"Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling"

This article from the New York Times by Gabriel Dance (March 13, 2011) describes the use of AI poker bots in online gambling. The bots apparently can win tens of thousands of dollars for the humans who deploy them. Professor Tuomas W. Sandholm of Carnegie Mellon University is quoted as saying that poker bots "can rival good players, but not the the best - yet."

Naturally the use of the poker bots is defended by some, condemned by others. Those of us who don't play poker online are safe from them. But then again:

The poker bots’ arrival may be just another sign of an emerging world where humans, knowingly or unknowingly, encounter robots on an everyday basis. People already talk with computers when they call customer service centers or drive their cars.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Book event: World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet

I received this meeting notice from Jason Borenstein, to whom my thanks. - Ken

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Book event: World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet

Monday, March 21, 2011
12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

New America Foundation
1899 L St NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036

What if digital communication felt as real as being touched? This question led acclaimed science writer Michael Chorost to explore profound new ideas triggered by lab research around the world, and has resulted in World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet (Free Press; February 2011) - the first book to explain exactly how humans and computers could be merged and the risks, implications, and amazing possibilities that await us in the future. World Wide Mind takes mind-to-mind communication out of the realm of science fiction and reveals how we are on the verge of a radical new understanding of human interaction.

Please join us for a conversation with writer Michael Chorost on how we communicate, how we can connect more fully with one another in a hyper technological age, and how our addiction to email and texting can be countered with technologies that put us-literally-in each other's minds.

Featured Speaker

Dr. Michael Chorost

Author, World Wide Mind

Moderator

Andrés Martinez

Director, Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program

New America Foundation

To RSVP for the event, go to the event page:
http://www.newamerica.net/events/2011/world_wide_mind

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net.