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Artificial intelligence is beginning to disrupt entire industries from finance to medicine. Yet the most revolutionary application has yet to arrive—and it’s an existential one.

As thinking machines become more integrated into our lives, we must expect a transformation in how we define what it means to be conscious; what it means to live and to die; and ultimately, what it means to love a non-human being.

These questions are artfully explored in the plot of the 2013 sci-fi film, Her, which tells the story of a man who falls deeply in love with an intelligent operating system. This OS, Samantha, is designed to evolve and adapt her personality to appeal to Theodore. She has a very human voice and provides constant empathetic support. As Samantha’s psychological and intellectual capacities grow, so does Theodore and Samantha’s love for each other.

Continue reading “How AI Will Redefine Love” »

A future of soft robots that wash your dishes or smart T-shirts that power your cell phone may depend on the development of stretchy power sources. But traditional batteries are thick and rigid—not ideal properties for materials that would be used in tiny malleable devices. In a step toward wearable electronics, a team of researchers has produced a stretchy micro-supercapacitor using ribbons of graphene.

The researchers will present their work today at the 252nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

“Most power sources, such as phone batteries, are not stretchable. They are very rigid,” says Xiaodong Chen, Ph.D. “My team has made stretchable electrodes, and we have integrated them into a supercapacitor, which is an energy storage device that powers electronic gadgets.”

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Domino’s Pizza Enterprises has demonstrated delivery of hot pizzas by drone in Auckland, New Zealand.

The company has a long history of embracing high-tech concepts. Last year, they tested out a four-wheeled, driverless pizza delivery vehicle. And in 2012, Domino’s launched a casual build-a-pizza game that also let players order the pizza they built digitally for real life delivery.

The company also uses e-bikes and electric scooters for delivery. In a press statement, Domino’s Group CEO and Managing Director Don Meij said:

Continue reading “Flirtey flies pies for Domino’s in New Zealand” »

“Liquid Metals to “Soft-Wire” Elastic Electronics”

A few years ago, some friends shared with me an amazing experiment of theirs involving liquid/ fluid base circuitry. Definitely is amazing; and is going to be amazing in where we are taking this type of technology along with synthetic biology.

The shape-shifting metals behind the T-1000 android assassin in the sci-fi movie Terminator 2 may not remain science fiction for long with the development of self-propelling liquid metals that could lead to the replacement of solid state circuits by elastic electronics.

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Billions on billions.

Hmmmm.

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on a new generation of electronic warfare systems that are based on artificial intelligence (A.I.). If the program were to prove a success, the new A.I.-driven systems would provide the United States military a way to counter evermore-capable Russian and Chinese radars.

“One of our programs at DARPA is taking a whole new approach to this problem, this is an effort we refer to as cognitive electronic warfare,” DARPA director, Dr. Arati Prabhakar, told the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities on February 24. “We’re using artificial intelligence to learn in real-time what the adversaries’ radar is doing and then on-the-fly create a new jamming profile. That whole process of sensing, learning and adapting is going on continually.”

Continue reading “Revealed: Pentagon’s Plan to Defeat Russian and Chinese Radar With A.I” »

Researchers at Bar Ilan University and the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, both in Israel, have developed new technology that allows tiny bots to release drugs into the body controlled by human thought alone. The test involved a man using his thoughts to activate nano robots inside a cockroach.

The bots have been built using a DNA origami structure with hollow shell-like components, and they come with a “gate” that can be opened and shut with the help of iron oxide nanoparticles that act as a “lock” – which can be prized open using electromagnetic energy.

The Israeli team believe the bots could help in controlled release of drugs over time. Led by Dr Ido Bachelet of Bar Ilan University, scientists demonstrated how to control this process with human brainwaves. Using a computer algorithm, they trained the system to detect when a person’s brain was under strain from doing mental arithmetic. The team then placed a fluorescent drug in the bots and injected them into various cockroaches that were placed inside an electromagnetic coil.

Continue reading “A First: Israeli Scientists ‘Have Used the Human Mind to Control Nano Robots Inside a Living Creature’” »

In a test lab, Bert2 — a humanoid robot with three separate displays, allowing its eyes and mouth to express various emotions — performed in three different ways. One was silent and made zero mistakes, while a second was mute and programmed to make a single blunder (which it would then correct, quietly). A third was able to speak and accept simple “yes” or “no” responses from the user. In a basic kitchen scenario, the vocal android would apologise for its mistakes — after dropping an egg, for instance — and give a heads-up when it was about to try a new technique.

While the slowest, it was the robot that most people preferred.

But here’s where it gets interesting. At the end of the exchange, the robot would ask for a job. Some participants were reluctant to say no — even if they preferred the silent, more efficient robot — because they thought it would upset the machine. “It felt appropriate to say no, but I felt really bad saying it,” one of the test participants said. “When the face was really sad, I felt even worse. I felt bad because the robot was trying to do its job.”

Continue reading “People will lie to robots to avoid hurting their feelings” »