Lifeboat Foundation

The enzyme laccase is able to alter the chemical structure of wood on its surface and thus facilitate biochemical modifications without changing the structure of the material. By attaching functional molecules, Empa researchers develop waterproof or antimicrobial wood surfaces, for instance. Also it is possible to make adhesive wood fibers, which can be pressed to fiberboards without any chemical binding agents. These solvent-free fiberboards are used for insulation of eco houses.

The problem: There are many variants of laccase, which differ in the architecture of the chemically active center, and not all of them react with the desired substrate. As it is extremely difficult to predict whether or not a particular laccase will react with a specific substrate, costly and time-consuming series of experiments are required to identify suitable laccase-substrate pairs. Molecular simulations could solve the problem: You simply need a precise structural analysis of the laccase to simulate the chemical reaction mechanism for every desirable combination on the computer. However, this requires a high computer computing—capacity and, even then, would be extremely time-consuming and expensive.

But there is a shortcut: “deep learning.” A computer program is trained to recognize patterns with data from the literature and own experiments: Which laccase oxidizes which substrate? What might be the best conditions for the desired chemical process to take place? The best thing about it: The search works even if not all details about the chemical mechanism are known.

Title is a bit misleading — atheism is only unpolular with totalitarian regimes (and Templeton Foundation?) — interesting.

Although Johnson said he found the team’s research useful and important, he was unimpressed by their claim to have outperformed previous predictive methods. “Linear regression analysis is not very powerful for prediction,” he said. “I was a little surprised by the strength of their claims.” He cautioned that we should be skeptical about the word prediction in relation to this type of model. Opinion might be better.

“It’s great to have as a tool,” he said. “It’s like, you go to the doctor, they give an opinion. It’s always an opinion, we never say a doctor’s prediction. Usually, we go with the doctor’s opinion because they’ve seen many cases like this, many humans who come in with the same thing. It’s even more of an opinion with these types of models, because they haven’t necessarily seen many cases just like it—history mimics the past but doesn’t exactly repeat it.”

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Shows Why Atheism Is Unpopular” »

Is it a tram, or is it a train, or even a fancy bus?

The world’s first electric-powered ‘trackless train’ has been launched in China.

Using virtual rail lines on the streets of Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, the new Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit (ART) system can travel up to speeds of 43 mph.

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PwC forecast that AI would displace 20% jobs by 2037, but it would also create just as many jobs. That suggests fears about robots rendering humans useless may be overblown.

NASA has recently announced it would give funds to a California-based 3D printing company for finding ways to turn asteroids into giant, autonomous spacecrafts, which could fly to outposts in space, the media reported.

Made In Space’s project, known as RAMA (Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata), could one day enable space colonization by helping make off-Earth manufacturing efficient and economically viable, Space.com reported.

The company plans to use 3D printing to turn the asteroids into self-flying vehicles by 2030.

Continue reading “NASA Funding Project To Turn Asteroids Into Spaceships: Report” »

About the future death of explainability to understand AI thinking, the writing is on the wall…

These divergent approaches, one regulatory, the other deregulatory, follow the same pattern as antitrust enforcement, which faded in Washington and began flourishing in Brussels during the George W. Bush administration. But there is a convincing case that when it comes to overseeing the use and abuse of algorithms, neither the European nor the American approach has much to offer. Automated decision-making has revolutionized many sectors of the economy and it brings real gains to society. It also threatens privacy, autonomy, democratic practice, and ideals of social equality in ways we are only beginning to appreciate.

At the simplest level, an algorithm is a sequence of steps for solving a problem. The instructions for using a coffeemaker are an algorithm for converting inputs (grounds, filter, water) into an output (coffee). When people say they’re worried about the power of algorithms, however, they’re talking about the application of sophisticated, often opaque, software programs to enormous data sets. These programs employ advanced statistical methods and machine-learning techniques to pick out patterns and correlations, which they use to make predictions. The most advanced among them, including a subclass of machine-learning algorithms called “deep neural networks,” can infer complex, nonlinear relationships that they weren’t specifically programmed to find.

Continue reading “The Digital Poorhouse” »

We’ve had autonomous cars, autonomous trucks, and autonomous buses, and now Osaka-based diesel engine manufacturer Yanmar is introducing a new line of robotic tractors. On October 1, 2018, the company is releasing its 2-series tractors equipped with the Smartpilot autonomous operating system and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that allow them to operate in autonomous and semi-autonomous modes.

Interesting article on the limited future of human paid employment for AI, some thoughts.

By Paul R. Daugherty and H. James Wilson

Superman versus Batman. Captain America versus Iron Man. Zuckerberg versus Musk?

Continue reading “What Are The New Jobs In A Human + Machine World?” »

IBM’s Hello Quantum released on Android today. If you’ve always wanted to be a quantum computer programmer, this is the puzzle game for you!