Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Artificial Intelligence

Will AI Revolutionize Wall Street?

A handful of new hedge funds promise to beat human traders by using artificial intelligence

This NASA-Developed AI Could Help Save Firefighters’ Lives

AUDREY, an artificial intelligence system created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, helps firefighters navigate through blazes

Eunuchs apply make-up before Raksha Bandhan festival celebrations in a red light area in Mumbai, India, August 17, 2016

Cool Finds

New Project Pairs Modern News Photos with Old Masters

“Recognition,” winner of Tate’s IK Prize, uses machine learning to match artwork with images coming from the 24/7 news cycle

Cool Finds

Give Me a Drink, HAL: Artificial Intelligence Helps Design New Beer

IntelligenceX uses AI to guide its brewmaster’s tweaks

Kevin Kelly unpacks 12 technological forces in his new book.

Wired Founder Kevin Kelly On the Technologies That Will Dominate Our Future

The optimistic futurist says we’ll share more, own less and spend far more time on our devices

Robot librarians might one day help human librarians track down misplaced books.

Cool Finds

This Robot Librarian Locates Haphazardly Placed Books

It’s the next best thing since the Dewey Decimal System

A Search Engine That Matches Your Drawings to Photographs Isn’t Too Far Off

Computer scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new program that could let you Google your doodles

A scene from "Ice Age" rendered through ta computer algorithm to look like an animated painting.

New Research

This Computer Algorithm Transforms Movies Into Breathtaking Works of Art

These neural networks can make any moving image into a masterpiece from Picasso to van Gogh

Xian'er, the robot monk, with its creator, Buddhist monk Master Xianfan.

Cool Finds

A Robot Monk Is Spreading Buddhist Teachings in China

An adorable robot serves up automated mantras

Cool Finds

An AI-Written Novella Almost Won a Literary Prize

A short novel co-written by humans and AI passed the first round of a Japanese literary contest

Google’s New AI Can Beat Human Champions at the Game of Go

Google appears to have won the long race to develop a Go-winning artificial intelligence, considered a major step towards more human-like AIs

Robot, baby. Baby, robot.

New Research

New Robots Could Learn Like Children

A research team is teaching artificial minds to imitate and innovate like kids do during play

American Ingenuity Awards

Smile, Frown, Grimace and Grin — Your Facial Expression Is the Next Frontier in Big Data

Engineer Rana el Kaliouby is set to change the way we interact with our devices—and each other

Cool Finds

How Computers Learned to Play Nintendo

Super Mario World is a great test for artificial intelligence

For now, visually impaired people must rely on captions like these for descriptions of the images on the internet. (This is a picture of an eye reflecting Facebook's home page).

Cool Finds

In the Future, Facebook Will Describe Photos for Blind People

A visual internet poses many challenges for people that are visually impaired

A screenshot of the Tone Analyzer at work

IBM’s Tone Analyzer Could Save You From Sending That Awkward Email

The new service, part of IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence system, scans emails for emotions like cheerfulness or negativity

Though still in development, Google's Im2Calorie program can compute the number of calories in a glamor shot of your food.

Google is Trying to Count Calories in Food Porn

All you need is an Instagram photo and an algorithm

A computer that passes the new test would be able to say which people in this scene from Pushkar, India, are carrying objects and which are riding bikes

New Research

Now the Turing Test Goes Visual

A proposed test would have computer programs not only pick out what is in a photo but what is happening

The power of science fiction comes from the license to dream.

Round Table

What Idea From Science Fiction Would You Most Like To See Become Reality?

Astronomers, writers and an astronaut weigh in with some interesting answers

The TellMeDave robot is designed to take orders.

Tech Watch

Robots Are Smart—But Can They Understand Us?

Researchers at Cornell are developing a new way for the machines to interpret the imprecise way humans speak

Page 18 of 19