Monday, April 21, 2014

Where AI (Artificial Intelligence) Research May Lead To



Why There Will Be A Robot Uprising -- Patrick Tucker, Defense One

In the movie Transcendence, which opens in theaters on Friday, a sentient computer program embarks on a relentless quest for power, nearly destroying humanity in the process.

The film is science fiction but a computer scientist and entrepreneur Steven Omohundro says that “anti-social” artificial intelligence in the future is not only possible, but probable, unless we start designing AI systems very differently today.

Omohundro’s most recent recent paper, published in the Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, lays out the case.

We think of artificial intelligence programs as somewhat humanlike. In fact, computer systems perceive the world through a narrow lens, the job they were designed to perform.

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My Comment: This is a little futuristic for me .... but there are people who are thinking about this right now.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

One More Step Forward To The Development Of A Quantum Computer

Photo: In this experiment, an atom is sandwiched between mirrors, forming half of the quantum switch. Graphic: Andreas Reiserer, MPQ, Quantum Dynamics Division

Two Big Steps Toward The Quantum Computer -- Popular Mechanics

With lasers and mirrors, researchers develop clever quantum versions of key computer components.

It's a machine that could calculate solutions to problems so impossibly time-consuming that even the most powerful supercomputers could never handle them. And it would do so in an instant. This is the quantum computer, made possible by the bizarre nature of quantum mechanics. And though the idea is still in its infancy, it's no fantasy.

Two research teams, at Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany, have just announced that they have independently forged the building blocks for tomorrow's quantum computers. As they published today in the journal Nature (1, 2), the scientists discovered a way to hook up atoms and particles of light to create a new type of switch and logic-gate‚ quantum versions of the connecting structures that link bits of data in modern computers.

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More News On Developments Towards A Quantum Computers

Atom-Photon ‘Switch’ Heralds Quantum Networking Advances -- Time
New “switch” could power quantum computing -- R&D
New ‘switch’ brings scientists one step closer to quantum computing -- Science Recorder
New 'Switch' Could Bring Scientists Closer To Highly-Anticipated Quantum Computing -- HNGN
New Atom And Photon 'Switch' May Bring Quantum Computers Closer to Reality -- Counsel & Heal
Atom-Photon switch: Quantum computing looks closer than ever -- NVO News

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The British Military Introduces Their 'Porton Man' Robot To Test Clothes



Britain Builds Robot To Test Military Equipment, Suits For Armed Forces -- FOX News

A $1.8 million robotic mannequin that can run, kneel and lift his arms to sight a weapon like a soldier will help test the latest in military equipment, Britain’s government says.

The Ministry of Defence says its newest recruit, “Porton Man,” is made out of lightweight materials used to build Formula One racing cars, some of the fastest vehicles on Earth.

The robot, designed by the British company i-bodi Technology, is named after the home of the Ministry’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (Dtsl).

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Editor: The U.S. military's equivalent is "Pet Man". The video is below.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Robots Getting Ready For Dull, Dirty And Dangerous Jobs (Video)



From VOA: Robotic house helpers may still be a long way off but robots that can replace humans in hazardous environments are closer and closer to becoming a reality. Roboticists at Carnegie Mellon University are designing advanced robots for dull, dirty and dangerous jobs. VOA’s George Putic reports.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

The Future Of Surgical Robotics Is Microscopic

The NeuroArm, a non-ferrous microsurgical robot—shown here with an electrified cutting tool and suction instrument—was used to remove a patient's brain tumor in 2008, while she was being scanned with an MRI. University of Calgary

The Microscopic Future of Surgical Robotics -- Erik Sofge, Popular Science

Chances are, you aren’t, and never will be, an astronaut. So the recent revelation that NASA is funding the development of a somewhat gruesome-sounding surgical bot—a fist-size contraption that would enter a patient’s gas-engorged abdomen to staunch bleeding or remove a ruptured appendix—isn’t exactly news you can use. The more relevant announcement might be from Intuitive Surgical, which announced that its newest robo-surgeon has been approved by the FDA. With thinner and more maneuverable arms, the da Vinci Xi will turn more open surgeries into minimally-invasive, robot-assisted procedures. Instead of requiring large incisions to get at various portions of a patient’s anatomy, the Xi will let surgeons reach essentially anywhere in the abdomen through smaller less traumatic punctures. With this clearance, the likelihood that you’ll one day be under the robotic knife just jumped significantly.

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My Comment: A good review on robotic advances in microsurgery.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Will Robots Rule the World?

Photo Used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user Antonis Lamnatos http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamnatos

Will Robots Rule the World? Find Out At Robo Madness Next Thursday -- Wade Roush, XConomy

An influential 1998 paper by Robin Hanson, an economics professor at George Mason University, asked what might happen to jobs and wages in a future with “mature machine intelligence”—computers and robots clever enough to take over most human jobs. The outlook is a little scary.

Hanson calculated that a world where machines could truly substitute for most human labor, would, at first, see unprecedented economic growth, including rising wages. But eventually, as machines became more numerous and more productive, they would push human wages down dramatically, leaving most people without the means to buy the stuff the machines were making. Hanson even threw around words like “Malthusian,” a term once reserved to describe catastrophic population growth and food shortages.

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My Comment: What's my take .... robots may rule the world one day .... but not today.

Friday, April 4, 2014

‘Bionic Olympics’ Coming In 2016

‘Bionic Olympics’ Coming in 2016 -- Defense Tech

Couple the Defense Research Projects Agency’s major and well-funded interest in prosthetics with the grit shown by amputee veterans to excel in sports and you’ve got a heck of start for building a U.S. team for the first-ever bionic Olympics.

The Cybathlon, an international competition for athletes using advanced prosthetics, is to be held in October 2016 in Zurich, Switzerland.

“The competitions are comprised by different disciplines that apply the most modern powered knee prostheses, wearable arm prostheses, powered exoskeletons, powered wheelchairs, electrically stimulated muscles and novel brain-computer interfaces,” according to the games’ official website.

The games are being organized on behalf of the Swiss National Competence Center of Research in Robotics.

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My Comment: I predict that this will be well watched.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Can Robots Be Regulated?

Photo: 20TH CENTURY FOX

Why It Is Not Possible To Regulate Robots -- The Guardian

We regulate machines, from drills to defibrillators. What distinguishes a power-drill from a robot-drill? A computer driving it

There's an old joke about the sciences: biology is just applied chemistry, chemistry is just applied physics, and physics is just applied maths. It's really a neat little quip about essentialism and reductionism. While it's true that biology can be accurately described as "applied chemistry," treating living things as alive – and not as a set of chemical reactions no different in principle from making a cup of cocoa or extracting a pigment to use in housepaint – has undeniable utility.

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My Comment: A long commentary .... but it is not an easy subject to analyze and discuss. A prediction .... this discussion will only increase with time as computers and robots develop into even more sophisticated models and networks than what they are today.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Nasa Is Developing Robots That Could Perform Surgery In Space



The Robots That Could Perform Surgery In SPACE: Tiny Doctor Droids Could Perform Complex Medical Procedures On Astronauts -- Daily Mail

* Prototype has been created by Nebraska-based Virtual Incision and Nasa
* 0.9lb (0.4kg) device has tools that can grab, cauterise and suture tissue
* Its head is fitted with a camera which sends a feed back to control station
* Nasa said astronauts could be trained to use the robot to perform select surgeries on each other

Imagine a miniature robo-surgeon sliding into your body through an incision in your stomach.

Once inside, the robot can expertly manoeuvre its way around the abdominal cavity, which has been filled with gas to make more room for work.

It can then perform procedures such as an emergency appendectomy or perforate a gastric ulcer.

This is the scenario being explored by Nasa in the hope that risky surgical operations in space will someday become a routine matter.

Working in collaboration with Virtual Incision in Lincoln, Nebraska, the space agency has developed a prototype of a remotely-operated fist-sized robot doctor.

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My Comment: They still have a long way to go .... but the advancements are impressive.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Quantum Computing And New Approaches To Artificial Intelligence


Quantum Computing And New Approaches To Artificial Intelligence Could Get The Resources To Achieve Real Breakthroughs In Computing -- Next Big Future

Ramez gives examples and problems to achieving an intelligence explosion

* the complexity of important problems like computational chemistry have exponentially increasing complexity
- if designing intelligence is an N^2 problem, an AI that is 2x as intelligent as the entire team that built it (not just a single human) would be able to design a new AI that is only 70% as intelligent as itself

* There are already entities with vastly greater than human intelligence working on the problem of augmenting their own intelligence. A great many, in fact. We call them corporations. And while we may have a variety of thoughts about them, not one has achieved transcendence.

Let's focus on as a very particular example: The Intel Corporation. Intel uses the collective brainpower of tens of thousands of humans and probably millions of CPU cores to.. design better CPUs! (And also to create better software for designing CPUs.) Those better CPUs will run the better software to make the better next generation of CPUs. Yet that feedback loop has not led to a hard takeoff scenario.

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My Comment: The money for this research is now coming in .... but will the results follow? I guess we will find out in the next fwe years.