Aug 24, 2014
Meet the magical computing that puts the human into artificial intelligence
Posted by Seb in category: robotics/AI
by Ben Medlock — CityAM
by Ben Medlock — CityAM
BPM 31510 is just another cancer drug in human development trials, except for one thing. Scientists didn’t toil away in labs to come up with it; artificial intelligence did.
The cancer drug development process is costly and time-consuming. On average, it takes 24 to 48 months and upwards of $100 million to find a suitable candidate. Add that to the fact that 95% of all potential drugs fail in clinical trials, and the inefficiencies of the whole drug-discovery machine really become apparent.
Backed by real estate billionaire Carl Berg, eponymous biotech startup Berg wants to use artificial intelligence to design cancer drugs that are cheaper, have fewer side effects, and can be developed in half the time it normally takes. BPM 31510 is the first of Berg’s drugs to get a real-world test.
Tom Cheredar — Venture Beat
When a billionaire investor responsible for disrupting credit/payments, automotive, and space travel industries communicates a warning to the world about a trend in new technologies, it’s best just to listen.
Case in point, yesterday SpaceX and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk told people to be careful when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), which he said could be “potentially more dangerous” than nuclear weapons, according to a tweet sent yesterday. (The tweet came just an hour after Musk offered his thoughts on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie, so take that however you will.)
Written By: Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub
Japan likes robots. And while some Americans raised on a confusing sci-fi diet of Star Wars, Terminator, and iRobot are perhaps a little wary of advanced AI and robotics—Japan simply can’t wait for the “robot revolution.”
In a recent tour of Japanese robotics firms, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe declared his intention to create a government task force to study and propose strategies for tripling the size of Japan’s robotics industry to $24 billion.
And one more thing, Abe said, “In 2020, I would like to gather all of the world’s robots and aim to hold an Olympics where they compete in technical skills.”
While mere mortals compete in the 2020 summer Olympics in Tokyo—in a stadium somewhere nearby, the world’s most advanced robots may go head to head in events showcasing their considerable prowess (hopefully by then, right?).
Daniel Faggella — Beta Boston
Looking back to 1950s predictions of what robots might be capable of in the year 2000 is nothing short of humorous — unless you’re in the field of robotics, where the lack of consumer progress can be frustrating. Besides the Roomba, home robotics still has not hit the mainstream, but that might be set to finally change.
The secret to the latest push for home robotics is the technology already sitting in our pocket. The mobile phone.
AN ACTUAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CEO AND THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CHIEF STRATEGIST!
AN ACTUAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CEO AND THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CHIEF STRATEGIST!
QUESTION: HOW CAN WE ILLUSTRATE MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI’S CONCURRENT COORDINATED CONVERGENT SYSTEMS THINKING (CCCST): ARTICULATED UNDER INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION AND AMPLIFICATION (IAA) VIA ASIN: B00KNL02ZE ANSWER: BY PAYING ATTENTION TO AN INDOORS INTERVIEW BY THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL HERE:
Here’s one potential problem with that proposal—one that has very little to do with the law, and very much to do with technology: “The government has virtually no experts on the inside that understand autonomous robotic systems.”
That’s according to Missy Cummings, a professor of engineering at Duke, an expert on drones and other robots, and a former fighter pilot. Cummings came to that conclusion—one that means, she says, that “the United States government is in serious trouble”—while advising the government in, among other things, its development of a $100 million robotic helicopter program.
By James Temple — Re/Co[de
Emerald Therapeutics is developing potential treatments for viral infections like HIV and HPV. But they’re not ready to talk about that yet.
What the stealth startup is ready to discuss is a tool they built in an effort to accelerate that work: A completely robotic lab that the company believes could aid other researchers as well, effectively serving as a kind of Amazon Web Services for science.
The nearly 20-person company has packed a 5,000-square-foot facility in a little office park in Silicon Valley with more than $2 million worth of mass spectrometers, automated pipettes and microscopes, capable of carrying out remote life sciences experiments under controlled conditions.
By Daniela Hernandez — Wired
Long Island dermatologist Kavita Mariwalla knows how to treat acne, burns, and rashes. But when a patient came in with a potentially disfiguring case of bullous pemphigoid–a rare skin condition that causes large, watery blisters–she was stumped. The medication doctors usually prescribe for the autoimmune disorder wasn’t available. So she logged in to Modernizing Medicine, a web-based repository of medical information and insights.
Within seconds, she had the name of another drug that had worked in comparable cases. “It gives you access to data, and data is king,” Mariwalla says of Modernizing Medicine. “It’s been very helpful, especially in clinically challenging situations.”