Lifeboat Foundation

Amazon announces a new type of smart brick-and-mortar shopping with no checkouts.

In Brief

• Japanese life insurance company Fukoku Mutual is replacing 34 employees with AI derived from IBM’s Watson.
• Automation is securing its place now even outside of the manufacturing sector. While not all jobs are at risk of machine replacement, that list seems to be growing smaller.

Yes, please.

Nice.

Synthetic RNA kit business Synthego has raised $41 million to step up its efforts to make CRISPR gene editing easier and more accurate. The West Coast startup relied heavily on tech VCs for the cash, but also gained validation from having CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna invest in its business.

Redwood City, CA-based Synthego exited stealth in August, four years after it was set up by two former SpaceX computer engineers. In those early years, which were bankrolled by an $8.3 million investment in 2013, Synthego established an automated manufacturing process for guide RNA products that it thinks sets it apart from larger competitors in terms of cost, turnaround time and editing efficiency.

Continue reading “Synthego bags $41M to grow CRISPR synthetic RNA kit biz” »

A future in which human workers are replaced by machines is about to become a reality at an insurance firm in Japan, where more than 30 employees are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence system that can calculate payouts to policyholders.

Insurance firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is making 34 employees redundant and replacing them with IBM’s Watson Explorer AI.

Language translation is hard. This device wants to make it easy and take place in real-time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLr7E2Ms4Y4

“I’m a political theory researcher at Sciences Po, and this talk draws on modern political theories of liberalism, the latest transhumanist literature, and ancient Greek theories of the good life.”

The Transhumanist Paradox.

Continue reading “The Transhumanist Paradox [33c3]” »

Announcing DeepMind’s collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment to open up StarCraft II to AI and ML researchers around the world.

In Brief

• Microsoft is partnering with a prestigious eye hospital in India to help perfect AI powered computer diagnostics to the field of ophthalmology.
• Artificial intelligence is continually making great strides to integrate more in various healthcare settings, hopefully increasing the quality and availability of patient care.

According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 285 million people are visually impaired, with 39 million living with blindness and the other 246 million having low vision.

In a world of modern technological advancements, visual impairment has been the subject of much medical research. Perhaps the most notable among these are those that use artificial intelligence (AI), specifically through machine learning. Google’s DeepMind has been working with the UK’s National Health Service to do ophthalmology research.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence is Helping Restore Vision” »