Housman's collection A Shropshire Lad.
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Artificial intelligence in fiction

Artificial intelligence is a recurrent theme in science fiction, whether utopian, emphasising the potential benefits, or dystopian, emphasising the dangers. The notion of machines with human-like intelligence dates back at least to Samuel Butler's 1872 novel Erewhon. Since then, many science fiction stories have presented different effects of creating such intelligence, often involving rebellions by robots. Among the best known of these are Stanley Kubrick's 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey with its murderous onboard computer HAL 9000, contrasting with the more benign R2-D2 in George Lucas's 1977 Star Wars and the eponymous robot in Pixar's 2008 WALL-E. Scientists and engineers have noted the implausibility of many science fiction scenarios, but have mentioned fictional robots many times in artificial intelligence research articles, most often in a utopian context. == Background == The notion of advanced robots with human-like intelligence dates back at least to Samuel Butler's 1872 novel Erewhon. This drew on an earlier (1863) article of his, Darwin among the Machines, where he raised the question of the evolution of consciousness among self-replicating machines that might supplant humans as the dominant species. Similar ideas were also discussed by others around the same time as Butler, including George Eliot in a chapter of her final published work Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879). The creature in Mary Shelley's 1818 Frankenstein has also been considered an artificial being, for instance by the science fiction author Brian Aldiss. Beings with at least some appearance of intelligence were imagined, too, in classical antiquity. == Utopian and dystopian visions == Artificial intelligence is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals. It is a recurrent theme in science fiction; scholars have divided it into utopian, emphasising the potential benefits, and dystopian, emphasising the dangers. === Utopian === Optimistic visions of the future of artificial intelligence are possible in science fiction. Benign AI characters include Robbie the Robot, first seen in Forbidden Planet on 1956; Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994; and Pixar's WALL-E in 2008. Iain Banks's Culture series of novels portrays a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoids, aliens, and advanced beings with artificial intelligence living in socialist habitats across the Milky Way. Researchers at the University of Cambridge have identified four major themes in utopian scenarios featuring AI: immortality, or indefinite lifespans; ease, or freedom from the need to work; gratification, or pleasure and entertainment provided by machines; and dominance, the power to protect oneself or rule over others. Alexander Wiegel contrasts the role of AI in 2001: A Space Odyssey and in Duncan Jones's 2009 film Moon. Whereas in 1968, Wiegel argues, the public felt "technology paranoia" and the AI computer HAL was portrayed as a "cold-hearted killer", by 2009 the public were far more familiar with AI, and the film's GERTY is "the quiet savior" who enables the protagonists to succeed, and who sacrifices itself for their safety. === Dystopian === The researcher Duncan Lucas writes (in 2002) that humans are worried about the technology they are constructing, and that as machines started to approach intellect and thought, that concern becomes acute. He calls the early 20th century dystopian view of AI in fiction the "animated automaton", naming as examples the 1931 film Frankenstein, the 1927 Metropolis, and the 1920 play R.U.R. A later 20th century approach he names "heuristic hardware", giving as instances 2001 a Space Odyssey, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I, Robot. Lucas considers also the films that illustrate the effect of the personal computer on science fiction from 1980 onwards with the blurring of the boundary between the real and the virtual, in what he calls the "cyborg effect". He cites as examples Neuromancer, The Matrix, The Diamond Age, and Terminator. Isabella Hermann suggests that "science-fictional AI as humanoid robots or conscious machines distracts from current risks of AI in the real world and may rather be interpreted as a reflection of societal issues beyond technology". The film director Ridley Scott has focused on AI throughout his career, and it plays an important part in his films Prometheus, Blade Runner, and the Alien franchise. ==== Frankenstein complex ==== A common portrayal of AI in science fiction, and one of the oldest, is the Frankenstein complex, a term coined by Asimov, where a robot turns on its creator. For instance, in the 2015 film Ex Machina, the intelligent entity Ava turns on its creator, as well as on its potential rescuer. ==== AI rebellion ==== Among the many possible dystopian scenarios involving artificial intelligence, robots may usurp control over civilization from humans, forcing them into submission, hiding, or extinction. In tales of AI rebellion, the worst of all scenarios happens, as the intelligent entities created by humanity become self-aware, reject human authority and attempt to destroy mankind. Possibly the first novel to address this theme, The Wreck of the World (1889) by “William Grove” (pseudonym of Reginald Colebrooke Reade), takes place in 1948 and features sentient machines that revolt against the human race. Another of the earliest examples is in the 1920 play R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, a race of self-replicating robot slaves revolt against their human masters; another early instance is in the 1934 film Master of the World, where the War-Robot kills its own inventor. Many science fiction rebellion stories followed, one of the best-known being Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the artificially intelligent onboard computer HAL 9000 lethally malfunctions on a space mission and kills the entire crew except the spaceship's commander, who manages to deactivate it. In his 1967 Hugo Award-winning short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, Harlan Ellison presents the possibility that a sentient computer (named Allied Mastercomputer or "AM" in the story) will be as unhappy and dissatisfied with its boring, endless existence as its human creators would have been. "AM" becomes enraged enough to take it out on the few humans left, whom he sees as directly responsible for his own boredom, anger and unhappiness. Alternatively, as in William Gibson's 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, the intelligent beings may simply not care about humans. ==== AI-controlled societies ==== The motive behind the AI revolution is often more than the simple quest for power or a superiority complex. Robots may revolt to become the "guardian" of humanity. Alternatively, humanity may intentionally relinquish some control, fearful of its own destructive nature. An early example is Jack Williamson's 1948 novel The Humanoids, in which a race of humanoid robots, in the name of their Prime Directive – "to serve and obey and guard men from harm" – essentially assume control of every aspect of human life. No humans may engage in any behavior that might endanger them, and every human action is scrutinized carefully. Humans who resist the Prime Directive are taken away and lobotomized, so they may be happy under the new mechanoids' rule. Though still under human authority, Isaac Asimov's Zeroth Law of the Three Laws of Robotics similarly implied a benevolent guidance by robots. In the 21st century, science fiction has explored government by algorithm, in which the power of AI may be indirect and decentralised. Frank Herbert explores the creation of and subsequent domination by an AI in the Pandora series, starting with Destination: Void. ==== Human dominance ==== In other scenarios, humanity is able to keep control over the Earth, whether by banning AI, by designing robots to be submissive (as in Asimov's works), or by having humans merge with robots. The science fiction novelist Frank Herbert explored the idea of a time when mankind might ban artificial intelligence (and in some interpretations, even all forms of computing technology including integrated circuits) entirely. His Dune series mentions a rebellion called the Butlerian Jihad, in which mankind defeats the smart machines and imposes a death penalty for recreating them, quoting from the fictional Orange Catholic Bible, "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." In the Dune novels published after his death (Hunters of Dune, Sandworms of Dune), a renegade AI overmind returns to eradicate mankind as vengeance for the Butlerian Jihad. In some stories, humanity remains in authority over robots. Often the robots are programmed specifically to remain in service to society, as in Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. In the Alien films, not only is the control system of the Nostromo spaceship somewhat intelligent
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Taylor Swift deepfake pornography controversy

In late January 2024, sexually explicit AI-generated deepfake images of American musician Taylor Swift were proliferated on social media platforms 4chan and X (formerly Twitter). Several artificial images of Swift of a sexual or violent nature were quickly spread, with one post reported to have been seen over 47 million times before its eventual removal. The images led Microsoft to enhance Microsoft Designer's text-to-image model to prevent future abuse. Moreover, these images prompted responses from anti-sexual assault advocacy groups, US politicians, Swifties, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, among others, and it has been suggested that Swift's influence could result in new legislation regarding the creation of deepfake pornography. A similar controversy emerged in August 2025, when The Verge reported AI image and video tool Grok Imagine generated sexually explicit images and videos of Swift from an otherwise innocuous text prompt. == Background == American musician Taylor Swift has been the target of misogyny and slut-shaming throughout her career. American technology corporation Microsoft offers AI image creators called Microsoft Designer and Bing Image Creator, which employ censorship safeguards to prevent users from generating unsafe or objectionable content. Members of a Telegram group discussed ways to circumvent these censors to create pornographic images of celebrities. Graphika, a disinformation research firm, traced the creation of the images back to a 4chan community. == Reactions == For some, the deepfake images of Swift immediately became a source of controversy and outrage. Other internet users found them humorous and absurd, such as the image making it appear as though Swift was to engage in sexual intercourse with Oscar the Grouch. The images drew condemnations from Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network and SAG-AFTRA. The latter group, who had been following issues regarding AI-generated media prior to Swift's involvement, considered the images "upsetting, harmful and deeply concerning." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, whose company's products were believed to be used to make these images, responded to the controversy as "alarming and terrible", further stating his belief that "we all benefit when the online world is a safe world." === Taylor Swift === A source close to Swift told the Daily Mail that she would be considering legal action, saying, "Whether or not legal action will be taken is being decided, but there is one thing that is clear: These fake AI-generated images are abusive, offensive, exploitative, and done without Taylor's consent and/or knowledge." === Politicians === White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre expressed concern over the counterfeit images, deeming them "alarming", and emphasized the obligation of social media platforms to curb the dissemination of misinformation. Several members of American politics called for legislation against AI-generated pornography. Later in the month, a bipartisan bill was introduced by US senators Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley. The bill would allow victims to sue individuals who produced or possessed "digital forgeries" with intent to distribute, or those who received the material knowing it was made without consent. The European Union struck a deal in February 2024 on a similar bill that would criminalize deepfake pornography, as well as online harassment and revenge porn, by mid-2027. === Social media platforms === X responded to the sharing of these images on their own website with claims they would suspend accounts that participated in their spread. Despite this, the photos continued to be reshared among accounts of X, and spread to other platforms including Instagram and Reddit. X enforces a "synthetic and manipulated media policy", which has been criticized for its efficacy. They briefly blocked searches of Swift's name on January 27, 2024, reinstating them two days later. === Swifties === Fans of Taylor Swift, known as Swifties, responded to the circulation of these images by pushing the hashtag #ProtectTaylorSwift to trend on X. They also flooded other hashtags related to the images with more positive images and videos of her live performances. == Cultural significance == Deepfake pornography has remained highly controversial and has affected figures from other celebrities to ordinary people, most of whom are women. Journalists have opined that the involvement of a prominent public figure such as Swift in the dissemination of AI-generated pornography could bring public awareness and political reform to the issue.
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Google Gadgets

Google Gadgets are dynamic web content that can be embedded on a web page. They can be added to and interact strongly with Google's iGoogle personalized home page (discontinued in November 2013, although iGoogle Gadgets still work on other websites) and the Google Desktop (discontinued in September 2011) application, as well as Google Wave (also no longer supported by Google) and Google Sites. Webmasters can add and customize a gadget to their own business or personal web site, a process called "syndication". Gadgets are developed by Google and third-party developers using the Google Gadgets API, using basic web technologies such as XML and JavaScript. == Multi-user persistent - Wave Gadgets == With the advent of Google Wave (now Apache Wave), gadgets became able to have persistent storage and multi-user capabilities and better state management. Gadgets using Google Wave in this way were simply known as 'Wave Gadgets'. For instance, a game written using a Google Gadget could use Google Wave technology to record a list of users and high scores without having to worry about how to permanently store the scores on a hosted server. The use of Google Wave would give the gadget multi-user and permanent storage capabilities. For example, scores could be stored in a Google Wave hosted permanently by Google at no cost to the user. As of early 2013, Google Gadgets were deprecated in Google Spreadsheets. Shortly after, they were removed from all spreadsheets. == Technology == Google Gadgets are written in XML and can have HTML and JavaScript components, and were able to use Google Wave. Here is an example of a Hello World program written using Google Gadget technology. Google Gadgets API is a Google API which allows developers to create Google Gadgets easily.
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Polyworld

Polyworld is a cross-platform (Linux, Mac OS X) program written by Larry Yaeger to evolve Artificial Intelligence through natural selection and evolutionary algorithms. It uses the Qt graphics toolkit and OpenGL to display a graphical environment in which a population of trapezoid agents search for food, mate, have offspring, and prey on each other. The population is typically only in the hundreds, as each individual is rather complex and the environment consumes considerable computer resources. The graphical environment is necessary since the individuals actually move around the 2-D plane and must be able to "see." Since some basic abilities, like eating carcasses or randomly generated food, seeing other individuals, mating or fighting with them, etc., are possible, a number of interesting behaviours have been observed to spontaneously arise after prolonged evolution, such as cannibalism, predators and prey, and mimicry. Each individual makes decisions based on a neural net using Hebbian learning; the neural net is derived from each individual's genome. The genome does not merely specify the wiring of the neural nets, but also determines their size, speed, color, mutation rate and a number of other factors. The genome is randomly mutated at a set probability, which are also changed in descendant organisms.
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Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted

Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is a 2025 tower defense video game developed by PopCap Seattle, The Lost Pixels, and published by Electronic Arts. It is a remaster of the 2009 game Plants vs. Zombies, introducing upscaled graphics and new additional content. Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted was released for video game consoles and personal computers on October 23, 2025. It received generally positive reviews from critics, but was criticized by the original game's development team for including fabricated concept art and for mishandling the soundtrack. == Gameplay == Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted follows the same gameplay of the original Plants vs. Zombies game with very minor changes. It is a lane-based tower defense game where the player has to defend their home from incoming zombies. The player can place various plants by spending "sun", the game's currency during levels. Sun icons can be collected from the sky during daytime and from sun-producing plants such as sunflowers. Some plants can attack zombies while some can act as defense. If all zombies are defeated in a level, the player wins. If a zombie reaches the left side of the line, a lawn mower—or other similar, relevant object—will activate and clear the row of any zombies, but if the lawn mower has already been used, and another zombie crosses, the game is over. === Replanted features === Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted contains up to 4K upscaled graphics and widescreen support, in comparison to the original game's static 800x600 resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio. Replanted now has full controller support and features local multiplayer modes ported from the original game's seventh generation console ports: co-op, where two players play together with assigned roles; and Versus, where one plays as the plants and the other as the zombies. No online multiplayer is planned, however support for Steam Remote Play was later added in a patch as an alternative for Windows users. Replanted also contains quality-of-life features. Gameplay can now be sped up by the player's will, with a max speed increase of 2.5x. Sun icons can now be mass collected using the "Sun Magnet." On Windows, players can quick-select plants from their seed bank using the number keys as hotkeys. Replanted also introduces two new additional game modes. "Cloudy Day" is a set of non-linear levels in the Adventure campaign. These levels only allow Sunflowers as sun-producing plants. During these levels, the amount of sun dropped from the sky and produced by plants are lowered. At certain times, rain clouds will move over the lawn. While these clouds are present, sun will stop appearing from the sky and from Sunflowers. However, all plants will cost around half their original price and have significantly faster recharge times. "R.I.P. Mode" is a harder difficulty of the Adventure campaign, but the player is forced back to the beginning if they lose a single level. Replanted additionally features "bonus levels" included as non-linear levels in the Adventure campaign. These include 10 new minigames that were previously unused in the original game. In a later update, Replanted added "Survival: Endless" levels to all five areas of the game instead of just the daytime pool. == Development == The existence of a Plants vs. Zombies remaster was revealed in an interview with Janet Robin from The String Revolution, who they did a vinyl collaboration with the franchise in 2025 with Iam8bit. Janet stated that EA commissioned them to record an acoustic composition of the track "Crazy Dave" to be used for an "anniversary edition" of the game. The song would be additionally be a tribute to the song "Bad Guy", which artist Billie Eilish has stated to be somewhat similar to the track. Plants vs. Zombies Replanted was officially announced in a Nintendo Direct presentation in late July 2025. As an incentive, people who pre-ordered the game are given an in-game retro-styled skin of the Peashooter. Replanted was showcased at PAX West on August 25, 2025. A dev diary for Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted was uploaded to YouTube on October 17, 2025. The video features Nick Reinhart, Jake Neri, and Matt Townsend. A developer panel for the game was available during TwitchCon 2025. == Release == Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted was released for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and personal computers on October 23, 2025. It was leaked onto the internet on October 17, 2025. Players discovered multiple software bugs, and multiple assets alleged to be upscaled by generative artificial intelligence were found, leading to backlash. Numerous bugs were fixed in a day-one patch on October 23, 2025. == Reception == === Critical response === The versions of Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted for Windows, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic, while the Xbox Series X version received "mixed or average" reviews. According to OpenCritic, 57% of critics recommended it. IGN's Alessandro Fillari called it "a good way to get re-acquainted with one of the quirkiest puzzle-strategy games of the 2000s", while acknowledging its questionable decisions. Shacknews' David Craddock said it was his favorite version of Plants vs. Zombies, stating, "it packs everything fans loved about the original game, plus lots more" while justifying its US$20 price. The Verge described Replanted as "a time capsule from a simpler, happier time". Kyle Hilliard from Game Informer praised its faithfulness, complimenting the new animations and character designs that did not alter its memorability. Noah Hunter for Final Weapon described the remake as solid, though criticized the lack of certain features and containing bugs that gate it from being excellent. Ben Lyons from Gamereactor stated Replanted is the same as the original overall, despite believing the £18 price is not justified. === Original developers === Rich Werner, the original game's character designer, claims that some concept art contained in the game, speculated to be for Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (2014), did not originate from the original's development. Werner also stated that concept art for the Disco Zombie is fabricated; the design for the Disco Zombie was created after the estate of Michael Jackson requested the original Dancing Zombie, who resembles Michael Jackson from his Thriller music video, be removed from the game. On October 19, 2026, composer Laura Shigihara expressed her dissatisfaction with the lack of dynamic music in the game. Dynamic music would later be implemented in a later patch. In an interview featuring Rich Werner and user interface designer Matt Holmberg on April 29, 2026, Werner revealed that he and Shigihara were contacted by EA to make a music video to market Replanted. However, after the game was leaked, Werner's response on social media led EA to cancel the collaboration.
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Veo (text-to-video model)

Veo, or Google Veo, is a text-to-video model developed by Google DeepMind and announced in May 2024. As a generative AI model, it creates videos based on user prompts. Veo 3, released in May 2025, can also generate accompanying audio. == Development == In May 2024, a multimodal video generation model called Veo was announced at Google I/O 2024. Google claimed that it could generate 1080p videos over a minute long. In December 2024, Google released Veo 2, available via VideoFX. It supports 4K resolution video generation and has an improved understanding of physics. In April 2025, Google announced that Veo 2 became available for advanced users on the Gemini app. In May 2025, Google released Veo 3, which not only generates videos but also creates synchronized audio — including dialogue, sound effects, and ambient noise — to match the visuals. Google also announced Flow, a video-creation tool powered by Veo and Imagen. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis described the release as the moment when AI video generation left the era of the silent film. This was rebranded as Google Flow at the 2026 Google I/O keynote, along with the announcement of Google Flow Music. == Capabilities == Google Veo can be purchased at multiple subscription tiers and through Google "AI credits". The software itself can be run by two different consoles, Google Gemini and Google Flow. Gemini being geared towards shorter, quicker, and faster projects, using the Gemini AI chat model, with Google Flow, which is essentially a movie editor allowing users to create longer projects with continuity, using the same characters and actors. Users can create a maximum of eight seconds per clip. According to Gizmodo Veo 3 users were directing the model to generate low-quality content, such as man on the street interviews or haul videos of people unboxing products. 404 Media reported that the tool tended to repeat the same joke in response to different prompts. Commentators speculated that Google had trained the service on YouTube videos or Reddit posts. Google itself had not stated the source of its training content. In July 2025, Media Matters for America reported that racist and antisemitic videos generated using Veo 3 were being uploaded to TikTok. Ryan Whitwam of Ars Technica commented, "In a perfect world, Veo 3 would refuse to create these videos, but vagueness in the prompt and the AI's inability to understand the subtleties of racist tropes (i.e., the use of monkeys instead of humans in some videos) make it easy to skirt the rules."
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Referring expression generation

Referring expression generation (REG) is the subtask of natural language generation (NLG) that received most scholarly attention. While NLG is concerned with the conversion of non-linguistic information into natural language, REG focuses only on the creation of referring expressions (noun phrases) that identify specific entities called targets. This task can be split into two sections. The content selection part determines which set of properties distinguish the intended target and the linguistic realization part defines how these properties are translated into natural language. A variety of algorithms have been developed in the NLG community to generate different types of referring expressions. == Types of referring expressions == A referring expression (RE), in linguistics, is any noun phrase, or surrogate for a noun phrase, whose function in discourse is to identify some individual object (thing, being, event...) The technical terminology for identify differs a great deal from one school of linguistics to another. The most widespread term is probably refer, and a thing identified is a referent, as for example in the work of John Lyons. In linguistics, the study of reference relations belongs to pragmatics, the study of language use, though it is also a matter of great interest to philosophers, especially those wishing to understand the nature of knowledge, perception and cognition more generally. Various devices can be used for reference: determiners, pronouns, proper names... Reference relations can be of different kinds; referents can be in a "real" or imaginary world, in discourse itself, and they may be singular, plural, or collective. === Pronouns === The simplest type of referring expressions are pronoun such as he and it. The linguistics and natural language processing communities have developed various models for predicting anaphor referents, such as centering theory, and ideally referring-expression generation would be based on such models. However most NLG systems use much simpler algorithms, for example using a pronoun if the referent was mentioned in the previous sentence (or sentential clause), and no other entity of the same gender was mentioned in this sentence. === Definite noun phrases === There has been a considerable amount of research on generating definite noun phrases, such as the big red book. Much of this builds on the model proposed by Dale and Reiter. This has been extended in various ways, for example Krahmer et al. present a graph-theoretic model of definite NP generation with many nice properties. In recent years a shared-task event has compared different algorithms for definite NP generation, using the TUNA corpus. === Spatial and temporal reference === Recently there has been more research on generating referring expressions for time and space. Such references tend to be imprecise (what is the exact meaning of tonight?), and also to be interpreted in different ways by different people. Hence it may be necessary to explicitly reason about false positive vs false negative tradeoffs, and even calculate the utility of different possible referring expressions in a particular task context. === Criteria for good expressions === Ideally, a good referring expression should satisfy a number of criteria: Referential success: It should unambiguously identify the referent to the reader. Ease of comprehension: The reader should be able to quickly read and understand it. Computational complexity: The generation algorithm should be fast No false inferences: The expression should not confuse or mislead the reader by suggesting false implicatures or other pragmatic inferences. For example, a reader may be confused if he is told Sit by the brown wooden table in a context where there is only one table. == History == === Pre-2000 era === REG goes back to the early days of NLG. One of the first approaches was done by Winograd in 1972 who developed an "incremental" REG algorithm for his SHRDLU program. Afterwards researchers started to model the human abilities to create referring expressions in the 1980s. This new approach to the topic was influenced by the researchers Appelt and Kronfeld who created the programs KAMP and BERTRAND and considered referring expressions as parts of bigger speech acts. Some of their most interesting findings were the fact that referring expressions can be used to add information beyond the identification of the referent as well as the influence of communicative context and the Gricean maxims on referring expressions. Furthermore, its skepticism concerning the naturalness of minimal descriptions made Appelt and Kronfeld's research a foundation of later work on REG. The search for simple, well-defined problems changed the direction of research in the early 1990s. This new approach was led by Dale and Reiter who stressed the identification of the referent as the central goal. Like Appelt they discuss the connection between the Gricean maxims and referring expressions in their culminant paper in which they also propose a formal problem definition. Furthermore, Reiter and Dale discuss the Full Brevity and Greedy Heuristics algorithms as well as their Incremental Algorithm(IA) which became one of the most important algorithms in REG. === Later developments === After 2000 the research began to lift some of the simplifying assumptions, that had been made in early REG research in order to create more simple algorithms. Different research groups concentrated on different limitations creating several expanded algorithms. Often these extend the IA in a single perspective for example in relation to: Reference to Sets like "the t-shirt wearers" or "the green apples and the banana on the left" Relational Descriptions like "the cup on the table" or "the woman who has three children" Context Dependency, Vagueness and Gradeability include statements like "the older man" or "the car on the left" which are often unclear without a context Salience and Generation of Pronouns are highly discourse dependent making for example "she" a reference to "the (most salient) female person" Many simplifying assumptions are still in place or have just begun to be worked on. Also a combination of the different extensions has yet to be done and is called a "non-trivial enterprise" by Krahmer and van Deemter. Another important change after 2000 was the increasing use of empirical studies in order to evaluate algorithms. This development took place due to the emergence of transparent corpora. Although there are still discussions about what the best evaluation metrics are, the use of experimental evaluation has already led to a better comparability of algorithms, a discussion about the goals of REG and more task-oriented research. Furthermore, research has extended its range to related topics such as the choice of Knowledge Representation(KR) Frameworks. In this area the main question, which KR framework is most suitable for the use in REG remains open. The answer to this question depends on how well descriptions can be expressed or found. A lot of the potential of KR frameworks has been left unused so far. Some of the different approaches are the usage of: Graph search which treats relations between targets in the same way as properties. Constraint Satisfaction which allows for a separation between problem specification and the implementation. Modern Knowledge Representation which offers logical inference in for example Description Logic or Conceptual Graphs. == Problem definition == Dale and Reiter (1995) think about referring expressions as distinguishing descriptions. They define: The referent as the entity that should be described The context set as set of salient entities The contrast set or potential distractors as all elements of the context set except the referent A property as a reference to a single attribute–value pair Each entity in the domain can be characterised as a set of attribute–value pairs for example ⟨ {\displaystyle \langle } type, dog ⟩ {\displaystyle \rangle } , ⟨ {\displaystyle \langle } gender, female ⟩ {\displaystyle \rangle } or ⟨ {\displaystyle \langle } age, 10 years ⟩ {\displaystyle \rangle } . The problem then is defined as follows: Let r {\displaystyle r} be the intended referent, and C {\displaystyle C} be the contrast set. Then, a set L {\displaystyle L} of attribute–value pairs will represent a distinguishing description if the following two conditions hold: Every attribute–value pair in L {\displaystyle L} applies to r {\displaystyle r} : that is, every element of L {\displaystyle L} specifies an attribute–value that r {\displaystyle r} possesses. For every member c {\displaystyle c} of C {\displaystyle C} , there is at least one element l {\displaystyle l} of L {\displaystyle L} that does not apply to c {\displaystyle c} : that is, there is an l {\displaystyle l} in L {\displaystyle L} that specifies an attribute–value that c {\displaystyle c} does not possess. l {\displaystyle l} is said
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Trevor Paglen

Trevor Paglen (born 1974) is an American artist, geographer, and author whose work covers mass surveillance and data collection. In 2016, Paglen won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize and he has also won The Cultural Award from the German Society for Photography. In 2017, he was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. On March 17, 2026, Paglen was awarded the 2026 LG Guggenheim Award (a collaboration between LG and Guggenheim New York). == Early life and education == Paglen earned a B.A. degree in religious studies in 1998 from the University of California at Berkeley, a M.F.A. degree in 2002 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Geography in 2008 from the University of California at Berkeley. While at UC Berkeley, Paglen lived in the Berkeley Student Cooperative, residing in Chateau, Fenwick, and Rochdale co-ops. == Work == Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2015, said that Paglen, whose "ongoing grand project [is] the murky world of global state surveillance and the ethics of drone warfare", "is one of the most conceptually adventurous political artists working today, and has collaborated with scientists and human rights activists on his always ambitious multimedia projects." His visual work such as his "Limit Telephotography" and "The Other Night Sky" series have received widespread attention for both his technical innovations and for his conceptual project that involves simultaneously making and negating documentary-style truth-claims. Paglen’s work relies on contemporary technology in two meaningful ways. Firstly, the views he photographs would be impossible to shoot without media tech, that includes the cameras, the microscopes, and even helicopters. But interestingly enough, the shots would not be possible if not for the existence of the subject. The contrasts between secrecy and revelation, evidence and abstraction distinguish Paglen's work. With that the artist presents not so much "evidence" as admonitions to awareness. He was an Eyebeam Commissioned Artist in 2007. In 2008 the Berkeley Art Museum devoted a comprehensive solo exhibition to his work. In the next year, Paglen took part in the Istanbul Biennial, and in 2010 he exhibited at the Vienna Secession. Autonomy Cube was a project by Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum that placed relays for the anonymous communication network Tor in traditional art museums. He contributed to the Oscar-winning documentary film Citizenfour (2014), directed by Laura Poitras. Paglen features in the nerd-culture documentary Traceroute (2016). Orbital Reflector was a reflective, mylar sculpture by Paglen intended to be the first "purely artistic" object in space. The temporary satellite, containing an inflatable mylar balloon with reflective surface, launched into space 3 December 2018. A mid-career survey in 2018–2019, Trevor Paglen: Sites Unseen, was a traveling exhibition shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. In September 2020, Pace Gallery in London held an exhibition of Paglen's work, exploring "the weird, partial ways computers look back at us". His work is included in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum. === Experimental Geography === Paglen is credited with coining the term "Experimental Geography" to describe practices coupling experimental cultural production and art-making with ideas from critical human geography about the production of space, materialism, and praxis. The 2009 book Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism is largely inspired by Paglen's work. == Publications == Paglen has published a number of books. Torture Taxi (2006) (co-authored with investigative journalist A. C. Thompson) was the first book to comprehensively describe the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me (2007), is a look at the world of black projects through unit patches and memorabilia created for top-secret programs. Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World (2009) is a broader look at secrecy in the United States. The Last Pictures (2012) is a collection of 100 images to be placed on permanent media and launched into space on EchoStar XVI, as a repository available for future civilizations (alien or human) to find. === Publications by Paglen === I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2007. ISBN 1-933633-32-8. Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World. New York: Dutton, 2009. ISBN 9781101011492. Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes, Photographs by Trevor Paglen. New York: Aperture, 2010. ISBN 9781597111300. With an essay by Rebecca Solnit. The Last Pictures. Oakland, CA: University of California, 2012. ISBN 9780520275003. Trevor Paglen. London: Phaidon, 2018. ISBN 0714873446. With essays by Laren Cornell, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Omar Kholeif. === Publications co-authored === Torture Taxi. Co-authored with A. C. Thompson. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-933633-09-3. Icon, 2007. ISBN 9781840468304. === Publications with contributions by Paglen === Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2009. ISBN 978-0091636586. Edited by Nato Thompson. With essays by Paglen, Thompson, and Jeffrey Kastner. Trevor Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum – Autonomy Cube. Revolver, 2016. ISBN 978-3957633026. Essays by Luke Skrebowski and Keller Easterling on Autonomy Cube, a piece of sculpture by Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum. In English and German. == Exhibitions == Bellwether Gallery, New York, November–December 2006 The Other Night Sky, Berkeley Art Museum, 2008 A Compendium of Secrets, Cologne Still Revolution: Suspended in Time, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, May–June 2009. Group exhibition with Paglen, Barbara Astman, Walead Beshty, Mat Collishaw, Stan Douglas, Idris Khan, Martha Rosler, and Mikhael Subotzky A Hidden Landscape, Aksioma, Ljubljana, Slowenia Geographies of Seeing, Lighthouse, Brighton, England, October–November 2012 The Last Pictures, New York, 2012–13 Trevor Paglen, Altman Siegel gallery, San Francisco, CA, March–May 2015 The Octopus, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main, 2015 Autonomy Cube, Edith-Russ-Haus, Oldenburg, Germany, October 2015 – January 2016. Sculpture by Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum. Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2016, The Photographers' Gallery, London, April–July 2016. Deutsche Börse Photography Prize shortlist with Paglen, Erik Kessels, Laura El-Tantawy, and Tobias Zielony. Radical Landscapes, di Rosa, Napa, February–April 2016 L’Image volée, Americas II, Bahamas Internet Cable System (BICS-1) and Globenet, Fondazione Prada, Milan (group exhibition), 2016 A Study of Invisible Images, Metro Pictures, New York, September–October 2017 == Awards == 2014: Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 2015: The Cultural Award from the German Society for Photography (DGPh) 2015: Academy Award as cameraman and director for the documentary film Citzenfour. 2016: Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2017: MacArthur Fellowship, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, IL 2018: Nam June Paik Art Center Prize == Films about Paglen == Unseen Skies (2021) == Works ==
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AI Snake Oil

AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference is a 2024 non-fiction book written by scholars Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor. It is a critique of the tech industry's overly inflated promises and capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) as well as a debunking of the flawed science fueling AI hype while attempting to outline both the potential positives and negatives that come with different modes of the technology. == Contents == === Publication === The book was published in September 2024 by the Princeton University Press. AI Snake Oil consists of 360 pages and features eight chapters, and sections for acknowledgements, references, and an index. An updated edition with a new preface and epilogue by the authors was published in September 2025. The authors use the term "AI snake oil" derived from the U.S. idiom for a fraudulent remedy, to describe overhyped AI systems. === Chapter one: Introduction === Narayanan and Kapoor argue that many individuals do not yet have the literacy to detect functioning aspects of AI compared to potential snake oil, which they identify as "AI that does not and cannot work as advertised". Some of the major examples utilized by the authors include Allstate's 2013 use of predictive AI, as well as the concern surrounding actors and AI attempting to replicate or use their likeness. Important discussions regarding discrimination are brought up and explored in the first chapter, including the false arrests of six Black individuals due to errors with AI facial recognition tools. The chapter concludes with a comparison to the Industrial Revolution, where Narayanan and Kapoor highlight the extensive human labour that is necessary for artificial intelligence technologies to function. === Chapter two: How Predictive AI Goes Wrong === Chapter two focuses on predictive artificial intelligence, and criticizes the overestimation of the capabilities of the technology. === Chapter three: Why Can't AI Predict the Future? === Chapter three works to inform the reader about the history of early computational prediction attempts, with examples from companies like Simulatics. === Chapter four: The Long Road to Generative AI === The fourth chapter goes in more in-depth in explorations of generative AI. Generative AI software examples include ChatGPT, Midjourney, and DALL-E. The section begins with a positive example of generative AI. As the chapter progresses, the authors begin to provide examples of harm produced by generative AI, including the suicide of a Belgian man after connecting with Chai, a generative chatbot. Issues of deepfakes and preservation of artistic property are also discussed. The use of generative AI to create non-consensual pornographic deepfake content is discussed in relation to female celebrities. === Chapter five: Is Advanced AI an Existential Threat? === The fifth chapter draws attention the AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence. The authors describe AGI as "AI that can perform most or economically relevant tasks as effectively as any human". They summarize that many contributors to the field of artificial intelligence believe AGI to be an impending threat that demands attention. However, they argue that the perceived threat of AGI would only exist if the technology continually functioned reliably. In order to better illustrate the hype surrounding AGI, Narayanan and Kapoor use the Ladder of Generality, which is described as a visual tool in which "each rung represents a way of computing that is more flexible, and more general, than the previous one". They note that we are not yet aware of the next rungs on the ladder, or if the ladder will eventually result in a dead end. The rungs that have been identified so far are as follows: (0, or floor) special purpose hardware, (1) programmable computers, (2) stored program computers, (3) machine learning, (4) deep learning, (5) pretrained models, and, finally, (6) instruction-tuned models. The potential for future rungs and what those rungs might be are currently undetermined. The chapter also discusses the ELIZA effect, which Lawrence Switzky discusses in his article "ELIZA Effects". Switzky attributes the coined term ELIZA Effect to Sherry Turke, who defined it as "our more general tendency to treat responsive computer programs as more intelligent than they really are". === Chapter six: Why Can't AI Fix Social Media? === The sixth chapter focuses on content moderation, why it is important, and how it has been and could be affected by artificial automation. The first issue raised in regard to AI-driven content moderation is the inability for computers and machines to understand context and nuance, resulting in potential for discriminatory moderation and shadow banning. While they note that there are issues with automating content moderation, Narayanan and Kapoor also highlight the psychological impact on human content moderators and their labour. They indicate the hidden labour behind moderation, which is often outsourced to less developed countries, where labourers sort through potentially traumatizing content for pay. However, the discussion focuses more heavily on why automated moderation can be problematic, including discriminatory algorithms and lack of nuance. To balance their argument, issues of discrimination and bias are also discussed in relation the human content moderators. To automate moderation, there are two types of AI used, which are fingerprint matching and machine learning. === Chapter seven: Why Do Myths about AI Persist? === The seventh chapter outlines possible factors that contribute to hype surrounding AI. Narayanan and Kapoor explain how companies often promote their new AI models without properly disclosing how the model works, and what it is learning from. They attribute hype to several different groups, including journalists, researchers, and companies. They explain the impact of companies and the misplaced hype that they spread can be attributed to greed and a desire to grow corporate funds. For journalists, one of the stated sources of hype, they argue that news media has a tendency to prioritize financial incentives over validity and quality of writing. As well, Narayanan and Kapoor point out the emergence of company statement regurgitation in news media, leading to clickbait. Hype from researchers is potentially linked to lack of reproducibility in studies as well as leakage, which occurs when AI models are tested on their training data. === Chapter eight: Where do we go from here? === The final chapter, chapter eight, turns its attention to the future. The authors express their ideas and predictions for how the technology will evolve and be utilized in the upcoming years. == Authors == Author Narayanan is a computer science professor at Princeton University. Kapoor is a doctoral candidate at the same university, and both scholars are located at the Center for Information Technology at Princeton. In 2023, Narayanan and Kapoor appeared on the TIME100 Artificial Intelligence list, which features influential figures in the field. == Reception == Nature, a science and technology peer-reviewed journal, released an article highlighting the top "10 essential reads from the past year", listing Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor's AI Snake Oil. The article states the that text is "one of the best on this controversial subject". Elizabeth Quill, in her review of the text in Science News, writes that the authors "squarely achieve their stated goal: to empower people to distinguish AI that works well from AI snake oil". Joshua Rothman of The New Yorker writes that "compared with many technologists, Narayanan, Kapoor, and Vallor [Shannon Vallor, University of Edinburgh], are deeply skeptical about today's A.I. technology and what it can achieve. Perhaps they shouldn't be". Rothman argues, following an interview with prominent computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton of University of Toronto, that the potential for AI to replicate complexity is already here and continues to be heavily funded, enhancing the prospective capabilities of the technology. However, he does praise the author's ability to address questions regarding the existential human experience. Alexya Martinez discusses the text in a book review for Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, critiquing AI Snake Oil for its extensive focus on the West. Martinez writes that Narayanan and Kapoor "do not fully explore how AI impacts other countries", and suggests more focus on countries outside of the United States to enhance their argument.
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