Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: robotics/AI – Page 2089

Join us at D60, DARPA’s 60th anniversary symposium, to learn from Ron Brachman about how #AI rose to prominence.

Artificial Intelligence has experienced waves of excitement before, but we have never seen the kind of worldwide enthusiasm that we see now, especially in the commercial sector, where AI has become the central mission of some of the world’s most powerful tech companies. DARPA is known for being the first supporter of AI research and panelists will highlight the impetus DARPA provided to the field’s most central technological areas, and give insights about where the field is going next.

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Insilico and its researchers are the first in the world to use GANs to generate molecules.

“The GAN technique is essentially an adversarial game between two deep neural networks,” as Alex explains.

While one generates meaningful noise in response to input, the other evaluates the generator’s output. Both networks thereby learn to generate increasingly perfect output.

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The smallest Imperial Walker to ever attack the rebel alliance.

When it comes to matching simplicity with staggering creative potential, DNA may hold the prize. Built from an alphabet of just four nucleic acids, DNA provides the floorplan from which all earthly life is constructed.

But DNA’s remarkable versatility doesn’t end there. Researchers have managed to coax segments of DNA into performing a host of useful tricks. DNA sequences can form logical circuits for nanoelectronic applications. They have been used to perform sophisticated mathematical computations, like finding the optimal path between multiple cities. And DNA is the basis for a new breed of tiny robots and nanomachines. Measuring thousands of times smaller than a bacterium, such devices can carry out a multitude of tasks.

In new research, Hao Yan of Arizona State University and his colleagues describe an innovative DNA , capable of rapidly traversing a prepared track. Rather than slow, tentative steps across a surface, the DNA acrobat cartwheels head over heels, covering ground 10- to 100-fold faster than previous devices.

Continue reading “Built for speed: DNA nanomachines take a (rapid) step forward” | >

Companies like Eli Lilly & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC are investing in automation with the hope of transforming drug discovery from an enterprise where humans do manual experiments to one where robots handle thousands of samples around the clock. This automation will be key to developing better therapies more efficiently, drug companies say, as research and development becomes more labor intensive amid the push toward more-tailored…

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The danger, some experts warn, is that A.I. will run into a technical wall and eventually face a popular backlash — a familiar pattern in artificial intelligence since that term was coined in the 1950s. With deep learning in particular, researchers said, the concerns are being fueled by the technology’s limits.

A branch of A.I. called deep learning has transformed computer performance in tasks like vision and speech. But meaning, reasoning and common sense remain elusive.

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The exponential potential of longevity technologies.

Jim Mellon became a billionaire by pouncing on a wide variety of opportunities, from the dawn of business privatization in Russia to uranium mining in Africa and real estate in Germany. But all of that might eventually look small, he says, compared to the money to be made in the next decade or so from biotechnologies that will increase human longevity well past 100.

The British investor is so enthusiastic about these technologies that he co-authored a 2017 book about them, Juvenescence: Investing in the Age of Longevity, and launched a company, Juvenescence Ltd., to capitalize on them. “Juvenescence” is a real word — it’s the state of being youthful. Says Mellon, who is 61: “I’m hoping that this stuff works on me as well as on my portfolio.”

Juvenescence Ltd., which has raised $62.5 million from Mellon and some partners, has invested in or is close to confirming investments in nine biotech companies. He won’t discuss most of them. But one of the deals was an 11 percent stake in Insilico Medicine, a company applying machine-learning techniques to drug discovery. Insilico Medicine and Mellon’s company also formed a joint venture called Juvenescence AI to investigate the therapeutic properties of specific compounds. Mellon is particularly optimistic that this venture can develop a “senolytic” drug that helps the body clear out cells that have stopped dividing and can damage other cells.

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