Lifeboat Foundation

Self Driving Cars and Ethics. It’s a topic that has been debated in blogs, op-eds, academic research papers, and youtube videos. Everyone wants to know, if a self-driving car has to choose between sacrificing its occupant, or terminating a car full of nobel prize winners, who will it pick? Will it be programmed to sacrifice for the greater good, or protect itself — and its occupants — at all costs? But in the swirl of hypothetical discussion around jaywalking Grandmas, buses full of school-children, Kantian Ethics and cost-maps, one crucial question is being forgotten:

What about the Squirrels?

Continue reading “Life or Death: Will Robo-Cars Swerve for Squirrels?” »

The was launched in 2002 by the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs magazine to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. The annual event has attracted more than 8,000 product design ideas from engineers, entrepreneurs, and students worldwide.

According to a new study, aging hearts might find a new lease on life. Researchers have demonstrated that stem cells taken from young rats and given to aged rats rejuvenated their hearts, making them functionally younger in a number of ways.

Young at heart

The new study published in the European Heart Journal investigated the effects of cardiac stem cells on the function and structure of aged hearts[1]. There have been previous experiments using cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs) that have delivered promising results, but they have never been tested in relation to aging.

Children with peanut allergies could finally overcome the life-threatening reaction for up to four years, Australian researchers say.

Following a major breakthrough that could lead to a cure, the small clinical trial found two-thirds of children who were given an experimental immunotherapy treatment were rid of their allergy.

The kids with peanut allergies were given a probiotic treatment called lactobacillus rhamnosus, with a peanut protein, once daily for 18 months.

Continue reading “Cure to deadly peanut allergy FINALLY found in Australian breakthrough” »

A new experiment at the Large Hadron Collider has confirmed one of the oldest predictions in quantum physics.

Physicists from the ATLAS experiment at CERN have revealed they’ve observed direct evidence of a process known as light-by-light scattering, in which light interacts with itself at high energy.

Continue reading “CERN finds ‘direct evidence’ of light interacting with ITSELF” »

Russia unveils new fleet of ‘invisible’ supersonic fighter jets — and boasts that they will be the envy of air forces around the world.

• Russia’s new Sukhoi-57 is said to rival America’s F-22 and China’s Chengdu J-20
• Kremlin officials say the stealth fighter jet will be hard to track on enemy radars
• Air force chief has boasted: ‘Every country probably wants planes such as this’
• Jet will undergo another year of testing before it enters military service in 2019

By Julian Robinson for MailOnline

Continue reading “Russia unveils new ‘invisible’ supersonic fighter jets” »

How our ideas about sex and service influence the personalities we give machines… Consider the artificially intelligent voices you hear on a regular basis. Are any of them men? Whether it’s Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa, or virtually any GPS system, chances are the computerized personalities in your life are women.

This gender imbalance is pervasive in fiction as well as reality. Films like “Her” and “Ex Machina” reflect our anxieties about what intelligent machines mean for humanity. But AI, in and of itself, is genderless and sexless. Why, then, are the majority of the personalities we construct for these machines female?

Is it about service? Assigning gender to these AI personalities may say something about the roles we expect them to play. Virtual assistants like Siri, Cortana, and Alexa perform functions historically given to women. They schedule appointments, look up information, and are generally designed for communication.

In the course of Assured Autonomy program, researchers will aim to develop tools that provide foundational evidence that a system can satisfy explicitly stated functional and safety goals, resulting in a measure of assurance that can also evolve with the system.

Learn more about the Assured Autonomy program: http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-08-16