After you heard President Barack Obama’s call for a hike in the minimum wage, you probably wondered the same thing I did: Was Obama sent from the future by Skynet to prepare humanity for its ultimate dominion by robots?
But just in case the question didn’t occur to you, let me explain. On Tuesday, the day before Obama called for an increase in the minimum wage, the restaurant chain Applebee’s announced that it will install iPad-like tablets at every table. Chili’s already made this move earlier this year.
With these consoles customers will be able to order their meals and pay their checks without dealing with a waiter or waitress. Both companies insist that they won’t be changing their staffing levels, but if you’ve read any science fiction, you know that’s what the masterminds of every robot takeover say: “We’re here to help. We’re not a threat.”
The company plans to launch expand its research laboratory dedicated entirely to artificial intelligence, and has hired New York University professor Yann LeCun to spearhead the effort.
The goal, according to LeCun, is long-term: To bring about major advances in the field, while doubling down in a research partnership with NYU to intensely study machine learning, data science and artificial intelligence.
The news of the hire, which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to announce at an industry conference on Monday, comes courtesy of LeCun himself, who posted his new position at Facebook to his Google+ and Facebook pages (thanks, Yann!). LeCun plans to continue working and teaching at NYU, as well.
“The new AI Group at Facebook will have locations in Menlo Park, CA, in London, UK, and at Facebook’s new facility in New York City, one block away from NYU’s main campus,” LeCun wrote.
In the wake of the tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, last December, many called for stricter gun control. Others called for better mental health care. Some called for more guns in the hands of teachers and school security officers.
Knightscope, a Silicon Valley startup, called for more robots.
“We founded Knightscope after what happened at Sandy Hook. You are never going to have an armed officer in every school,” William Santana Li, co-founder and CEO, told the New York Times.
Hardly a day goes by where we’re not reminded about how robots are taking our jobs and hollowing out the middle class. The worry is so acute that economists are busy devising new social contracts to cope with a potentially enormous class of obsolete humans.
I’ll repeat that: In 267 brisk pages, Barrat lays out just how the artificial intelligence (AI) that companies like Google and governments like our own are racing to perfect could — indeed, likely will — advance to the point where it will literally destroy all human life on Earth. Not put it out of work. Not meld with it in a utopian fusion. Destroy it.
Thousands of people die every year due to drunk driving. It’s a statistic that’s both appalling and frightening. We all like to party, but then when the party’s over, many still refuse to recognize the danger they not only put themselves in, but others as well when they choose to drive while mentally impaired. Thankfully a lot of potential situations are averted every year as well due to taxi services, or even friends willing to drive them home.
Today, however, we live in a very sensor-oriented society. Our phones have sensors. Our homes have sensors. Our tablets have sensors. Our cars have sensors. Take Tesla Motors as an example. They have sensors by their doors which detects whether or not the right driver is approaching the vehicle. If it detects its correct driver, then it’ll extrude the door handle out, ready to be open. If you’re not the correct driver, however, like someone trying to hijack the vehicle, then the door handle will not pop out for you. Sorry.
Another good example is the Mercedes-Benz, which has driving sensors attached to its braking system. If any object in front gets too close, then the brakes kick in automatically, preventing any accident from occurring. Too many fatalities occur due to simple, brief loss of eye contact to the road.
So Mercedes-Benz’s braking sensors represent a revolutionary means of saving thousands of lives every year, just as Tesla provides a revolutionary approach towards alleviating car theft.
And what makes them so damn revolutionary? They create a real relationship between the car and its owner — to not just provide transportation for them, but to actually recognize them and protect them when they’re incapable of doing so themselves.
So imagine with me: It’s 2018 and you’re at a party. A lot of drinking and drugs. You realize it’s already early morning and it’s time to go home and get some rest. So you call for an automated vehicle using Uber’s transportation services. The vehicle arrives 10 minutes later. It recognizes via its sensors the debit card in your wallet used to pay for its transportation services and lets you in the vehicle. You try starting the car yourself, but the car doesn’t let you. Instead it alarms you of your blood alcohol content and tells you that it cannot allow you to drive yourself while intoxicated. Given its automated system, it drives you home itself.
Is this not the type of transportation system we’d want as a society keen on safety above all else? I’d surely hope so, because this isn’t just some mere science-fiction tale. It’s a science-fact in the making, which can be seen every year as our cars get smarter and more integrated with our own personal needs and desires. We’ll never be alone — always watched and observed. That may sound scary, but when compared to hundreds of thousands of people dying every year due to car accidents, I find the above prospect of an automobile-sensor revolution to be “heaven on Earth.”
Online shopping is not the most glamorous aspect of the digital revolution, but it has just become the latest Silicon Valley battleground, with droids racing drones to become the courier of the future.
First Amazon promised to eliminate the drudgery of the post office queue with parcels delivered by drone. Now Google has revealed that it is developing humanoid robots that could one day carry groceries to your door.
Andy Rubin, the Google executive who brought smartphones to the masses by developing Google’s free Android software, has revealed he is working on a secret project for the search engine company to create a new generation of robots.
Rubin resigned unexpectedly from running Android in March, and over the past six months has quietly overseen Google’s acquisition of seven small companies whose combined technology could be used to create a robot with animal characteristics such as a form of vision and moving limbs.
“With robotics it’s a green field,” Rubin told the New York Times. “We’re building hardware, we’re building software, We’re building systems, so one team will be able to understand the whole stack.”
Body piercings have been used to control wheelchairs and computers in a move scientists believe could transform the way people interact with the world after paralysis.
The movement of a tiny magnet in a tongue piercing is detected by sensors and converted into commands, which can control a range of devices.
The US team said it was harnessing the tongue’s “amazing” deftness.
The development is reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The team at the Georgia Institute of Technology made the unlikely leap from body art to wheelchairs because the tongue is so spectacularly supple.
A large section of the brain is dedicated to controlling the tongue because of its role in speech. It is also unaffected by spinal cord injuries that can render the rest of the body paralysed, tetraplegic, as it has its own hotline to the brain.
“We are tapping in to the inherent capabilities of the tongue, it is such an amazing part of the body,” Dr Maysam Ghovanloo told the BBC.
The combination of the two technologies could be an important step toward the development of useful, practical telemedicine.
VIPAAR (Virtual Interactive Presence in Augmented Reality) is commercializing a UAB-developed technology that provides real-time, two-way, interactive video conferencing.
General Electric (GE), on the hunt for ways to build more than 85,000 fuel nozzles for its new Leap jet engines, is making a big investment in 3D printing. Usually the nozzles are assembled from 20 different parts. Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing can create the units in one metal piece, through a successive layering of materials. The process is more efficient and can be used to create designs that can’t be made using traditional techniques, GE says. The finished product is stronger and lighter than those made on the assembly line and can withstand the extreme temperatures (up to 2,400F) inside an engine. There’s just one problem: Today’s industrial 3D printers don’t have enough capacity to handle GE’s production needs, which require faster, higher-quality output at a lower cost.
In the next five years, the Internet retail giant expects to use small drones to deliver packages to customer doorsteps within 30 minutes of their order.
Amazon is testing a delivery service that uses drones to deliver packages within 30 minutes of an order being placed.
Dubbed Amazon PrimeAir, the service uses 8-propeller drones about the size of a remote-controlled airplane to transport shoe-box-size plastic bins from fulfillment centers to customers’ homes. The service, which still requires more testing and clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration, could take to the skies as soon as four to five years, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told Charlie Rose during an interview Sunday on “60 Minutes.”
The completely unmanned aerial vehicles rely on GPS to deliver their cargo, Bezos explained during the segment (see below), which included an Amazon film of the drones in action.
“I know this looks like science fiction — it’s not,” Bezos said.
