Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: robotics/AI

A team of researchers from TU Delft managed to design one of the world’s most precise microchip sensors. The device can function at room temperature—a ‘holy grail’ for quantum technologies and sensing. Combining nanotechnology and machine learning inspired by nature’s spiderwebs, they were able to make a nanomechanical sensor vibrate in extreme isolation from everyday noise. This breakthrough, published in the Advanced Materials Rising Stars Issue, has implications for the study of gravity and dark matter as well as the fields of quantum internet, navigation and sensing.

One of the biggest challenges for studying vibrating objects at the smallest scale, like those used in sensors or quantum hardware, is how to keep ambient thermal noise from interacting with their fragile states. Quantum hardware for example is usually kept at near absolute zero (−273.15°C) temperatures, and refrigerators cost half a million euros apiece. Researchers from TU Delft created a web-shaped microchip sensor that resonates extremely well in isolation from room temperature noise. Among other applications, their discovery will make building quantum devices much more affordable.

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It looks like a normal car but the white taxi by the kerb has nobody driving it, and communicates with customers digitally to obtain directions and take payment.

Beijing this week approved its first autonomous taxis for commercial use, bringing dozens of the so-called “robotaxis” to the streets of the Chinese capital.

The vehicles can only carry two passengers at a time and are confined to the city’s southern Yizhuang area.

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In the future, soft robotic hands with advanced sensors could help diagnose and care for patients or act as more lifelike prostheses.

But one roadblock to encoding soft robotic hands with human-like sensing capabilities and dexterity has been the stretchability of sensors. Although pressure sensors—needed for a robotic hand to grasp and pick up an object, or even take a pulse from a wrist—have been able to bend or stretch, their performance has been significantly affected by such movement.

Researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago have found a way to address this issue and have designed a new pressure sensor that can be stretched up to 50 percent while maintaining almost the same sensing performance. It is also sensitive enough to sense the pressure of a small piece of paper, and it can respond to pressures almost instantaneously.

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Artificial intelligence has reached a point where it can compose text that sounds so human that it dupes most people into thinking it was written by another person. These AI programs—based on what are called autoregressive models—are being successfully used to create and deliberately spread everything from fake political news to AI-written blog posts that seem authentic to the average person and are published under human-sounding byline.

However, though autoregressive models can successfully fool most humans, their capabilities are always going to be limited, according to research by Chu-Cheng Lin, a Ph.D. candidate in the Whiting School of Engineering’s Department of Computer Science.

“Our work reveals that some desired qualities of intelligence—for example, the ability to form consistent arguments without errors—will never emerge with any reasonably sized, reasonably fast autoregressive model,” said Lin, a member of the Center for Language and Speech Processing.

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It’s a cool concept; the blades cant get caught, or stuck, or broken. but, it’s pretty loud, there’s no audio in the demo videos. Still, i think a flying drone would be superior for exploring underground structurers and caves, til it hit a door or something anyways. Anyhow, i think the flight system should focus on some kind of a total silence ion drive.

It was three years ago that we first heard about the Cleo, a robust, donut-shaped prototype drone made by Cleo Robotics. Well, its successor is now commercially available, under the new (and apt) name of the Dronut X1.

Like its predecessor, the Dronut X1 features just two counter-rotating rotors stacked one above the other. While we have seen other drones that take this approach, Cleo Robotics goes the extra step of enclosing those rotors within a composite ducted body. This means that they can’t harm bystanders, nor can they be harmed when bumping into obstacles such as walls.

According to the company, the X1 is designed for applications such as inspection and reconnaissance within cramped and/or GPS-denied environments. It’s Wi-Fi-controlled via a joystick remote and an Android app, although it can autonomously hold its position, and it can avoid obstacles with some help from an onboard 3D LiDAR sensor. Steering is managed through a proprietary thrust vectoring system.

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Through the integrated use of sensors, closed-circuit television network, automatic licence plate readers and facial recognition software, all of which feed data into a central control room, the Safe City project helps authorities predict incidents and take preemptive action against crime or violence, said Dr Major Ahmed Al Shamsi, head of Safe City Project at Abu Dhabi Police.

“The project was launched three years ago and currently covers 85 per cent of the emirate’s infrastructure. It has helped reduce traffic incidents and fatalities, patrol areas more efficiently and take action to prevent untoward occurrences,” he told Gulf News on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Smart City Summit.

The two-day summit is seeing the attendance of 400 experts, with the focus on the technological advances and innovations that are improving the quality of life in the UAE capital. Organised by Abu Dhabi emirate’s municipalities sector regulator, the Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT), the Summit has already seen the launch of driverless taxis on Yas Island, as well as the signing of other agreements with technology developers like Huawei, Bayanat and G42.

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Many people think that mathematics is a human invention. To this way of thinking, mathematics is like a language: it may describe real things in the world, but it doesn’t ‘exist’ outside the minds of the people who use it.

The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for many decades, and in January 2021, scientists delivered their verdict on whether we’d be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost.

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The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for many decades, and in January 2021, scientists delivered their verdict on whether we’d be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost definitely not.

The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that super-intelligence which we can analyze. But if we’re unable to comprehend it, it’s impossible to create such a simulation.

Rules such as ‘cause no harm to humans’ can’t be set if we don’t understand the kind of scenarios that an AI is going to come up with, suggest the authors of the 2021 paper. Once a computer system is working on a level above the scope of our programmers, we can no longer set limits.

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I am a huge fan of reading. So much so that I’m beginning to think it’s having a negative impact on my social life, but we’ll save that for another time… The point is that I read a LOT. And for the past seven years, I’ve been stuck on one genre: Science Fiction. From space operas and apocalyptic disasters, to robot revolts and galaxy-spanning quests — I’m down for it all.

The best sci fi authors can n o t only see how innovation might progress, but how humanity might evolve as a result. For a genre so heavily focused on science and technology, it’s surprisingly human.

So I get really excited when I see a headline like Meet Altos Labs, Silicon Valley’s Latest Wild Bet on Living Forever. It makes me feel like I’m living in the future. The rate of scientific advancement over the past 50 years has been increasingly mind boggling and it’s impossible to keep up with all the discoveries. First CRISPR, then private space travel, now immortality? It’s insane. Completely terrifying. And I love it.

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