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Category: robotics/AI – Page 2177

Several firms are working on training environments like Star Trek’s Holodeck, but for machines.

When future robots enter the world, they won’t have a learning curve.

Artificial intelligence researchers are creating tools to help teach the robots that will assemble our gadgets in factories, or do chores around our home, before they ever step (or roll) into the real world. These simulators, most recently announced by Nvidia as a project called Isaac’s Lab but also pioneered by Alphabet’s DeepMind and Elon Musk’s OpenAI, are 3D spaces that have physics just like reality, with virtual objects that act the same way as their physical counterparts.

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Police in Dubai have unveiled a working police robot — what the kids call a “Robocop.” Using a computer tablet that is based in the robot’s chest, Dubai residents can report crimes, pay speeding tickets, and submit paperwork in six different languages. The Emirati robot has a built-in camera which allows it to read facial expressions and identify suspects, and it live streams audio and video back to its human coworkers at an operation center.

Dubai has already implemented other modern safety services, including firefighters that use jetpacks. City police aim to have robots make up a quarter of their workforce by the year 2030.

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N” Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) self-driving car unit Waymo is working on developing self-driving trucks, the company said on Thursday.

Waymo, which is looking to expand its self-driving car efforts, expects autonomous vehicles to be able to take over longer distance trucking in the coming years, while allowing human drivers to handle local pickup and delivery routes.

“We’re taking our eight years of experience in building self-driving hardware and software and conducting a technical exploration into how our technology can integrate into a truck,” a Waymo spokesperson said in a statement.

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Over the past few years, a variety of cyborg animals have been unleashed, as scientists kit out cockroaches, locusts and even turtles with electronic accoutrements. Back in January, researchers from Charles Stark Draper Laboratory and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) outlined plans to fit dragonflies with tiny electronic backpacks, allowing them to be controlled remotely. In a new video, their cyborg dragonflies have taken flight for the first time.

The animal kingdom is fertile inspirational ground for new technology, but it’s difficult to properly mimic the speed and manoeuvrability of a dragonfly, or the complicated olfactory system of a locust. Rather than designing robots and sensors from scratch, scientists have developed ways to take advantage of the hard work nature has already done, by equipping live insects with electronic systems.

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As the Fermi paradox states, the Universe is a vast, unknowable space, filled with trillions upon trillions of potentially habitable planets, so… where are all the aliens?

In the latest attempt to solve this conundrum, a trio of researchers have suggested that advanced alien civilisations have gone into self-imposed ‘hibernation’ — waiting for a future where the Universe is far colder than it is now, which would facilitate the kind of processing power we could only ever dream about.

A new paper written by Oxford neuroscientist and AI expert, Anders Sandberg and Stuart Armstrong, together with Milan Ćirković from the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, Serbia, argues that civilisations far more advanced than us could have conceivably explored a big chunk of the Universe already, and are now waiting for a better time to be alive.

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A new article on #transhumanism and religion that’s worth reading:

Transhumanists are a group of people who prefer using science and technology to improve the human life. According to Zoltan Istvan, a declared atheists and key leader in the transhumanists movement, “Transhumanism is not a competition. It is simply a mode of being that embraces evolving the human being with science, reason and technology.”

The recent development in the transhumanism movement has seen the colonization of a few groups of religious people, who call themselves religious transhumanists. This group advocates using science, technology and religion to improve the human being. According to Zoltan, in the 21st Century, the formal religion will soon have no choice but to evolve and blend with the advancement in science and technology. Invention of churches in virtual reality, Robot pastors saving Artificial Intelligence through Christ’s redemption and even a Jesus Singularity are all soon going to be an important pillar in the religious movement and America’s future in general.

Although some religious conservatives are now rebuking Christian transhumanists and seeing them as pretenders, and renowned conservative writers like Wesley J. Smith are making jokes about it, the truth is that even the Bible advocates for the improvement of the human being. According to Zoltan, the only thing that lacks in the biblical narrative is that although it largely foreshadows the future, this future does not anticipate the merging of humans with machines, Transhumanist technologies, telepathy, ectogenesis, robotic hearts, brain implants, post-genderism, or artificial super intelligence.

Continue reading “An Atheist’s Perspective on the Rise of Christian Transhumanism” | >