Lifeboat Foundation

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are currently affecting our lives in many small but impactful ways. For example, AI and machine learning applications recommend entertainment we might enjoy through streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify.

In the near future, it’s predicted that these technologies will have an even larger impact on society through activities such as driving fully autonomous vehicles, enabling complex scientific research and facilitating medical discoveries.

But the computers used for AI and machine learning demand a lot of energy. Currently, the need for computing power related to these technologies is doubling roughly every three to four months. And cloud computing data centers used by AI and machine learning applications worldwide are already devouring more electrical power per year than some small countries. It’s easy to see that this level of energy consumption is unsustainable.

I propose an underlying process which constitutes our intelligence as human beings, and argue that our current AI systems fundamentally lack it.

Sources:
John Vervaeke, Timothy P. Lillicrap, Blake A. Richards — Relevance Realization and the Emerging Framework in Cognitive Science http://www.ipsi.utoronto.ca/sdis/Relevance-Published.pdf.
Daniel Dennnett — Cognitive Wheels: The Frame Problem of AI https://folk.idi.ntnu.no/gamback/teaching/TDT4138/dennett84.pdf.
Francisco J. Varela, Eleanor Rosch and Evan Thompson — The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience.

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They are.

The cyborgs are upon us. Turns out, they’re more ‘enhanced reality’ and less ‘science fiction.’

In 1998, Professor of Cybernetics Kevin Warwick had a chip implanted in his body that would open electronic doors and turn on lights as he passed. In 2002, he had a 100 electrode array wired into the nervous system of his arm to allow him to remotely control an artificial hand. Today, he’s working on using animal brain cells as a control system for robots.

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And it looks like a big yak.

China’s state media, the Global Times, claims the country has developed the world’s largest electric-powered quadruped bionic robot. And to be honest, that thing looks just like a yak.

Bizarre appearances aside, this comes as the latest in China’s push to become a global leader in robotics by 2025. And also, of course, in military tech.… See more.

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Made from the stem cells of a frog, are tiny living machines. And researchers have just debuted version 2.0.

Digital Twins are virtual models of the physical world. They use the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and complex data in models that create insights and support (real-time) decision making. It is perhaps healthcare that holds the greatest potential for Digital Twins.

China has introduced what it claims to be the world’s largest electrically-powered quadruped robot to assist the military on logistics and reconnaissance missions.

With a “yak-like appearance,” the four-legged robot can reportedly carry up to 352 pounds (160 kilograms) of payload and run at six miles (10 kilometers) per hour.

Continue reading “China Unveils ‘World’s Largest’ Quadruped Military Robot” »

Mock seemed pleased with the outcome. “You could look at this and say, ‘O.K., the A.I. got five, our human got zero,’” he told viewers. “From the fighter-pilot world, we trust what works, and what we saw was that in this limited area, this specific scenario, we’ve got A.I. that works.” (A YouTube video of the trials has since garnered half a million views.)

Brett Darcey, who runs Heron, told me that the company has used Falco to fly drones, completing seventy-four flights with zero crashes. But it’s still unclear how the technology will react to the infinite possibilities of real-world conditions. The human mind processes more slowly than a computer, but it has the cognitive flexibility to adapt to unimagined circumstances; artificial intelligence, so far, does not. Anna Skinner, a human-factors psychologist, and another science adviser to the ACE program, told me, “Humans are able to draw on their experience and take reasonable actions in the face of uncertainty. And, especially in a combat situation, uncertainty is always going to be present.”