Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: robotics/AI – Page 2,414

The Navy’s Knifefish underwater mine hunting drone recently helped identify and destroy a number of targets in a key test of the system’s development, service officials said.

During a recent assessment in Narragansett Bay, R.I., the 21-foot Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) used low-frequency broadband synthetic aperture sonar to find stealthy undersea mine targets, said Capt. Jon Rucker, program manager, Unmanned Maritime Systems, PEO LCS.

“We put eight targets down across a range. The vehicle went around to detect the targets,” Rucker explained.

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In Brief

  • Watson was originally seen as mostly a breakthrough medical tool but has since been used in a much wider range of applications, including retail
  • Even Geico currently uses IBM Watson, they use the AI program in 46 states to deliver a better digital experience to their customers

IBM understands the unique nature of its artificial intelligence (AI) software assistant Watson, and so they are not taking the direct consumer approach of Siri, Cortana, Alexa, or Google’s Assistant.

In partnership with H&R Block, Watson is being trained “on the language of taxes,” according to IBM’s press release announcing Watson’s new role as the world’s first AI tax preparation assistant.

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Zaptec has a new plasma drilling technology which could achieve practical, affordable, and reliable deep drilling on the Moon, asteroids, Mars, and its moons. The drilling system comprises a freely advancing drill head tethered by a power cable to a power source topside and high voltage generator downhole. The drill advances by generating a high-energy density plasma at the drill head which breaks down and pulverizes the target rock. A key enabling technology is the system’s ability to deliver high energy plasma discharges via low mass, small volume power transformers located in the drill head section. Powder cuttings may be removed by circulating compressed CO2.

Zaptec on the Moon

On the Moon, the subsurface in the polar regions may be a repository of volatiles of value to science and as a potential resource for future human exploration. A Zaptec drill could be deployed on a future robotic lunar lander mission, such as Moon Express, or in the context of human missions. The fine dust from drilling goes through the unit, is analysed, and then sprayed into a dust exhaust in contact with the surface vacuum. An alternative scenario is to expand the module with a processing unit which sorts out minerals from H2O/CO2 ice. The mineral dust can then be used as raw materials for local manufacturing.

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While the USA has been extremely concerned about losing jobs (particularly manufacturing jobs to China), China performed a survey of businesses in the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing and found that 25% had moved or were planning to move their businesses out of China. Half were going to other Asian countries and 40% to America, Canada or Mexico.

China’s worker wages are rising about 7–8% each year and they have a shrinking working age population as the people age.

China is making big moves in automation and large scale deployment of robotics. In 2014, President Xi Jinping talked about a robotics revolution. China has been the number one buyer of industrial robots since 2013. However, China lags other nations in terms of robots per worker.

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We will need a good dose of healthy stoicism if we are to survive in the world after work. Luxury items will be significantly reduced in the world we’re imagining. Stoics like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca recommended that we adjust our desires to simple, reliable pleasures, like fresh water, decent bread, modest clothing, and good friends. Luxury pleasures are rare and unreliable so we suffer more when they fail to materialize.

But chocolate cake is delicious and diamonds are beautiful. When Plato sketched a Spartan lifestyle in the Republic, his friends accused him of designing a city for pigs not humans — and they demanded that he add spices and luxury to the imagined utopia. While I’m sensitive to this worry, I hasten to point out that many Americans are currently, and by their own initiative, downsizing their sense of the good life. The contemporary “tiny house movement” — which builds elegant housing around 1/10th the size of average homes — is already the kind of stoic adjustment that Americans will need to make when we’re all unemployed.

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