Cyborg-skalbaggar! Pentagons senaste experiment.

Smart machines: To make it clear—these beetles are not robots, but cyborgs. They are actually living creatures that have been implemented with electronic parts to influence their movements, not unlike reigns on a horse. To help them adjust, this “modification” takes place in the pupa stage when they are still developing. When they are fully grown, the beetles can be commanded by electric signals controlled by a laptop that are transmitted to their nervous systems. Researchers at the Agiltron Corporation, who are contracted to the project, plan to implement another system in the insects that will have them twitch when they detect hazardous chemicals.

Other, more vocal insets, like crickets, are also lined up for modification. They will be equipped with MEMS transceivers that will receive specific sounds made by other cyborg crickets, formulate the data and carry it on to other insects. This will create a sort of wireless network of information that can be remotely monitored.

Bra introduktion till Singulariteten för den oinvigde.

The phrase “technological singularity” was coined by the mathematician and science fiction author Vernor Vinge in 1982. He proposed that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence would greatly disrupt our ability to model the future, because to know what smarter-than-human intelligences would do would require us to be that smart ourselves. He called this hypothetical event a “Singularity,” drawing a comparison to the way our model of physics breaks down when trying to predict phenomena past the event horizon of a black hole. Instead of having a sudden rupture in the fabric of spacetime, you’d have a break in the fabric of human understanding.

The Senster was a robotic sculpture developed by Edward Ihnatowicz in the late 60’s. It was commisioned by Philips and part of their permanent showplace, the Evoluon, in Eindhoven between 1970 and 1974. It was the first robotic sculpture to be controlled by a computer and could react to the behaviour of the visitors with its sound and movement sensors. The computer used to control The Senster was a Philips P9201 and had only 8K of core memory.

Via TodayAndTomorrow

This competition enables academic researchers to evaluate their AI systems in a robust commercial RTS environment. The final matches will be held live with commentary. Exhibition matches will also be held between skilled human players and the top performing bots.

Spådomar om AI.

it’s when some almost human-level AGI algorithms, on petaflop computers, are let loose on exaflop supercomputers, that machine super intelligence might suddenly come into being – with results that might be completely unpredictable.

The Singularity Summit is the premier dialog on the Singularity.

The first Singularity Summit was held at Stanford in 2006 to further understanding and discussion about the Singularity concept and the future of human technological progress. It was founded as a venue for leading thinkers to explore the subject, whether scientist, enthusiast, or skeptic.

Since 2006, the scope of this dialog has expanded dramatically. In 2008, the Singularity entered mainstream consideration. IEEE Spectrum, a sober and mainstream technology publication, issued a special report on the Singularity, and Intel CTO Justin Rattner remarked that “we’re making steady progress toward the Singularity” during his keynote to 2,000 people at the Intel Developer Forum. What was once a relatively unknown concept is now being discussed in corporate board rooms.

We invite you to join our extraordinary group of visionaries in business, science, technology, design, and the arts, as our community explores this exciting topic. Your participation offers a world of powerful ideas, a unique networking opportunity, and access to an exclusive directory of your peers.

Många bra föredrag finns uppladdade på Vimeo av Michael Anissimov.

“Tracking high impact progress to the technology future, future technology and especially advanced nanotechnology, nuclear and energy technology, quantum computers, life extension, space technology and AI. Proposing and tracking the best societal, business and technical choices to the next big things that will shape our future. Official Lifeboat Foundation news source.”

Upptäckte precis bloggen Accelerating future (“Transhumanism, AI, nanotechnology, and extinction risk.”). Den verkar väldigt bra, det inlägget jag fastnade för först var Answering Popular Science’s 10 Questions on the Singularity. Långt, intressant och stundtals roligt. I den posten så länkar Michael till vidare läsning, bland annat Knowability of Friendly AI som var väldigt fin läsning, och en artikel om Basic AI drives.

Några sköna citat ur Singularity-texten:

This is because we think of “machines” as things like toasters. We have no experience with machines as complex and subtle as the human mind, but because the human mind is entirely non-magical, it’s only a matter of time. You are still special even though your mind is non-magical — don’t worry.

…

The author of the article writes, “Are the Id, Ego, and other elements of our unconscious the consequence of biology or a necessary component of sentience?”, in a shocking mention of Freudian psychology. Freudian psychology is not scientific… why is someone in Popular Science referring to it as fact? Has Popular Science lost it? Maybe they don’t really mean it, but seriously, drop the Freud references.

“Researchers simulated evolution with multiple generations of food-seeking robots in a new study of artificial swarm intelligence. ‘Under some conditions, sophisticated communication evolved,’ says one researcher. And in a more recent study, the swarms of bots didn’t just evolve cooperative strategies — they also evolved the ability to deceive. (‘Forget zombies,’ joked one commenter. ‘This is the real threat.’) ‘The study of artificial swarm intelligence provides insight into the nature of intelligence in general, and offers an interesting perspective on the nature of Darwinian selection, competition, and cooperation.’ And there’s also some cool video of the bots in action.”

Via Slashdot.

Första vinnarens bidrag baserades på A*.

Enkel AI i Blender.

Blender robots from MyInventions on Vimeo.

AI & Robotics: video of Aldebaran’s Nao humanoid robot manipulating some photographs displayed on Microsoft’s Surface computer.

This is another nice promotional video for the French robotics company. Aldebaran Robotics are making a serious effort to market Nao to academics and at the same time get the average person excited about the many possible uses of such dexterous, intelligent, humanoid robots. If you want to see another video of Nao walking and manipulating objects, check out our previous post “Introducing Nao.”

Oemotståndligt med en robot som pratar franska.

AI & Robotics rapporterar:

Researchers from The University of Tokyo Shinoda lab have figured out a way to add touch to holograms.

First, they utilize an LCD-based, concave mirror, holographic display for displaying the 3D images. Using this display, images appear to float 30cm away from the display surface. Second, they use a couple of Wii controllers for hand tracking in order to determine the user’s hand location with respect to the displayed objects. Third, they provide tactile feedback using their own Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display (AUTD.) The device uses acoustic radiation pressure to induce tactile feedback as users interact with the displayed objects.

“A blog about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics.”

NYTimes skriver om AI, framtiden och robotar.