We propose, therefore, procedural content 1984) in the 1980s, certain genres of digital games have generation through quality-diversity (PCG-QD) as a subset relied on algorithmic processes to generate content such as of search-based procedural content generation [4] which is levels, weapons, personalities, quests, etc. Throughout its long perfectly suited for generating content autonomously (as it can history, procedural content generation (PCG) has aimed to produce a large set of diverse and high-quality artifacts in one provide content that is playable, of a high quality, and yet run, even in search spaces which are not well-defined) or with different from other content that came before or after. On the a human designer (as it can explain and express its artifacts' one hand, most game content need to satisfy certain minimal desirable properties). This paper presents the components of criteria on playability (such as the exit in a dungeon being quality-diversity algorithms, identifies the strengths of PCG-reachable by the player) while they also need to be entertaining QD over popular alternatives, surveys recent work in this vein and challenging (which are softer and often subjective quality and attempts to map out the road ahead.

At the core of our uniquely human cognitive abilities is the capacity to see things from different perspectives, or to place them in a new context. We propose that this was made possible by two cognitive transitions. First, the large brain of Homo erectus facilitated the onset of recursive recall: the ability to string thoughts together into a stream of potentially abstract or imaginative thought. This hypothesis is supported by a set of computational models where an artificial society of agents evolved to generate more diverse and valuable cultural outputs under conditions of recursive recall. We propose that the capacity to see things in context arose much later, following the appearance of anatomically modern humans. This second transition was brought on by the onset of contextual focus: the capacity to shift between a minimally contextual analytic mode of thought, and a highly contextual associative mode of thought, conducive to combining concepts in new ways and ‗breaking out of a rut'. When contextual focus is implemented in an art-generating computer program, the resulting artworks are seen as more creative and appealing. We summarize how both transitions can be modeled using a theory of concepts which highlights the manner in which different contexts can lead to modern humans attributing very different meanings to the interpretation of one concept.

A model of the mechanisms underlying exploratory behaviour, based on empirical research and refined using a computer simulation, is presented. The behaviour of killifish from two lakes, one with killifish predators and one without, was compared in the laboratory. Plotting average activity in a novel environment versus time resulted in an inverted-U-shaped curve for both groups; however, the curve for killifish from the lake without predators was (1) steeper, (2) reached a peak value earlier, (S) reached a higher peak value, and (4) subsumed less area than the curve for killifish from the lake with predators. We hypothesize that the shape of the exploration curve reflects a competition between motivational subsystems that excite and inhibit exploratory behaviour in a way that is tuned to match the affordance probabilities of the animal's environment. A computer implementation of this model produced curves which differed along the same four dimensions as differentiate the two killifish curves. All four differences were reproduced in the model by tuning a single parameter: the time-dependent component of the decay-rate of the exploration-inhibiting subsystem.

When she was a practicing occupational therapist, Elizabeth Fain started noticing something odd in her clinic: Her patients were weak. More specifically, their grip strengths, recorded via a hand-held dynamometer, were "not anywhere close to the norms" that had been established back in the 1980s. Fain knew that physical activity levels and hand-use patterns had changed a lot since then. Jobs had become increasingly automated, the professional and service sectors had grown, all sorts of measures of physical activity (like the likelihood that a child walks to school1) had declined, and the personal computer age had dawned. But to see the numbers decline so steeply and quickly was still a surprise, and not just to her.

Strawberry-picking robots could collect enough fruit to supply tennis-lovers at Wimbledon for one week. The'Rubion' is programmed to only pick'perfect' strawberries, with just 14 machines being able to gather enough to keep the tournament topped up for seven days. Its clasping mechanism, which leaves the fruit bruise-free, picks and packages a strawberry every five seconds, resulting in up to 360kg of the berry a day. Rubion even has a built in'camera' uses sensors to ensure only the ripest fruit makes it through. Strawberry-picking robots could collect enough fruit to supply tennis-lovers at Wimbledon for one week.

Forget the old'good cop, bad cop' routine -- soon police may be turning to artificial intelligence systems that can reveal a suspect's true emotions during interrogations. The face-scanning technology would rely on micro-expressions, tiny involuntary facial movements that betray true feelings and even reveal when people are lying. London-based startup Facesoft has been training an AI on micro-expressions seen on the faces of real-life people, as well as in a database of 300 million expressions. The firm has been in discussion with both UK and Mumbai police forces about potential practical applications for the AI technology. The latter are reportedly interested in using the technology as part of crowd control measures, with the algorithm detecting when an angry mob might be forming.

If watching the Terminator left you cowering behind the sofa, you are not alone. When it comes to cyborgs, robots, and AI powered digital helpers the creepiest ones are those which look most like us. A study about artificial intelligence has found'humanoid' robots like CP30 in Star Wars are really quite likeable. But if they look too much like people, robots tend to be disliked and mistrusted - perhaps because of a fear they could replace us in a dystopian future. This phenomenon is known as the'uncanny valley' - the unsettling feeling we get from robots and digital agents that are human-like but still somehow different.

Artificial intelligence will be at play in Wimbledon this year in the form of software that captures player's bodily movements to create replay highlights. IBM's Watson analyses everything from a player's celebratory cheers to their fist pumps through a live video stream to record a clip of that point in the match. Each point is then ranked based on crowd excitement, as well as noises from players, through a microphone placed underneath the umpire's chair. Wimbledon, now in its 49th year, also used the AI system, powered by computing firm IBM, last year. Now, for the first time, IBM Watson has been taught to recognise the strike of a tennis ball on a racket.

Sometimes the smallest breakthroughs are actually the most pivotal. In an unprecedented demonstration, researchers from the U.S. and South Korea were able to use a technology that's nearly identical to today's full-size magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines to take a miniature snapshot of sub-cellular life. The method involves the use of a highly specialized device called a scanning and tunneling microscope, which is able to take images of atomic structures by scanning a sharp metal tip over a surface. Using a novel new technique, researchers were able to get a snapshot of a single atom. The scans (shown) reveal the varying strengths of the atom's magnetic field Using a new type of MRI technique, scientists were able to take a snapshot of an individual atom. Using a special device called a scanning and tunneling microscope researchers probed a piece of iron and titanium with a needle that was just a few atoms wide.

NASA's Insight lander got one step closer to extricating a crucial device that has been wedged in Martian soil since February. In the first of several planned maneuvers, NASA's Insight lander carefully moved part of its support structure which was obscuring the agency's view, using the lander's robotic arm. The successful move puts a probe called the'mole' within NASA's view for the first time since it was ordered to stop drilling earlier this year. NASA's Insight Lander carefully moved part of its support structure which was obscuring the agency's view, using the lander's robotic arm. 'We've completed the first step in our plan to save the mole,' said Troy Hudson of a scientist and engineer with the InSight mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a statement.