The recently proposed DeGroot-Friedkin model describes the dynamical evolution of individual social power in a social network that holds opinion discussions on a sequence of different issues. This paper revisits that model, and uses nonlinear contraction analysis, among other tools, to establish several novel results. First, we show that for a social network with constant topology, each individual's social power converges to its equilibrium value exponentially fast, whereas previous results only concluded asymptotic convergence. Second, when the network topology is dynamic (i.e., the relative interaction matrix may change between any two successive issues), we show that each individual exponentially forgets its initial social power. Specifically, individual social power is dependent only on the dynamic network topology, and initial (or perceived) social power is forgotten as a result of sequential opinion discussion. Last, we provide an explicit upper bound on an individual's social power as the number of issues discussed tends to infinity; this bound depends only on the network topology. Simulations are provided to illustrate our results.

Modeling causal dependencies often demands cycles at a coarse-grained temporal scale. If Bayesian networks are to be used for modeling uncertainties, cycles are eliminated with dynamic Bayesian networks, spreading indirect dependencies over time and enforcing an infinitesimal resolution of time. Without a ``causal design,'' i.e., without anticipating indirect influences appropriately in time, we argue that such networks return spurious results. By identifying activator random variables, we propose activator dynamic Bayesian networks (ADBNs) which are able to rapidly adapt to contexts under a causal use of time, anticipating indirect influences on a solid mathematical basis using familiar Bayesian network semantics. ADBNs are well-defined dynamic probabilistic graphical models allowing one to model cyclic dependencies from local and causal perspectives while preserving a classical, familiar calculus and classically known algorithms, without introducing any overhead in modeling or inference.

At Soul Machines, a company that uses artificial intelligence to create lifelike avatars that respond to human emotion, a fair amount of their work could be considered unsettling to the average person who fears the coming takeover by our AI-robot overlords. It's a company that pretty much lives in the uncanny valley, that space between fake and real that can creep people out, but that's not usually what happens when people meet BabyX, said Soul Machines founder Mark Sagar. Instead, he says, when the baby begins to whimper or cry, some respond in human ways, demonstrating what appears to be sympathy similar to the kind they may lavish on a human baby. "I'll probably get about 10 or 15 percent of people respond with'that's creepy,' and others it doesn't bother them at all. Ultimately it's about creating an emotional connection and then people jump right into that," he said. To see which of these two camps you fall into, watch the video below.

Business Insider Australia is the Australian edition of the world's fastest-growing business news website, Business Insider. Australia's pioneering bionic ear company, Cochlear, plans to use artificial intelligence to more accurately implant and calibrate its devices. Cochlear today announced an exclusive licensing and development agreement with Otoconsult for its artificial intelligence fitting assistant FOX (Fitting to Outcomes eXpert). The company says the technology is expected to enable a faster and more consistent fitting of cochlear implants. A short time ago, Cochlear shares were trading at $147.09, up 0.2% in a falling market.

Business Insider Australia is the Australian edition of the world's fastest-growing business news website, Business Insider. Australia's pioneering bionic ear company, Cochlear, plans to use artificial intelligence to more accurately implant and calibrate its devices. Cochlear today announced an exclusive licensing and development agreement with Otoconsult for its artificial intelligence fitting assistant FOX (Fitting to Outcomes eXpert). The company says the technology is expected to enable a faster and more consistent fitting of cochlear implants. A short time ago, Cochlear shares were trading at $147.09, up 0.2% in a falling market.

Robots that think and feel emotions like humans will enter our homes in as little as ten years. That's according to Dr Mark Sagar, who is the chief executive of Soul Machines, a New Zealand-based company that develops intelligent and responsive avatars. Sagar, an artificial intelligence programmer, creates incredibly realistic virtual humans which can respond to questions and learn from experience. The avatars blink and communicate exactly like we do. But they are powered by a virtual neural network which helps them learn social cues and spot patterns in order to answer questions.

Car makers, technology companies and governments now have a set of official guidelines to instruct trials of driverless vehicles in Australia. Published by the National Transport Commission and AustRoads, the guidelines [pdf] set out how autonomous vehicles can be tested on public roads in the country, and how triallists can seek exemption from permits and requirements such as Australian design rules (ADR) ahead of testing. Organisations that wish to trial autonomous vehicles must clearly set out the trial location and provide a high-level description of the technology used, the guidelines state. A traffic management plan that takes into account vehicle density, pedestrians, signage, and route complexity will also need to be provided. A comprehensive insurance policy is similarly a must.

AIXIjs is a JavaScript demo for running General Reinforcement Learning (RL) agents in the browser. In particular, it provides a general and extensible framework for running experiments on Bayesian RL agents in general (partially observable, non-Markov, non-ergodic) environments. UPDATE (May 2017): I'll be presenting a conference paper containing a literature survey along with some experiments based on AIXIjs at IJCAI 2017, in Melbourne, Australia. The paper (to appear) is: J. S. Aslanides, Jan Leike, and Marcus Hutter. See the main site for more background, documentation, references, and demos.

Robots that can think and feel like people could soon be living among us, according to one expert. An AI engineer, who has invented a'virtual nervous system', believes it is only a matter of time before robotics hardware catches up to his software. He says responsive robots could be a common sight in businesses and homes around the world within the next ten years. Robots that can think and feel like people could soon be living among us, according to one expert. An AI engineer, who has invented a'virtual nervous system', believes it is only a matter of time before robotics hardware catches up to his software (stock) Dr Mark Sagar is the CEO of Soul Machines, an AI company in New Zealand that specialises in creating hyper-realistic 3D avatars.

While his feet may have been in Sydney, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's head was firmly in the clouds. In Australia for a Microsoft Developers conference, Nadella laid out his main theories for the digital future: Mobile-first and cloud-first. SEE ALSO: Inside Microsoft's plan to bring 3D to everyone "We have a distinctive point of view when we say'mobile first,'" he said. "That's what the cloud enables." With echoes of Mark Zuckerberg's bot evangelism at April's F8, and Nadella's own remarks at the Microsoft's annual developers conference in March, it was a bot-heavy message sent Wednesday.