In computer science and automata theory, a deterministic Büchi automaton is a theoretical machine which either accepts or rejects infinite inputs. Such a machine has a set of states and a transition function, which determines which state the machine should move to from its current state when it reads the next input character. Some states are accepting states and one state is the start state. The machine accepts an input if and only if it will pass through an accepting state infinitely many times as it reads the input. A non-deterministic Büchi automaton, later referred to just as a Büchi automaton, has a transition function which may have multiple outputs, leading to many possible paths for the same input; it accepts an infinite input if and only if some possible path is accepting. Deterministic and non-deterministic Büchi automata generalize deterministic finite automata and nondeterministic finite automata to infinite inputs. Each are types of ω-automata. Büchi automata recognize the ω-regular languages, the infinite word version of regular languages. They are named after the Swiss mathematician Julius Richard Büchi, who invented them in 1962. Büchi automata are often used in model checking as an automata-theoretic version of a formula in linear temporal logic. == Formal definition == Formally, a deterministic Büchi automaton is a tuple A = ( Q , Σ , δ , q 0 , F ) {\textstyle A=(Q,\Sigma ,\delta ,q_{0},\mathbf {F} )} that consists of the following components: Q {\textstyle Q} is a finite set. The elements of Q {\textstyle Q} are called the states of A {\textstyle A} . Σ {\textstyle \Sigma } is a finite set called the alphabet of A {\textstyle A} . δ : Q × Σ → Q {\textstyle \delta \colon Q\times \Sigma \to Q} is a function, called the transition function of A {\textstyle A} . q 0 {\textstyle q_{0}} is an element of Q {\textstyle Q} , called the initial state of A {\textstyle A} . F ⊆ Q {\textstyle \mathbf {F} \subseteq Q} is the acceptance condition. A run i _ = i 0 i 1 i 2 ⋯ ∈ Σ ω {\displaystyle {\underline {i}}=i_{0}i_{1}i_{2}\cdots \in \Sigma ^{\omega }} is an infinite string of inputs of A {\displaystyle A} . By calling δ {\displaystyle \delta } recursively, we can extend it to a function δ ω : Σ ω → Q ω {\displaystyle \delta ^{\omega }:\Sigma ^{\omega }\to Q^{\omega }} . A state q ∈ Q {\displaystyle q\in Q} is said to occur infinitely often for a run i _ {\displaystyle {\underline {i}}} when the set { n ∈ N ∣ δ ω ( i _ ) n = q } {\displaystyle \{n\in \mathbb {N} \mid \delta ^{\omega }({\underline {i}})_{n}=q\}} is infinite. Let I n f ( i _ ) {\displaystyle \mathrm {Inf} ({\underline {i}})} be the set of states occurring infinitely often for i _ {\displaystyle {\underline {i}}} . The language of A {\displaystyle A} is then the set of runs of A {\displaystyle A} in which at least one of the infinitely-often occurring states is in F {\textstyle \mathbf {F} } ; in symbols: L ( A ) = { i _ ∈ Σ ω ∣ I n f ( i _ ) ∩ F ≠ ∅ } . {\displaystyle L(A)=\{{\underline {i}}\in \Sigma ^{\omega }\mid \mathrm {Inf} ({\underline {i}})\cap \mathbf {F} \neq \varnothing \}.} In a (non-deterministic) Büchi automaton, the transition function δ {\textstyle \delta } is replaced with a transition relation Δ {\textstyle \Delta } that returns a set of states, and the single initial state q 0 {\textstyle q_{0}} is replaced by a set I {\textstyle I} of initial states. Generally, the term Büchi automaton without qualifier refers to non-deterministic Büchi automata. For more comprehensive formalism see also ω-automaton. == Closure properties == The set of Büchi automata is closed under the following operations. Let A = ( Q A , Σ , Δ A , I A , F A ) {\displaystyle A=(Q_{A},\Sigma ,\Delta _{A},I_{A},{F}_{A})} and B = ( Q B , Σ , Δ B , I B , F B ) {\displaystyle B=(Q_{B},\Sigma ,\Delta _{B},I_{B},{F}_{B})} be Büchi automata and C = ( Q C , Σ , Δ C , I C , F C ) {\displaystyle C=(Q_{C},\Sigma ,\Delta _{C},I_{C},{F}_{C})} be a finite automaton. Union: There is a Büchi automaton that recognizes the language L ( A ) ∪ L ( B ) . {\displaystyle L(A)\cup L(B).} Proof: If we assume, w.l.o.g., Q A ∩ Q B {\displaystyle Q_{A}\cap Q_{B}} is empty then L ( A ) ∪ L ( B ) {\displaystyle L(A)\cup L(B)} is recognized by the Büchi automaton ( Q A ∪ Q B , Σ ∪ Σ , Δ A ∪ Δ B , I A ∪ I B , F A ∪ F B ) . {\displaystyle (Q_{A}\cup Q_{B},\Sigma \cup \Sigma ,\Delta _{A}\cup \Delta _{B},I_{A}\cup I_{B},{F}_{A}\cup {F}_{B}).} Intersection: There is a Büchi automaton that recognizes the language L ( A ) ∩ L ( B ) . {\displaystyle L(A)\cap L(B).} Proof: The Büchi automaton A ′ = ( Q ′ , Σ , Δ ′ , I ′ , F ′ ) {\displaystyle A'=(Q',\Sigma ,\Delta ',I',F')} recognizes L ( A ) ∩ L ( B ) , {\displaystyle L(A)\cap L(B),} where Q ′ = Q A × Q B × { 1 , 2 } {\displaystyle Q'=Q_{A}\times Q_{B}\times \{1,2\}} Δ ′ = Δ 1 ∪ Δ 2 {\displaystyle \Delta '=\Delta _{1}\cup \Delta _{2}} Δ 1 = { ( ( q A , q B , 1 ) , a , ( q A ′ , q B ′ , i ) ) | ( q A , a , q A ′ ) ∈ Δ A and ( q B , a , q B ′ ) ∈ Δ B and if q A ∈ F A then i = 2 else i = 1 } {\displaystyle \Delta _{1}=\{((q_{A},q_{B},1),a,(q'_{A},q'_{B},i))|(q_{A},a,q'_{A})\in \Delta _{A}{\text{ and }}(q_{B},a,q'_{B})\in \Delta _{B}{\text{ and if }}q_{A}\in F_{A}{\text{ then }}i=2{\text{ else }}i=1\}} Δ 2 = { ( ( q A , q B , 2 ) , a , ( q A ′ , q B ′ , i ) ) | ( q A , a , q A ′ ) ∈ Δ A and ( q B , a , q B ′ ) ∈ Δ B and if q B ∈ F B then i = 1 else i = 2 } {\displaystyle \Delta _{2}=\{((q_{A},q_{B},2),a,(q'_{A},q'_{B},i))|(q_{A},a,q'_{A})\in \Delta _{A}{\text{ and }}(q_{B},a,q'_{B})\in \Delta _{B}{\text{ and if }}q_{B}\in F_{B}{\text{ then }}i=1{\text{ else }}i=2\}} I ′ = I A × I B × { 1 } {\displaystyle I'=I_{A}\times I_{B}\times \{1\}} F ′ = { ( q A , q B , 2 ) | q B ∈ F B } {\displaystyle F'=\{(q_{A},q_{B},2)|q_{B}\in F_{B}\}} By construction, r ′ = ( q A 0 , q B 0 , i 0 ) , ( q A 1 , q B 1 , i 1 ) , … {\displaystyle r'=(q_{A}^{0},q_{B}^{0},i^{0}),(q_{A}^{1},q_{B}^{1},i^{1}),\dots } is a run of automaton A' on input word w {\textstyle w} if r A = q A 0 , q A 1 , … {\displaystyle r_{A}=q_{A}^{0},q_{A}^{1},\dots } is run of A {\textstyle A} on w {\textstyle w} and r B = q B 0 , q B 1 , … {\displaystyle r_{B}=q_{B}^{0},q_{B}^{1},\dots } is run of B {\textstyle B} on w {\textstyle w} . r A {\textstyle r_{A}} is accepting and r B {\textstyle r_{B}} is accepting if r ′ {\textstyle r'} is concatenation of an infinite series of finite segments of 1-states (states with third component 1) and 2-states (states with third component 2) alternatively. There is such a series of segments of r ′ {\textstyle r'} if r ′ {\textstyle r'} is accepted by A ′ {\textstyle A'} . Concatenation: There is a Büchi automaton that recognizes the language L ( C ) ⋅ L ( A ) . {\displaystyle L(C)\cdot L(A).} Proof: If we assume, w.l.o.g., Q C ∩ Q A {\displaystyle Q_{C}\cap Q_{A}} is empty then the Büchi automaton A ′ = ( Q C ∪ Q A , Σ , Δ ′ , I ′ , F A ) {\displaystyle A'=(Q_{C}\cup Q_{A},\Sigma ,\Delta ',I',F_{A})} recognizes L ( C ) ⋅ L ( A ) {\displaystyle L(C)\cdot L(A)} , where Δ ′ = Δ A ∪ Δ C ∪ { ( q , a , q ′ ) | q ′ ∈ I A and ∃ f ∈ F C . ( q , a , f ) ∈ Δ C } {\displaystyle \Delta '=\Delta _{A}\cup \Delta _{C}\cup \{(q,a,q')|q'\in I_{A}{\text{ and }}\exists f\in F_{C}.(q,a,f)\in \Delta _{C}\}} if I C ∩ F C is empty then I ′ = I C otherwise I ′ = I C ∪ I A {\displaystyle {\text{ if }}I_{C}\cap F_{C}{\text{ is empty then }}I'=I_{C}{\text{ otherwise }}I'=I_{C}\cup I_{A}} ω-closure: If L ( C ) {\displaystyle L(C)} does not contain the empty word then there is a Büchi automaton that recognizes the language L ( C ) ω . {\displaystyle L(C)^{\omega }.} Proof: The Büchi automaton that recognizes L ( C ) ω {\displaystyle L(C)^{\omega }} is constructed in two stages. First, we construct a finite automaton A ′ {\textstyle A'} such that A ′ {\textstyle A'} also recognizes L ( C ) {\displaystyle L(C)} but there are no incoming transitions to initial states of A ′ {\textstyle A'} . So, A ′ = ( Q C ∪ { q new } , Σ , Δ ′ , { q new } , F C ) , {\displaystyle A'=(Q_{C}\cup \{q_{\text{new}}\},\Sigma ,\Delta ',\{q_{\text{new}}\},F_{C}),} where Δ ′ = Δ C ∪ { ( q new , a , q ′ ) | ∃ q ∈ I C . ( q , a , q ′ ) ∈ Δ C } . {\displaystyle \Delta '=\Delta _{C}\cup \{(q_{\text{new}},a,q')|\exists q\in I_{C}.(q,a,q')\in \Delta _{C}\}.} Note that L ( C ) = L ( A ′ ) {\displaystyle L(C)=L(A')} because L ( C ) {\displaystyle L(C)} does not contain the empty string. Second, we will construct the Büchi automaton A ″ {\textstyle A''} that recognize L ( C ) ω {\displaystyle L(C)^{\omega }} by adding a loop back to the initial state of A ′ {\textstyle A'} . So, A ″ = ( Q C ∪ { q new } , Σ , Δ ″ , { q new } , { q new } ) {\displaystyle A''=(Q_{C}\cup \{q_{\text{new}}\},\Sigma ,\Delta '',\{q_{\text{new}}\},\{q_{\text{new}}\})} , where Δ ″ = Δ ′ ∪ { ( q , a , q new ) | ∃ q ′ ∈ F C . ( q , a , q ′ ) ∈ Δ ′ } . {\displaystyle \Delta ''=\Delta '\cup \{(q,a,q_{\text{new}})|\exists q'\in F_{C}.(q,a,q')\in \Delta '\}.} Complementation:
Image texture
An image texture is the small-scale structure perceived on an image, based on the spatial arrangement of color or intensities. It can be quantified by a set of metrics calculated in image processing. Image texture metrics give us information about the whole image or selected regions. Image textures can be artificially created or found in natural scenes captured in an image. Image textures are one way that can be used to help in segmentation or classification of images. For more accurate segmentation the most useful features are spatial frequency and an average grey level. To analyze an image texture in computer graphics, there are two ways to approach the issue: structured approach and statistical approach. == Structured approach == A structured approach sees an image texture as a set of primitive texels in some regular or repeated pattern. This works well when analyzing artificial textures. To obtain a structured description a characterization of the spatial relationship of the texels is gathered by using Voronoi tessellation of the texels. == Statistical approach == A statistical approach sees an image texture as a quantitative measure of the arrangement of intensities in a region. In general this approach is easier to compute and is more widely used, since natural textures are made of patterns of irregular subelements. === Edge detection === The use of edge detection is to determine the number of edge pixels in a specified region, helps determine a characteristic of texture complexity. After edges have been found the direction of the edges can also be applied as a characteristic of texture and can be useful in determining patterns in the texture. These directions can be represented as an average or in a histogram. Consider a region with N pixels. the gradient-based edge detector is applied to this region by producing two outputs for each pixel p: the gradient magnitude Mag(p) and the gradient direction Dir(p). The edgeness per unit area can be defined by F e d g e n e s s = | { p | M a g ( p ) > T } | N {\displaystyle F_{edgeness}={\frac {|\{p|Mag(p)>T\}|}{N}}} for some threshold T. To include orientation with edgeness histograms for both gradient magnitude and gradient direction can be used. Hmag(R) denotes the normalized histogram of gradient magnitudes of region R, and Hdir(R) denotes the normalized histogram of gradient orientations of region R. Both are normalized according to the size NR Then F m a g , d i r = ( H m a g ( R ) , H d i r ( R ) ) {\displaystyle F_{mag,dir}=(H_{mag}(R),H_{dir}(R))} is a quantitative texture description of region R. === Co-occurrence matrices === The co-occurrence matrix captures numerical features of a texture using spatial relations of similar gray tones. Numerical features computed from the co-occurrence matrix can be used to represent, compare, and classify textures. The following are a subset of standard features derivable from a normalized co-occurrence matrix: A n g u l a r 2 n d M o m e n t = ∑ i ∑ j p [ i , j ] 2 C o n t r a s t = ∑ i = 1 N g ∑ j = 1 N g n 2 p [ i , j ] , where | i − j | = n C o r r e l a t i o n = ∑ i = 1 N g ∑ j = 1 N g ( i j ) p [ i , j ] − μ x μ y σ x σ y E n t r o p y = − ∑ i ∑ j p [ i , j ] l n ( p [ i , j ] ) {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}Angular{\text{ }}2nd{\text{ }}Moment&=\sum _{i}\sum _{j}p[i,j]^{2}\\Contrast&=\sum _{i=1}^{Ng}\sum _{j=1}^{Ng}n^{2}p[i,j]{\text{, where }}|i-j|=n\\Correlation&={\frac {\sum _{i=1}^{Ng}\sum _{j=1}^{Ng}(ij)p[i,j]-\mu _{x}\mu _{y}}{\sigma _{x}\sigma _{y}}}\\Entropy&=-\sum _{i}\sum _{j}p[i,j]ln(p[i,j])\\\end{aligned}}} where p [ i , j ] {\displaystyle p[i,j]} is the [ i , j ] {\displaystyle [i,j]} th entry in a gray-tone spatial dependence matrix, and Ng is the number of distinct gray-levels in the quantized image. One negative aspect of the co-occurrence matrix is that the extracted features do not necessarily correspond to visual perception. It is used in dentistry for the objective evaluation of lesions [DOI: 10.1155/2020/8831161], treatment efficacy [DOI: 10.3390/ma13163614; DOI: 10.11607/jomi.5686; DOI: 10.3390/ma13173854; DOI: 10.3390/ma13132935] and bone reconstruction during healing [DOI: 10.5114/aoms.2013.33557; DOI: 10.1259/dmfr/22185098; EID: 2-s2.0-81455161223; DOI: 10.3390/ma13163649]. === Laws texture energy measures === Another approach is to use local masks to detect various types of texture features. Laws originally used four vectors representing texture features to create sixteen 2D masks from the outer products of the pairs of vectors. The four vectors and relevant features were as follows: L5 = [ +1 +4 6 +4 +1 ] (Level) E5 = [ -1 -2 0 +2 +1 ] (Edge) S5 = [ -1 0 2 0 -1 ] (Spot) R5 = [ +1 -4 6 -4 +1 ] (Ripple) To these 4, a fifth is sometimes added: W5 = [ -1 +2 0 -2 +1 ] (Wave) From Laws' 4 vectors, 16 5x5 "energy maps" are then filtered down to 9 in order to remove certain symmetric pairs. For instance, L5E5 measures vertical edge content and E5L5 measures horizontal edge content. The average of these two measures is the "edginess" of the content. The resulting 9 maps used by Laws are as follows: L5E5/E5L5 L5R5/R5L5 E5S5/S5E5 S5S5 R5R5 L5S5/S5L5 E5E5 E5R5/R5E5 S5R5/R5S5 Running each of these nine maps over an image to create a new image of the value of the origin ([2,2]) results in 9 "energy maps," or conceptually an image with each pixel associated with a vector of 9 texture attributes. === Autocorrelation and power spectrum === The autocorrelation function of an image can be used to detect repetitive patterns of textures. == Texture segmentation == The use of image texture can be used as a description for regions into segments. There are two main types of segmentation based on image texture, region based and boundary based. Though image texture is not a perfect measure for segmentation it is used along with other measures, such as color, that helps solve segmenting in image. === Region based === Attempts to group or cluster pixels based on texture properties. === Boundary based === Attempts to group or cluster pixels based on edges between pixels that come from different texture properties.
Flux (text-to-image model)
Flux (also known as FLUX.1 and FLUX.2) is a text-to-image model developed by Black Forest Labs (BFL), based in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Black Forest Labs was founded by former employees of Stability AI. As with other text-to-image models, Flux generates images from natural language descriptions, called prompts. == History == Black Forest Labs (BFL) was founded in 2024 by Robin Rombach, Andreas Blattmann, and Patrick Esser, former employees of Stability AI. All three founders had previously researched the artificial intelligence image generation at LMU Munich as research assistants under Björn Ommer. They published their research results on image generation in 2022, which resulted in creation of Stable Diffusion. Investors in BFL included venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Brendan Iribe, Michael Ovitz, Garry Tan, and Vladlen Koltun. The company received an initial investment of US$31 million. In August 2024, Flux was integrated into the Grok chatbot developed by xAI and made available as part of premium feature on X (formerly Twitter). Grok later switched to its own text-to-image model Aurora in December 2024. On 18 November 2024, Mistral AI announced that its Le Chat chatbot had integrated Flux Pro as its image generation model. On 21 November 2024, BFL announced the release of Flux.1 Tools, a suite of editing tools designed to be used on top of existing Flux models. The tools consisting of Flux.1 Fill for inpainting and outpainting, Flux.1 Depth for control based on extracted depth map of input images and prompts, Flux.1 Canny for control based on extracted canny edges of input images and prompts, and Flux.1 Redux for mixing existing input images and prompts. Each tools are available in both Pro and Dev models. In January 2025, BFL announced a partnership with Nvidia for inclusion of Flux models as foundation models for Nvidia's Blackwell microarchitecture. The company also announced the release of Flux Pro Finetuning API, designed for customisation and fine-tuning of Flux-generated images and a partnership with German media company Hubert Burda Media for usage of Flux Pro as part of content creation. On 29 May 2025, BFL announced Flux.1 Kontext, a suite of models that enable in-context image generation and editing, allowing users to prompt with both text and images. Alongside this, BFL Playground, an interface for testing Flux models was released. On 31 July 2025, BFL announced Flux.1 Krea Dev, a model developed in collaboration with Krea AI that trained to achieve better performance, more varied aesthetics, and better realism compared to existing text-to-image models. In September 2025, Adobe Inc. announced that Photoshop (beta) users can use Flux.1 Kontext Pro as a model for its generative fill tool. BFL collaborated with Meta on Vibes, a video-generation app. On 25 November 2025, BFL announced the release of Flux.2 model series, consisting of Pro, Flex, Dev, and Apache 2.0-licensed Klein (meaning Little or Small in German language) models along with Flux.2 variational autoencoder which also released as open-source software under Apache 2.0 licence. This series claimed improvements for image reference, photorealism, typography, and prompt understanding. == Models == Flux is a series of text-to-image models. The models are based on rectified flow transformer blocks scaled to 12 billion parameters. Flux.1 models were released under different licences with Schnell (meaning Fast or Quick in German language) released as open-source software under Apache License, Dev released as source-available software under a non-commercial licence (users can obtain a self-serving commercial licence for Dev from BFL), and Pro released as proprietary software and only available as API that can be licensed by third-party users. Users retained the ownership of resulting output regardless of models used. An improved flagship model, Flux 1.1 Pro was released on 2 October 2024. Two additional modes were added on 6 November, Ultra which can generate image at four times higher resolution and up to 4 megapixel without affecting generation speed and Raw which can generate hyper-realistic image in the style of candid photography. Flux.1 Kontext is a series with in-context image generation and editing capabilities. It is available in Max, Pro, and Dev models. Max is the highest quality model and can be used to iteratively modify an existing image by using prompt while Pro is optimized to balance quality and speed of generation. Dev is an open-weight model released under non-commercial license, same as Flux.1 Dev. Flux.2 models are based on latent flow matching architecture with Mistral AI's Mistral-3 model (24 billion parameters) for its vision-language model. As with Flux.1, Flux.2 models were also released under different licences with Klein released as open-source software under Apache License, Dev released as source-available software under a non-commercial licence (users can obtain a self-serving commercial licence from BFL), and both Flex and Pro released as proprietary software and only available as API. The models can be used either online or locally by using generative AI user interfaces such as ComfyUI, Recraft Studio and Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge (a fork of Automatic1111 WebUI). Related to Flux is a text-to-video model by Black Forest Labs, under development as of February 2026. == Reception == According to a test performed by Ars Technica, the outputs generated by Flux.1 Dev and Flux.1 Pro are comparable with DALL-E 3 in terms of prompt fidelity, with the photorealism closely matched Midjourney 6 and generated human hands with more consistency over previous models such as Stable Diffusion XL. Flux has been criticised for its very realistic generated images. According to media reports, depictions ranged from an image of Donald Trump posing with guns to disturbing scenes, which triggered discussions about ethical implications of Flux models. After the release of the model, social media platform X was flooded with Flux-generated images. Black Forest Labs has not provided exact details of the data used to train the model. Ars Technica suspected that Flux is based on a large, unauthorised collection of images scraped from the internet, a controversial practice with potential legal consequences. According to a test performed by Japanese technology news website Gigazine for Flux.1 Kontext, the model series has a good understanding of the English language and can easily transfer style of the image from photorealistic into anime-style according to prompts given by the user; however, its ability to understand Japanese is quite poor. == Availability == In addition to the official BFL Playground on its website, the Flux models are also widely available through various third-party platforms for creative and professional use. These include repositories on platforms like Hugging Face and Replicate. == Further readings == FLUX.1 Kontext: Flow Matching for In-Context Image Generation and Editing in Latent Space (29 May 2025) FLUX.2: Analyzing and Enhancing the Latent Space of FLUX – Representation Comparison (25 November 2025)
Distributed artificial intelligence
Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) (also called Decentralized Artificial Intelligence) is a melding of artificial intelligence with distributed computing. From artificial intelligence comes the theory and technology for constructing or analyzing an intelligent system. But where artificial intelligence uses psychology as a source of ideas, inspiration, and metaphor, DAI uses sociology, economics, and management science for inspiration. Where the focus of artificial intelligence is on the individual, the focus of DAI is on the group. Distributed computing provides the computational substrate on which this group focus can occur. Using techniques from artificial intelligence, communication theory, control theory, and interaction theory, it produces a cooperative solution to problems by a decentralized group of computational entities (agents). DAI is closely related to and a predecessor of the field of multi-agent systems. They are distinguished generally by multi-agent systems being open, where the entities might arise from different interests and have individual goals, and distributed artificial-intelligence systems, where the entities have common goals. There are numerous applications and tools. == Definition == Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) is an approach to solving complex learning, planning, and decision-making problems. It is embarrassingly parallel, thus able to exploit large scale computation and spatial distribution of computing resources. These properties allow it to solve problems that require the processing of very large data sets. DAI systems consist of autonomous learning processing nodes (agents), that are distributed, often at a very large scale. DAI nodes can act independently, and partial solutions are integrated by communication between nodes, often asynchronously. By virtue of their scale, DAI systems are robust and elastic, and by necessity, loosely coupled. Furthermore, DAI systems are built to be adaptive to changes in the problem definition or underlying data sets due to the scale and difficulty in redeployment. DAI systems do not require all the relevant data to be aggregated in a single location, in contrast to monolithic or centralized Artificial Intelligence systems, which have tightly coupled and geographically close processing nodes. Therefore, DAI systems often operate on sub-samples or hashed impressions of very large datasets. In addition, the source dataset may change or be updated during the course of the execution of a DAI system. == Development == In 1975 distributed artificial intelligence emerged as a subfield of artificial intelligence that dealt with interactions of intelligent agents. As a scientific discipline, it progressed through a series of workshops in the USA (International Workshop on Distributed Artificial Intelligence, held in 13 editions from 1978 - 1994), Europe (Workshop on Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World https://link.springer.com/conference/maamaw), and Asia (Multi-Agent and Cooperative Computation Workshop (MACC) https://sites.google.com/view/sig-macc/macc-workshop?authuser=0). Distributed artificial intelligence systems were conceived as a group of intelligent entities, called agents, that interacted by cooperation, by coexistence, or by competition. DAI is categorized into multi-agent systems and distributed problem solving. In multi-agent systems the main focus is how agents coordinate their knowledge and activities. For distributed problem solving the major focus is how the problem is decomposed and the solutions are synthesized. == Goals == The objectives of Distributed Artificial Intelligence are to solve the reasoning, planning, learning and perception problems of artificial intelligence, especially if they require large data, by distributing the problem to autonomous processing nodes (agents). To reach the objective, DAI requires: A distributed system with robust and elastic computation on unreliable and failing resources that are loosely coupled Coordination of the actions and communication of the nodes Subsamples of large data sets and online machine learning There are many reasons for wanting to distribute intelligence or cope with multi-agent systems. Mainstream problems in DAI research include the following: Parallel problem solving: mainly deals with how classic artificial intelligence concepts can be modified, so that multiprocessor systems and clusters of computers can be used to speed up calculation. Distributed problem solving (DPS): the concept of agent, autonomous entities that can communicate with each other, was developed to serve as an abstraction for developing DPS systems. See below for further details. Multi-Agent Based Simulation (MABS): a branch of DAI that builds the foundation for simulations that need to analyze not only phenomena at macro level but also at micro level, as it is in many social simulation scenarios. == Approaches == Two types of DAI has emerged: In Multi-agent systems agents coordinate their knowledge and activities and reason about the processes of coordination. Agents are physical or virtual entities that can act, perceive their environment, and communicate with other agents. An agent is autonomous and has skills to achieve goals. The agents change the state of their environment by their actions. There are a number of different coordination techniques. In distributed problem solving the work is divided among nodes and the knowledge is shared. The main concerns are task decomposition and synthesis of the knowledge and solutions. DAI can apply a bottom-up approach to AI, similar to the subsumption architecture as well as the traditional top-down approach of AI. In addition, DAI can also be a vehicle for emergence. === Challenges === The challenges in Distributed AI are: How to carry out communication and interaction of agents and which communication language or protocols should be used. How to ensure the coherency of agents. How to synthesise the results among 'intelligent agents' group by formulation, description, decomposition and allocation. == Applications and tools == Areas where DAI have been applied are: Electronic commerce, e.g. for trading strategies the DAI system learns financial trading rules from subsamples of very large samples of financial data Networks, e.g. in telecommunications the DAI system controls the cooperative resources in a WLAN network Routing, e.g. model vehicle flow in transport networks Scheduling, e.g. flow shop scheduling where the resource management entity ensures local optimization and cooperation for global and local consistency Search engines, e.g. in LLM federated search like Ithy where document retrieval and analysis are distributed to DAI agents before aggregation Multi-Agent systems, e.g. artificial life, the study of simulated life Electric power systems, e.g. Condition Monitoring Multi-Agent System (COMMAS) applied to transformer condition monitoring, and IntelliTEAM II Automatic Restoration System DAI integration in tools has included: ECStar is a distributed rule-based learning system. == Agents == === Systems: Agents and multi-agents === Notion of Agents: Agents can be described as distinct entities with standard boundaries and interfaces designed for problem solving. Notion of Multi-Agents: Multi-Agent system is defined as a network of agents which are loosely coupled working as a single entity like society for problem solving that an individual agent cannot solve. === Software agents === The key concept used in DPS and MABS is the abstraction called software agents. An agent is a virtual (or physical) autonomous entity that has an understanding of its environment and acts upon it. An agent is usually able to communicate with other agents in the same system to achieve a common goal, that one agent alone could not achieve. This communication system uses an agent communication language. A first classification that is useful is to divide agents into: reactive agent – A reactive agent is not much more than an automaton that receives input, processes it and produces an output. deliberative agent – A deliberative agent in contrast should have an internal view of its environment and is able to follow its own plans. hybrid agent – A hybrid agent is a mixture of reactive and deliberative, that follows its own plans, but also sometimes directly reacts to external events without deliberation. Well-recognized agent architectures that describe how an agent is internally structured are: ASMO (emergence of distributed modules) BDI (Believe Desire Intention, a general architecture that describes how plans are made) InterRAP (A three-layer architecture, with a reactive, a deliberative and a social layer) PECS (Physics, Emotion, Cognition, Social, describes how those four parts influences the agents behavior). Soar (a rule-based approach)
Darwin among the Machines
"Darwin among the Machines" is a letter to the editor published in The Press newspaper on 13 June 1863 in Christchurch, New Zealand. The title, which was chosen by the author, references the work of Charles Darwin. Written by Samuel Butler but signed Cellarius, the letter raised the possibility that machines were a kind of "mechanical life" undergoing constant evolution, and that eventually machines might supplant humans as the dominant species. == Book of the Machines == Butler developed this and subsequent articles into The Book of the Machines, three chapters of Erewhon, published anonymously in 1872. The Erewhonian society Butler envisioned had long ago undergone a revolution that destroyed most mechanical inventions. The narrator of the story finds a book that details the reasons for this revolution, which he translates for the reader. Despite the initial popularity of Erewhon, Butler commented in the preface to the second edition that reviewers had "in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwin's theory to an absurdity." He protested that "few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin", but also added "I am surprised, however, that the book at which such an example of the specious misuse of analogy would seem most naturally levelled should have occurred to no reviewer; neither shall I mention the name of the book here, though I should fancy that the hint given will suffice", which may suggest that the chapter on Machines was in fact a satire intended to illustrate the "specious misuse of analogy", even if the target was not Darwin; Butler, fearing that he had offended Darwin, wrote him a letter explaining that the actual target was Joseph Butler's 1736 The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. The Victorian scholar Herbert Sussman has suggested that although Butler's exploration of machine evolution was intended to be whimsical, he may also have been genuinely interested in the notion that living organisms are a type of mechanism and was exploring this notion with his writings on machines, while the philosopher Louis Flaccus called it "a mixture of fun, satire, and thoughtful speculation." == Evolution of Global Intelligence == George Dyson applies Butler's original premise to the artificial life and intelligence of Alan Turing in Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence (1998) ISBN 0-7382-0030-1, to suggest that the internet is a living, sentient being. Dyson's main claim is that the evolution of a conscious mind from today's technology is inevitable. It is not clear whether this will be a single mind or multiple minds, how smart that mind would be, and even if we will be able to communicate with it. He also clearly suggests that there are forms of intelligence on Earth that we are currently unable to understand. From the book: "What mind, if any, will become apprehensive of the great coiling of ideas now under way is not a meaningless question, but it is still too early in the game to expect an answer that is meaningful to us."
GNU social
GNU social (and its predecessor StatusNet) is a largely defunct free and open-source microblogging social networking service that implements the OStatus and ActivityPub standards for interoperability between installations. While offering similar functionality to social networks such as Twitter, GNU social seeks to provide the ability for open and federated communication between different microblogging communities, known as 'instances'. Both enterprises and individuals can install and control their own instances and user data. At its peak in popularity, GNU social had been deployed on hundreds of interconnected instances, however has since fallen into disuse as competing software like Mastodon and Pleroma have taken its position as the dominant federated microblogging services. Later on in its lifespan, the project split into two separate branches, with "v2" being a continuation of the original codebase for maintenance of existing instances, with "v3" being a complete redesign of the project meant to integrate further ActivityPub support and modernization of the user experience and its technological back-end. As of August 15, 2022, there had been no new commits to the v2 branch, with the v3 branch also no longer being actively developed not long after by November 25, 2022, with the project essentially abandoned. Despite its modern obsolescence and dated design compared to modern platforms, GNU social and StatusNet is regarded to be the origin of the Fediverse network and has had a major influence on the design of more modern decentralized social networks that succeeded it. == History == While being the main project within its lineage, GNU social originally began as a fork of StatusNet. The software was first developed for a service called identi.ca from Evan Prodromou, which offered free microblogging accounts to the public. The software quickly became one of the first popular examples of a decentralized social network, as identi.ca allowed any other server that was running the software to communicate with it, something which had not previously been attempted before in social media at such a large scale. === StatusNet === Originally, StatusNet (named Laconica at the time) was launched with a communication protocol designed specifically for the project called OpenMicroBlogging (OMB). With version 0.8.1, the name of the software was changed to StatusNet. Version 0.9.0 was released soon after in March 3, 2010, with the developers implementing a newly designed protocol dubbed OStatus, with support for OMB being dropped not long after. Compared to OpenMicroBlogging, OStatus could handle and federate more events and actions than the basic plaintext communication that OMB provided and was based on a variety of other web technologies, allowing for easier adoption of new implementations of the protocol for servers and clients compared to the fully custom architecture of OMB. With the StatusNet name change, the company developing both the software and OStatus as well as managing identi.ca rebranded from Control Yourself to StatusNet Inc. In August 2010, the company raised a new round of venture capital funds to establish a hosting service under the status.net domain from sources such as First Mark Capital, BOLDstart Ventures, iNovia Capital and Montreal Start Up, raising over $2.3 million in funding up to that point. The hosting service allowed anyone to establish their own StatusNet instance without maintaining a server, similar to WordPress.com and other blogging platforms. New registrations on identi.ca along with the ability to create new status.net instances was disabled in December 2012, in preparation for a migration to pump.io that has since been named by users of StatusNet and OStatus as "the Pumpocalypse". pump.io was a brand new software package like StatusNet, but with a new protocol designed for general purpose activity streams outside of microblogging and ease-of-use for developers building on the technology, much like the transition from OMB to OStatus. The announcement was seen as unexpected among identi.ca users, who were concerned about the possibility of their statuses being deleted with the transition. At the same time, server administrators running third-party instances and their users who were left behind on StatusNet were also worried, as it was unclear at the time whether future development of the software would be picked up by a new maintainer. The transition for identi.ca users to pump.io was completed on 12 July 2013. ==== Previous names ==== The original name of StatusNet was Laconica, a reference to the Laconic phrase; a particularly brief statement commonly attributed to the leaders of Sparta (Laconia being the Greek region containing Sparta). In microblogging, all messages are designed to be very short due to the traditional 140-character limit on message size, a limitation imported from SMS. Beginning with version 0.8.1, the name was changed to StatusNet. The developers said that the new name "simply reflects what our software does: send status updates into your social network." === GNU social === GNU social originally began as a side project of GNU FM (Libre.fm) maintainer Matt Lee, with the goal of being able to federate messages between Last.fm and other instances of GNU FM using StatusNet plugins. Around the same time, a developer named Mikael Nordfeldth forked StatusNet with the intention of maintaining it as a personal project, dubbing it "Free Social". However, following identi.ca's transition to pump.io and its developers' sudden abandonment of StatusNet, the projects received more attention from server administrators and other users looking for an actively updated alternative. Shortly after LibrePlanet 2012, a plan was formed to merge all three projects into a single service. On June 8, 2013, it was announced that along with Free Social, StatusNet would be merged into the GNU social project and stewarded by the Free Software Foundation, with the project since becoming the dominant variant of StatusNet. During GNU social's lifespan, a popular theme for the user interface named Quitter was used, which was similar to an earlier Twitter interface. Many instances were made specifically using the name Quitter such as Quitter.se, an instance created by the developer of the theme. Before the establishment of Mastodon's popularity and dominance within the network, Quitter was noted as a frequent location for users of Twitter to migrate to when users disagreed with moderation policies or feature updates, such as when an algorithmic feed was added to Twitter. A fork of GNU social was made called postActiv, which planned to rewrite the backend and user interface of GNU social, as well as to add compatibility for Diaspora's protocol. == Features == A basic GNU social instance takes the form of a microblogging service with a reverse chronological timeline that features status updates and small messages from followed accounts, similar to other services such as Twitter or Weibo. While users could see their own customized timeline, they could access another timeline that showcased every message that the instance knows of, including from other instances that were connected to each other if someone on the instance followed an account from it. Users could also create and join groups, which allows for discussion and collaboration on specific topics. Administrators can also customize their server via the plugin system, which allows developers to create new features or modify existing plugins to suit the needs of the instance via PHP. A notable plugin built for GNU social was Quitter, a revamp of the user interface that resembles an earlier version of Twitter's user interface.
Willy's Chocolate Experience
Willy's Chocolate Experience was an unlicensed event based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that took place in Glasgow, Scotland, in February 2024. The event was promoted as an immersive and interactive family experience, illustrated on a promotional website with "dreamlike" AI-generated images. Once it was discovered that the event was held in a sparsely decorated warehouse, many customers complained, and the police were called to the venue. The event went viral on the Internet and attracted worldwide media attention. The event drew comparisons to the 2008 Lapland New Forest controversy, the 2014 Tumblr fan convention DashCon, and Billy McFarland's 2017 Fyre Festival. == Background and advertising == The event was stated to take place over the weekend of 24–25 February 2024. Promotional material advertised "stunning and intricately designed settings inspired by Roald Dahl's timeless tale" and "an array of delectable treats scattered throughout the experience". Both the website and promotional material used poor-quality AI-generated images, which included several spelling errors such as "cartchy tuns" and "a pasadise of sweet teats" and nonsensical words such as "catgacating" and "exarserdray". Tickets cost up to £35 per person. While the event was being promoted in early February, a Reddit user who saw Facebook advertisements suspected it to be a scam and was surprised that people were apparently buying tickets based solely on AI-generated images. The event was organised by House of Illuminati, a company registered to Billy Coull which claimed to offer "unparalleled immersive experiences". An investigation by Third Force News conducted after the event described Coull's previous "murky involvement in the charity sector." Coull had previously registered several other companies and claimed to work as a "consultant" for the now-defunct brand Empowerity, formerly known as the charity Gowanbank Community Hub. In 2021, Gowanbank was forced to remove claims of a £95-per-ticket fundraising "gala" at DoubleTree Glasgow which had been falsely advertised to feature TV personalities and performers including Gok Wan and Joe Black. Coull had claimed to be a doctor with a fake degree from a false university that provided "metaphysical degrees", and had attempted to use the charity to win the 2022 Glasgow City Council election in the seat of Greater Pollok, though he never registered for the election. In the summer of 2023, he independently published 17 AI-generated books on various topics, including vaccine conspiracy theories. Rolling Stone concluded that House of Illuminati's websites and event descriptions were likely written by an AI chatbot, such as ChatGPT. Three actors were hired to portray "Willy McDuff", a character based on Willy Wonka. One of them, Paul Connell, said that the cast were given one day to learn the script. Another actor playing Willy McDuff was 18-year-old Michael Archibald; the experience was his first ever acting job, and he was given the script at 6 pm on Friday before the event began on Saturday. Kirsty Paterson, an actress who played one of the Oompa-Loompas (called "Wonkidoodles" in the script), said that the job offer had been posted on Indeed.com and offered £500 for two days of work. The day before the event, the actors attended a dress rehearsal at the sparsely decorated venue. They were told that others would be working through the night on the production. When they returned on the day of the event, the venue was in the same condition. Paterson was given her costume an hour before the event opened, saying that "We were just handed an Amazon box that probably arrived that morning." == Script == The script for the event is titled Wonkidoodles at McDuff's Chocolate Factory: A Script, and describes Willy McDuff leading an audience through the Garden of Enchantment and the Twilight Tunnel. Once there, they are confronted by a character called The Unknown, described as "an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls" who seeks to steal the magical "Anti-Graffiti Gobstopper" from McDuff's Imagination Lab. The gobstopper is "a sweet so powerful, it can make any room sparkle without lifting a finger". McDuff defeats The Unknown by amplifying the power of the gobstopper and causing his enemy to be "gently swept up by a robotic vacuum, humorously ending the confrontation". The script was unusual in that it included stage directions for the audience, and descriptions of their reactions. Connell described it as "15 pages of AI-generated gibberish of me just monologuing these mad things", and compared the vacuum cleaner plot point to that of the Nintendo video game Luigi's Mansion. Interviewed after the event, Coull claimed to have written the script himself, using AI only to "check spelling, grammar, and continuity" as he said he had dyslexia. == Event == The event was held at the Box Hub Warehouse event space in Whiteinch, an industrial area of Glasgow. Customers described the venue as "little more than an abandoned, empty warehouse", with set dressings including a small bouncy castle, AI-generated backdrop images pinned to some of the walls, and props which were "strewn about on bare concrete floors". The venue's windows were dirty and its air conditioning systems were left exposed. Paterson has stated that by the time she saw the venue, she had already signed her contract and "didn't want to disappoint the kids", and thus chose to proceed with the work. The Unknown was played by a 16-year-old actress named Felicia Dawkins, who wore a silver mask and a black cloak. Young children were frightened by the character, who appeared from behind a large rectangular mirror. Despite the script calling for The Unknown to be defeated with a vacuum cleaner, no such prop was provided, and actors were instead asked to improvise. Connell said that he and other employees were told to give each child "two jelly beans and a quarter of a cup of lemonade", although the limited supply of jelly beans quickly ran out. Paterson and another "Wonkidoodle" actress, Jenny Fogarty, said that after the first three 45-minute performances, the cast were told to abandon the script and instead let guests walk through the venue, a process that Paterson said took "about two minutes". The character of The Unknown, previously introduced as the main antagonist, was now "scaring children for no reason". One of the actors playing McDuff improvised the idea that children should pull a "silly face" at The Unknown to scare them away, but Dawkins said that, in other cases, she "just had to awkwardly walk back to my corner". Connell was told he would be given a 15-minute break every 45 minutes, but on the day of the event, he played Willy McDuff for three and a half hours without a break. After returning from a lunch break, Connell encountered a crowd of customers demanding refunds from Coull, and the other actors were unsure what to do next. After being told that the event was now cancelled halfway through its opening day, the actors left and went to a pub. Upon returning to the venue some time later, Connell said that he felt "the threat of violence had become quite high" and that there were two police vans and two squad cars at the scene. == Customer reviews and response == Willy's Chocolate Experience was widely criticised by those who attended it, many of whom demanded refunds. One customer, who had driven with his children for two hours to reach the event, described it as an "absolute con". Other visitors who arrived after the event was closed and were not informed of its cancellation requested compensation for wasted rail fares. Following the event's cancellation, Coull offered to refund 850 people, a statement repeated by the event's Facebook page. Some Facebook users stated that they had received their money back. Paterson and Fogarty stated that they only received half of their paycheque. Box Hub, the organisation that had rented the warehouse to House of Illuminati, issued an apology on House of Illuminati's behalf, stating that they "either have no regards for the families and young children they have disappointed or are too embarrassed to comment", and offered to provide a venue free of charge for those who attended the event. House of Illuminati later stated that they would not host any future events. Coull deleted his LinkedIn profile, his YouTube channel, and his personal website in response to the controversy. A few days after the event, Connell said he felt that Coull was "probably one of the most disliked people in Glasgow right now". In an interview with The Sunday Times, Coull apologised for how the event turned out, saying he would accept responsibility. == Fundraising == In an interview with Wired magazine, Connell stated that he and the other actors were working with parents to provide a free show for the children who attended. Some items from the event were later auctioned for charity. The venue auctioned the leftover hand-written "even