Author Archives: mjs

Towards AIs with Deep “Human-Compatible” Values

Advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI) have led to much public discussion about AI risks, guardrails, and calls to regulate AI. A major concern is that AIs are dangerous because they lack human-compatible values. Meanwhile, there has been surprisingly little … Continue reading

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Developmental AI, Human-AI Collaboration | Leave a comment

Roots and Requirements for Collaborative AIs

The vision of AIs as human-like collaborators is a staple of mythology and science fiction, where artificial agents with special talents assist human partners and teams. In this vision, sophisticated AIs understand nuances of collaboration and human communication. The AI … Continue reading

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Human-AI Collaboration | Leave a comment

What AIs are not Learning (and Why)

It is hard to make robots (including telerobots) that are useful, and harder to make autonomous robots that are general and robust. Current robots are created using mathematical models, planning frameworks, reinforcement learning, and manual programming. These methods do not … Continue reading

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Developmental AI | Leave a comment

Bootstrapping Developmental AIs

Developmental AI creates embodied AIs that develop human-like abilities. In a bootstrapping approach to developmental AI, the AIs start with innate competences and learn more by interacting with the world including people. Developmental AIs have been demonstrated, but their abilities … Continue reading

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Developmental AI | Leave a comment

Creating the Conditions for Invention and Innovation — Revisited

When I was asked to lead the Intelligent Systems and Technology Lab at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), I wanted the lab to succeed wonderfully in its research mission. I was a fairly prolific inventor and had taken multiple … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Human-AI Collaboration, Innovation | Leave a comment

A Generation Ready for Human-Computer Teams

Human-computer teams combine best of human and computer cognition. The combination can lead to extremely high performance. But are human-computer teams the future of work? For some of us, the idea of having computers on the team is outside of … Continue reading

Posted in Human-AI Collaboration, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

What’s the Right Operating System for a Light Bulb?

The typical news today about LED bulbs is about their rapid adoption, their dropping prices, and supporting legislation. The bigger story is about exploiting the IOT (Internet of Things) infrastructure that surrounds them. Lightbulbs have great established infrastructure. Each receptacle is wired for power. Bulbs have standard screw bases … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Innovation | Leave a comment

Smart City Lessons from Shopping Alleys

In Edinburgh they call them “closes”. Other names include arcades, lanes, and alleys. For urban designer Christopher Alexander, an alley is kind of pedestrian street (design pattern #100). A shopping alley is an alley with store fronts. It is often an integral part of a shopping … Continue reading

Posted in Smart Cities, Sustainable Urban Patterns | Tagged | Leave a comment

Design Patterns for Smarter Cities

It is counterintuitive, but as Wired says, building more roads increases traffic. How can we do better? On a wall at Xerox Services in Los Angeles there is a photo of Sepulveda Grade packed with cars from the 1950’s and 1960’s. As a colleague observed … Continue reading

Posted in Smart Cities, Sustainable Urban Patterns | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Hunters to Collaborators: Transitioning to Agile Organizations

When edge cases become typical they signal transitions. Then we need new thinking for real understanding. Edge cases are usually rare and far from the norm. They can challenge and inform how we think. They come up in answering even simple seeming questions on our project, which is developing analytics for … Continue reading

Posted in Extreme Teams | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment