Lifeboat Foundation

“The thing I find rewarding about coding: You’re literally creating something out of nothing. You’re kind of like a wizard.”

When the smiley-faced robot tells two boys to pick out the drawing of an ear from three choices, one of the boys, about 5, touches his nose. “No. Ear,” his teacher says, a note of frustration in her voice. The child picks up the drawing of an ear and hands it to the other boy, who shows it to the robot. “Yes, that is the ear,” the ever-patient robot says. “Good job.” The boys smile as the teacher pats the first boy in congratulations.

The robot is powered by technology created by Movia Robotics, founded by Tim Gifford in 2010 and headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. Unlike other companies that have made robots intended to work with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), such Beatbots, Movia focuses on building and integrating software that can work with a number of humanoid robots, such as the Nao. Movia has robots in three school districts in Connecticut. Through a U.S. Department of Defense contract, they’re being added to 60 schools for the children of military personnel worldwide.

Continue reading “Profile: Christian Wanamaker Teaches Robots to Learn How to Help Students” »

Circa 2016

Taking vertical urban indoor farming efficiency to the next level, a new automated plant coming to Japan will be staffed entirely by robots and produce 30,000 heads of lettuce daily.

Continue reading “Veggie Factory: World’s First Vertical Farm Run Entirely By Robots” »

The hype about artificial intelligence is unavoidable. From Beijing to Seattle, companies are investing vast sums into these data-hungry systems in the belief that they will profoundly transform the business landscape. The stories in this special report will deepen your understanding of a technology that may reshape our world.

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Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence” »

Bringing together artificial intelligence and neuroscience promises to yield benefits for both fields.

Retinal scanning could be a huge leap forward. Even in rich countries, 50% to 80% of Alzheimer’s cases go undiagnosed.

And, after that, of stroke susceptibility and heart disease.

Science and technology Dec 18th 2019 edition.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, calls for sensible regulation of AI. I agree. “Companies such as ours cannot just build promising new technology and let market forces decide how it will be used. It is equally incumbent on us to make sure that technology is harnessed for good and available to everyone.”

Companies cannot just build new technology and let market forces decide how it will be used.

Computers can beat humans at sophisticated tasks like the game Go, but can they also drive a car, … [+] speak languages, play soccer, and perform a myriad of other tasks like humans? Here’s what AI can learn from biology.

A few years back, DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis famously prophesized that AI and neuroscience will positively feed into each other in a “virtuous circle.” If realized, this would fundamentally expand our insight into intelligence, both machine and human.

We’ve already seen some proofs of concept, at least in the brain-to-AI direction. For example, memory replay, a biological mechanism that fortifies our memories during sleep, also boosted AI learning when abstractly appropriated into deep learning models. Reinforcement learning, loosely based on our motivation circuits, is now behind some of AI’s most powerful tools.

Continue reading “How Researchers Used AI to Better Understand Biological Vision” »

Xenobots have been called the world’s first “living robots”. They are made entirely of living tissue, and can be programmed to move towards a certain object.