It has long been accepted that people and other primates are born with the ability to recognize faces; however, a new study at Harvard Medical School has brought that into question.
The study findings suggest that facial recognition is not innate but is learned
The new study published in Nature Neuroscience worked with macaques that had been temporarily prevented from seeing faces while growing up[1]. The researchers discovered that areas of the brain involved in facial recognition form due to experience and are not present in primates who do not see faces while they grow up. This brings into question the long-held idea that we are simply born with the ability to recognize faces.
More films about China: https://rtd.rt.com/tags/china/ - Technology and innovation hub, Shenzhen is known as China’s “silicon valley” and “the city of the future”. - Once a fishing village, in just 50 years it grew into a megacity packed with skyscrapers. - It hosts international technology exhibitions and forums and attracts creators and investors from around the world, contributing to its population boom. - Inventors and engineers working here, create helpful robots, hybrid cars and smart car parks.
China has a saying; to see the past, visit Beijing, to see the present, go to Shanghai but for the future, it’s Shenzhen. Shenzhen has transformed itself from a tiny fishing village to a megacity in just 50 years, its population tripling since the 1990s. The city is a magnet for tech-savvy and inventive dreamers from all across China and the world, because of them Shenzhen has become the “silicon valley” of China, a true technology and innovation hub.
The sprawling metropolis is famed for its skyscrapers, hybrid cars, solar energy and for being home to a great many hi-tech companies. UBTECH is one of them; its focus is on making robots an indispensable part of everyday life. Its key product is the android – a human-like robot that can help out in the workplace and around the home as well as becoming both teacher and playmate for kids.
Shenzhen municipal government encourages citizens to switch to eco-friendly, hybrid cars that use both fuel and solar energy. The vehicles are made by a local manufacturer, BYD. Public transport here is hybrid too helping maintain the city’s ecological reputation, which is among the best in China. The city’s rapid growth demands new solutions for optimising space. Shenzhen is one of the top 10 cities in the world for having the most skyscrapers. Today, its engineers are working on a solution to the ever present problem of parking by developing smart car parks that can automatically place cars in tight spaces while the driver simply walks away.
The technological achievements of the city’s many companies are regularly showcased at popular international exhibitions and forums.
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Security guard Eric Leon watches the Knightscope K5 security robot as it glides through the mall, charming shoppers with its blinking blue and white lights. The brawny automaton records video and sounds alerts. According to its maker, it deters mischief just by making the rounds.
Leon, the all-too-human guard, feels pretty sure that the robot will someday take his job.
“He doesn’t complain,” Leon says. “He’s quiet. No lunch break. He’s starting exactly at 10.”
China and Russia are set to sign a milestone agreement in October on joint space exploration from 2018 to 2022, sending manned missions to the Moon for the first time. The bilateral agreement will cover five areas including lunar and deep space exploration, developing special materials, collaboration in the area of satellite systems, Earth remote sensing, and space debris research. This is the first bilateral agreement to cover a partnership spanning five years. It is to be signed against the background of space exploration race the US is trying to win, so the two partners decided to join the efforts. In February, the Trump administration asked NASA to look into the possibility of manning a heavy-lift rocket mission, expected to be launched in 2018, setting the stage for a human return to the Moon.
Russia’s Glavkosmos space launch operator is also working with Chinese partners on joint experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS). China was interested in buying the world’s most powerful Russian-made RD rocket engines produced by Energomash while Russian Space Systems showed interest in Chinese electronic technology.
The first module of China’s space station Beijing is expected to be launched in 2018. The project is to be completed in 2022. According to the plans, a Chinese mission will be sent to Mars in 2020 to land a robot vehicle for scientific research. Last year, Beijing put into operation the world’s largest radio telescope half a kilometer (0.3 miles) in diameter. In 2014, China caught up with Russia having launched about the same number of satellites – 117 (72% increase in 2011–14). Russia had 118 launched by the time (the number increased by 20% during the same period).
T he concept of artificial intelligence has been fuel for science fiction since at least 1920, when the Czech writer Karel Čapek published R.U.R., his play about a mutiny led by a throng of robots. Speculation about the future of intelligent machines has run rampant in the intervening decades but recently has taken a more critical turn. Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer imaginary, and the implications of its future development are far-reaching. As computer scientists confirm their intent to push the limits of AI capabilities, religious communities and thinkers are also debating how far AI should go—and what should happen as it becomes part of the fabric of everyday life.
“Scientists want to be at the cutting edge of research, and they want the contribution to knowledge,” says Brendan Sweetman, chair of philosophy at Rockhurst University. “But at the same time, a lot of what they do raises moral questions.”
In case you’ve missed the news, Lifespan.io has another crowdfunding campaign running right now!
Before I’m too late for the party, I’d like to let you know that Lifespan.io’s crowdfunding campaign AgeMeter for the development of a diagnostic system to measure functional human age has been extended by two weeks. Presently, 70% of the necessary funds have been collected, i.e. a little over 20.000 dollars out of 30.000. It would be great if yet this other campaign made it to its goal, so if you haven’t made your donation yet, please do—remember, there’s no such thing as a donation which is too small: Broadly speaking, as long as the amount you donate is a positive real number, it is much appreciated! The AgeMeter campaign will end on September 16, 2017.
Contextually, another Lifespan.io crowdfunding campaign has been launched: MouseAge, an AI project aimed at assessing ageing biomarkers in mice visually, using image recognition techniques. If successful, this approach could help speed up rejuvenation research and reduce animal suffering. I’ll let the researchers speak:
Kurzweil is one of the world’s leading minds on artificial intelligence, technology and futurism. He is the author of five national best-selling books, including “The Singularity is Near” and “How to Create a Mind.”
Raymond “Ray” Kurzweil is an American author, computer scientist, inventor and futurist. Aside from futurology, he is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.
Kurzweil admits that he cared little for his health until age 35, when he was found to suffer from a glucose intolerance, an early form of type II diabetes (a major risk factor for heart disease). Kurzweil then found a doctor (Terry Grossman, M.D.) who shares his non-conventional beliefs to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, red wine, and various other methods to attempt to live longer. Kurzweil was ingesting “250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea” every day and drinking several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to “reprogram” his biochemistry. Lately, he has cut down the number of supplement pills to 90.
How is Artificial Intelligence actually thinking? Even their creators often don’t really fully understand. But if AI becomes more and more important you should at least have an idea of how algorithms get to results. And they think totally different to how human beings do, says Sara M. Watson, tech critic and writer at the Digital Asia Hub, Hong Kong. How can literature and journalism help to find a new perspective on AI?
“The biggest problem AI has is that even the engineers can’t really explain certain outcomes or certain decisions that go through an artificially intelligent system.”
