The technical potential for automation differs dramatically across sectors and activities.
As automation technologies such as machine learning and robotics play an increasingly great role in everyday life, their potential effect on the workplace has, unsurprisingly, become a major focus of research and public concern. The discussion tends toward a Manichean guessing game: which jobs will or won’t be replaced by machines?
Continue reading… “Machines might replace humans—and might not”
Intel’s acquisition earlier this month of Nervana Systems is another example of how startups are preparing to disrupt the worlds largest industries using Artificial Intelligence.
Continue reading… “AI disrupting the world’s largest industries”
Silicon Valley, or the Greater Bay Area, is the 18th largest economy in the world, more than half the size of Canada’s economy and bigger than Switzerland, Saudi Arabia or Turkey. This is because the region has become the world leader in research and development of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, software and virtual reality.
Continue reading… “How robots, drones and artificial intelligence will change everything”
As we steadily march toward our own obsolescence by designing machines that are better than us at everything from surgery to driving Uber taxis, humans have had to take solace in the fact that, while the robo-apocalypse may be immanent, at least our robotic overlords would never be able to beat us at foosball.
Continue reading… “Foosball Robot Will Kick Your Ass”
PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 16, 2016 – Ford today announces its intent to have a high-volume, fully autonomous SAE level 4-capable vehicle in commercial operation in 2021 in a ride-hailing or ride-sharing service.
To get there, the company is investing in or collaborating with four startups to enhance its autonomous vehicle development, doubling its Silicon Valley team and more than doubling its Palo Alto campus.
Continue reading… “Ford Projects A Fully Autonomous Vehicle for Ride Sharing in 2021”
One of the trademarks that distinguishes robots from humans is the ability to reproduce. This dividing between man and machine just got blurrier. Researchers in Amsterdam have created robots that can mate and spawn offspring through a process similar to human reproduction.
Robots have created quite a stir in the media recently, as more and more machines take on human tasks. Some estimates suggest automation could take over half of the work force.
Artificial intelligence originally aspired to replace doctors. Researchers imagined robots that could ask you questions, run the answers through an algorithm that would learn with experience and tell whether you had the flu or a cold. However, those promises largely failed, as artificial intelligent algorithms were too rudimentary to perform those functions.
Continue reading… “AI’s Healing Power”
IBM’s Watson has done everything from winning at Jeopardy to cooking exotic meals, but it appears to have accomplished its greatest feat yet: saving a life. University of Tokyo doctors report that the artificial intelligence diagnosed a 60-year-old woman’s rare form of leukemia that had been incorrectly identified months earlier. The analytical machine took just 10 minutes to compare the patient’s genetic changes with a database of 20 million cancer research papers, delivering an accurate diagnosis and leading to proper treatment that had proven elusive. Watson has also identified another rare form of leukemia in another patient, the university says.
Continue reading… “IBM’s Watson saves a woman from leukemia”
In an episode of the British dystopian sci-fi show Black Mirror, titled “Be Right Back,” a man who dies in a car crash leaves behind enough social media and other data traces to be digitally recreated, first online and then as a creepily life-like robot. Turns out, that scenario is not so far-fetched.
Continue reading… “Have We Uploaded Enough Data To Digitally Clone Ourselves?”
Last May, researchers at ICD Stuttgart revealed the Elytra Filament Pavilion—a vast, carbon fiber structure woven with the industrial arm of a modified Kuka robot. Now, in a thesis project led by Maria Yablonina, the same lab has managed to shrink the scale, from massive industrial-line robots, to a pair of drones that can crawl up your wall to weave smaller structures like tag-teaming spiders spinning silk.
Continue reading… “Wall-Crawling Robots Could Weave A Room For You”
At a competition in China to see who is better at recognizing faces, man or machine, Wang Yuheng, representing the humans, emerged victorious.
Wang is famous in China for his photographic memory. He successfully identified a specific glass of water out of 520 seemingly identical ones in a Chinese reality TV show. He also reportedly helped police crack a case by extracting “hidden clues” from surveillance camera footage, thanks to his exceptional observational skills.
Continue reading… “Chinese man famed superhuman memory beat an AI in a facial recognition contest”
Artificial intelligence has evolved enough that it can now take care of daily chores, drive a car, function as a trusty shopping buddy, and… write a screenplay?
Impossible Things, an independent horror film project from Greenlight Essentials’ Jack Zhang, was reportedly produced (in part) by an augmented intelligence software tool which analyzes audience response data to help writers craft plot points that connect with viewer demand. The result is Impossible Things, a project billed by its creators as “the scariest and creepiest horror film out there.” The software co-wrote the film’s script.
Continue reading… “AI program writes ‘perfect’ horror script, seeks crowdfunding”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.