Lifeboat Foundation

Before he could legally drive, high school student Adam Rebei was already submitting jobs on the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (NCSA) to run complex simulations of black holes.

“My first time using Blue Waters, we did a tour first and got to see the computer, which is a very amazing thing because it’s a very powerful machine,” Rebei told the NCSA, “and I just remember thinking, ‘All of the GPUs!’ It’s an insane amount of GPUs, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

To get there, Rebei first took an astronomy class that led him to his work with the NCSA. Once there, he teamed up with research scientist Eliu Huerta, who leads the group’s Gravity Group.

Continue reading “High School Student Uses AI to Detect Gravitational Waves” »

Machine learning (ML), a form of artificial intelligence that recognizes faces, understands language and navigates self-driving cars, can help bring to Earth the clean fusion energy that lights the sun and stars. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are using ML to create a model for rapid control of plasma—the state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions—that fuels fusion reactions.

The sun and most stars are giant balls of plasma that undergo constant fusion reactions. Here on Earth, scientists must heat and control the plasma to cause the particles to fuse and release their energy. PPPL research shows that ML can facilitate such control.

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The Houston Astros’ José Altuve steps up to the plate on a 3–2 count, studies the pitcher and the situation, gets the go-ahead from third base, tracks the ball’s release, swings … and gets a single up the middle. Just another trip to the plate for the three-time American League batting champion.

Could a robot get a hit in the same situation? Not likely.

Continue reading “Helping robots remember: Hyperdimensional computing theory could change the way AI works” »

The Vatican is hosting a 2-day conference on the impact of robotics and AI on humanity.

A 2-day conference focusing on the impact of robotics and artificial intelligence on humanity, that began in the Vatican on Thursday, is being organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

By Robin Gomes

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Ford Motor Company, ones of America’s oldest companies, uses artificial intelligence and machine learning in many ways from the supply chain to production to used car sales to self-driving vehicles. The company prioritizes technology, and this focus is one reason it’s leading the path to the future.

From Watson to Sophia, who are the artificially intelligent robot personas of today, and what can they tell us about our future?

Siri. Alexa. Cortana. These familiar names are the modern-day Girl Fridays making everyone’s life easier. These virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence (AI) bring to life the digital tools of the information age. One of the subtle strategies designers use to make it easier for us to integrate AI into our lives is “anthropomorphism” - the attribution of human-like traits to non-human objects. However, the rise of AI with distinct personalities, voices, and physical forms is not as benign as it might seem. As futurists who are interested in the impacts of technology on society, we wonder what role human-like technologies play in achieving human-centred futures.

For example, do anthropomorphized machines enable a future wherein humanity can thrive? Or, do human-like AIs foreshadow a darker prognosis, particularly in relation to gender roles and work? This article looks at a continuum of human-like personas that give a face to AI technology. We ask: what does it mean for our collective future that technology is increasingly human-like and gendered? And, what does it tell us about our capacity to create a very human future?

The Women of AI

Continue reading “Fembots vs. HAL: Who are the people of AI?” »

In their never-ending quest for increased efficiency, many farmers are now turning to agricultural robots to cut down on operation costs. But can automation give agriculture the boost it needs to meet the demands of 9 billion people?

What happens when a man is merged with a computer or a robot? This is the question that Professor Kevin Warwick and his team at the department of Cybernetics, University of Reading in the UK have been trying to answer for a number of years.

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• Here Come The Neurobots
• The Artificial Hippocampus
• EPOC Neuroheadset

There are many ways to look at this problem. There is the longer term prospect of freeing the mind from the limitations of the brain by uploading it in digital form, potentially onto a computer and/or robotic substrate (see the h+ interview with Dr. Bruce Katz, Will We Eventually Upload Our Minds?). There is also a shorter term prospect at a much more limited scale — a robot controlled by human brain cells could soon be wandering around Professor Warwick’s UK labs.