Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: robotics/AI

Researchers from Yale University have unveiled CertiKOS, the world’s first operating system that runs on multi-core processors and shields against cyber-attacks. Scientists believe this could lead to a new generation of reliable and secure systems software.

Led by Zhong Shao, professor of computer science at Yale, the researchers developed an operating system that incorporates formal verification to ensure that a program performs precisely as its designers intended — a safeguard that could prevent the hacking of anything from home appliances and Internet of Things (IoT) devices to self-driving cars and digital currency. Their paper on CertiKOS was presented at the 12th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation held Nov. 2–4 in Savannah, Ga.

Computer scientists have long believed that computers’ operating systems should have at their core a small, trustworthy kernel that facilitates communication between the systems’ software and hardware. But operating systems are complicated, and all it takes is a single weak link in the code — one that is virtually impossible to detect via traditional testing — to leave a system vulnerable to hackers.

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There weren’t many people who had heard of bioterrorism before 9/11. But shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks, a wave of anthrax mailings diverted the attention of the public towards a new weapon in the arsenal of terrorists—bioterrorism. A US federal prosecutor found that an army biological researcher was responsible for mailing the anthrax-laced letters, which killed 5 and sickened 15 people in 2001. The cases generated huge media attention, and the fear of a new kind of terrorist warfare was arising.

However, as with every media hype, the one about bioterrorism disappeared quickly.

But looking toward the future, I believe that we may not be paying as much attention to it as we should. Although it may be scary, we have to prepare ourselves for the worst. It is the only way we can be prepared to mitigate the damages of any harmful abuses if (and when) they arise.

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SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ IBM (NYSE: IBM) and NVIDIA (NVDA)today announced collaboration on a new deep learning tool optimized for the latest IBM and NVIDIA technologies to help train computers to think and learn in more human-like ways at a faster pace.

Deep learning is a fast growing machine learning method that extracts information by crunching through millions of pieces of data to detect and rank the most important aspects from the data. Publicly supported among leading consumer web and mobile application companies, deep learning is quickly being adopted by more traditional business enterprises.

Deep learning and other artificial intelligence capabilities are being used across a wide range of industry sectors; in banking to advance fraud detection through facial recognition; in automotive for self-driving automobiles and in retail for fully automated call centers with computers that can better understand speech and answer questions.

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With bots the size of a single blood cell, this could spur a huge leap in the field of non-invasive surgeries.

Scientists have developed the world’s first light-seeking synthetic nanorobot which may help surgeons remove tumours and enable more precise engineering of targeted medications.

It has been a dream in science fiction for decades that tiny robots can fundamentally change our daily life. The famous science fiction movie “Fantastic Voyage” is a very good example, with a group of scientists driving their miniaturised Nano-submarine inside human body to repair a damaged brain.

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The Tesla P100 represents a large departure for Nvidia, a company that has focused almost solely on developing chips for workstations and gaming rigs. With the P100, Nvidia is setting their sights on data centers and deep-learning technology.

This is a huge risk as it involves the development of many other things, like a new architecture, new interconnect, and new process, all of which went into the creation of the Tesla P100.

“Our strategy is to accelerate deep learning everywhere,” said Huang.

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Humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating, and communicating information since the Sumerians in Mesopotamia developed writing in 3000 BCE. Since then, we have continuously developed more and more sophisticated means to communicate and push information. Whether unconsciously or consciously, we seem to always need more data, faster than ever. And with every technological breakthrough that comes along, we also have a set of new concepts that reshape our world.

We can think back, for example, to Gutenberg’s printing press. Invented in 1440, it pushed printing costs down and gave birth to revolutionary concepts like catalogs (the first was published in 1495 in Venice by publisher Aldus Manutiu and listed all the books that he was printing), mass media (which enabled revolutionary ideas to transcend borders), magazines, newspapers, and so on. All these concepts emerged from a single “master” technology breakthrough and have had a great impact on every single aspect of individuals’ lives and the global world picture.

A hundred years later, the core idea of data distribution has not changed much. We still browse catalogs to buy our next pair of shoes, we create catalogs to sell our products and services, and we still browse publications looking for information.

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“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears…in…rain. Time to die.” — Roy Batty, Blade Runner

Artificial intelligence has fascinated mankind for more than half a century, with the first public mention of computer intelligence recorded during a London lecture by Alan Turing in 1947. More recently, the public has been exposed to headlines that have increasingly contained references to the growing power of AI, whether that’s been AlphaGo’s defeat of legendary Go player Lee Se-dol, Microsoft’s racist AI bot named Tay or any other number of new developments in the machine learning field. Once a plot device for science-fiction tales, AI is becoming real — and human beings are going to have to define their relationship with it sooner rather than later.

Peter Diamandis, co-founder and vice-chairman at Human Longevity, Inc., touches on that relationship in a post he authored on LinkedIn, titled “The next sexual revolution will be digitized.” Diamandis points to recent reports showing that the Japanese are increasingly abandoning sex and relationships, while a growing subset of men report that they prefer to have virtual girlfriends over real ones.

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Lookout the Russian Robots are coming.

A new pair of Russian robots has been developed that can track and attack humans from more than four miles away. The devices are designed for use on the Russian border and claim to accurately detect and attack ground and aerial threats long before they reach Russian soil.

Key technology at the robots’ disposal includes radar, HD and thermal video imaging, and multiple long-range grenade launchers. The first of the two new robots will act as a pair of scrupulous eyes for Russian border guards.

The ‘Flight’ robot is armed with an array of state-of-the-art surveillance tools to spot potential intruders, such as low-flying drones and other vehicles, from over six miles away. Russian engineers claim it could be used to pick out targets for long-range explosive weaponry. But the impressive device will mostly be used for general surveillance.

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A research team in the US has created a software that can quickly identify the information in cancer reports that would not only save time and work-hours but also reveal overlooked avenues in cancer research.

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Much of the cancer-related data is drawn from electronic, text-based clinical reports that must be manually curated — a time-intensive process — before it can be used in research.

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