Lifeboat Foundation

The head of Google parent company Alphabet chose an funny example to allay fears of artificial intelligence.

As demonstrated by breakthroughs in various fields of artificial intelligence (AI), such as image processing, smart health care, self-driving vehicles and smart cities, this is undoubtedly the golden period of deep learning. In the next decade or so, AI and computing systems will eventually be equipped with the ability to learn and think the way humans do—to process continuous flow of information and interact with the real world.

However, current AI models suffer from a performance loss when they are trained consecutively on new information. This is because every time new data is generated, it is written on top of existing data, thus erasing previous information. This effect is known as “catastrophic forgetting.” A difficulty arises from the stability-plasticity issue, where the AI model needs to update its memory to continuously adjust to the new information, and at the same time, maintain the stability of its current knowledge. This problem prevents state-of-the-art AI from continually learning from real world information.

Edge computing systems allow computing to be moved from the cloud storage and data centers to near the original source, such as devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoTs). Applying continual learning efficiently on resource limited edge computing systems remains a challenge, although many continual learning models have been proposed to solve this problem. Traditional models require high computing power and large memory capacity.

It was all quite predictable, really. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, released the latest version of its groundbreaking AI chatbot in August 2022. Immediately, journalists around the world began peppering the system, called BlenderBot3, with questions about Facebook. Hilarity ensued.

A guy with no background in film or artificial intelligence is working on making an entire movie, in an ambitious attempt to open filmmaking to the masses.

The price has increased by $3,000, but Tesla’s FSD is still a work-in-progress.

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta option now costs a hefty $15,000. Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter late last month that it would increase the option’s price by $3,000.

Continue reading “Tesla’s Full Self-Driving now costs $15,000, but lawmakers argue it doesn’t live up to its name” »

No fields, tractors or back-breaking work: This may be how fruits and vegetables are sustainable in the future.

In recent years, roboticists and material scientists worldwide have been trying to create artificial systems that resemble human body parts and reproduce their functions. These include artificial skins, protective layers that could also enhance the sensing capabilities of robots.

Researchers at Donghua University in China and the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS) in Germany have recently developed a new and highly promising artificial ionic skin based on a self-healable elastic nanomesh, an interwoven structure that resembles human skin. This artificial skin, introduced in a paper published in Nature Communications, is soft, fatigue-free and self-healing.

“As we know, the skin is the largest organ in the human body, which acts as both a protective layer and sensory interface to keep our body healthy and perceptive,” Shengtong Sun, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and soft robotics, researchers are currently trying to coat humanoid robots with an ‘artificial skin’ that replicates all the mechanical and sensory properties of human skin, so that they can also perceive the everchanging external environment like us.”

For now it tracks down the floral scents that a moth would love, but engineers hope it could help find gas leaks.

Many insects are powerful, agile flyers. One reason is that most have four wings, which gives them fine control over their direction of flight and their orientation through pitch, roll, and yaw adjustment.

In recent years, aerodynamicists, engineers, and roboticists have attempted to copy insect-like flight by building tiny flying robots. The main thing they’ve discovered is just how difficult this is.