Using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, researchers at Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego Health and University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in China, Germany and Texas, have developed a new computational tool to screen patients with common but blinding retinal diseases, potentially speeding diagnoses and treatment.
Walmart has opened a new tech incubator in Austin to focus on emerging technologies.
Engineers, developers and scientists at the incubator are working on the future of shopping and exploring machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing, according to a blog post by Walmart.
“The work we’re doing is ultimately about enabling our coworkers to be even more impactful in their jobs,” stated Rachel Brynsvold, data scientist at the lab. “I also see lots of opportunities to make financial impact for the company, which contributes to Walmart’s mission to help people save money and live better.”
The researchers also suggested that aliens could “gift” us with an artificial intelligence (AI) system that may trick humans into developing self-replicating nanobots and eventually deploy them to wreak havoc on our planet. The researchers argue that it would be cheaper for aliens to “send a malicious message to eradicate humans compared to sending battleships”.
In one scenario, the researchers argued that a message from aliens could be a panic-inducing statement like “We will make your sun go supernova tomorrow”. According to the researchers, if such a threatening message is received in just one location, it may be possible to contain and even destroy it. “If it is received repeatedly, perhaps even by amateurs, containment is impossible,” the researchers wrote in a paper available online on arXiv.
In another scenario, the scientists argue that humans could be tricked into begetting their own demise by aliens offering the “gift” of knowledge. For instance, aliens could transmit a message that reads: “We are friends. The galactic library is attached. It is in the form of an artificial intelligence (AI) which quickly learns your language and will answer your questions. You may execute the code following these instructions…”
WASHINGTON ― Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and military robotics have some concerned that the development of Terminator-like killer robots will be humankind’s downfall. But that doesn’t seem to worry Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, who addressed the impact of technology on democracy at the Feb. 16–18 Munich Security Conference.
Google Cloud and AGI (a.k.a. Analytical Graphics Inc.) have gotten on board with the B612 Asteroid Institute to develop a cloud-based platform for keeping track of asteroid discoveries.
The two companies have become technology partners for the Asteroid Decision Analysis and Mapping project, or ADAM, which aims to provide the software infrastructure for analyzing the trajectories of near-Earth objects, identifying potential threats, and sizing up the scenarios for taking action if necessary.
DUBAI (Reuters) — Dubai has begun testing autonomous pods in a trial run the Gulf’s trade and tourism hub hopes will help its transformation into one of the smartest cities in the world.
Officials from Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) displayed two cube-shaped vehicles built by U.S.-based Next Future Transportation company in Italy as they spun around on a main street in Dubai.
Passersby stopped to try out the six-seat vehicles and question the Italian engineers overseeing the test.
Neural networks are powerful things, but they need a lot of juice. Engineers at MIT have now developed a new chip that cuts neural nets’ power consumption by up to 95 percent, potentially allowing them to run on battery-powered mobile devices.
Smartphones these days are getting truly smart, with ever more AI-powered services like digital assistants and real-time translation. But typically the neural nets crunching the data for these services are in the cloud, with data from smartphones ferried back and forth.
That’s not ideal, as it requires a lot of communication bandwidth and means potentially sensitive data is being transmitted and stored on servers outside the user’s control. But the huge amounts of energy needed to power the GPUs neural networks run on make it impractical to implement them in devices that run on limited battery power.
We’re working to make AI accessible by providing lessons, tutorials and hands-on exercises for people at all experience levels. Filter the resources below to start learning, building and problem-solving.
This event will be webcast live from this page.
The Technology Policy Program invites you to the launch of our upcoming report, A National Machine Intelligence Strategy for the United States.
The United States is at the precipice of a defining moment in history. Over the past five years, progress in machine intelligence (MI) has greatly accelerated. From the defeat of Go champion Lee Sedol by DeepMind’s AlphaGo program to the first deployments of fully-autonomous vehicles on public roads, recent events are challenging us to re-evaluate what may soon be possible for computerized systems. MI systems have already begun to quietly pervade a growing share of businesses, governments, and individual lives around the world, and we are only just beginning to grasp the impacts that this technological revolution will have on our economy, our society, and our national security. In our paper, we outline they key elements of a comprehensive national strategy for the United States to promote the safe and responsible development of MI, and to maintain U.S. leadership in MI technology.