Large language models (LLMs) are wonderful tools, but they sometimes make serious mistakes. This informal note shows a stream of incorrect responses from Perplexity (a generally great resource) when we asked it about a rental property. Despite a series of Continue reading
Current AI systems are a world apart from earlier symbolic AI systems that used manually-constructed rules and could explain their reasoning. Instead of using expert-crafted rules, deep learning AIs train on data and learn decision criteria. Current AI technology is Continue reading
A widespread public concern is that AIs are not trustworthy because they lack human values. Current practices for governing AI behavior aim to contain and guide AI behavior using software guardrails. In contrast, humans have nuanced, context dependent, and deep Continue reading
The vision of AIs as human-like collaborators is a staple of mythology and science fiction, where artificial agents with special talents assist human partners and teams. In this vision, sophisticated AIs understand nuances of collaboration and human communication. The AI Continue reading
Note: This post is about challenges in developing practical everyday robots for applications such as care for disabled people and household chores. It builds on the concepts from the earlier Bootstrapping Developmental AIs post. The longer paper for this post Continue reading
Note: This paper was written as a thought piece in 2023 when the price of small robots was too high for government-sponsored research along these lines. As the cost of child-size robots comes down, substantial research projects in this field Continue reading
When I was asked to lead the Intelligent Systems and Technology Lab at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), I wanted the lab to succeed wonderfully in its research mission. I was a fairly prolific inventor and had taken multiple Continue reading
Human-computer teams combine best of human and computer cognition. The combination can lead to extremely high performance. But are human-computer teams the future of work? For some of us, the idea of having computers on the team is outside of Continue reading
The typical news today about LED bulbs is about their rapid adoption, their dropping prices, and supporting legislation. A more interesting story is about exploiting the IOT (Internet of Things) infrastructure that surrounds them. Lightbulbs have great established infrastructure. Each receptacle is wired for Continue reading
In Edinburgh they call them closes . Other names include arcades, lanes, and alleys. For urban designer Christopher Alexander, an alley is kind of pedestrian street (design pattern #100). A shopping alley is an alley with store fronts. It is often an integral part of a shopping Continue reading