Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: robotics/AI

The power of the cloud, artificial intelligence, and machine learning is making smart cities and data-based Location of Things navigation a reality. Join the Principal Product Manager for Microsoft Azure Maps and others and learn how advanced location technology will revolutionize everything from autonomous cars to connected cities. Don’t miss this VB Live event!

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Location data is the foundation of technology: It’s what binds a device and a user, a user and the environment they’re in. And as location data moves to the cloud and gets smarter, powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, the number of potential applications for smart location data is exploding, says Chris Pendleton, Principal PM for Azure Maps. We’re on the threshold of creating a smarter society, built on the hundreds of millions of connected devices that together create The Location of Things.

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In “Engineering a Traiter,” the year is 2027, and a former military officer named Jay Roberts has just engineered a missile attack in downtown Houston — except he doesn’t know that it’s his fault.

This sombre graphic novel tells the story of Roberts, an army engineer working in Texas who’s been targeted by a militia eager to gain access to building codes in order to orchestrate a terrorist attack. With sophisticated A.I., the militia manipulate everything in Roberts’s life. The news he sees is curated to instil hopelessness and despair, and family members’ social media accounts are hijacked to distance Roberts from loved ones. Frustrated and alone, he eventually confesses security information to a “friend” he’s made online, allowing the militias the access they’ve been hoping for. Once they have what they want, Roberts’ social media is manipulated to make him look like a radicalized terrorist. When the attack occurs, he takes the fall.

The narrative may be science fiction, but it paints a realistic — if not paranoid — vision of the future. That bleakness is exactly what Brian David Johnson wanted when he began penning a series of graphic novels for the Army Cyber Institute at West Point.

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When Google DeepMind researchers trained a neural network to tackle a virtual maze, it spontaneously developed digital equivalents to the specialized neurons called grid cells that mammals use to navigate. Not only did the resulting AI system have superhuman navigation capabilities, the research could provide insight into how our brains work.

Grid cells were the subject of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, alongside other navigation-related neurons. These cells are arranged in a lattice of hexagons, and the brain effectively overlays this pattern onto its environment. Whenever the animal crosses a point in space represented by one of the corners these hexagons, a neuron fires, allowing the animal to track its movement.

Mammalian brains actually have multiple arrays of these cells. These arrays create overlapping grids of different sizes and orientations that together act like an in-built GPS. The system even works in the dark and independently of the animal’s speed or direction.

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Pichai’s challenge is to find a way of reconciling Google’s dovish roots with its future. Having spent more than a decade developing the industry’s most formidable arsenal of AI research and abilities, Google is keen to wed those advances to its fast-growing cloud-computing business. Rivals are rushing to cut deals with the government, which spends billions of dollars a year on all things cloud. No government entity spends more on such technology than the military. Medin and Alphabet director Schmidt, who both sit on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, have pushed Google to work with the government on counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, telecommunications and more.

To win in the business of cloud computing, the company tiptoes into the business of war. Some staff fear it’s a first step toward autonomous killing machines.

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Cloud computing firms are driving significant investment in artificial intelligence and major chipmakers are competing to provide the infrastructure for AI services. Graphics-chip maker Nvidia has been an early winner in the field, but don’t count out other chipmakers, a Wall Street research firm said Monday.

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Yamaha today announced the ninth generation of its enthusiast-focused Aventage Series of AV receivers.

Ranging in price from $600 to $2,200, the new RX-A 80 Series comprises six models slated for roll-out between May and July, three of which employ artificial intelligence to achieve a “clearer, more engaging listening experience.”

Yamaha says its new Surround: AI technology analyzes audio characteristics such as dialogue, sound effects, and channel balance in real-time, compares the data to a reference database of movie scenes, and makes adjustments to enhance the sound field. Potential enhancements include making dialogue more intelligible in scenes with a lot of background noise. The feature is offered on the three top models, all due out in July: the 7.2-channel RX-A1080 ($1,300), 9.2-channel RX-A2080 ($1,700), and 9.2-channel RX-A3080 ($2,200).

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