Lifeboat Foundation

Signal says it will start to phase out SMS and MMS message support from its Android app to streamline the user experience and prioritize security and privacy.

While this announcement may surprise those who don’t know Signal can also be used to manage this type of text message, the Signal for Android app could be configured as the default SMS/MMS app since its beginning as TextSecure, an app that used the Axolotl Ratchet protocol.

“We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense. In order to enable a more streamlined Signal experience, we are starting to phase out SMS support from the Android app,” the company said in a blog post published today.

Generalized in-hand manipulation has long been an unsolved challenge of robotics. As a small step towards this grand goal, we demonstrate how to design and learn a simple adaptive controller to achieve in-hand object rotation using only fingertips. The controller is trained entirely in simulation on only cylindrical objects, which then – without any fine-tuning – can be directly deployed to a real robot hand to rotate dozens of objects with diverse sizes, shapes, and weights over the z-axis. This is achieved via rapid online adaptation of the robot’s controller to the object properties using only proprioception history. Furthermore, natural and stable finger gaits automatically emerge from training the control policy via reinforcement learning.

This book explores the psychological impact of advanced forms of artificial intelligence. How will it be to live with a superior intelligence? How will the exposure to highly developed artificial intelligence (AI) systems change human well-being? With a review of recent advancements in brain–computer interfaces, military AI, Explainable AI (XAI) and digital clones as a foundation, the experience of living with a hyperintelligence is discussed from the viewpoint of a clinical psychologist. The theory of universal solicitation is introduced, i.e. the demand character of a technology that wants to be used in all aspects of life. With a focus on human experience, and to a lesser extent on technology, the book is written for a general readership with an interest in psychology, technology and the future of our human condition. With its unique focus on psychological topics, the book offers contributions to a discussion on the future of human life beyond purely technological considerations.

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An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a blueprint for creating algorithms that more effectively incorporate ethical guidelines into artificial intelligence (AI) decision-making programs. The project was focused specifically on technologies in which humans interact with AI programs, such as virtual assistants or “carebots” used in healthcare settings.

“Technologies like carebots are supposed to help ensure the safety and comfort of hospital patients, older adults and other people who require health monitoring or physical assistance,” says Veljko Dubljević, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor in the Science, Technology & Society program at North Carolina State University. “In practical terms, this means these technologies will be placed in situations where they need to make ethical judgments.”

“For example, let’s say that a carebot is in a setting where two people require medical assistance. One patient is unconscious but requires urgent care, while the second patient is in less urgent need but demands that the carebot treat him first. How does the carebot decide which patient is assisted first? Should the carebot even treat a patient who is unconscious and therefore unable to consent to receiving the treatment?”

The Biden administration unveiled a set of far-reaching goals Tuesday aimed at averting harms caused by the rise of artificial intelligence systems, including guidelines for how to protect people’s personal data and limit surveillance.

The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights notably does not set out specific enforcement actions, but instead is intended as a White House call to action for the U.S. government to safeguard digital and civil rights in an AI-fueled world, officials said.

“This is the Biden-Harris administration really saying that we need to work together, not only just across government, but across all sectors, to really put equity at the center and civil rights at the center of the ways that we make and use and govern technologies,” said Alondra Nelson, deputy director for science and society at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “We can and should expect better and demand better from our technologies.”

Moving towards Artificial General Intelligence?

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Summary: A new artificial intelligence model automatically learns higher-level language patterns that can apply to different languages, enabling it to achieve better results.

Source: McGill University.

Human languages are notoriously complex, and linguists have long thought it would be impossible to teach a machine how to analyze speech sounds and word structures in the way humans do.

Humanoid artificial intelligence is coming and there’s a good chance it may come to life in Vancouver.

That’s because some of the brains at work creating AI – human-like AI – live and work here. The odds that they will succeed are high, they have an amazing track record. One of those brains is the mastermind behind the development of quantum computing that has manifested itself into the company known as D-Wave.

Continue reading “Can AI change the meaning of being human? (w/ Geordie Rose, Sanctuary AI)” »

Live biological neurons show more about how a brain works than AI ever will.

Scientists have shown for the first time that 800,000 brain cells living in a dish can perform goal-directed tasks. In this case, they played the simple tennis-like computer game, Pong. The results of the Melbourne-led study are published today (October 12) in the journal Neuron.

Now the researchers are going to investigate what happens when their DishBrain is affected by medicines and alcohol.