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Category: robotics/AI – Page 2365

A team of computer scientists from the University of Southern California (USC) have been successful in developing a new method to alleviate wildlife poaching. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the project that has created a model for ‘green security games’.

This model is based on game theory to safeguard wildlife from poachers. Game theory involves predicting the actions of enemy using mathematical equations and subsequently formulating the best possible restrain moves. This model will enable more efficient patrolling of parks and wildlife by park rangers.

An artificial intelligence (AI) application, known as Protection Assistant for Wildlife Sanctuary (PAWS) was developed by Fei Fang, a Ph.D. candidate in the computer science department at USC and Milind Tambe, a professor of computer science and systems engineering at USC, in 2013. The team has since then spent a couple of years to test the effectiveness of the application in Uganda and Malaysia.

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Apparently, Rodney Brooks, AI pioneer (@MIT CS & AI Lab; iRobot), is skeptical about artificial superintelligence:

“The difference between science fiction robots and real-life creations was the concept of robots being able to learn and teach themselves independently. A person can generalise, but we don’t have that kind of generalisation in any of these AI learning systems. So relax is my message.”

Or is he? This article by ABC Australia was focused on the same unfortunate meme, the unlikely Terminator which nobody has ever seriously suggested is realistic: “The Terminator series of movies foretold the future of humans and robots with Skynet becoming self-aware and launching its own nuclear war. But Professor Brooks said that was just science fiction.”

What of serious singularity hypotheses?

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I too believe AI could be bigger in the future once the under pinning technology and infrastructure moves to Quantum Technology so that hacking is under control and performance is where it needs to be.

When Mark Zuckerberg thinks about the future, he sees a world that’s dominated by mobile devices and virtual reality, but when Google CEO Sundar Pichai thinks about the future, all he sees is artificial intelligence. He suggested as much during Alphabet’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday, saying that mobile devices and virtual reality will dominate the immediate future, but that they’ll eventually be surpassed in importance by artificial intelligence. However, he didn’t go into detail about what this future will look like.

Artificial intelligence is nothing new at Google, but today we learned just how big a role top boss Sundar Pichai sees AI playing in our future. Answering an analyst query on Google-parent company Alphabet’s Q1 2016 earnings call about how the company is leading innovation, rather than simply adapting to changes in technology, Pichai talked about his role in projecting where Alphabet is going in the next 10 years. He gave a shout out to VR as the hot new platform, and then wrapped up his comments by saying: “In the long run, I think we will evolve in computing from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world.” Earlier in the call he cited Google’s DeepMind AlphaGo super computer defeating a human champion as an extraordinary achievement. He also said the company is investing in AI and machine learning, areas that are taking off and beginning to bear real-world benefits.

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I almost snickered at this article because many of us have been highlighting many of the issues with AI. I am glad to see someone else also speaking up with the bigger issue with AI which is poor security due to the existing net infrastructure.

Facebook and others are all working on simplifying users’ lives with bots, but these novel interactive programs change the game in terms of security.

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Good luck convincing business and consumers to buy your autonomous spider-bot.

There are a number of major tech-driven companies that are researching 3D printing technology at a rapid rate, but very few invest as much as time and money into additive manufacturing as Siemens does. Whether they’re building their own €21.4 million metal 3D printing facility or helping 3D printing startups with their endeavors, the global engineering company is betting big within the 3D printing industry. Now, a research team from Siemens Corporate Technology’s Princeton campus has just revealed their latest innovation, the development of autonomous mobile 3D printing devices, which are being called spider-bots.

These unique printing devices, which look like spider-like robots, were almost entirely designed and manufactured by the Siemens Corporate Technology research team. They’re engineered with an extruder similar to the type used with FDM printing, and are able to print in polylactic acid (PLA). The spider-bots are equipped with an onboard camera and a laser scanner as well, which enables them to become aware of the surrounding environment during the print job. Software-wise, they’re all programmed with a modified version of Siemens’ NX PLM software, which is their product development, engineering, and manufacturing software solution. In the near-future, the Siemens research team hopes to utilize these spider-bots within the automotive and aerospace industries.

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Every year, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program puts out the call to the general public, hoping to find better or entirely new aerospace architectures, systems, or mission ideas. As part of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, this program has been in operation since 1998, serving as a high-level entry point to entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers who want to contribute to human space exploration.

This year, thirteen concepts were chosen for Phase I of the NIAC program, ranging from reprogrammed microorganisms for Mars, a two-dimensional spacecraft that could de-orbit space debris, an analog rover for extreme environments, a robot that turn asteroids into spacecraft, and a next-generation exoplanet hunter. These proposals were awarded $100,000 each for a nine month period to assess the feasibility of their concept.

Of the thirteen proposals, four came from NASA’s own Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with the remainder coming either from other NASA bodies, private research institutions, universities and aerospace companies from around the country. Taken as a whole, these ideas serve to illustrate of the kinds of missions NASA intends to purse in the coming years, as well as the cutting-edge technology they hope to leverage to make them happen.

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