Word: cybertronics
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...First things first. On the metallic world of Cybertron, the heroic Autobots battled the evil Decepticons for control of the planet. In what was perhaps a reflection of residual anxieties about OPEC and the energy crisis of the 70's, writers chose to make energy the crux of the narrative. With their world long since drained to a husk by a never-ending war, the two factions left their planet in search of more energy. Four million years ago, they crash-landed on Earth, beginning a Rip Van Winkle-like slumber that would last until Debbie Gibson. In 1984, they...
...storyline that fans hold sacrosanct. Writer Robert Skir's decision to create a darker, organic Cybertron for the 1999 CGI television series _Beast Machines: Transformers_ won him few popularity points with the fandom. Skir's actions earned him numerous death threats, and incited more hate than a thousand Bin Laden speeches. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the latest incarnation of the series has abandoned any pretense of a maturity and delivers bland, insipid episodes aimed at pre-schoolers who like their primary colors with a dash of Energon...
...have not tried to duplicate the neural networks of the human brain," says Richard Witt, 35, chief of advanced development for Raytheon's communication and data-processing operation. "Rather, we have duplicated the human learning process-experience, trial and error, correlation of new facts with past experience." The Cybertron K-ioo gets some outside help: it is equipped with a "goof button," which a human tutor presses whenever the machine makes a mistake. Accepting this advice stolidly, the Cybertron thereafter does not repeat the error...
...machine's first tests was to distinguish sonar signals bounced off a submarine from those bounced off a porpoise, the ocean floor, or schools of fish. Even an ordinary computer could solve the same problem, but only after a tedious programing telling it exactly how. The Cybertron was merely fed a variety of sounds -several thousand-and after some diligent work by Witt on the goof button, it soon learned to discriminate infallibly. The Cybertron responds by flashing lights on its console, can give not only "yes" (the submarine) and "no" (the porpoise) answers but a broad variety...
...Cybertron's adaptive intelligence does not end there. Having learned how to solve a given problem, it slips the answer to a tenacious portion of itself called AIDE (for Adapted Identification Decision Equipment), thus clearing its own mind for further study. AIDE never forgets. Raytheon is working on a more sophisticated version of the K-100 designed to control traffic, forecast weather, interpret electrocardiograms. Says Dr. Claude Shannon. Donner Professor of Science at MIT: "The Cybertron appears to be an important advance in an extremely important area of research...
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