Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘entertainment’ category: Page 85

Oct 18, 2017

Stunning AI Breakthrough Takes Us One Step Closer to the Singularity

Posted by in categories: entertainment, robotics/AI, singularity

Remember AlphaGo, the first artificial intelligence to defeat a grandmaster at Go? Well, the program just got a major upgrade, and it can now teach itself how to dominate the game without any human intervention. But get this: In a tournament that pitted AI against AI, this juiced-up version, called AlphaGo Zero, defeated the regular AlphaGo by a whopping 100 games to 0, signifying a major advance in the field. Hear that? It’s the technological singularity inching ever closer.

A new paper published in Nature today describes how the artificially intelligent system that defeated Go grandmaster Lee Sedol in 2016 got its digital ass kicked by a new-and-improved version of itself. And it didn’t just lose by a little—it couldn’t even muster a single win after playing a hundred games. Incredibly, it took AlphaGo Zero (AGZ) just three days to train itself from scratch and acquire literally thousands of years of human Go knowledge simply by playing itself. The only input it had was what it does to the positions of the black and white pieces on the board. In addition to devising completely new strategies, the new system is also considerably leaner and meaner than the original AlphaGo.

Now, every once in a while the field of AI experiences a “holy shit” moment, and this would appear to be one of those moments. Looking back, other “holy shit” moments include Deep Blue defeating Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, IBM’s Watson defeating two of the world’s best Jeopardy! champions in 2011, the aforementioned defeat of Lee Sedol in 2016, and most recently, the defeat of four professional no-limit Texas hold’em poker players at the hands of Libratus, an AI developed by computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University.

Continue reading “Stunning AI Breakthrough Takes Us One Step Closer to the Singularity” »

Oct 18, 2017

The world’s smartest game-playing AI—DeepMind’s AlphaGo—just got way smarter

Posted by in categories: entertainment, robotics/AI

An upgraded version of the game-playing AI teaches itself every trick in the Go book, using a new form of machine learning.

Read more

Oct 12, 2017

District 9 director Neill Blomkamp hopes game engines can democratize film

Posted by in categories: entertainment, media & arts, robotics/AI, transhumanism

This week, Neill Blomkamp, the Academy Award-nominated director of District 9, unveiled a short film that he made with the Unity Technologies game engine. At Unity’s event in Austin, Texas, Blomkamp’s Oats Studios showed off Adam: The Mirror, a 6-minute film that was a sequel to Adam, a short film that Unity built as an internally produced showcase demo last year.

Evoking the theme of transhumanism, or the notion that we can live beyond our physical bodies, the film shows an android coming to life and realizing that it was a human trapped in a robot’s body. The film was meant to show off the power of the Unity engine when it comes to making high-quality 3D graphics. But to Blomkamp, it’s also an example of how a game engine can help democratize film, making life easier for independent film makers just as Unity has done for indie game developers.

Continue reading “District 9 director Neill Blomkamp hopes game engines can democratize film” »

Oct 9, 2017

Evolution of Video Game Graphics 1962–2017

Posted by in categories: entertainment, evolution

Click on photo to start video.

Read more

Oct 5, 2017

Billions In Change 2 Official Film

Posted by in categories: entertainment, food

New film, New Ideas New Inventions. Billions in Change 2 shows how simple life-changing inventions provide clean water, electricity, and improve the lives of farmers. See how these inventions will enable the unlucky half of the world to improve their lives.

For more information go to BillionsInChange.com

Continue reading “Billions In Change 2 Official Film” »

Sep 24, 2017

This experimental film by Maxim Zhestkov explores the idea that everything around us and inside us is made from simple elements which can be arranged in complex relationships and become compound structures

Posted by in category: entertainment

Read more

Sep 18, 2017

Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, Channel 4

Posted by in category: entertainment

Decades on, his work remains an irresistible trove of ideas for film-makers to plunder. Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, which begins on Sunday (Channel 4, 9pm), is an ambitious series of 10 one-hour films based on his stories, with different casts and creative teams.


An ambitious series of 10 one-hour films based on the stories of the sci-fi writer.

Read more

Sep 14, 2017

Unexpected Futurist: Mark Twain, Tesla, and a Worldwide Visual Telephone System

Posted by in categories: education, entertainment, fun, futurism, internet, media & arts, mobile phones, rants

When one thinks of Mark Twain, one thinks of folksy wit, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and the Mississippi River. Twain’s work immortalized the rapidly changing United States of the 1800s. But in his personal life, Twain often preferred the future to nostalgia, supporting women’s suffrage and civil rights, and frequently being contemptuous of what he considered to be the absurd and corrupt values of the past. He harbored a long running fascination with technology and new gadgets, and frequently invested in the latter — albeit with spotty success, at best. But Twain cemented his becoming an honorary futurist via his long friendship with inventor and Mad-scientist archetype Nikola Tesla.

Follow us on social media:
Twitter / Facebook / Instagram

Sep 12, 2017

Brain Dead Patients Could Be Brought ‘Back to Life’ in Groundbreaking Stem Cell Therapy

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, entertainment

This is not about creating zombies-those so-called living (or walking) dead that are very popular and make a really great theme for TV shows and movies.

Even the Game of Thrones has its version of the living dead with them nasty creatures called White Walkers and Wights.

But then again, that’s only science fiction, isn’t it? Well, maybe not. In fact, this science-fiction plot could soon play out in real life. Read on.

Continue reading “Brain Dead Patients Could Be Brought ‘Back to Life’ in Groundbreaking Stem Cell Therapy” »

Sep 7, 2017

Should We be Cautious about Envisioning Dystopias?

Posted by in categories: entertainment, ethics, existential risks, futurism, human trajectories, media & arts, philosophy, transhumanism

How will our relationship to technology evolve in the future? Will we regard it as something apart from ourselves, part of ourselves, or as a new area of evolution? In this new video from the Galactic Public Archives, Futurist Gray Scott explains that we are a part of a technological cosmos. Do you agree with Scott that technology is built into the universe, waiting to be discovered?

Follow us on social media:
Twitter / Facebook / Instagram

Follow Gray Scott:
Twitter / Facebook / Instagram

Page 85 of 124First8283848586878889Last