Artificial Intelligence: A General Survey, commonly known as the Lighthill report, is a scholarly article by James Lighthill, published in Artificial Intelligence: a paper symposium in 1973. It was compiled by Lighthill for the British Science Research Council as an evaluation of academic research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The report gave a very pessimistic prognosis for many core aspects of research in this field, stating that "In no part of the field have the discoveries made so far produced the major impact that was then promised". It "formed the basis for the decision by the British government to end support for AI research in most British universities", contributing to an AI winter in the United Kingdom. == Publication history == It was commissioned by the SRC in 1972 for Lighthill to "make a personal review of the subject [of AI]". Lighthill completed the report in July. The SRC discussed the report in September, and decided to publish it, together with some alternative points of view by Stuart Sutherland, Roger Needham, Christopher Longuet-Higgins, and Donald Michie. The SRC's decision to invite the report was partly a reaction to high levels of discord within the University of Edinburgh's Department of Artificial Intelligence, one of the earliest and biggest centres for AI research in the UK. On May 9, 1973, Lighthill debated several leading AI researchers (Donald Michie, John McCarthy, Richard Gregory) at the Royal Institution in London concerning the report. == Content == While the report was supportive of research into the simulation of neurophysiological and psychological processes, it was "highly critical of basic research in foundational areas such as robotics and language processing". The report stated that AI researchers had failed to address the issue of combinatorial explosion when solving problems within real-world domains. That is, the report states that whilst AI techniques may have worked within the scope of small problem domains, the techniques would not scale up well to solve more realistic problems. The report represents a pessimistic view of AI that began after early excitement in the field. The report divides AI research into three categories: Advanced Automation ("A"): applications of AI, such as optical character recognition, mechanical component design and manufacture, missile perception and guidance, etc. Computer-based Central Nervous System research ("C"): building computational models of human brains (neurobiology) and behavior (psychology). Bridge, or Building Robots ("B"): research that combines categories A and C. This category is intentionally vague. Projects in category A had had some success, but only in restricted domains where a large quantity of detailed knowledge was used in designing the program. This was disappointing to researchers who hoped for generic methods. Due to the issue of the combinatorial explosion, the amount of detailed knowledge required by the program quickly grew too large to be entered by hand, thus restricting projects to restricted domains. Projects in category C had had some measure of success. Artificial neural networks were successfully used to model neurobiological data. SHRDLU demonstrated that human use of language, even in fine details, depends on the semantics or knowledge, and is not purely syntactical. This was influential in psycholinguistics. Attempts to extend SHRDLU to larger domains of discourse was considered impractical, again due to the issue of the combinatorial explosion. Projects in category B were held to be failures. One important project, that of "programming and building a robot that would mimic human ability in a combination of eye-hand co-ordination and common-sense problem solving", was considered entirely disappointing. Similarly, chess playing programs were no better than human amateurs. Due to the combinatorial explosion, the run-time of general algorithms quickly grew impractical, requiring detailed problem-specific heuristics. The report stated that it was expected that within the next 25 years, category A would simply become applied technologies engineering, C would integrate with psychology and neurobiology, while category B would be abandoned.
Deep image compositing
Deep image compositing is a way of compositing and rendering digital images that emerged in the mid-2010s. In addition to the usual color and opacity channels a notion of spatial depth is created. This allows multiple samples in the depth of the image to make up the final resulting color. This technique produces high quality results and removes artifacts around edges that could not be dealt with otherwise. == Deep data == Deep data is encoded by advanced 3D renderers into an image that samples information about the path each rendered pixel takes along the z axis extending outward from the virtual camera through space, including the color and opacity of every non-opaque surface or volume it passes through along the way, as well as neighboring samples. It might be considered somewhat analogous to the way ray tracing generates simulated photon paths through such mediums; however, ray tracing and other traditional rendering techniques generally produce images that contain only three or four channels of color and opacity values per pixel, flattened into a two dimensional frame. Depth maps, on the other hand, contain z axis information encoded in a grayscale image. Each level of gray represents a different slice of the z space. The "thickness" of each slice is determined at time of render, allowing for more or less depth fidelity depending on how deep the scene is. Depth maps have been a boon to compositors for blending 3D renders with live action and practical elements. To be useful, the map must have high enough bit depth to encode separation between close-to-camera objects and objects near infinity. Most 3D software packages are now capable of generating 16-bit and 32-bit depth maps, providing up to 2 billion depth levels. Depth maps do not however include transparency information about non-opaque surfaces or volumes and as such, objects beyond and viewed through these semi- or fully-transparent objects will have no depth information of their own and may not get composited or blurred correctly. Even the popular addition of cryptomattes to many post-production and VFX studios' pipelines, while providing separate color-coded ID shapes for individual elements in a rendered scene to further bridge the gap between CGI and compositing, don't allow for the nearly automated and fully non-linear workflows that deep data does. This is because deep images encapsulate enough 3D information that normally time-intensive tasks such as rotoscoping with numerous holdout mattes for complex interactions between moving characters and semi-transparent environmental volumes like smoke or water, are essentially trivial. Instead of going through that process, multiple mattes could easily be generated from a single set of deep images with no need to re-render every matte element and background for each case. In addition to that efficiency and flexibility, deep data images inherently provide much higher visual quality in common areas that have been difficult with traditional renders, such as the motion-blurred edges of characters with semi-transparent elements like hair. One downside to the use of deep images is their substantial file size, since they encode a relatively enormous amount of data per frame compared to even multichannel formats such as OpenEXR. === Function-based (integrated) === The data is stored as a function of depth. This results in a function curve that can be used to look up the data at any arbitrary depth. Manipulating the data is harder. === Sample-based (deintegrated) === Each sample is considered as an independent piece and can so be manipulated easily. To make sure the data is representing the right detail, an additional expand value needs to be introduced. == Generating deep data == 3D renderers produce the necessary data as a part of the rendering pipeline. Samples are gathered in depth and then combined. The deep data can be written out before this happens and so is nothing new to the process. Generating deep data from camera data needs a proper depth map. This is used in a couple of cases but still not accurate enough for detailed representation. For basic holdout task this can be sufficient though. == Compositing deep data images == Deep images can be composited like regular images. The depth component makes it easier to determine the layering order. Traditionally this had to be input by the user. Deep images have that information for themselves and need no user input. Edge artifacts are reduced as transparent pixels have more data to work with. == History == Deep Images have been around in 3D rendering packages for quite a while now. The use of them for holdouts was first done at several VFX houses in shaders. Holdout mattes can be generated at render time. Using them in a more interactive manner was started recently by several companies, SideFX integrated it in their Houdini software and facilities like Industrial Light & Magic, DreamWorks Animation, Weta, AnimalLogic and DRD studios have implemented interactive solutions. In 2014 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored the technology with its annual SciTech awards. Dr. Peter Hillman for the long-term development and continued advancement of innovative, robust and complete toolsets for deep compositing and to Colin Doncaster, Johannes Saam, Areito Echevarria, Janne Kontkanen and Chris Cooper for the development, prototyping and promotion of technologies and workflows for deep compositing. == Resources == Pixar Paper Deep Image Paper Video tutorial of Deep Imaging as used on 2012 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Nuke compositing software Deep Compositing Course Deep Image File Format at Google Code Academy Award for the Technology Theory of Deep Pixels OpenEXR Deep Pixels
RuleML
RuleML is a global initiative, led by a non-profit organization RuleML Inc., that is devoted to advancing research and industry standards design activities in the technical area of rules that are semantic and highly inter-operable. The standards design takes the form primarily of a markup language, also known as RuleML. The research activities include an annual research conference, the RuleML Symposium, also known as RuleML for short. Founded in fall 2000 by Harold Boley, Benjamin Grosof, and Said Tabet, RuleML was originally devoted purely to standards design, but then quickly branched out into the related activities of coordinating research and organizing an annual research conference starting in 2002. The M in RuleML is sometimes interpreted as standing for Markup and Modeling. The markup language was developed to express both forward (bottom-up) and backward (top-down) rules in XML for deduction, rewriting, and further inferential-transformational tasks. It is defined by the Rule Markup Initiative, an open network of individuals and groups from both industry and academia that was formed to develop a canonical Web language for rules using XML markup and transformations from and to other rule standards/systems. Markup standards and initiatives related to RuleML include: Rule Interchange Format (RIF): The design and overall purpose of W3C's Rule Interchange Format (RIF) industry standard is based primarily on the RuleML industry standards design. Like RuleML, RIF embraces a multiplicity of potentially useful rule dialects that nevertheless share common characteristics. RuleML Technical Committee from Oasis-Open: An industry standards effort devoted to legal automation utilizing RuleML. Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL): An industry standards design, based primarily on an early version of RuleML, whose development was funded in part by the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) research program. Semantic Web Services Framework, particularly its Semantic Web Services Language: An industry standards design, based primarily on a medium-mature version of RuleML, whose development was funded in part by the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) research program and the WSMO research effort of the EU. Mathematical Markup Language (MathML): However, MathML's Content Markup is better suited for defining functions rather than relations or general rules Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML): With this XML-based language one can define and share various models for data-mining results, including association rules Attribute Grammars in XML (AG-markup): For AG's semantic rules, there are various possible XML markups that are similar to Horn-rule markup Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT): This is a restricted term-rewriting system of rules, written in XML, for transforming XML documents into other text documents
DARPA AlphaDogfight
The DARPA AlphaDogfight was a 2019–2020 DARPA program that pitted computers using F-16 flight simulators against one another. The computers were managed by eight teams of humans, who competed in a single-round elimination for the right to battle a skilled human dogfighter. Heron Systems corporation wrote a deep reinforcement learning software tool that bested the human pilot by a score of 5–0. The tournament program was managed by the Applied Physics Laboratory. The trials took place in October 2019 and January 2020 while the finals were held in August 2020. In 2024 a successor version of the program was tested with in the physical world with the X-62A.
Hyper basis function network
In machine learning, a Hyper basis function network, or HyperBF network, is a generalization of radial basis function (RBF) networks concept, where the Mahalanobis-like distance is used instead of the Euclidean distance measure. Hyper basis function networks were first introduced by Poggio and Girosi in the 1990 paper “Networks for Approximation and Learning”. == Network Architecture == The typical HyperBF network structure consists of a real input vector x ∈ R n {\displaystyle x\in \mathbb {R} ^{n}} , a hidden layer of activation functions and a linear output layer. The output of the network is a scalar function of the input vector, ϕ : R n → R {\displaystyle \phi :\mathbb {R} ^{n}\to \mathbb {R} } , is given by where N {\displaystyle N} is a number of neurons in the hidden layer, μ j {\displaystyle \mu _{j}} and a j {\displaystyle a_{j}} are the center and weight of neuron j {\displaystyle j} . The activation function ρ j ( | | x − μ j | | ) {\displaystyle \rho _{j}(||x-\mu _{j}||)} at the HyperBF network takes the following form where R j {\displaystyle R_{j}} is a positive definite d × d {\displaystyle d\times d} matrix. Depending on the application, the following types of matrices R j {\displaystyle R_{j}} are usually considered R j = 1 2 σ 2 I d × d {\displaystyle R_{j}={\frac {1}{2\sigma ^{2}}}\mathbb {I} _{d\times d}} , where σ > 0 {\displaystyle \sigma >0} . This case corresponds to the regular RBF network. R j = 1 2 σ j 2 I d × d {\displaystyle R_{j}={\frac {1}{2\sigma _{j}^{2}}}\mathbb {I} _{d\times d}} , where σ j > 0 {\displaystyle \sigma _{j}>0} . In this case, the basis functions are radially symmetric, but are scaled with different width. R j = d i a g ( 1 2 σ j 1 2 , . . . , 1 2 σ j z 2 ) I d × d {\displaystyle R_{j}=diag\left({\frac {1}{2\sigma _{j1}^{2}}},...,{\frac {1}{2\sigma _{jz}^{2}}}\right)\mathbb {I} _{d\times d}} , where σ j i > 0 {\displaystyle \sigma _{ji}>0} . Every neuron has an elliptic shape with a varying size. Positive definite matrix, but not diagonal. == Training == Training HyperBF networks involves estimation of weights a j {\displaystyle a_{j}} , shape and centers of neurons R j {\displaystyle R_{j}} and μ j {\displaystyle \mu _{j}} . Poggio and Girosi (1990) describe the training method with moving centers and adaptable neuron shapes. The outline of the method is provided below. Consider the quadratic loss of the network H [ ϕ ∗ ] = ∑ i = 1 N ( y i − ϕ ∗ ( x i ) ) 2 {\displaystyle H[\phi ^{}]=\sum _{i=1}^{N}(y_{i}-\phi ^{}(x_{i}))^{2}} . The following conditions must be satisfied at the optimum: where R j = W T W {\displaystyle R_{j}=W^{T}W} . Then in the gradient descent method the values of a j , μ j , W {\displaystyle a_{j},\mu _{j},W} that minimize H [ ϕ ∗ ] {\displaystyle H[\phi ^{}]} can be found as a stable fixed point of the following dynamic system: where ω {\displaystyle \omega } determines the rate of convergence. Overall, training HyperBF networks can be computationally challenging. Moreover, the high degree of freedom of HyperBF leads to overfitting and poor generalization. However, HyperBF networks have an important advantage that a small number of neurons is enough for learning complex functions.
Cyclodisparity
In vision science, cyclodisparity is the difference in the rotation angle of an object or scene viewed by the left and right eyes. Cyclodisparity can result from the eyes' torsional rotation (cyclorotation) or can be created artificially by presenting to the eyes two images that need to be rotated relative to each other for binocular fusion to take place. == Human and animal vision == The eyes and visual system can compensate for cyclodisparity up to a certain point; if the cyclodisparity is larger than a threshold, the images cannot be fused, resulting stereoblindness, and in double vision in subjects who otherwise have full stereo vision. When a human subject is presented with images that have artificial cyclodisparity, cyclovergence is evoked, that is, a motor response of the eye muscles that rotates the two eyes in opposite directions, thereby reducing cyclodisparity. Visually-induced cyclovergence of up to 8 degrees has been observed in normal subjects. Furthermore, up to about 8 degrees can usually be compensated by purely sensory means, that is, without physical eye rotation. This means that the normal human observer can achieve binocular image fusion in presence of cyclodisparity of up to approximately 16 degrees. Cyclodisparity due to images having been rotated inward can be compensated better when the gaze is directed downwards, and cyclodisparity due to an outward rotation can be compensated better when the gaze is directed upwards. A proposed explanation for this phenomenon is that the motor system is coordinated in such a way that the eyes perform a torsional movement to reduce the size of the search zones and thus the computational load required for solving the correspondence problem. The resulting cyclovergence at near gaze is smaller than the cyclovergence predicted by Listing's law. == Video processing and computer vision == Active camera torsion can be used in machine and computer vision for several purposes. For instance, camera torsion can be used to make improved use of the search range over which matching detectors or stereo matching algorithms operate, or to make a 3D slanted surface appear frontoparallel for further stereo processing. For image compression purposes, images with cyclodisparity are advantageously encoded using global motion compensation using a rotational motion model.
OpenVX
OpenVX is an open, royalty-free standard for cross-platform acceleration of computer vision applications. It is designed by the Khronos Group to facilitate portable, optimized and power-efficient processing of methods for vision algorithms. This is aimed for embedded and real-time programs within computer vision and related scenarios. It uses a connected graph representation of operations. == Overview == OpenVX specifies a higher level of abstraction for programming computer vision use cases than compute frameworks such as OpenCL. The high level makes the programming easy and the underlying execution will be efficient on different computing architectures. This is done while having a consistent and portable vision acceleration API. OpenVX is based on a connected graph of vision nodes that can execute the preferred chain of operations. It uses an opaque memory model, allowing to move image data between the host (CPU) memory and accelerator, such as GPU memory. As a result, the OpenVX implementation can optimize the execution through various techniques, such as acceleration on various processing units or dedicated hardware. This architecture facilitates applications programmed in OpenVX on different systems with different power and performance, including battery-sensitive, vision-enabled, wearable displays. OpenVX is complementary to the open source vision library OpenCV. OpenVX in some applications offers a better optimized graph management than OpenCV. == History == OpenVX 1.0 specification was released in October 2014. OpenVX sample implementation was released in December 2014. OpenVX 1.1 specification was released on May 2, 2016. OpenVX 1.2 was released on May 1, 2017. Updated OpenVX adopters program and OpenVX 1.2 conformance test suite was released on November 21, 2017. OpenVX 1.2.1 was released on November 27, 2018. OpenVX 1.3 was released on October 22, 2019. == Implementations, frameworks and libraries == AMD MIVisionX Archived 2019-08-05 at the Wayback Machine - for AMD's CPUs and GPUs. Cadence - for Cadence Design Systems's Tensilica Vision DSPs. Imagination - for Imagination Technologies's PowerVR GPUs Synopsys - for Synopsys' DesignWare EV Vision Processors Texas Instruments’ OpenVX (TIOVX) - for Texas Instruments’ Jacinto™ ADAS SoCs. NVIDIA VisionWorks - for CUDA-capable Nvidia GPUs and SoCs. OpenVINO - for Intel's CPUs, GPUs, VPUs, and FPGAs.