IFOMIND and AI

As artificial intelligence begins celebrating its 50th birthday (thanks Simon and Newell!), word comes in on the British Computer Society's Annual Prize for Progress towards Machine Intelligence. The winner is David Bell’s team from Queen's University Belfast. Their robot, IFOMIND, navigates its way thru previously unknown terrain using a mixture of rules-based and AI algorithms. Bell explains that "a major challenge in Artificial Intelligence is the development of a system that can observe events in an unknown scenario, and then learn and participate as a child would." Their curious Khepera is said to be "a significant and noteworthy advance."

On a different note, the following quote from the press release jumped out at me. I suppose I am still mulling over Wowwee's evident move towards consumer robotics.

Sales of domestic appliance robots reached 39,000 units in 2003 and are forecast to hit 20 million by 2008.

To sum a half century of machine intelligence: major increases in machines, minor increases in intelligence.