A special session entitled "Future Directions In Artificial Intelligence" was held at the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Washington, D.C. in August. The session, chaired by Jack Minker, was held to honor Soviet cyberneticist Alexander Yankelovich Lerner's seventieth birthday. Minker described Dr. Lerner's contributions to science. Participants Saul Amarel, Nils Nilsson, John McCarthy and Patrick Winston gave a technical presentation, followed by questions from the audience. Following the session, 228 attendees signed a letter wishing Dr. Lerner a happy birthday, and 233 attendees signed a petition to be sent to Yuri Andropov of the Soviet Union requesting that Dr. Lerner be given permission to emigrate so that he may join his daughter and her family in Israel.

AI's War on Manipulation: Are We Winning? The next day was going to be a big day: Citizens of Bitotia would once and for all establish which byte order was better, big-endian (B) or little-endian (L). Little Bit Timmy was a big supporter of little endian because that would give him the best position in the word. However, the population was split quite evenly between L and B, with a small minority of Bits who still remembered the single-tape Turing machine and preferred unary encoding (U), without any of this endianness business. Nonetheless, about half of the Bits preferred big-endian (B L U), and about half were the other way round (L B U).

The AI Landscape was created by James Gary (Brooklyn, New York) under the editorial direction of Poster Committee Chair David Leake (Indiana University). It is produced by AI Magazine, the official magazine of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. IIS-0646959, with additional support from Microsoft Research and Yahoo!Research. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or other sponsors. The paintings shown in the gallery are paintings #080518.37 and #080408.15 by AARON, a computer program written by Harold Cohen.

The items in this collage were selected from the AI TOPICS Web site's "AI in the News" collection that can be found--complete with links to the item's source and related AI TOPICS pages--at www. Please note that: (1) an excerpt may not reflect the overall tenor of the item, nor contain all of the relevant information; and, (2) all items are offered "as is" and the fact that an item has been selected does not imply any endorsement whatsoever. 'We are studying the application of the RAHS concepts and tools to the social, and economic and financial domains,' Nathan wrote in an email interview." "To literally live with robots, that are highly likely to become more intelligent and physically closer to humans in the future, Koreans are devising the world's first robot ethics charter that will prevent robots from doing harm to people, and block humans from taking advantage of robots for unscrupulous purposes, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy. Under the civil-government partnership, the Robot Ethics Charter is being drafted by 12 Korean professionals including a government official, robotics professors, psychology experts and medical doctors.... To science fiction fans, the move to produce a robot ethics charter might remind them of the'Three Laws of Robotics' presented by U.S. author Isaac Asimov in his book Runaround originally published in 1942....

"As if the debate over immigration and guest worker programs wasn't complicated enough, now a couple of robots are rolling into the middle of it. Vision Robotics, a San Diego company, is working on a pair of robots that would trundle through orchards plucking oranges, apples or other fruit from the trees. In a few years, troops of these machines could perform the tedious and labor-intensive task of fruit picking that currently employs thousands of migrant workers each season. The robotic work has been funded entirely by agricultural associations, and pushed forward by the uncertainty surrounding the migrant labor force. Farmers are'very, very nervous about the availability and cost of labor in the near future,' says Vision Robotics CEO Derek Morikawa."

The articles collected for this special edition of "AI in the news" are those that might have appeared had I compiled this collage in 1956. Please note that: (1) an excerpt may not reflect the overall tenor of the article, nor contain all of the relevant information; and, (2) all items are offered "as is" and the fact that an article has been included does not imply any endorsement whatsoever. As is now well known, cybernetics points to a frightening new industrial revolution in which human labor will largely be replaced by robot calculating and operating apparatus. "Computer experts are fascinated by the question: Will thinking machines ever be as intelligent as the human brains that create them? Dr. W. Ross Ashby of Britain, a mathematically minded psychiatrist, believes that the machines can at least'amplify' human intelligence just as the engine of a bulldozer amplifies the muscle power of the man who controls it.

"With the summer camp season fast approaching, kids across the country will be stocking up on hiking shoes, bug spray and other necessities for adventures in the great outdoors. Thousands of others, however, will be enjoying adventures of the indoor variety: creating video games, building robots and designing Web pages. Computer camp, as it was known to an earlier generation, just isn't what it used to be. With the booming growth of video games, the Internet and digital media, technology-minded kids have an enormous variety of things to learn at technology camps, which are often taught on the campuses of major universities.... Camp administrators say enrollment is up from last year.... And while the kids are on the computers for five to six hours a day, the instructors also take them outside for activities to break up the day."

"[iRobot Chairman Helen] Greiner believes the movie may influence a new generation to become interested in robotics much like the Star Wars movies influenced her. She said the R2D2 robot's humanlike characteristics in Star Wars had an impact on her when she saw the movie as a schoolgirl on Long Island. She went on to MIT where she earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science. 'It takes all three (disciplines) and they must all come together in robotics,' she said...." DARPA Tech Chief Envisions the Future --Sci-fi Inspires Brachman to Use Computers in Creative Ways. "Ron Brachman's curiosity about robots programmed to think on their own dates back to his childhood in New Jersey.

"Artificial intelligence is becoming a reality as adaptive technologies revolutionize the way businesses operate. Industries ranging from transportation and distribution to healthcare and education are all target markets for adaptive technologies. As the limitless advantages and huge impact of artificial intelligence on the business world are slowly gaining acceptance, ethical questions arise concerning the impact such technologies could have on the labor market." How to Pick an Orange? The choice between backbreaking human labor and efficient fruit-harvesting machines is approaching fast, just as it did more than 40 years ago when the mechanical tomato harvester revolutionized California agriculture.

Prophetic as he was in 1984, however, he could not have imagined how advanced surveillance technology would become. Almost anything you do will leave a trace for these omnivorous computers, which will now contain records of your library book withdrawals, your loans and debts, and whatever you order by mail or on the Web. As Georgetown University law professor This eclectic keepsake provides a sampling of what can be found (with links to the full articles) on the AI Topics web site. Please keep in mind that (1) the mere mention of anything here does not imply any endorsement whatsoever; (2) the excerpt might not reflect the overall tenor of the article; (3) although the articles were initially available online and without charge, few things that good last forever; and (4) the AI in the News collection-- updated, hyperlinked, and archived -- can be found by going to www.aaai.org/aitopics/ Because of the sheer size of the nation and its population, the government could not practically abuse a great number of citizens at any given time.