Tag Archives: EPFL

alter-globalization, Anthropology, applied anthropology, cellphones, cult of personality, cultural awareness, economics, Education, education systems, enthusiasm, Ethnography, globalization, groupthink, hegemony, iPhone, naïve, naïveté, Nation-States, OLPC, One Laptop Per Child, optimism, technology, troubleshooting approach, United States

Optimism From OLPC

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To say the least, I’ve been ambivalent about the One Laptop Per Child project. And I was not alone in my OLPC discomfort.

But now, I feel optimistic. Not about the OLPC project. But because that project is enabling something important.

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computers, language, linguistics, technology

Artificial Intelligence and Language Acquisition

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Teaching Robot Dogs Linguistic Tricks

While written from the perspective of engineering, this short article mentions several important features of human language, including the “conventional” (or “arbitrary”) nature of linguistic signs. On the face of it, the outcome seems rather limited in that these robots create lexical items instead of linguistic structures, but the very idea that robots can learn from one another is a fascinating one (and a well-known concept for artificial intelligence).

Also, it’s nice to see that the EPFL is involved. With its new supercomputing power (one of the fastest academic computers in the world), l’EPF has other reasons to be appreciated.