Artificial intelligence (AI) attracts more and more attention and with each new development it is getting closer to the ideal. This year, several companies have already boasted of their mind-blowing developments in this area.
New items in the AI world
In early 2016, tech giant Google unveiled a new AI model, AlphaGo, to the public. She managed to beat the world champion in the ancient Chinese game Go with a score of 4: 1. This board game with a history of many thousands is renowned for its mathematical complexity. AI victory means a big achievement for the development team.
A US military development with a similar name, ALPHA, bypassed all experienced military pilots in both virtual battle and exercises. In addition to talking about the development of Skynet, the achievements of this model have become a breakthrough in the development of AI.
Another new Google development called DeepDream ("Deep Sleep") is the most distant from logical thinking model of artificial intelligence. It is a complex neural network that produces visions that resemble dreams or hallucinations.
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However advanced these models may be, none of them is capable of taking abstract ideas and emotional factors into account.
Emotional Robot: Is It Possible?
Almost all attempts to create artificial intelligence so far have focused on logic, leaving emotional intelligence out of their focus. This is not surprising, because human emotions are the most complex mechanism, the work of which has not yet been understood by anyone.
However, scientists from the Russian National Research Nuclear University, or rather, the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), announced their new development - an artificial intelligence capable of thinking not only logically, but also taking into account human emotions.
Miracle development is called the Virtual Actor and is able to understand emotions and make decisions, taking into account their impact on people's behavior and their attitude to the situation.
What is known about the Virtual Actor?
The developers plan to complete the first model in just a year and a half, but they have already shared information on how the new artificial intelligence will work. The Virtual Actor will be able to understand the context of what is happening around and predict the least likely course of events, taking into account emotions.
The model was named an actor due to the fact that the tests are and will be carried out in the format of a simplified video game, in which the Virtual Actor will take the place of one of the participants. He was programmed not only to understand people, but also to ask himself questions and look for the answer himself.
What difficulties await developers?
According to one of the scientists involved in the project, emotional intelligence is able to make not only logical, but also "biological" decisions, which are characterized by higher adaptability, the ability to learn and resist unexpected external factors.
However, as the saying goes, easier said than done. Human emotions are still a relatively unexplored part of our behavior, and many researchers argue that creating artificial emotional intelligence is an overwhelming task today.
Despite the difficulties and lack of data, the developers are confident that the possibilities of modern programming and cybernetics allow them to go towards their goal in several ways: simultaneously create a reproduction of parts of the human brain by creating an artificial neural network and use cognitive modeling.