All in Artificial Intelligence

While walking the dog this morning I listened to the Scientific American Science Talk podcast for September 26 where psychologist Robert Epstein talked about being fooled by one of the many automated “chatterbots” that exist on the Web as artificial intelligence demonstrators. The interview made me think about Twitter and the disjointed nature of some of the “conversations” one can follow online via that service.

The Virtual Future Still Ain't What It Used to Be -- But Will It Be Social?

A decade ago many saw Virtual Reality technology as the future for computer based entertainment. Now it has all but disappeared from public use even (though many important applications in industrial and engineering design have evolved). What happened? Why aren't we all using those oversize goggles that used to show up all the time in movies and TV? And what relevance does this have to what might happen with today's rapidly evolving world of social networking?