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Archive for the ‘robotics/AI’ category: Page 2336

Jul 5, 2014

We might finally have our robotics revolution, and smartphones are to thank

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

— Beta Boston
Montreal street art meunierd / Shutterstock.com

Looking back to 1950s predictions of what robots might be capable of in the year 2000 is nothing short of humorous — unless you’re in the field of robotics, where the lack of consumer progress can be frustrating. Besides the Roomba, home robotics still has not hit the mainstream, but that might be set to finally change.

The secret to the latest push for home robotics is the technology already sitting in our pocket. The mobile phone.

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Jul 2, 2014

AN ACTUAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CEO AND THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CHIEF STRATEGIST!

Posted by in categories: big data, business, complex systems, disruptive technology, economics, education, energy, engineering, existential risks, finance, futurism, information science, innovation, physics, robotics/AI, science, scientific freedom, security

AN ACTUAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CEO AND THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CHIEF STRATEGIST!

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AN ACTUAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CEO AND THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CHIEF STRATEGIST!

QUESTION: HOW CAN WE ILLUSTRATE MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI’S CONCURRENT COORDINATED CONVERGENT SYSTEMS THINKING (CCCST): ARTICULATED UNDER INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION AND AMPLIFICATION (IAA) VIA ASIN: B00KNL02ZE ANSWER: BY PAYING ATTENTION TO AN INDOORS INTERVIEW BY THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL HERE:

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Jul 1, 2014

Brain Drain Is Threatening the Future of U.S. Robotics

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Jul 1, 2014

Founders Fund Backs a Robotic Lab that Puts Science in the Cloud

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, finance, robotics/AI

By James Temple — Re/Co[de
emerald-33-1
Emerald Therapeutics is developing potential treatments for viral infections like HIV and HPV. But they’re not ready to talk about that yet.

What the stealth startup is ready to discuss is a tool they built in an effort to accelerate that work: A completely robotic lab that the company believes could aid other researchers as well, effectively serving as a kind of Amazon Web Services for science.

The nearly 20-person company has packed a 5,000-square-foot facility in a little office park in Silicon Valley with more than $2 million worth of mass spectrometers, automated pipettes and microscopes, capable of carrying out remote life sciences experiments under controlled conditions.

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Jun 30, 2014

Artificial Intelligence Is Now Telling Doctors How to Treat You

Posted by in categories: health, robotics/AI

By Daniela Hernandez — Wired

Image: Courtesy of Modernizing Medicine

Long Island dermatologist Kavita Mariwalla knows how to treat acne, burns, and rashes. But when a patient came in with a potentially disfiguring case of bullous pemphigoid–a rare skin condition that causes large, watery blisters–she was stumped. The medication doctors usually prescribe for the autoimmune disorder wasn’t available. So she logged in to Modernizing Medicine, a web-based repository of medical information and insights.

Within seconds, she had the name of another drug that had worked in comparable cases. “It gives you access to data, and data is king,” Mariwalla says of Modernizing Medicine. “It’s been very helpful, especially in clinically challenging situations.”

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Jun 30, 2014

How Will We Know When Computers Can Think for Themselves?

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

By: Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub
alan-turing 1
Headlines recently exploded with news that a computer program called Eugene Goostman had become the first to pass the Turing test, a method devised by computing pioneer Alan Turing to objectively prove a computer can think.

The program fooled 33% of 30 judges into thinking it was a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy in a five-minute conversation. How impressive is the result? In a very brief encounter, judges interacted with a program that could be forgiven for not knowing much or speaking very eloquently—in the grand scheme, it’s a fairly low bar.

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Jun 23, 2014

Consumer Robotics Is Finally Ready For Prime Time

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

, ) — Tech Crunch

The robotics revolution has been in the making for decades, but market expectations have historically outpaced technology readiness. While industrial and military sectors have adopted a number of high-priced robotics solutions, the consumer sector has lagged due to lack of technological maturity and high costs.

In recent years, we have seen accelerated levels of innovation in both software and hardware that are now driving new possibilities for consumer readiness and adoption of personal robotics.

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Jun 19, 2014

Mind uploading won’t lead to immortality

Posted by in categories: bionic, biotech/medical, evolution, futurism, human trajectories, life extension, neuroscience, philosophy, posthumanism, robotics/AI, singularity, transhumanism

Uploading the content of one’s mind, including one’s personality, memories and emotions, into a computer may one day be possible, but it won’t transfer our biological consciousness and won’t make us immortal.

Uploading one’s mind into a computer, a concept popularized by the 2014 movie Transcendence starring Johnny Depp, is likely to become at least partially possible, but won’t lead to immortality. Major objections have been raised regarding the feasibility of mind uploading. Even if we could surpass every technical obstacle and successfully copy the totality of one’s mind, emotions, memories, personality and intellect into a machine, that would be just that: a copy, which itself can be copied again and again on various computers.

THE DILEMMA OF SPLIT CONSCIOUSNESS

Neuroscientists have not yet been able to explain what consciousness is, or how it works at a neurological level. Once they do, it is might be possible to reproduce consciousness in artificial intelligence. If that proves feasible, then it should in theory be possible to replicate our consciousness on computers too. Or is that jumpig to conclusions ?

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Jun 12, 2014

Could a machine or an AI ever feel human-like emotions ?

Posted by in categories: bionic, cyborgs, ethics, existential risks, futurism, neuroscience, philosophy, posthumanism, robotics/AI, singularity, transhumanism

Computers will soon be able to simulate the functioning of a human brain. In a near future, artificial superintelligence could become vastly more intellectually capable and versatile than humans. But could machines ever truly experience the whole range of human feelings and emotions, or are there technical limitations ?

In a few decades, intelligent and sentient humanoid robots will wander the streets alongside humans, work with humans, socialize with humans, and perhaps one day will be considered individuals in their own right. Research in artificial intelligence (AI) suggests that intelligent machines will eventually be able to see, hear, smell, sense, move, think, create and speak at least as well as humans. They will feel emotions of their own and probably one day also become self-aware.

There may not be any reason per se to want sentient robots to experience exactly all the emotions and feelings of a human being, but it may be interesting to explore the fundamental differences in the way humans and robots can sense, perceive and behave. Tiny genetic variations between people can result in major discrepancies in the way each of us thinks, feels and experience the world. If we appear so diverse despite the fact that all humans are in average 99.5% identical genetically, even across racial groups, how could we possibly expect sentient robots to feel the exact same way as biological humans ? There could be striking similarities between us and robots, but also drastic divergences on some levels. This is what we will investigate below.

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Jun 9, 2014

SoftBank to start selling personal robots next year

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

By Teppei Kasai and Yoshiyasu Shida — Reuters
SoftBank Corp. unveils human-like robots named 'pepper' at the company's news conference in Urayasu, east of Tokyo June 5, 2014. REUTERS-Issei Kato
(Reuters) — Japan’s SoftBank Corp said on Thursday it will start selling human-like robots for personal use by February, expanding into a sector seen key to addressing labour shortages in one of the world’s fastest ageing societies.

The robots, which the mobile phone and Internet conglomerate envisions serving as baby-sitters, nurses, emergency medical workers or even party companions, will sell for 198,000 yen ($1,900) and are capable of learning and expressing emotions, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son told a news conference.

A prototype will be deployed this week, serving customers at SoftBank mobile phone stores in Japan, he added. The sleek, waist-high robot, named Pepper, accompanied Son to the briefing, speaking to reporters in a high-pitched, boyish voice.

“People describe others as being robots because they have no emotions, no heart. For the first time in human history, we’re giving a robot a heart, emotions,” Son said.

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