IIIM Managing Director Kristinn R. Thorisson and his collaborators Bas R. Steunebrink, Jan Koutník, Eric Nivel, and Jurgen Schmidhuber received the prestigious 2013 Kurzweil Award for the second year in a row. Their research in the field of artificial general intelligence was part of a three-year research project called HUMANOBS which was completed in June 2012 and sponsored by Reykjavik University and the 7th European Community Framework Programme.

The goal of the project was to develop a new type of self-programming artificial intelligence called “thinking machines”–computer systems with human-like intelligence. However, considering the difficulties that tend to emerge during research, a majority of scholars and researchers dealing with artificial intelligence focus on so-called “limited” artificial intelligence. The intelligence of such systems is limited to a predetermined range and can only perform specialized tasks specified by designers. During the past years, however, a growing number of researchers have identified the need for and feasibility of systems that possess a broad and general intelligence similar to humans.

Keeping this goal in mind, the authors of the research article “Resource-Bounded Machines are motivated to be Effective, Efficient, and Curious” argue that curiosity is essential for all systems, and describe how curiosity can steer learning systems with comprehensive artificial intelligence so they learn faster and use all of the computing power they have access to.

Download the whole article here: Resource-Bounded-Machines-SteunebrinkEtAl_AGI13 Resource-Bounded Machines are motivated to be Effective, Efficient, and Curious (PDF).