An international team has developed an AI algorithm with social skills that has outperformed humans in the ability to cooperate with people and machines in playing a variety of two-player games. The researchers, led by Iyad Rahwan, PhD, an MIT Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, tested humans and the algorithm, called S# ("S sharp"), in three types of interactions: machine-machine, human-machine, and human-human. In most instances, machines programmed with S# outperformed humans in finding compromises that benefit both parties. "Two humans, if they were honest with each other and loyal, would have done as well as two machines," said lead author BYU computer science professor Jacob Crandall. "As it is, about half of the humans lied at some point. So essentially, this particular algorithm is learning that moral characteristics are better [since it's programmed to not lie] and it also learns to maintain cooperation once it emerges."

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - January 09, 2018) - Artificial intelligence is the big buzzword now. Academic studies trumpet that A.I. will replace humans in the workplace at unprecedented rates, while seemingly every start-up and legacy brand touts A.I. to describe its business, hoping to make what it does sound compelling and unique. Artificial intelligence, however, is not quite as intelligent as it has been claimed to be. A.I. will dramatically improve the lives of humans, if implemented ethically, but reports in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and other reputable media have documented that A.I. can be biased, sexist, racist, inexplicable, wrong, and, just plain stupid. Neural networks are as "intelligent" as the historical data and human-imposed-rules upon which they train.

A gelatinous sea creature called a salp knows this better than anyone, forming long chains of neurologically connected individuals that work together for the greater good. That is, eating and not dying. A new study helps unravel the complexities of the salp's jet-powered, aggregate lifestyle, showing how a creature that's actually dozens of individuals manages to get around at all. Salps have a goofy way of going about life. Each individual in a chain can reproduce sexually to produce a solitary individual, which you can think of as a barrel.

Got no one to dance with? Not to worry – you might soon be gliding through the moves, thanks to a robotic instructor designed to teach humans how to dance. The robot's designers had already created mechanical dance partners that follow a human's lead, but the new machine gently guides novices through routines while adapting to their skill level. This is trickier, says Diego Felipe Paez Granados at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, who led the research, because the robot must keep students on course without becoming too forceful. The 1.8-metre-tall robot has wheels, but its upper body moves like that of a human dancer.

Neil Heffernan was listening to his fiancée, Cristina Lindquist, tutor one of her students in mathematics when he had an idea. Heffernan was a graduate student in computer science, and by this point -- the summer of 1997 -- he had been working for two years with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University on developing computer software to help students improve their skills. But he had come to believe that the programs did little to assist their users. They were built on elaborate theories of the student mind -- attempts to simulate the learning brain. Then it dawned on him: what was missing from the programs was the interventions teachers made to promote and accelerate learning.

When monkeys teach monkeys, it's a monkey that you get. When humans teach monkeys, you get a more advanced monkey, who may not know what he really is. Now when humans teach humans, you get humans. But what happens, when machines teach humans? This question is not that far in the future anymore, in fact it's happening right now.