Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers are using predictive artificial intelligence to help police officers classify crimes and determine whether they are gang-related.

Photo: AP

Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin has written about the threat and promise of artificial intelligence in his annual letter to shareholders. The Alphabet president says AI has brought about a ‘technology renaissance’ but says problems raised by this tech demand ‘serious thought and research.’

Apparently needs a lot of work before it can actually operate like a eel/snake. But, i’d wrap this up in skin so it could look like a snake/eel. Give it solar power skin so it could recharge its own batteries; maybe try to use that system that was supposed to be able to eat organic matter to convert into power. Then, put a bunch of sensors on it, and HD cameras for eyes, and rig it so it could transmit to satellites. And you have a pretty impressive drone that can operate in any body of water and on land close to water.

An innovative, eel-like robot developed by engineers and marine biologists at the University of California can swim silently in salt water without an electric motor. Instead, the robot uses artificial muscles filled with water to propel itself. The foot-long robot, which is connected to an electronics board that remains on the surface, is also virtually transparent.

Continue reading “Transparent eel-like soft robot can swim silently underwater” »

Andrew Ng shares what it takes to create an “AI-first company.”

AI can discover new drugs because biology is messy and complex, not in spite of that fact, says Andrew Hopkins.

The CEO of Inglewood space start-up Relativity is trying to automate aerospace production by using robotics and 3D printing to make satellite-launching rockets. The company plans its first test flight in 2020.

This month I’m participating in Cato Institute’s Cato Unbound discussion. Cato is one of the world’s leading think tanks. Here’s my new and second essay for the project:

Professor David D. Friedman sweeps aside my belief that religion may well dictate the development of AI and other radical transhumanist tech in the future. However, at the core of a broad swath of American society lies a fearful luddite tradition. Americans—including the U.S. Congress, where every member is religious—often base their life philosophies and work ethics on their faiths. Furthermore, a recent Pew study showed 7 in 10 Americans were worried about technology in people’s bodies and brains, even if it offered health benefits.

It rarely matters what point in American history innovation has come out. Anesthesia, vaccines, stem cells, and other breakthroughs have historically all battled to survive under pressure from conservatives and Christians. I believe that if formal religion had not impeded our natural secular progress as a nation over the last 250 years, we would have been much further along in terms of human evolution. Instead of discussing and arguing about our coming transhumanist future, we’d be living in it.

Continue reading “Deniers and Critics of AI Will Only Be Left Behind” »

In the not so distant future autonomous vehicles may rule the road. Could the ability of fish to swim together provide insights for engineers to make automated driving safer?

“One thinks about autonomous cars in isolation. But what is also important is the information which is being shared between cars,” Trevor Worthington, Shanghai-based vice president for product development at Ford Asia Pacific, told journalists this week at the Beijing auto show.

“For example, I’m a car driver now on the road, I don’t know whether it’s a dog or a person (in front of me). But that other car has a much better view and knows it’s a dog. So, if it was able to share information with me…” that could help avoid an accident, he said.

Another problem is that we still don’t have enough data about every compound, according to Wolverton, and a lack of data means algorithms aren’t very smart. That said, he and Mehta are now interested in using their method on other types of materials beside metallic glass. And they hope that one day, you won’t need a human to do experiments at all, it’ll just be AI and robots. “We can create really a completely autonomous system,” Wolverton says, “without any human being involved.

For hundreds of years, new materials were discovered through trial and error, or luck and serendipity. Now, scientists are using artificial intelligence to speed up the process.