Kyoto University center launches memorial website for'genius' chimpanzee Ai, a chimpanzee known as a genius for her cognitive abilities, died on Jan. 9 at Kyoto University's Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior. Ai was a research partner who taught me many things about the minds and existence of chimpanzees, as well as about humans, said Ikuma Adachi, 47, associate professor at the university, who worked with the chimpanzee for 18 years. Born in Africa, Ai arrived at the center in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, in 1977 at the age of 1. Adachi said she was curious and adapted well to a human-made environment. The Ai Project started in 1978 to investigate chimpanzees' thinking and language abilities. In 1985, a paper on Ai was published in the British scientific journal Nature. In 1989, she left the center using a key found nearby, drawing public attention.

A research group led by Kyoto University has developed a Christian bot to help broaden access to Christianity in Japan. A research group from Kyoto University has developed a Protestant catechism bot, which recites passages from the Bible, as "a starting point for future Christian AI creation." The project, announced last week, is the latest in a series of collaborations between professor Seiji Kumagai of the Institute for the Future of Human Society, who led the project, and Toshikazu Furuya, CEO of Teraverse, which has previously focused on Buddhist artificial intelligence products and tools. Initially, its use will be limited to "believers under clergy guidance or by the general public within church settings," said Kumagai, but "subsequently, discussions with clergy will explore how to expand the reach to Christian believers and further to non-Christian believers," he said. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

Scientists have discovered that the way sperms swim defies Newton's law of motion, which states there is an equal and opposite reaction Researchers at Kyoto University found the sperms' flagella, or tail, propels the agents forward by changing their shape to interact with the fluid. Sperms do so in a non-reciprocal way, which violates Newton's third law because they do not elicit an equal and opposite reaction from their surroundings. The flagellum's elasticity also suggests that there should be no movement at all, but instead, sperms whip their tails without releasing much energy into their surroundings. Researchers at Kyoto University found the sperms' flagella, or tail, propels the agents forward by changing their shape to interact with the fluid The team used human sperm cells and algae for the research because both have flagella that help them propel through the liquid, New Scientist reports. Men's bulging waistlines are blamed for the worrying trend and'everywhere chemicals' in the environment.

Learning analytics (LA) as a research discipline focuses on multiple perspectives of understanding and supporting educational activities utilizing collected log data. To do so at a national and even international level, educational technology platforms that enable gathering users' interaction traces and digitally generated artifacts must store data in a standardized format. In Japan, the government initiated the GIGA School project in 2020, which installed more than nine million tablet PCs and high-speed Internet access at compulsory education institutions (elemental and middle schools). Such infrastructure enables the collection of educational data and analysis with the aim to improve educational practices in each school. With standardized data logging, it is possible to aggregate data from all schools and to generate educational Big Data that can support evidence-based policy-making and research at a national level.

The researchers hoped to use their system to improve natural conversations between robots and people. To foster empathy in conversation, scientists at Kyoto University developed a shared-laughter AI system that reacts properly to human laughter. What makes something hilarious has baffled philosophers and scientists since at least the time of inquiring minds like Plato. The Greeks believed that feeling superior at others' expense was the source of humor. Sigmund Freud, a German psychologist, thought humor was a means to let off pent-up energy.

Summary: Researchers have designed a shared-laughter AI system that responds to human laughter in order to build a sense of empathy into dialogue. Since at least the time of inquiring minds like Plato, philosophers and scientists have puzzled over the question, "What's so funny?" The Greeks attributed the source of humor to feeling superior at the expense of others. German psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud believed humor was a way to release pent-up energy. US comedian Robin Williams tapped his anger at the absurd to make people laugh.

Laughter is a nonverbal vocal expression that plays an important role in social situations and transcends cultural boundaries. Artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning is rapidly being explored as a powerful tool to enable robots to interact with humans for a variety of purposes. A new study published in Frontiers in Robotics and AI unveils a shared laughter generation AI system that enables a robot to share a laugh with a human for greater perceived empathetic conversational interaction. "We propose that our system can be used for situated robot interaction and also emphasize the need for integrating proper empathetic laughs into conversational robots and agents," wrote the lead author Dr. Koji Inoue, Assistant Professor at Kyoto University, along with his research colleagues. The three AI models that comprise the solution were a laugh detector, a shared laughter predictor, and a laugh type selector.

Teraverse, a project based at Kyoto University's Institute for the Future of Human Society (IFOHS), aims to bring Buddhism to the forthcoming "metaverse," an initiative heralded by Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) as the future of the internet. The Teraverse project will bring Buddhist art, philosophy, ritual, and practice to a globally available online community in the metaverse. Associate professor of Buddhist Studies and Tibetan Studies at Kyoto University, Seiji Kumagai explained: "With the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukrainian-Russian war, more and more people are feeling the pressure of the real world." He noted that the Buddhist metaverse was aimed at offering "new ways to blend traditional knowledge and science. As an option in today's diversified society, we hope they can bring understanding and enjoyment to people, creating new vitality and hope, and building a more vibrant society."

As research involving transplanting lab-grown human'mini-brains' into animals to study neurological diseases continues to expand, experts warn the work with these brain organoids could result in a'Planet of the Apes' scenario. The concern is animals could develop humanized traits and start to behave similar to the intelligent apes of the popular science fiction story. The warning comes from a team at Kyoto University who released a paper highlighting a number of ethical implications that could arise with brain organoid research. Although many see brain organoids as a way to quickly develop disease treatments, others fear that because they are designed to mimic the real thing, they too may attain some form of consciousness. Experts warn the work with these brain organoids could result in a'Planet of the Apes' (pictured) scenario.

According to experts in the field, the brain is considered to be one of the most complex systems in existence. While significant headway has been made to understand how the brain works, researchers tend to generate more questions than answers about this entity. However, the creators of the machine learning model - a team from Kyoto University - believe it has the potential to explain the difference in neuronal computation in different brain regions more clearly. To comprehend the brain, neurologists must look at the neurons that construct it. Our entire world of perception runs across these billions of cells in our head and that is compounded by the exponentially larger number of connections – known as synapses – between them.