Publication: Forbes story title: Human 2.0: is coming faster than you think deck: Will you evolve with the times? section: Innovation topic: artificial intelligence + big data special label: contributor group | Cognitive World author: by Neil Sahota date: October 1, 2018.
Fu Qiang examines flight simulator cockpit parts at Wright Brothers Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd. in Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Dec. 14, 2018. If it were not for a common infatuation with flight simulation, chances are that Liu Zhongliang, Fu Qiang and Zhou Zhiyuan, who had once led three entirely distinct careers, might never come across one another, let alone team up and approach an aviation dream. The aviation enthusiast trio launched their hardware developing team in 2009. From the very first electronic circuit, to today’s flight simulator cockpits, the core spirit of autonomous design prevailed throughout the course of their venture. In 2014, Liu, Fu and Zhou left Zhengzhou in central China and relocated to Harbin. They were joined by Ge Jun, another aviation enthusiast, entering a business fast track as the four registered their company, named after the Wright Brothers. The prototype of a scale 1:1 Boeing 737–800 cockpit procedure trainer took shape in the same year. And in the year to come, the simulator cockpit was put to standardized production. The company’s products have obtained recognitions at various levels. In November 2016, a refined model of their cockpit procedure trainer obtained technical certification from the China Academy of Civil Aviation Science and Technology, one of the country’s top research institutes in the field. Later, another flight simulator cockpit prototype received Boeing authorizations. One aspiration of the team is to apply for higher-level technical certifications for their simulator cockpits, and become a viable contributor to the Chinese jetliner industry. (Xinhua/Wang Song)
This is happening in the city of Tianjin, about an hour’s drive south of Beijing, within a gleaming office building that belongs to iFlytek, one of China’s rapidly rising artificial-intelligence companies. Beyond guarded gates, inside a glitzy showroom, the US president is on a large TV screen heaping praise on the Chinese company. It’s Trump’s voice and face, but the recording is, of course, fake—a cheeky demonstration of the cutting-edge AI technology iFlytek is developing.
Jiang Tao chuckles and leads the way to some other examples of iFlytek’s technology. Throughout the tour, Tao, one of the company’s cofounders, uses another remarkable innovation: a hand-held device that converts his words from Mandarin into English almost instantly. At one point he speaks into the machine, and then grins as it translates: “I find that my device solves the communication problem.”
IFlytek’s translator shows off AI capabilities that rival those found anywhere in the world. But it also highlights a big hole in China’s plan, unveiled in 2017, to be the world leader in AI by 2030. The algorithms inside were developed by iFlytek, but the hardware—the microchips that bring those algorithms to life—was designed and made elsewhere. While China manufactures most of the world’s electronic gadgets, it has failed, time and again, to master the production of these tiny, impossibly intricate silicon structures. Its dependence on foreign integrated circuits could potentially cripple its AI ambitions.
Continue reading “China has never had a real chip industry. Making AI chips could change that” »
“At least in the Defense Department today, we don’t see machines doing anything by themselves,” he said, noting that agency researchers are intensely focused on building “human-machine” partnerships. “I think we’re a long way off from a generalized AI, even in the third wave in what we’re pursuing.”
Artificial intelligence does not yet pose a serious threat to humans, according to the head of the Defense Advanced Research Agency. Though the military is rushing to improve its AI capabilities, DARPA Director Dr. Steven H. Walker said AI remains “a very fragile capability.”
When the Technological Singularity arrives, you can’t even imagine what the future will hold afterwards. Just ask author Vernor Vinge.
A five-time Hugo Award-winning author (among various other awards and accolades), Vernor Vinge has been writing and speculating about AI and intelligence amplification for over half a century. As part of his storied career, an interesting anecdote concerns a rejection letter he received from legendary science fiction editor and publisher John W. Campbell, Jr.
Early in his career, Vinge had proposed a story about a human being with amplified intelligence and (as Vinge relates in his short story collection) Campbell wrote him back with the comment, “Sorry — you can’t write this story. Neither can anyone else.” Jump forward a few decades, and Vinge delivered a paper to NASA entitled The Coming Technological Singularity in which he foresaw a moment when artificial intelligence will develop exponentially until it reached a point that surpasses humanity’s ability to comprehend. It is intelligence so far superior that we can’t even imagine what it would be like. And then what?
Continue reading “Author Vernor Vinge: Proposing a singular view of technology’s future” »
Science fiction has promised us a whole lot of technology that it’s rudely failed to deliver—jetpacks, flying cars, teleportation. The most useful one might be the robot companion, à la Rosie from The Jetsons, a machine that watches over the home.
It seemed like 2018 was going to be the year when robots made a big leap in that direction. Two machines in particular surfaced to much fanfare: Kuri, an adorable R2D2 analog that can follow you around and take pictures of your dinner parties, and Jibo, a desktop robot with a screen for a face that works a bit like Alexa, only it can dance.
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Continue reading “Sci-Fi Promised Us Home Robots. So Where Are They?” »
