I See Your Petaflop And Raise You 19 More

From Wired Science:

Just a year after the world's fastest supercomputers broke the petaflop barrier by performing one thousand trillion calculations per second, nuclear physicists are planning a 20-petaflop machine in conjunction with IBM.

Nicknamed Sequoia, the Department of Energy computer will most likely be the most powerful in the world when it is released. If it were running today, it'd be more than 10 times faster than any machine in existence.

When it's installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2012, it could make new kinds of calculations possible, but initially, that power will be primarily used to simulate nuclear explosions, as many of its supercomputer forebears have done.

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University Prepares Scientists For Era When Computers Are Cleverer Than Humans

When machines go bad: Will Smith and his sidekick hunt
down a murderous robot in I, Robot (2004)

From Daily Mail Online:

Preparing for the day when machines will take over the human race sounds like the stuff of sci-fi novels, conspiracy theorists or Hollywood blockbusters.

But Google and Nasa are already getting ready for such a day.

The technological heavyweights have lent their support to a new university that will prepare scientists for an age when computers will be cleverer than humans.

Singularity University will be based in Nasa's Silicon Valley campus and will host its first class of 30 graduates this summer.

The name of the unconventional school comes from futurist Ray Kurzweil's theory of Singularity - a period of rapid technological advancement in the near future.

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Supercomputer As Powerful As 2m Laptops

Photo from The Inquirer

From The Australian:

SEVEN months after IBM delivered the world's fastest supercomputer, it has announced an even speedier one with the computing power of 2 million laptops.

IBM said today it is developing the technology for its new Sequoia computer, with delivery scheduled in 2011 to the Department of Energy for use at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Sequoia will chug along at 20 petaflops per second and is one order of magnitude quicker than its predecessor.

The earlier machine, delivered in June to the Energy Department, broke the 1 petaflop barrier.

Peta is a term for quadrillion and FLOP stands for floating point operations per second.

Sequoia, and a smaller computer called Dawn, are being built in Rochester, Minnesota, for use in simulating nuclear tests.

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Google And NASA Back Vision Of Computers More Clever Than Humans

Image from "Scott Beale / Laughing Squid"

Google And Nasa Back New School For Futurists -- Financial Times

Google and Nasa are throwing their weight behind a new school for futurists in Silicon Valley to prepare scientists for an era when machines become cleverer than people.

The new institution, known as “Singularity University”, is to be headed by Ray Kurzweil, whose predictions about the exponential pace of technological change have made him a controversial figure in technology circles.

Google and Nasa’s backing demonstrates the growing mainstream acceptance of Mr Kurzweil’s views, which include a claim that before the middle of this century artificial intelligence will outstrip human beings, ushering in a new era of civilisation.

To be housed at Nasa’s Ames Research Center, a stone’s-throw from the Googleplex, the Singularity University will offer courses on biotechnology, nano-technology and artificial intelligence.

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What's Next? Robot Rights for Battlefield 'Bots?

From The Danger Room:

There's something about warbots that makes people go from the hyper-rational to the science-fictional, quicker than you can say "Cylon."

A report released today by the Ethics + Emerging Technologies Group at Cal Poly and funded by the Office of Naval Research is the latest in a growing cottage industry of academics and non-profits sorting out the ethical implications of increasingly sophisticated military robotics.

The report explores concrete issues, like how the laws of wars might have to be adapted to account for all these tele-operated planes and infantrymen. Then it strays into Galactica turf, getting into the issue of 'robot rights.'

For now, robots are seen as merely a tool that humans use, morally no different (except in financial value) than a hammer or a rifle ‐‐ their only value is instrumental, as a means to our ends. But as robots begin to assume aspects of human decision‐making capabilities, the question may arise of their intrinsic value: do they deserve moral consideration of their own (beyond their financial or tactical value), and at what point in their evolution will they achieve this intrinsic value (as human lives seem to have)?

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One Artist's Version Of Tomorrow's Robots

Exclusive Images Reveal McG's Terminator Salvation Vision -- Wired/Underwire

New types of killer robots and a science-inspired conception of post-apocalyptic Earth are helping McG turn Terminator Salvation into an eye-scorching sci-fi flick.

The director knows it will take considerable polish to restore the franchise's sheen in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's much-maligned 2003 swan song, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. And he cheerfully acknowledges that some observers initially questioned the wisdom of reviving the Terminator franchise with him at the helm.

"Nobody heard 'Terminator 4' and said, 'Oh that's a great idea -- I know, let's get McG to do it!" said McG when he rolled clips from his upcoming movie in Los Angeles earlier this month. "This asshole who did Charlie's Angels, and what kind of cock calls himself McG?'"

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Wired For War

From The Armchair Generalist:

P.W. Singer has written a very interesting book in "Wired for War: The Robotic Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century." This is his third release in six years - impressive, considering the 438 pages of this tome. If you want a technical discussion and evaluation of the value of robots in war, this isn't the book for you. Instead, Singer takes a journey into the history of robotics, the military's past work with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sudden love affair with robotics after 2003, the pros and cons of using robots in combat operations, and what the future might show.

Singer's success in this book is how he has addressed the social, technical, military, and ethical aspects of the robot revolution. It is a relatively recent technical explosion of activity, but as Singer shows, the social impact of robotics go back decades. Still, the desire to use unmanned systems to augment and replace human frailties has been strong, especially in warfare. The more recent advances in robotics, added to military concepts of operation in urban areas and social comfort with electronics, has led to a Revolution in Military Affairs - of sorts. We may not be there completely.

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