Researchers have successfully given AI a curiosity implant, which motivated it to explore a virtual environment. This could be the bridge between AI and real world application.
Researchers at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, have produced an artificial intelligence (AI) that is naturally curious. They tested it successfully by having it play Super Mario and VizDoom (a rudimentary 3D shooter), as the video below shows.
“This work is based on our belief that VR offers new methods for storytelling and engagement.”
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Artificial intelligence software could generate highly realistic fake videos of former president Barack Obama using existing audio and video clips of him, a new study [PDF] finds.
Such work could one day help generate digital models of a person for virtual reality or augmented reality applications, researchers say.
Computer scientists at the University of Washington previously revealed they could generate digital doppelgängers of anyone by analyzing images of them collected from the Internet, from celebrities such as Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger to public figures such as George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Such work suggested it could one day be relatively easy to create such models of anybody, when there are untold numbers of digital photos of everyone on the Internet.
Warfare and technology make the perfect partners of destruction. Military innovations from wooden catapults to nuclear bombs have been transforming the way war is waged since prehistoric humans carved arrows from stones some 10,000 years ago.
The visions of futurists don’t always match the experiences of military personnel, but the battlefields of the future will bear little resemblance to the war zones of today.
The future of technology in warfare: From AI robots to VR torture.
Geopolitical developments have raised fears of another world war. Technological advances mean it should at least be over quickly.
Royal College of Art graduate Brian Black has designed a concept rover and virtual-reality interface that would allow anyone on earth to contribute to space exploration missions.
Black’s vision would see participants driving the rovers over real planets and moons, and collecting samples for analysis, all via a virtual-reality (VR) headset.
Installed in galleries, universities or other public places, the VR experience would function as an engagement mechanism during future interplanetary missions by NASA and other space agencies.
My new article from Vice Motherboard on liberty and privacy. This is one of my most ambitious philosophical works yet: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjx5y5/liberty-might-be-better-served-by-doing-away-with-privacy #Libertarian
If tech is surveilling us constantly, we need the ability to use it to watch the watchers.
Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, transhumanist, author of The Transhumanist Wager, and a Libertarian candidate for California Governor.
The constant onslaught of new technology is making our lives more public and trackable than ever, which understandably scares a lot of people. Part of the dilemma is how we interpret the right to privacy using centuries-old ideals handed down to us by our forbearers. I think the 21st century idea of privacy—like so many other taken-for-granted concepts—may need a revamp.
When James Madison wrote the Fourth Amendment—which helped legally establish US privacy ideals and protection from unreasonable search and seizure—he surely wasn’t imagining Elon Musk’s neural lace, artificial intelligence, the internet, or virtual reality. Madison wanted to make sure government couldn’t antagonize its citizens and overstep its governmental authority, as monarchies and the Church had done for centuries in Europe.
Facial paralysis suffered by thousands of Britons is being treated by pioneering NHS specialists with virtual-reality computer game-style technology.
The therapy could be used to help patients who find it too traumatic to look at their own ‘changed’ reflections after the paralysis.
The virtual-reality (VR) goggles encourage sufferers to carry out the regular facial exercises needed to regain muscle function – with the wearer watching an avatar’s face doing the exercises rather than their own.
The world’s first laser communication link … from the Moon!
A laser communications terminal on a private firm’s upcoming mission to the Moon has been announced during this week’s Paris Air Show.
Astrobotic of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and ATLAS Space Operations Inc. of Traverse City, Michigan are now linked at the laser – offering up to one gigabit per second of data to its customers.
