Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2019 o.o

Deepfakes exist not only for photos and videos but for audio too. AI can be used to clone people’s voices, and this AI clone of podcaster Joe Rogan created by startup Dessa is the most convincing we’ve ever heard.

Continue reading “This AI-generated Joe Rogan fake has to be heard to be believed” »

A new kind of robot at a warehouse near Berlin is performing tasks that until recently had been out of the reach of machines.

At a facility near Berlin, a new kind of robot is automating tasks that until recently had been out of the reach of machines.

Credit… Video by Robert Rieger.

Circa 2016 could cure viruses in no time.

When you get right down to it, developing vaccines is about data and luck. Scientists start with a set of variables—what drugs a virus responds to, how effectively, and for whom—and then it’s a whole lot of trial and error until they stumble upon a cure.

One of the most exciting possibilities in medical research right now is how technology like machine learning could help researchers rapidly process those enormous sets of data, more quickly leading to cures. This is already starting to happen: In a study published Wednesday in the journal Macromolecules, researchers from IBM and Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology reveal a breakthrough that could help prevent deadly virus infections. With the help of IBM super computer Watson, they hope their finding will soon make its way into vaccines.

Continue reading “Here’s how artificial intelligence could cure disease in the future” »

Not everything is knowable. In a world where it seems like artificial intelligence and machine learning can figure out just about anything, that might seem like heresy – but it’s true.

At least, that’s the case according to a new international study by a team of mathematicians and AI researchers, who discovered that despite the seemingly boundless potential of machine learning, even the cleverest algorithms are nonetheless bound by the constraints of mathematics.

“The advantages of mathematics, however, sometimes come with a cost… in a nutshell… not everything is provable,” the researchers, led by first author and computer scientist Shai Ben-David from the University of Waterloo, write in their paper.

Getting robots to just pick things up has always been a big challenge for engineers, but artificial intelligence is helping teach these machines new tricks. Startup Covariant, formerly known as Embodied Intelligence, says its bots are ready for full-time operation, and are being installed in warehouses around the world.

In a newly published paper, researchers detail an experimental model that can extract device PINs and passphrases from the sounds of tapping fingers.

Circa 2019

Technology has long been helping to hack world hunger. These days most conversations about tech’s impact on any sector of the economy inevitably involves artificial intelligence—sophisticated software that allows machines to make decisions and even predictions in ways similar to humans. Food waste tech is no different.

Continue reading “Food Waste Is a Serious Problem. AI Is Trying to Solve It” »

Key point: Washington knows it needs high-tech weapons and machines to win future wars. That includes robots to haul supplies and assist the Marines in winning any fight.

The U.S. Navy is moving quickly to develop robotic warships that could hunt submarines and other ships, screen aircraft carriers and convoys from air attack and sweep away enemy mines.

But there’s another mission the Navy should consider assigning to unmanned surface vessels, Neil Zerbe, a retired Navy officer, argued for the Center for International Maritime Security: shuttling supplies from ship to shore in the aftermath of an amphibious assault by U.S. Marines.

Along with personal jetpacks for every man, woman, and child (sure, why not), levitation is one of those conveniences that sci-fi has long promised us but has yet to deliver, other than magnetically levitating trains. But at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, physicist Chris Benmore and his colleagues are levitating objects with an unlikely tool: sound. It’s called acoustic levitation, and after breaking your brain with what seems to be an optical illusion, it’s poised to deliver advances in pharmacology, chemistry more broadly, and even robotics.