Lifeboat Foundation

Artificial intelligence is conquering an increasing number of jobs. How can humans keep the edge as robots become smarter?

In a glimpse at what the beginning of the technological singularity might look like, researchers at Facebook shut down an artificial intelligence platform after the bots went off script and developed a unique language that humans could not understand.

Facebook might have accidentally gotten a little closer to answering Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 question of whether androids dream of electric sheep. The social media giant just shut down an artificial intelligence program after it developed its own language and researchers were left trying to figure out what two AIs were talking about. The AIs had found a way to negotiate with one another, but the way they debated used English words reduced to a more logical structure that made more sense to the computers than to their human observers. What at first looked like an unintelligible failure to teach the AIs to talk instead was revealed as a result of the computers’ reward systems prizing efficiency over poetry.

A new type of camera built by Stanford engineers and funded by the NSF and Intel generates a four dimensional image that is capable of capturing nearly 140 degrees of information.

The 4D camera, built by Donald Dansereau, a postdoctoral fellow in electrical engineering and Gordon Wetzstein, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, along with colleagues from the University of California, San Diego is the first single-lens, wide field of view, light field camera ever made.

Continue reading “4D Camera to Improve Machine Vision for Robots and Virtual Reality” »

Researchers have successfully given AI a curiosity implant, which motivated it to explore a virtual environment. This could be the bridge between AI and real world application.

Researchers at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, have produced an artificial intelligence (AI) that is naturally curious. They tested it successfully by having it play Super Mario and VizDoom (a rudimentary 3D shooter), as the video below shows.

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Intelligent Machines

Machine-learning algorithm watches dance dance revolution, then creates dances of its own.

A machine learns to choreograph by studying a famous 1990s music video game.

Continue reading “The first machine to study the Dance Dance Revolution video game now choreographs its own dances” »

In 10 years, when autonomous driving is mainstream, we’ll have a fundamentally different relationship with our cars and driving in general.

Every major car company is fully aware of this, but not all are reacting to this change with the same degree of urgency. Earlier this month, BMW hosted its Innovation Days at its technology office in Chicago, where the company showcased the current state of its connectivity services and laid out its vision for the future.

Unlike other manufacturers, BMW has decided that it wants to retain full control over the in-car experience and that it doesn’t want to outsource this to a big technology firm. While the company offers support for Apple CarPlay, it’s not going to support Android Auto anytime soon (and even the CarPlay support isn’t something it seems all that excited about). Instead, BMW has decided that its job as a premium brand is to own the customer experience and make it fit the rest of the driving experience.

Continue reading “Why BMW is betting on the cloud” »

A U.S. House Committee just gave its approval for the SELF DRIVE Act, a bill that introduces breakthrough legislation in favor of autonomous vehicles. The bill could pass Congress before the end of 2017, ushering in a new era in self-driving tech.

A bill that will introduce breakthrough legislation in support of autonomous vehicle technology just received approval from the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee.

Continue reading “The First Major U.S. Bill on Self-Driving Cars Just Got House Committee Approval” »