Lifeboat Foundation

On Wednesday, at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in Geneva, a panel of government experts debated policy options regarding lethal autonomous weapons.

Dutch NGO Pax created a report that surveyed major players from the sector on their view of lethal autonomous weapons. They categorised companies based on 3 criteria: whether they were developing technology that’s potentially relevant to deadly AI, working on related military products, and if they had committed to abstaining from contributing in the future.

By these criteria, Microsoft scores rather highly in the birthplace of Skynet rankings. Microsoft has invested extensively in developing artificial intelligence products, has very close relationships with the US military, and Satya Nadella has committed to providing the military with their very best technology. While Microsoft has fallen short of explicitly developing AI for military purposes, we do know that they have developed a version of the HoloLens for the military that is specifically designed to increase the lethality of soldiers in the field.

Johnny 5 saves the day as he chases down that bad guy Oscar.

Should citizenship be restricted to humans?

Scene taken from the film Short Circuit 2 (1988).

FAIR USE NOTICE:

Continue reading “Johnny 5 — The First Robotic US Citizen” »

An asteroid larger than some of the world’s tallest buildings will zip by Earth next month.

Ummmn o.o!

How are black holes born? Astrophysicists have theories, but we don’t actually know for certain. It could be massive stars quietly imploding with a floompf, or perhaps black holes are born in the explosions of colossal supernovas. New observations now indicate it might indeed be the latter.

In fact, the research suggests that those explosions are so powerful, they can kick the black holes across the galaxy at speeds greater than 70 kilometres per second (43 miles per second).

Continue reading “Millions of High-Speed Black Holes Could Be Zooming Around The Milky Way” »

Y. Haile-Selassie et al. A 3.8-million-year-old hominin cranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia. Nature. Published online August 28, 2019. doi:10.1038/s41586-019‑1513-8.

B.Z. Saylor et al. Age and context of mid-Pliocene hominin cranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia. Nature. Published online August 28, 2019. doi:10.1038/s41586-019‑1514-7.

Continue reading “A hominid skull fossil reveals the face of Lucy’s possible ancestors” »

An international team of researchers led by the University of Tokyo has discovered a new material which, when rolled into a nanotube, generates an electric current if exposed to light. If magnified and scaled up, say the scientists, the technology could be used in future high-efficiency solar devices.

• Technology and R&D
• Germany
• Japan

MIT, Analog get into some RISC-y business.