I am working on time management and I decided to make good use of my calendar app lately. I devised a small tip I would like to share.
I create a ‘Timetable’ Calendar where I setup all my weekly recurring events with less details such as no reminders. Then, when I plan my week, I duplicate the event from the Timetable calendar to my main calendar, and add details including reminders and notes on what should be done for that instance. The Timetable calendar is not on display most of the time, only when doing planning.
A bonus point is that each week I can see how my actual week compare to my routine week.
It is undeniable that recent progress in artificial intelligence research and application gave impressionable results even on tasks previously believed to be achievable by humans only. In some of those complex tasks, AI models are beating humans. We are now increasingly hearing about an eventual rise of an AGI: Artificial General Intelligence that will not specialize in doing one thing only but will be capable of applying its ‘knowledge’ to different domains just like humans if not better.
On the pretense that such AI will demonstrate ‘superior’ intelligence in most human endeavors, and that consciousness is simply a byproduct of reasoning and intelligence, thus those AI should be considered (human-like) conscious.
Such an assertion is very risky. First, it is highly debatable whether an AGI will have human intelligence or consciousness because at best, AI is a model of the mind and as the saying goes: the map is not the territory. But pushing such a narrative will surely set up the environment for a few elitists who understand, at least to some extent compared to the layman, what is going on. They might be enticed to carry on whatever they would like to do under the guise of the ‘AGI’.
Again calling such AI human consciousness will be very limiting to what consciousness is. We simply do not have enough evidence to formally define the concept of consciousness, to begin with. The creators/handlers of such AGI might then become the shadow displayer in the allegory of the cave.
Calling an AI human conscious is an attempt not only to reduce the human experience but the very nature of existence, to a fraction of what we know. There is surely more to consciousness than being a by-product.
Will AI ever become sentient? Honestly, I do not know. My point is we should be careful with how we are using words, and how we define things. Otherwise, we are just setting ourselves up for some dystopia at best. The more likely scenario is that this technology might be taken over by actors with ill intentions. And just like that, we have the perfect tool for powerful mass control. Not control by violence or coercion, but control by subversion. Control by making people believe and act according to a certain will of the “benevolent” super-intelligence…The false god, the golden calf, which is factually simply expressing the will of hidden actors that intentionally set up the ‘AGI’ to behave a certain way.
Most technologies, especially AI, are vectors of enormous progress. Let’s make sure we put wisdom in the application and consider different aspects of potential societal impacts of those technologies. For the concern raised here, I understand researchers need to state the relevance of their progress to get funding, but overselling the field might have negative unforeseen consequences. We might want to make progress while fairly educating the general public.
“Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme.” — Rabelais (Eng. science without conscience is nothing but ruin to the soul)
The video game industry is a big deal in our modern economy, and video game players are getting more recognition. It is then important for video game players to have the necessary mean to win a game while playing, especially in an online game session or a tournament, where they can earn money or reputation. The most important way a video game player can interact with the game is by using an input device as game controller, that may be classified as keyboards, mice, gamepads (also called game controller), joysticks, steering wheel etc.
One of the most popular gaming genre in the Professional gaming world is First Person Shooter (FPS). A frequent argument[1][2] among the FPS player community is whether using a keyboard/mouse or a game controller to play is more effective than the other. Some articles can be found on the web. Still it is difficult to find scientific analysis on the topic.
I decided to run a small study to scientifically analyze the performances of these two input methods for one of my class report, in order discover if a player performance is impacted by the use of one input device or another. The Wilcoxon signed rank test has been used as statistical tool for the comparisons.
As experimental method different participants played the training session of Team Fortress, both with a Keyboard/Mouse and with a game controller. Twelve (12) participants have been recruited (10 males, 2 females). They were all students, in the 25-30 age range. 3 of them had no experience in playing FPS games. 7 of them were familiar with using the mouse/keyboard for playing FPS games while 5 others were not. 8 were familiar with using a game controller to play FPS games while the 4 others were not. They all have previous generic gaming experience with the mouse and keyboard, but only 1 participant had no prior experience in using a game controller.
Static target shooting session during the Gameplay of Team Fortress 2 practice.
A generic ‘QWERTY’ layout keyboard and a general purpose mouse has been used as the mouse/keyboard combination input, and an Xbox360 controller which is a generic purpose game controller used for console gaming as well as PC gaming has been used as gamepad input
The speed of execution and the shooting accuracy has been used as comparison variables. We observed that both performances are impacted by the input device. Looking at the data and after applying the Wilcoxon statistical test, we are tempted to say that playing an FPS game with a combination of Keyboard/Mouse can make the player faster in executing actions and improve his/her accuracy. This is probably because even though most candidates felt comfortable using the game controller, it was difficult for them to aim at targets using the game controller right stick than using the mouse. This may be due to the fact that most candidates are more familiar with the mouse because they use it in their daily life for other tasks in addition to playing games.
Pairs of time spend (seconds) in each gaming session [left], and pairs of shooting accuracy percentage for each participants [right], using different type of controller
We may diversify population by including people who are either unfamiliar with video games or unfamiliar with both the keyboard and a game controller, in future work to be sure about this.
Another interesting investigation may be to look at the performance of Gun controller for video game such as the ‘Delta Six‘ controller to check if they worth the hype!
The full report can be found here. Your comments are welcome !
FightingICE is a platform that let you develop an artificial intelligent agent for a fighting game. You can then play the game against your AI agent or let your AI agent compete against other AI agents from around the world.
FightingICE is a Java Based fighting game platform developed by the Intelligent Computer Entertainment Lab (ICE) of the Ritsumeikan University. It is mainly used by students to apply Soft computing[1] techniques to Fighting game agents. The ICE Laboratory also run an annual worldwide competition, where you are invited to submit your AI agent to compete against others agents build by different people.
What make this platform really interesting is that it support the development of diverse AI approaches: from the simple rule-based AI to the more complex ones that can combine advanced techniques like Fuzzy Control, Evolutionary techniques, Dynamic scripting, etc. Also, FightingICE is freely available so that anyone can use it to apply or train their AI skills. It can be used in the educational environment by students to apply AI concepts, or by AI teachers to have practical workshop with their students. In this regards, there are already some academic papers released about FightingICE[2,3,4]. The platform can as well be used by AI enthusiasts or simply by people interested in computer entertainment industry (Video game development) to have a real taste of the matter.
You can check the FightingICE AI competition[5] page, where you can have more specifications on the platform, download FightingICE and start programming your first AI agent for fighting games. And why not participate to the next competition !
Syota Osaka, Ruck Thawonmas, Tomoya Shibazaki, “Investigation of Various Online Adaptation Methods of Computer-Game AI Rulebase in Dynamic Scripting”, Ritsumeikan University, Proc. 1st International Conference on Digital Interactive Media Entertainment and Arts
(D IM E-ARTS 2006), O ct. 2006, Bangkok, Thailand.
Kevin Majchrzak, Jan Quadflieg, Günter Rudolph, “Advanced Dynamic Scripting for Fighting Game AI”, TU Dortmund
Yasutomo Kanetsuki, Ruck Thawonmas, and Susumu Nakata, “Optimization and Simplification of Dynamic Scripting with Evolution Strategy and Fuzzy Control in a Fighting Game AI”, Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University Shiga, Japan.
godidier 