Scientists are able to shrink objects

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

15-12-2018 om 17:36 geschreven door peter  

DeepMind is on the forefront of artificial intelligence (A.I.). The computer system it developed, known as AlphaZero, amazed (and terrified) the world in 2017 when it was able to defeat human chess masters at their own game, despite only learning it four hours previous to the matches. That machine has been tested numerous times by even more chess grandmasters, and now people are seeing it do something not yet seen within machines – it is improvising.

Not only was AlphaZero a master at chess, it has also taught itself games such as shogi, commonly called Japanese chess, and Go. In each attempt, AlphaZero was able to beat the previous world champions of the games, who were all human. On DeepMind’s website, developers say they are “thrilled” to see the program developing improvisation and intuition skills, which are not previously known to be in machines.

In a paper published in Science Magazine, it is stated the machine’s ability to master the complicated game of Go and defeat the world champion showed it had use of “deep convolutional neural networks” because it developed a massive knowledge of the game simply by playing it repeatedly to the point the writers of the paper said it has “superhuman performance” in the game.

Computers have been beating humans at chess since 1997, but the addition of shogi, which is far more complicated than chess, and Go, which relies on practice and intuition, shows AlphaZero is able to not only defeat humans at their own games, but ultimately learn how to do it in better and more efficient ways.

When pitted against another chess computer, Stockfish, AlphaZero won 155 of 1,000 matches, with six losses and the rest being draws. Unlike most chess-playing A.I.’s, however, AlphaZero does not prefer to save its pieces, instead opting to sacrifice them for the greater good.

This ability comes from what developers describe as a “neural network with millions of different tunable parameters, each learning its own rules of what is good in chess.” With all of these variables, the machine, much like a human, can look at a situation and know what the best thing to do is.

AlphaZero began with a blank slate mind, developing strategies and tactics based only on the basic rules of the games it plays. It developed its human-like ability to play games based on its experiences.

While many prominent thinkers such as Elon Musk have warned against A.I., citing the possibility such mechanical minds could ultimately lead to human extinction, DeepMind researchers believe studying the way this machine learns how to play games can lead to real issues, such as why proteins become misfolded in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. That protein folding conundrum is ultimately the goal of A.I.’s such as AlphaZero built by DeepMind.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

12-12-2018 om 16:01 geschreven door peter  

Brian Merchant

Artificial intelligence is already beginning to spiral out of our control, a new report from top researchers warns. Not so much in a Skynet kind of sense, but more in a ‘technology companies and governments are already using AI in ways that amp up surveillance and further marginalize vulnerable populations’ kind of way.

On Thursday, the AI Now Institute, which is affiliated with New York University and is home to top AI researchers with Google and Microsoft, released a report detailing, essentially, the state of AI in 2018, and the raft of disconcerting trends unfolding in the field. What we broadly define as AI—machine learning, automated systems, etc.—is currently being developed faster than our regulatory system is prepared to handle, the report says. And it threatens to consolidate power in the tech companies and oppressive governments that deploy AI while rendering just about everyone else more vulnerable to its biases, capacities for surveillance, and myriad dysfunctions.

The report contains 10 recommendations for policymakers, all of which seem sound, as well as a diagnosis of the most potentially destructive trends. “Governments need to regulate AI,” the first recommendation exhorts, “by expanding the powers of sector-specific agencies to oversee, audit, and monitor these technologies by domain.” One massive Department of AI or such that attempts to regulate the field writ large won’t cut it, researchers warn—the report suggests regulators follow examples like the one set by the Federal Aviation Administration and tackle AI as it manifests field by field.

But it also conveys a succinct assessment of the key problem areas in AI as they stand in 2018. As detailed by AI Now, they are:

1. The accountability gap between those who build the AI systems (and profit off of them) and those who stand to be impacted by the systems (you and me) is growing. Don’t like the idea of being subjected to artificially intelligent systems that harvest your personal data or determine various outcomes for you? Too bad! The report finds that the recourse most public citizens have to address the very artificially intelligent systems that may impact them is shrinking, not growing.
2. AI is being used to amplify surveillance, often in horrifying ways. If you think the surveillance capacities of facial recognition technology are disturbing, wait till you see its even less scrupulous cousin, affect recognition. The Intercept’s Sam Biddle has a good write-up of the report’s treatment of affect recognition, which is basically modernized phrenology, practiced in real time.
3. The government is embracing autonomous decision software in the name of cost-savings, but these systems are often a disaster for the disadvantaged. From systems that purport to streamline benefits application processes online to those that claim to be able to determine who’s eligible for housing, so-called ADS systems are capable of uploading bias and erroneously rejecting applicants on baseless grounds. As Virginia Eubanks details in her book Automating Inequality, the people these systems fail are those who are least able to muster the time and resources necessary to address them.
4. AI testing “in the wild” is rampant already. “Silicon Valley is known for its ‘move fast and break things’ mentality,” the report notes, and that is leading to companies testing AI systems in the public sector—or releasing them into the consumer space outright—without substantial oversight. The recent track record of Facebook—the original move fast, break thingser and AI evangelist—alone is example enough of why this strategy can prove disastrous.
5. Technological fixes to biased or problematic AI systems are proving inadequate. Google made waves when it announced it was tackling the ethics of machine learning, but efforts like these are already proving too narrow and technically oriented. Engineers tend to think they can fix engineering problems with, well, more engineering. But what is really required, the report argues, is a much deeper understanding of the history and social contexts of the datasets AI systems are trained on.

The full report is well worth reading, both for a tour of the myriad ways AI entered the public sphere—and collided with the public interest—in 2018, and for a detailed recipe for how our institutions might stay on top of this ever-complicating situation.

---

• This story is part of Automaton, an ongoing investigation into the impacts of AI and automation on the human landscape. For tips, feedback, or other ideas about living with the robots, I can be reached at bmerchant@gizmodo.com.

{ https://gizmodo.com/ }

11-12-2018 om 00:18 geschreven door peter  

MIT designs and builds a plant-robot plantborg that can move towards light

BY ALEXANDRU MICU 

An MIT Media Lab team build a plant-cyborg. Its name is Elowan, and it can move around.

Image credits Harpreet Sareen, Elbert Tiao // MIT Media Labs.

For most people, the word ‘cyborg’ doesn’t bring images of plants to mind — but it does at MIT’s Media Lab. Researchers in Harpreet Sareen’s lab at MIT have combined a plant with electronics to allow it to move. The cyborg — Elowan — relies on the plant’s sensory abilities to detect light and an electric motor to follow it.

Our photosynthesizing overlords

Plants are actually really good at detecting light. Sunflowers are a great example: you can actually see them move to follow the sun on its heavenly trek. Prior research has shown that plants accomplish this through the use of several natural sensors and response systems — among others, they keep track of humidity, temperature levels, and the amount of water in the soil.

However, plant’s aren’t very good at moving to a different place even if their ‘sensor and response systems’ tell them conditions aren’t very great. The MIT team wanted to fix that. They planned to give one plant more autonomy by fitting its pot with wheels, an electric motor, and assorted electrical sensors.

The way the cyborg works is relatively simple. The sensors pick up on the electrical signals generated by the plant and generate commands for the motor and wheels based on them. The result is, in effect, a plant that can move closer to light sources. The researchers proved this by placing the cyborg between two table lamps and then turning them on or off. The plant moved itself, with no prodding, toward the light that was turned on.

While undeniably funny, the research is practical, too. Elowan could be modified in such a way as to allow it to move solar panels on a house’s roof to maximize their light exposure. Alternatively, additional sensors and controlling units would allow a similar cyborg to maintain optimal temperature and humidity levels in, say, an office. With this in mind, the team plans to continue their research, including more species of plants to draw on their unique evolutionary adaptations.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

07-12-2018 om 22:58 geschreven door peter  

While we all tacitly agree not to think about the many secret Island of Doctor Moreau-style genetic research labs hidden throughout the world creating horrible genetic hybrids and superhumans as we speak, last week’s very public announcement of the successful births of two twins whose genes were altered using CRISPR/Cas-9 shocked the world due to its brazenness. According to a video posted to YouTube, a Chinese researcher named He Jiankui claims to have modified the genomes of twin baby girls in order to make them completely resistant to HIV.

What could go wrong?

Within hours, the scientific community and journalists around the world began to criticize the experiment as reckless and dangerous, even going so far as to call He the “Chinese Frankenstein.” Harvard and MIT’s David Liu, one of the inventors of CRISPR techniques, called the experiment “an appalling example of what not to do about a promising technology that has great potential to benefit society,” adding he hopes “it never happens again.” Who knew tampering with the genetic makeup of living human beings would be so controversial? Aside from, you know, everyone. Aside from the criticism, the story of He Jiankui and the genetically modified twins has taken a turn for the strange this week when the researcher seems to have gone mysteriously missing. Where could He be?

Probably making Christmas lights in a Chinese prison.

There are conflicting reports about He’s whereabouts and Chinese news outlets are predictably tight-lipped about the matter. When asked about the geneticist, a spokeswoman for the Southern University of Science and Technology where He was an employee gave a rather enigmatic statement:

Right now nobody’s information is accurate, only the official channels are. We cannot answer any questions regarding the matter right now, but if we have any information, we will update it through our official channels.

Of course, their official channels have not been updated. In the meantime, He’s laboratory has been shut down by Chinese authorities who stated that “clinical procedures of gene-editing on human embryos for reproduction purposes are explicitly banned in China.” Is He merely in hiding to avoid all of the negative press and criticism from the entire scientific community, or has he been disappeared in classically Chinese fashion for causing the Middle Kingdom to lose face? Until – or if – this “Chinese Frankenstein” resurfaces, this one will remain a mystery.

Ah, who are we kidding? He’s organs have already been harvested in the back of a mobile execution van. Such is the price of scientific “progress.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-12-2018 om 18:35 geschreven door peter  

While businesses in the U.S. struggle to decide the future of autonomous cars and how (or if) the public will receive and use them (attacking driverless vehicles is not a good sign; autonomous cars in fatal accidents is even worse), China announced it is building an entire autonomous, robots-only city … under the ocean … as a port and laboratory for unmanned submarines … and it’s named after Hades, the mythological king of the underworld. Are you worried yet?

“It is as challenging as building a colony on another planet for robotic residents with artificial intelligence. The technology can change the world.”

Or take it over? South China Morning Post quotes an unnamed scientist who has a rosy view of the Hadal zone project – a robotic Atlantis in the deepest trench of the South China Sea. It’s pictured as an underwater space station with multiple platforms and docks for subsea drones. It’s projected to cost Chinese taxpayers just 1.1 billion yuan (US$160 million), with much of the funding going to developing materials that can withstand the pressure at that depth … not to mention the volcanoes.

If you’re going to build the world’s first and deepest autonomous Atlantis, you might as well pick the worst place and most dangerous place imaginable – the Manila Trench in the South China Sea where, at a depth of 5,400 meters, the southeastern part of Eurasian plate meets the Pacific plate and create sizeable underwater volcanoes and earthquakes that could affect large parts of the surface with quakes and tsunamis. Throw in the fact that the South China Sea is a politically volatile area causing disturbances between the governments and militaries of China and the Philippines, and you have to wonder what other reasons may have prompted China to pick this area … and why it will be unmanned.

“China and the Philippines should sit down and discuss it. A tsunami [warning] is a big selling point. Data collected by the station would benefit all countries in the region. It could save many lives.”

Professor Yan Pin, a researcher at the Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou, pushes the ideas that this will primarily be an earthquake and tsunami warning station and the data it collects will be shared with the Philippines and other countries. China’s President Xi Jinping, in a speech designed to inspire the engineers working on the project, called it a “march into the ocean to accelerate the build-up of maritime power.” Dr Du Qinghai, an associate researcher at the Hadal Science and Technology Research Centre at Shanghai Ocean University who is not involved with the project, is blunter.

“No other country has done this before. The project will make China stronger, more advanced. It will boost the material sciences, stimulate innovation and make Chinese manufacturing more competitive. It will make China a world leader in some critical areas.”

China is building an autonomous Atlantis. Its drive for technical superiority and willingness to spend money on may feel threatening but it is also impressive. Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to get excited about automatic parallel parking and Americans are going to movies about Aquaman.

Are you worried yet?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

02-12-2018 om 15:51 geschreven door peter  

‘Crispr-tweeling’ roept heftige reacties op

{ https://www.eoswetenschap.eu/ }

29-11-2018 om 17:57 geschreven door peter  

Here it is: the moment historians will look back upon as the dawn of Homo sapiens superior and the moment when us natural-borns get knocked down a peg on the social hierarchy. For decades, science fiction writers have foretold a future in which genetically-superior humans made possible by gene modification techniques will rise above us lowly normies with their enhanced intelligence and physiology, greater resistance to diseases, and stunning good looks of course. The prospect of editing the human genome has remained taboo, though, for longstanding ethical and moral reasons. Naturally, human-rights-optional China has ignored these and blazed ahead and given the world its first two genetically-modified superbabies whether we want them or not. It begins.

Evolution is just too slow.

This isn’t the first time Chinese scientists have tested CRISPR on humans. As early as 2015, Chinese researchers were already altering the genomes of human embryos in laboratories – embryos which were never gestated. Now, geneticists Southern University of Science and Technology, in Shenzhen have taken these techniques one step further by modifying the genomes of two embryos which were implanted into a human womb via in vitro fertilization. Those embryos are now two happy and healthy baby girls, Lulu and Nana. Scientists led by He Jiankui altered the girls’ genomes so that they will be immune to HIV – in theory. In statements made this week, He assures that the only changes made to the girls’ genomes were to the “doorway” which would allow HIV to potentially infect the girls. Who knows what unforeseen consequences might arise from the editing process, though?

The research has not yet been submitted for peer review and publication, so many scientists remain skeptical of the Chinese team’s claims. Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley who helped develop CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, warns that this trial is a “break from the cautious and transparent approach of the global scientific community’s application of CRISPR-Cas9 for human germline editing” adding that she and other scientists around the world are still “struggling to figure out what was done and also whether the process was done properly. We just don’t know yet.”

What will the future bring us now that we have the potential to alter the human genome as we see fit?

Many nations experimented with eugenics and other controlled breeding programs throughout the 20th century, but the advances made by CRISPR and other recent technologies let scientists remove all uncertainty from the equation (in theory) and edit the human genome on a gene-by-gene basis, opening the doors for all sorts of modifications with unknown long-term consequences.

While removing the chance for these girls to contract HIV can’t possibly be seen as a bad thing, this trial is the first to go over the apex and start sliding down the slipperiest of slopes. What’s next? Removing all cancer genes? Sure. Eradicating mental illnesses through removing their gene markers? Go right ahead. Creating an army of genetic Übermensch (more like 超人) capable of crushing genetically inferior opposing forces?

I, for one, welcome our new genetic overlords.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

27-11-2018 om 00:15 geschreven door peter  

Chinese scientists created the world’s first gene-edited babies

BY TIBI PUIU 

A group of Chinese researchers recruited couples in order to create the first gene-edited babies — a pair of twin girls born earlier this month. The controversial initiative aims to make babies resistant to certain diseases and pathogens, such as HIV infections.

The news was first reported by MIT Technology Review, which obtained official medical documents (1 and 2) filed by researchers at the Southern University of Science and Technology, in Shenzhen.

According to the documents, the Chinese researchers want to use the gene-editing tool CRISPR to modify human embryos and then transfer them into women’s uteruses. They plan to edit the CCR5 gene in such a way as to potentially make the offspring resistant to HIV, smallpox, and cholera. Using the

The team led by He Jiankui previously carried out tests on fetuses as late as 24 weeks, or six months, into the pregnancy. Their first tests on human embryos in a dish were carried in 2015, causing an ethical debate among the scientific community.

Although gene editing on humans is prohibited in most countries (China has banned cloning but not human embryo gene editing specifically), He and colleagues seem nevertheless bent on experimenting with gene editing and human cells. The major concern is that any edits will be passed on to offspring, thus making their way into the gene pool. As such, potentially troublesome mutations could become relatively widespread. On the other hand, even if the gene editing process is flawless, any beneficial gene edits — such as enhanced resistance to disease and even intelligence — could result in unfair advantages and may open the door for eugenic practices.

Jiankui He.

Credit: SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.

It’s all uncharted territory, and the long-term consequences of gene editing on humans can be unpredictable, which is why the scientific community advises caution. In stark contrast to this cautionary approach, He claimed that his team has “a strong responsibility that it’s not just to make a first, but also make it an example.”

He says that the aim of the trial is not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but rather to bestow traits that few people naturally have. Specifically, the ability to resist an infection with HIV, which some individuals from Western European populations have due to a rare CCR5 genetic mutation. This gene forms a protein doorway that allows HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to enter a cell; the mutation alters this doorway, physically blocking the virus from entering the cell.

According to the Associated Press, the Chinese researchers have altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with one pregnancy being carried to term thus far. All the men involved in the trial had HIV, while the women did not. This claim, however, is unverified, and the work has yet to be published in any journal.

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

The gene editing occurred during the lab dish fertilization (IVF) stage. The researchers first separated sperm from semen, the fluid which may contain HIV. A single sperm cell was joined with a single egg to form an embryo, which was subjected to gene editing via CRISPR. Once the embryos were 3 to 5 days old, some cells were removed and checked for editing. Overall, the Chinese researchers edited 16 of 22 embryos, out of which 11 embryos were used in six implant attempts, resulting in a single twin pregnancy. The couples could choose whether to use edited or unedited embryos for their pregnancy attempts.

Tests suggest that one twin had both copies of the altered gene and the other twin had just one altered copy. There was no evidence that suggests harm to other genes, according to He. People with only one copy of the CCR5 gene can still get HIV. Further pregnancies are on hold until the twin pregnancy is deemed safe.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

26-11-2018 om 20:15 geschreven door peter  

Killer Robots? They Are Reality. Should We Be Concerned?

As I write this my robot vacuum cleaner hums away downstairs quietly doing its thing, sometimes rumbling over the air vent in such a way that I can hear it upstairs in my office. It has a name – Sharknado.

The robot vacuum is great. I was initially skeptical. How could it do a decent job ? It’s a rolling disk with brushes. How could it do anything close to the job of a conventional vacuum? But after 2 sessions with the thing I was convinced. As I marveled at the nice fresh family room courtesy of our new gadget I became a believer.

It was yesterday that I heard my wife yell to the kids that they needed to pick their headphones up off the floor “so the robot could clean” their rooms. The sentence gave me pause.

It won’t be long before yards are cut, kids are driven to school, dogs are walked, beds are made, and meals are cooked by robots on a large scale. The trajectory seems clear. The robots are coming.

In a more narrow sense we need to be aware of the fact that robots represent a leap in warfare, and that the leap is happening right now. If robot slaves can go to war and do the bidding of governments (and other entities with resources), governments are going to use them. Imagine a Golden Horde of automated soldiers sweeping into a city to raise it. Consider how one would counter such an assault. (Likely with other robots.) Consider what it means to have these machines wandering the landscape. Machines that with time may prove more robust than relatively fragile humans. We’d better make sure we do some real hard thinking before we end up with a Terminator-like situation. No joke and God forbid.

(From The Daily Beast)

The introduction of automatons into factory jobs has lead to the displacement of hundreds of workers, and has forced surviving workers to work harder, longer, and more intricate jobs. Christoph Walter, a robotics engineer in Freiburg, Germany, doesn’t see automated labor as an issue, though. When interviewed in the documentary, he explains, “We don’t want to replace a worker [with a robot]. We want to support workers.”

• Click here for the article.
• http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/

Source: 

• https://www.ac2news.com/2018/11/killer-robots-they-are-reality-should-we-be-concerned/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

25-11-2018 om 16:30 geschreven door peter  

Exploring Sophia’s multiple intelligences

Sophia The Robot, Hanson Robotics Limited's David Hanson, and SingularityNET's Ben Goertzel at RISE 2018.

Have you ever heard that a robot has many different intelligences? This session with Ben Goertzel and David Hanson will show that they can be as broadly intelligent as humans.

An Interview With AI Robot Sophia

Piers Morgan FLIRTS with a robot called Sophia

The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence - Robot Sophia makes fun of Elon Musk - A.I. 2018

My Greatest Weakness is Curiosity | Sophia the Robot at Brain Bar

Scary things said by AI robot Sophia

Top 10 Scary WARNINGS From The Past

Top 10 Scary Things Robots Have Said - Part 2

Top 15 Scariest Things Said By Online Bots

Top 10 Scary Things Robots Have Done

{  https://www.youtube.com/ }

17-11-2018 om 11:41 geschreven door peter  

Be Aware! Xinhua's first English Artificial Intelligence Anchor makes debut!

The idea of super intelligent machines may sound like the plot of "The Terminator" or "The Matrix," but many experts say the idea isn't far-fetched. Some even think the singularity — the point at which artificial intelligence can match, and then overtake, human smarts — might happen in just 16 years.

The question is, could we evolve ourselves out of existence, being gradually replaced by the machines?

Many experts believe that our future society will be built on effective human-machine collaboration. But a lack of trust remains the single most important factor stopping this from happening.

AI’s decision-making process is usually too difficult for most people to understand. And interacting with something we don’t understand can cause anxiety and make us feel like we’re losing control.

Many people are also simply not familiar with many instances of AI actually working, because it often happens in the background. Instead, they are acutely aware of instances where AI goes terribly wrong.

Intelligent Robots Will Overtake Humans and a striking example is Xinhua's first English AI anchor who made its debut at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen 2018.

China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency unveiled a deeply creepy artificial intelligence news anchor at the government’s World Internet Conference tech expo.

The AI newscaster is a pure virtual mouthpiece in a country with tight controls on press freedom, and its first report this week featuring fawning coverage of China’s trade show felt distinctly dystopian.

“I will work tirelessly to keep you informed as texts will be typed into my system uninterrupted,” the AI anchor said in its debut video at the conference.

The virtual anchor’s features are based on those of a real-life Xinhua host named Zhang Zhao.  

But as with most attempts at computer-generated humanity, the virtual anchor is both impressively realistic and yet unsettlingly soulless.

Its limited range of motion and expressions becomes repetitive after a short time, while its gray crisp suit and perfectly coiffed hair are even more rigid than human cable news hosts.

According to huffingtonpost, newsrooms have increasingly implemented AI technology in recent years, with outlets including The Washington Post using AI to write short reports on such topics as the outcome of sporting events or to send news alerts.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

17-11-2018 om 11:05 geschreven door peter  

Newscasters, cable news show anchors and news readers are finding their jobs in precarious positions for a number of reasons, but those in Western countries have no threat to their employment quite s big as the one facing their counterparts in China, where media providers are testing virtual newsreaders created by combining images and voices of humans with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Mr. President! Mr. President! Robbie Gort here from AI 2001 News. What’s your stance on robot rights?

“AI anchors have officially become members of the Xinhua News Agency reporting team. They will work with other anchors to bring you authoritative, timely and accurate news information in both Chinese and English.”

Xinhua News Agency is the official state-run news provider of the People’s Republic of China. It’s the largest media organization in China and the largest news agency in the world in number of correspondents (10,000) worldwide. That last figure, according to South China Morning Post, is why the organization is turning to AI.

“Celebrity anchors are regarded as important assets at major news networks in the US. The highest paid news anchor, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, is reportedly paid US$100 million a year, while Diane Sawyer at ABC and Sean Hannity at Fox News earn US$80 million each. Celebrity anchors in China are generally paid a lot less because they work for state-run TV stations but they often earn extra money from product endorsements and book sales.”

Let’s take a look at the weather map

Not only do Xinhua’s lifelike AI anchors work cheap, they never need bathroom breaks, lunch hours, sleep, vacations, huge paychecks or ego-stroking. As long as human editors keep feeding them news items (and those people could be eliminated soon as many news agencies are testing automated news aggregators and story writers), the AI anchors will keep staring into the camera and talking — 24 hours a day, seven days a week … or at least until viewers get tired of staring at the same face, which may not be a problem (or at least one that anyone will feel safe complaining about) since Xinhua is the state news agency. (See a video of the first AI anchor here.)

The AI news anchors were announced at the recent World Internet Conference in Wuzhen and developed by Sogou, China’s second-largest search engine operator. It has proprietary technology in natural language processing – a branch of AI dealing with how computers understand and interpret human language – so it is undoubtedly working on improvements to give the AI newsreaders more realistic-looking speech, lip movements and facial expressions.

Who is in control?

What about questioning authorities or telling the truth? There has been ongoing controversy in the U.S. over local TV news staffs being forced to read copy written by the station’s owners and management without question and without changing any words. Artificial intelligence hasn’t reached the point yet where an AI anchor can get disgusted and walk off the set while yelling, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Can it? Should it? Will other media providers see this as something to fight or a means to greater profits?

What do you think … while you can still think for yourself? Anderson?

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

11-11-2018 om 18:17 geschreven door peter  

Male Pleasure Robots Will Replace Men For Good

Men might be soon replaced by male love robots offering an ultimate experience in pleasure.

Men may be soon be made redundant in the bedroom as they might be replaced by male love robots who offer the ultimate experience in pleasure. Pleasure dolls have come on in leaps and bounds during the last couple of years; they are no longer the plastic looking blow-up dolls they once were. Real Doll is one company that has changed how people think about pleasure dolls, and now a company is creating a male love doll.

Male Love Doll Can Respond Verbally

Real Doll said that the male love doll is just as real as a living partner, with the doll being able to respond to verbal communication. This may mean that along with the doll being able to provide pleasure in the bedroom it will also be able to have a conversation afterward instead of turning over to fall asleep.

Tthe male love doll from Real Doll offers the ultimate pleasure experience. The doll, with the name of “Gabriel”, can “go all night” if needed, as it does not tire nor suffer from performance issues as the majority of men do. This means it might take over from real men in the bedroom.

The male dolls will be programmed with unique conversations, and each will have their own stories. Women do not have to worry about going unfulfilled in the bedroom as the robot goes on and on. Women will also not have to worry about making any effort to get pleasure in the bedroom as the doll satisfies every whim.

Women Say They Cannot Tell Lifelike Male Dolls Apart from Real Men

Real looking pleasure robots are becoming the in-thing, today they look more lifelike than ever before. Love dolls today not only look real but also feel a lot more real than the older blow-up dolls made from plastic. Today love dolls are traditionally made from silicone, which gives a skin-like feel.

Video Reveals How Male Pleasure Robots Are Intricately Made

A teaser video has been released showing the male robot. However, it might be a bit strange at first waking up at the side of a robot, as seen in the video.

The robots are made from silicone and look extremely lifelike after being spray painted as Sinthetics. Each of the dolls is customized to meet the requirements of the customer, including the head, body, and gender. The dolls are hand painted with a variety of paint colors, including such as freckles, birthmarks along with scars.

The private parts for the male robots are all based on real-life ones and come in various sizes. Gone are the times when the person who bought a love doll was known as the creepy man. Today the love doll industry is huge, selling to both men and women from all walks of life.

READ NEXT

• Frightened Robot begged, "No, please don't turn me off!"

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

08-11-2018 om 21:40 geschreven door peter  

Wasp-inspired micro-drone can tug 40 times its own weight

BY TIBI PUIU

Inspired by the natural world, researchers have designed a microdrone that can pull objects up to 40 times its weight. By anchoring itself to various surfaces using adhesive action inspired by geckos and wasps, the tiny aerial vehicle is able to lift cameras, water bottles, and even pull door handles, while the drone itself is as light as a bar of soap.

FlyCroTugs’ multimodal operation allows them to combine small size, high mobility in cluttered and unstructured environments, and forceful manipulation.

Credit: Science Robotics.

The FlyCroTugs drone was developed by Stanford’s Mark Cutkosky and Dario Floreano at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Other similar drones demonstrated previously could only lift twice their own weight using aerodynamic forces alone. To drastically improve their tiny aerial vehicle’s towing power, the researchers turned to one of the most feared predators in the insect world: the wasp.

When a wasp captures prey too big to transport by flight, it chooses to drag it using different attachment options. Researchers studied the various ways wasps choose to transport prey and computed the ratio of flight-related muscle to total mass that determines whether the predator flies or drags its prey.

“When you’re a small robot, the world is full of large obstacles,” said Matthew Estrada, a graduate student at Stanford and lead author of the new study published in Science Robotics. “Combining the aerodynamic forces of our aerial vehicle along with interaction forces that we generate with the attachment mechanisms resulted in something that was very mobile, very forceful and micro as well.”

When encountering a smooth surface, FlyCroTugs uses gecko-like grippers that create non-sticking intermolecular forces between the adhesive and surface. For rough surfaces, the tiny flying robot sticks its 32 microspines into the small pits of a surface, latching onto it.

Fitting all this hardware inside a robot with only twice the weight of a golf ball was no easy feat, but the team was up to the challenge. What they wound up with was a fast, small, and maneuverable flying robot capable of moving very large loads up to 40 times its own weight.

“People tend to think of drones as machines that fly and observe the world, but flying insects do many other things – such as walking, climbing, grasping, building – and social insects can even cooperate to multiply forces,” said Floreano in a statement. “With this work, we show that small drones capable of anchoring to the environment and collaborating with fellow drones can perform tasks typically assigned to humanoid robots or much larger machines.”

FlyCroTugs represents a paradigm shift away from drones occupying a single niche. Not only does it show that drones are excellent for navigating remote locations, but they can also be used to interact with the physical world. In tests, FlyCroTugs flew atop a crumbling structure from where it hauled up a camera and even opened a door with the help of another drone (see the video).

In the future, the team hopes to develop an autonomous system that enables them to maneuver and coordinate multiple FlyCroTugs at once.

“The tools to create vehicles like this are becoming more accessible,” said Estrada. “I’m excited at the prospect of increasingly incorporating these attachment mechanisms into the designer’s tool belt, enabling robots to take advantage of interaction forces with their environment and put these to useful ends.”

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

26-10-2018 om 00:23 geschreven door peter  

THE ROBOT COMPANY BOSTON DYNAMICS HAS LEARNED TO DANCE TO UPTOWN FUNK

BY BRUNO MARS

The American company that has developed a robotics Boston Dynamics is known for its developments.

Especially impressed users of the Network video in which the robot dog Boston Dynamics opens the door, even resisting someone who is trying to hold him.

A well-mannered four-legged machine SpotMini has already proved that she can easily open the door and enter it, even though man armed with a hockey stick, stopping her.

Now the robot dog Boston Dynamics has learned to dance to the song Uptown Funk by American musician Mark Ronson, recorded with the singer Bruno Mars.

One user commented that to dance like robots to be after the victory over humanity.

The other resents the fact that huge funds were invested in robotic ATV to get him to dance funk and shake your ass on the screen.

Another user claims that the company Boston Dynamics was bought by the Japanese, and that the robot repeats the wonderful mechanics of living beings, but he has no “brain” and all it shows is the result of the operator’s work behind the scenes. As an example, he cites the Japanese robot ASIMO.

And “brains”, the AI is much more important than chassis with high-quality gyroscope and a powerful processor, repeating all commands. But users doubt that the robot has the AI of a sufficient scale to dance on their own.

{https://ktelegram.com/ }

20-10-2018 om 22:21 geschreven door peter  

{ https://futurism.com/ }

16-10-2018 om 21:07 geschreven door peter  

WATCH THE BOSTON DYNAMICS ROBODOG TWERK AND MOONWALK TO “UPTOWN FUNK”

KRISTIN HOUSER__FILED UNDER: ROBOTS & MACHINES

{ https://futurism.com/ }

16-10-2018 om 20:51 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Have Created Shape Shifting Liquid Metal That Can Be Programmed

This metal can be applied to many operations in the future, including soft robotics and even flexible computer displays.

By  Danielle De La Bastide

In a terrifying breakthrough similar to the metal morphing villain in Terminator 2, scientists at the University of Sussex and Swansea University have discovered a way to apply electrical charges to liquid metal and coax it into 3D shapes such as letters and even a heart.

This discovery has been called an “extremely promising” new kind of material that can be programmed to alter its shape.

Yutaka Tokuda, the Research Associate, working on this project at the University of Sussex, says: “This is a new class of programmable materials in a liquid state which can dynamically transform from a simple droplet shape to many other complex geometry in a controllable manner.

“While this work is in its early stages, the compelling evidence of detailed 2D control of liquid metals excites us to explore more potential applications in computer graphics, smart electronics, soft robotics and flexible displays.”

The scientists used electric fields to shape the liquid; these areas are created by a computer meaning that both the position and form of the liquid metal can be manipulated dynamically.

Professor Sriram Subramanian, head of the INTERACT Lab at the University of Sussex, said: “Liquid metals are an extremely promising class of materials for deformable applications; their unique properties include voltage-controlled surface tension, high liquid-state conductivity and liquid-solid phase transition at room temperature.

One of the long-term visions of us and many other researchers is to change the physical shape, appearance, and functionality of any object through digital control to create intelligent, dexterous and useful objects that exceed the functionality of any current display or robot.”

The research was presented last month at the ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces 2017 conference in Brighton.

Carnegie Mellon Metal Alloy

This development is not the only one to emerge within the science community, research engineers at Carnegie Mellon University have created a new metal alloy that exists in a liquid state at room temperature and can capacitate liquid metal transistors, flexible circuitry and perhaps even self-repairing circuits in the far-flung future.

Created at the Soft Machines Lab at Carnegie Mellon by researchers Carmel Majidi, Michael Dickey, and James Wissman, this alloy is the result of a marrying of indium and gallium. It would only take two drops of this liquid metal to form or break a circuit thereby opening or closing an entry, similar to a traditional transistor.Better yet, it only requires a voltage of 1 - 10 volts.

Electronic Blood

These molten metals or “electronic blood” are set to completely change computing for upcoming generations. IBM has also been developing its own form of electric sustenance since 2013, REPCOOL, or Redox flow electrochemistry for power delivery and cooling, is a project modeled after the structure and power supply of the brain, where our blood capillary system both cools and supplies energy to this vital organ. With electronic blood, the researchers believe the same effect can be applied to overheated computers.

SCIENCE

See What Happens to Molten Copper in a Coconut

"Compared to today's top computers, however, the human brain is roughly 10,000 times denser and 10,000 times more energy-efficient. The research team believes that their approach could reduce the size of a computer with a performance of 1 petaflop/s from the dimensions of a school classroom to that of an average PC, or in other words to a volume of about 10 liters," said Dr. Bruno Michel from IBM Research.

The first applications of this Electronic Blood should take place in 2030.

Via: Daily Accord, University of Sussex, Digital Trends, Digit

{ https://interestingengineering.com/ }

15-10-2018 om 23:08 geschreven door peter  

Robots and artificial intelligence are rapidly spreading to more and more areas of our daily lives in a sometimes uneasy alliance. Of all these developments, though, the one which most strongly hints at the strange-but-inevitable future in which humans and robots share the Earth as equals is the rise of sex robots. I guess it was inevitable that as soon as we were able to make walking, talking robots, people would begin finding ways to do naughty things them. Our reproductive drives are among the strongest in the human experience, and taking the human element out of the equation somewhat simplifies things.

Emphasis on “somewhat.”

Of course, there are dangers and downsides to sexbots. Like any technology, they can malfunction or be hacked, and sex robots also open the possibility that people will use them for acts which are illegal or dangerous with real humans. Nevertheless, many groups including the Church of Satan believe that sex robots will be a positive development for humankind, offering the “freedom of choice to satisfy your most secret desires with no-one to be bothered” or harmed by whatever you happen to do once your clothes come off. Or stay on, you do you.

QUERY: WAS THE INTERACTION EQUALLY ACCEPTABLE FOR BOTH PARTIES?

While ethicists, roboticists, and psychologists debate the merits and negatives of sex with robots, interesting questions have arisen. For one: if you asked your sex robot to whip you, choke you, pour hot wax on you, or engage in other acts of BDSM play (bondage, discipline, sadism, or masochism), would the robots be able to comply? Should they be able to comply? After all, chief among Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics is that the law “a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” The second law states that “a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.” Put these in the context of BDSM sexbots, and it’s easy to see how complicated things could get.

While Asimov’s laws aren’t necessarily followed by everyone in the robotics industry, they have for decades served as a sort of baseline for how we conceptualize human-robot interactions.  Thus, these laws can serve as food for thought for how we might shape laws concerning all sorts of robotic companions, including sex robots. This week, Gizmodo surveyed a group of lawyers, ethicists, computer scientists, and philosophers whether or not (hypothetical) BDSM sex robots would violate Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, and the answers, as you might imagine, were mixed and thought-provoking.

Most, however, seemed to center on the fact that “harm” and the types of pain inflicted by BDSM practices aren’t quite the same thing and that harm inflicted by a BDSM robot would be presumably welcomed by the human user. Should robots be able to whip us if we ask them to? I mean, why not? With a few bucks’ worth of parts from the local hardware store and some duct tape, you could rig up your electric drill to do the same thing. Why not give the drill a human face and natural language processing to make the whole thing more exciting?

While these types of questions might seem silly, commercial sex robots are already available for sale and recent developments suggest it will only be a few users before full-on robot brothels start popping up around the world. We’ll soon have to grapple with questions of BDSM robots, suicide-by-robot, and other ethical gray areas which will appear as robots rise up to take their place alongside humankind.

Buckle up. Things are only going to get weirder.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

13-10-2018 om 17:23 geschreven door peter