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Archive for the ‘robotics/AI’ category: Page 2407

Apr 13, 2015

How The Grid Will Automate Web Design Without Killing The Designer

Posted by in categories: disruptive technology, internet, robotics/AI

Tyler Hayes | Fast Company


“The inherently robotic system begs to be humanized and explained. The first question Taylor had to ask himself was if what Tocchini was attempting was even possible. Could he translate design intention into an algorithm that was always producing new and relevant results—something that satisfied a broad range of needs and desires?” Read more

Apr 13, 2015

If Algorithms Know All, How Much Should Humans Help?

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, software

Steve Lohr | The New York Times


“Many data quants see marketing as a low-risk — and, yes, lucrative — petri dish in which to hone the tools of an emerging science. ‘What happens if my algorithm is wrong? Someone sees the wrong ad,’ said Claudia Perlich, a data scientist who works for an ad-targeting start-up. ‘What’s the harm? It’s not a false positive for breast cancer.’…These questions are spurring a branch of academic study known as algorithmic accountability.” Read more

Apr 12, 2015

Human Laws Can’t Control Killer Robots, New Report Says

Posted by in categories: ethics, law, robotics/AI, security

Kari Paul | Motherboard


”​When a human being is killed by an autonomous machine, who takes the blame? Human rights non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch says it is virtually impossible to tell, and that presents unprecedented danger in the future of warfare. The group released a report today showing how difficult it will be to hold commanders, operators, programmers or manufacturers legally responsible for crimes committed by autonomous machines under current legislature.” Read more

Apr 11, 2015

Scientists close in on computers that work like the human brain

Posted by in categories: computing, robotics/AI

By — GizmagScientists close in on computers that work like the human brainScientists have been working since 2008 to develop technology based on memristors (short for memory resistors), which promise computers that need never boot up and function more akin to the human brain – like neurons, they can retain information and perform logic operations. Now scientists at Northwestern University have made a new breakthrough that may make possible brain-like computing capabilities.

Memristors are considered exciting for more than their potential to create brain-like computers. Unlike flash memory, they’re fast. Unlike random access memory (RAM), they remember their state – whatever information they held – when they lose power. They also require less energy to operate, rarely crash, and are immune to radiation. The trouble is that they are two-terminal electronic devices, which results in them being tunable only through changes in the voltage applied externally. Read more

Apr 5, 2015

This Is Big: A Robo-Car Just Drove Across the Country

Posted by in categories: disruptive technology, driverless cars, human trajectories, robotics/AI, transportation

— WiredAutonomous car from Delphi drives on Treasure Island in preparation for a cross-country trip from San Francisco to New York City in San FranciscoAn autonomous car just drove across the country.

Nine days after leaving San Francisco, a blue car packed with tech from a company you’ve probably never heard of rolled into New York City after crossing 15 states and 3,400 miles to make history. The car did 99 percent of the driving on its own, yielding to the carbon-based life form behind the wheel only when it was time to leave the highway and hit city streets.

This amazing feat, by the automotive supplier Delphi, underscores the great leaps this technology has taken in recent years, and just how close it is to becoming a part of our lives. Yes, many regulatory and legislative questions must be answered, and it remains to be seen whether consumers are ready to cede control of their cars, but the hardware is, without doubt, up to the task. Read More

Apr 3, 2015

What If We Had Another Earth?

Posted by in categories: futurism, habitats, robotics/AI, space, space travel, strategy

A realistic and desirable human destination would produce a different space program than what we have today.

“We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.” This is NASA’s Vision Statement. This is NASA’s reason for being, its purpose. This is a vision statement for science and knowledge. This vision statement was crafted in a solar system that has only one planet that is environmentally friendly to human life.

Thanks to the ongoing search for exoplanets, we’ve identified several planets in our galaxy that are Earth sized and in their star’s habitable zone. Based on statistics, potentially billions more are waiting to be found. We are just now developing the technology to detect them. But we’re nowhere near having the technology needed to get to visit them. They are simply too far away.

Now here is where I’d like to pose a what if question: What if there was another habitable planet just like Earth, right here in our own solar system? What would Earth’s space programs look like, if anyone with a good telescope could look up and see another world with oceans, and continents, and clouds, and green forests? I think that it is safe to say that space programs in this imaginary solar system would be vastly different than ours today. This is conjecture, but it seems likely that the vision statement above, would be more in line with making that new world available for humanity.

Continue reading “What If We Had Another Earth?” »

Apr 2, 2015

Putting America Gainfully Back to Work

Posted by in categories: human trajectories, robotics/AI

By — SingularityHubhttp://cdn.singularityhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Screen-Shot-2015-03-20-at-9.20.23-AM-1000x400.png

Years ago, my brother, Matt, explained to me that there are three ways to push out the productivity curve: technology, capital, or people.

When we increase productivity, we increase wealth. However, when we discuss how these three forces impact the labor market, we often focus singularly on how technology either creates or destroys jobs and wealth.

Our fear – not entirely misplaced – is that robots will render most of us useless, and in doing so, cleave society into those who control the machines (educated titans of industry), and those who fall victim to them (uneducated poor workers). In this future, the majority of humans – helpless and tired – fall by the way-side on the road to progress.

Read more

Mar 30, 2015

Transnationalism to Transhumanism: the Mont Order Club’s video discussion

Posted by in categories: education, robotics/AI, science, transhumanism, transparency

The Mont Order Club hosted its first video conference in February 2015, as shown below.

Suggested topics included transhumanism, antistatism, world events, movements, collaboration, and alternative media. The Mont Order is an affiliation of dissident writers and groups who share similar views on transnationalism and transhumanism as positive and inevitable developments.

Participants:

  • Harry Bentham (Beliefnet)
  • Mike Dodd (Wave Chronicle)
  • Dirk Bruere (Zero State)

For more information on Mont Order participants, see the Mont Order page at Beliefnet.

Mar 29, 2015

Intelligent robots must uphold human rights

Posted by in categories: human trajectories, law, robotics/AI, security

Hutan Ashrafiannature.comhttp://images.sequart.org/images/i-robot-510ea6801c50a.jpg

There is a strong possibility that in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligences (AIs), perhaps in the form of robots, will become capable of sentient thought. Whatever form it takes, this dawning of machine consciousness is likely to have a substantial impact on human society.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and physicist Stephen Hawking have in recent months warned of the dangers of intelligent robots becoming too powerful for humans to control. The ethical conundrum of intelligent machines and how they relate to humans has long been a theme of science fiction, and has been vividly portrayed in films such as 1982’s Blade Runner and this year’s Ex Machina.Read more

Mar 29, 2015

It’s Time For Robot Pilots

Posted by in categories: automation, human trajectories, robotics/AI, security, transportation

Jason Koebler — MotherBoard

http://motherboard-images.vice.com/content-images/article/20326/1427390573566811.png?crop=1xw:0.8160465116279069xh;*,*&resize=2300:*&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=90
It’s increasingly looking like the plane that crashed Monday in France, killing 150 people, went down because one of the pilots ​turned off the autopilot and intentionally crashed it into the ground. Why are we still letting humans fly passenger planes?

The short answer is, we’re not really. It’s no secret that planes are already highly automated, and, with technology that’s available today (but that isn’t installed on the Airbus A320 operated by Germanwings that crashed), it would have been possible for someone in a ground station somewhere to have wrested control of the plane from those on board and reestablished autopilot (or to have piloted the plane from the ground)Read more