Lifeboat Foundation

The tests are designed to see how soldiers will operate robots in the field.

Since its invention by a Hungarian architect in 1974, the Rubik’s Cube has furrowed the brows of many who have tried to solve it, but the 3D logic puzzle is no match for an artificial intelligence system created by researchers at the University of California, Irvine.

DeepCubeA, a deep reinforcement learning algorithm programmed by UCI computer scientists and mathematicians, can find the solution in a fraction of a second, without any specific domain knowledge or in-game coaching from humans. This is no simple task considering that the cube has completion paths numbering in the billions but only one goal state—each of six sides displaying a solid color—which apparently can’t be found through random moves.

For a study published today in Nature Machine Intelligence, the researchers demonstrated that DeepCubeA solved 100 percent of all test configurations, finding the shortest path to the goal state about 60 percent of the time. The algorithm also works on other combinatorial games such as the sliding tile puzzle, Lights Out and Sokoban.

Science, Space & Robotics News | Posted: 9 hours, 42 mins ago.

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Boeing is building a killer robot which will “decide when, where — and who — to shoot”

Lethal. Cheap. Smart. Australia’s air force will become one of the first in the world to put ‘killer robots’ in the skies alongside its combat pilots. But are we opening a Pandora’s box?

Continue reading “Australia embraces ‘killer robots’” »

This can also be done with a brain in a jar hooked-up to A.I…

*** As featured on the Colbert Report — June 4, 2009 ***

Continue reading “EX VIVO LUNG: Transplant surgeons at Toronto General Hospital make medical history” »

Facial recognition comes to pets — using their nose prints as unique identifiers.

American scientist and best-selling #scifi author David Brin predicts what our world would like in the year 2050. Read it on our #Earth2050 platform:

By 2040, the international community has concluded that using nonrenewable resources is irrational. The first kind of asteroid to be mined was of the carbonaceous variety, to get water that can keep astronauts alive, or be used to create rocket fuel. Later, explorers prospected dozens of other varieties of asteroids with suitable iron, nickel, cobalt, platinoid, and rare-earth element deposits. Odyssey is the first ever space base focused on mining these minerals.

The station was launched in 2049. Because of magnetic storms and drastic changes in temperature, the main part of the base had to be built several meters below the asteroid’s surface. Almost all work on the base was automated. Small teams of engineers and technicians needed for station management stay for 6-month shifts. Using solar mirrors, they melt and refine precious metal ores and blow them into gleaming bubbles that can safely descend through Earth’s atmosphere to float in the ocean, for collection. The iron is used for construction in space.

Continue reading “An asteroid base” »

Nanoprobes were microscopic robotic devices used by the Borg for the primary purpose of assimilation, as well as to help maintenance and even repair their mechanical and biological components on a microscopic level. Injected into a target’s bloodstream via assimilation tubules, the nanoprobes immediately began to take over the host cells’ functions. Nanoprobes could also be modified for a variety of medical and technical tasks.

A police board meeting escalated when Detroit cops tackled a police commissioner to the ground and arrested him at a heated hearing where protesters demonstrated against the city’s controversial facial recognition scheme.

Commissioner Willie Burton was annoyed that the Board of Police Commissioners had held secret, closed door meetings that he and the public were not allowed to attend during which an expansion of the facial recognition scheme was planned, Metro Times reports.