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Robot doctors, virtual reality vacations and smart toothbrushes. These are just a few of the things the world can expect to see in the not-so-distant future, says Stanford and Duke researcher and lecturer Vivek Wadhwa.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 300 people in Palm Beach in December at billionaire Jeff Greene’s “Closing the Gap” conference, which addressed the growing divide between the wealthy and poor and how the rise of machines might kill white-collar jobs, Wadhwa sketched a sci-fi vision for the future that he says will soon be a reality thanks to rapid technological innovation.

“The future is going to be happening much, much faster than anyone ever imagined,” said Wadhwa, explaining that tech growth has been exponential — meaning as technology advances it does so with increasing speed.

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Before each Computerphile interview we asked guests and regular contributors about their first computer.

Professor Uwe Aickelin: Missing Data: https://youtu.be/oCQbC818KKU
Professor Ross Anderson: Chip & PIN Fraud: https://youtu.be/Ks0SOn8hjG8

Spencer Lamb: Inside a Data Centre: https://youtu.be/fd3kSdu4W7c
Tom Scott: Animated GIFs and Space vs Time: http://youtu.be/blSzwPcL5Dw

Horia Maior: Brain Scanner: COMING SOON!

YourStory-OpenAI

““Our trust in complex systems stems mostly from understanding their predictability, whether it is nuclear reactors, lathe machines, or 18-wheelers; or of course, AI. If complex systems are not open to be used, extended, and learned about, they end up becoming yet another mysterious thing for us, ones that we end up praying to and mythifying. The more open we make AI, the better.””

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(credit: OpenAI)

Elon Musk and associates announced OpenAI, a non-profit AI research company, on Friday (Dec. 11), committing $1 billion toward their goal to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”

The funding comes from a group of tech leaders including Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and Amazon Web Services, but the venture expects to only spend “a tiny fraction of this in the next few years.”

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