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.
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Category: robotics/AI – Page 2,363
Why BMW is betting on the cloud
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.
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The First Major U.S. Bill on Self-Driving Cars Just Got House Committee Approval
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.
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Russia is building an AI-powered missile that can think for itself
Today’s most advanced weapons are already capable of “making decisions” using built-in smart sensors and tools.
However, while these weapons rely on some sort of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, they typically don’t have the ability to choose their own targets.
Creating such weapons is now Russia’s goal, according to the country’s defense officials and weapons developers.
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This facial recognition system tracks how you’re enjoying a movie
As moviemaking becomes as much a science as an art, the moviemakers need ever-better ways to gauge audience reactions. Did they enjoy it? How much… exactly? At minute 42? A system from Caltech and Disney Research uses a facial expression tracking neural network to learn and predict how members of the audience react, perhaps setting the stage for a new generation of Nielsen ratings.
The research project, just presented at IEEE’s Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Hawaii, demonstrates a new method by which facial expressions in a theater can be reliably and relatively simply tracked in real time.
It uses what’s called a factorized variational autoencoder — the math of it I am not even going to try to explain, but it’s better than existing methods at capturing the essence of complex things like faces in motion.
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Opinion: Super-intelligence and eternal life—transhumanism’s faithful follow it blindly into a future for the elite
The rapid development of so-called NBIC technologies – nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science – are giving rise to possibilities that have long been the domain of science fiction. Disease, ageing and even death are all human realities that these technologies seek to end.
They may enable us to enjoy greater “morphological freedom” – we could take on new forms through prosthetics or genetic engineering. Or advance our cognitive capacities. We could use brain-computer interfaces to link us to advanced artificial intelligence (AI).
Nanobots could roam our bloodstream to monitor our health and enhance our emotional propensities for joy, love or other emotions. Advances in one area often raise new possibilities in others, and this “convergence” may bring about radical changes to our world in the near-future.
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How this 32-year-old investor with ties to Elon Musk wants to use AI to build a perfect planet
In a not-too-distant future city, superintelligent robots will carry out the majority of vital tasks. Driverless cars will ferry passengers to and from points of interest. Housing and healthcare will be affordable, if not free to all. Political leaders and technologists will speak the same language. And life is good.
Sam Altman, the 32-year-old president of Y Combinator, the most prestigious startup accelerator in Silicon Valley, has laid out this utopian vision over the years, and most definitively in a job listing posted on YC’s blog in June 2016.
“We’re seriously interested in building new cities and we think we know how to finance it if everything else makes sense,” the post read. “We need people with strong interests and bold ideas in architecture, ecology, economics, politics, technology, urban planning, and much more.”
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Alphabet’s ‘moonshot’ lab has a new project to store renewable energy
(A rendering of what X’s renewable energy storage plant would look like. X) X, the “moonshot” division of Google’s parent company Alphabet that has worked on everything from self-driving cars and delivery drones, has a new public project: storing renewable energy so it doesn’t go to waste.
The team working on the project is codenamed “Malta,” and it aims to efficiently store energy from solar and wind using salts. That way, renewable energy can still be used even if solar panels or wind turbines can’t collect energy.
Malta is part of X’s Foundry, which explores early-stage projects. It’s not an “official” project like Project Wing (drone delivery) or Project Loon (high-altitude balloons that beam the internet to the surface). X is announcing Malta now because it wants to build a prototype plant for testing how storing renewable energy can feed a power grid. It’s accepting applications for potential partners on its website.
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