Items tagged with skynet
There's no question that artificial intelligence and robotics technology will soon become an even more pervasive force in our daily lives. From self-driving cars to robotics dogs that can empty the dishwasher and fetch us a beer, things are looking mighty good for the future. Now, the folks at Google Robotics are making huge strides in developing robots that are less dependent on their human handlers. While today's autonomous robots use reinforcement-learning algorithms that rely more on trial and error (with a lot of human intervention during this process) in a preset virtual environment to navigate obstacles and perform certain tasks, Google researchers have taken things to the next level with...
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Sometimes the question is not 'can we?' but 'should we?', and whoever decided to make a deepfake video of Steve Buscemi's mug on Jennifer Lawrence completely ignored the latter. The result is one of the most frightening things you'll ever see. Granted, beauty is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. But let us explain. Yes, Steve Buscemi is getting up there in age, his younger days now firmly behind him. He's also a great actor, and perhaps even an underappreciated one—he has an impressive acting resume that includes Reservoir Dogs, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, and one of this editor's favorite TV series, The Sopranos. However, mashing his face onto Jennifer Lawrence is both...
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Artificial intelligence is all the rage these days, as it's being used in everything from our smartphones to our digital assistants to even the vehicles we drive (or rather, are driven for us). However, as AI becomes even more powerful, there are those that say that the technology should have limits on where it can be applied. Most often, those limits are envisioned for robots that would be placed on the battlefield and would have the ability to target and potentially kill without human oversight. A group of researchers and companies that has expertise in the AI field have come together with a pledge to not develop or participate in the development of machines...
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SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been making headlines recently for his rather dire predictions regarding the future of artificial intelligence. The tech mogul fears that AI may advance to the point where it could turn on its human "handlers" and could even spark World War III if left unchecked. However, Google search and AI chief John Giannandrea feels that Musk's apprehension and warnings about doomsday scenarios are way overblown. While speaking at the Disrupt conference in San Francisco this week, Giannandrea shot down Musk's proclamations while not actually invoking his name (although we all knew who he was talking about).Google's John Giannandrea "There’s a huge amount of unwarranted...
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A couple of decades ago, the idea of autonomous killing machines being an actual problem seemed like a thing of science-fiction. 1984's The Terminator has captivated audiences since its release, with its portrayal of what things could look like if robots take over. Today, you can't avoid a Skynet reference when someone talks about artificial intelligence gone wrong. The world has changed a lot since the release of The Terminator (and even Terminator 2), and if we're not in the time where this kind of thing could actually be a reality, it's coming soon. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been at the forefront of warning the world of this risk, and over the past couple of years, those warnings...
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As time goes on and advances in technology lead to increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems, the prevailing thought is we'll one day bow to our robot overlords. It's the oft-cited Skynet scenario, which gets its roots in the Terminator series, and there are some brilliant minds such as Tesla founder Elon Musk and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking who think it's a very real threat. There are also those who think it's nothing more than science fiction. Count former Google CEO Eric Schmidt among them. Schmidt downplayed the Skynet scenario at the Brilliant Minds conference in Stockholm when asked what he thought of the predictions made by Musk and Hawking, both of which fear the...
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It's been no secret that Tesla's Elon Musk is worried about advanced artificial intelligence getting into the wrong hands. He's even put his money where his mouth is with those concerns, and last year founded OpenAI, an organization with no competitive nature that aims to make sure AI benefits all of mankind. Being that Musk is so worried about AI finding its way into the wrong hands, many have been keen on knowing who or what company he's most concerned about. Well, at Code Conference 2016, he enlightened us. "There's only one." What could that singular cause for concern be? Unfortunately, we're not going to find out - at least not yet - as Musk simply refused to say a name. It's definitely...
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The concept and implementation of artificial intelligence is nothing new, but with today's computer hardware at our perusal, AI advancement only continues to develop at a rapid pace. Siri and Cortana are both effective AI bots, able to understand a great number of your queries and spit back an answer immediately. As time goes on, AI is only going to become more prevalent, and more important. That's a thought that Dave Coplin, Microsoft UK's Chief Envisioning Officer, agrees with. At an AI conference held late last week, Coplin made the huge statement that AI is the most important technology anyone is working on today. It's something that's not just going to benefit the companies...
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Do you want Skynet? Because this is how you get Skynet! The U.S. Military currently deploys a number of robotic weapons systems – vehicles and platforms that can roam the earth or take to the skies, taking humans partially out of the equation. Aerial drones often carry extremely lethal payloads that are tasked with taking out enemy insurgents on the battlefield. However, military policy has safeguards in place to ensure that these robotic weapons platforms never go “rogue” by firing on friendly targets or innocent civilians. As a result, there’s always a human “behind the trigger” that makes the final call when it comes to firing a weapon. A human should technically have all the relevant information...
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Everyone likes to talk about the impending rise of Skynet, as portrayed in the Terminator series. Our increasing reliance on computers and the rapid advanced in artificial intelligence and deep machine learning have people like Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Steve Wozniak worried about AI being used for autonomous war machines. However, it looks as though Skynet has already arrived; albeit it’s probably not exactly what you envisioned. Government agencies around the world are looking for ways to combat a staggering increase in the number of drones that are taking to the skies. In the United States alone, drones have interfered with firefighting operations, commercial aircraft, and some inventive...
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The future of war could be drastically different than the wars of today, and we'd have artificial intelligence (AI) to "thank" for it. I use "thank" in quotes, because the potential of AI war machines is truly scary, and it makes me ill to think of their potential. Closing my eyes, I can envision future news stories of how AI-controlled drones and similar equipment result in the loss of many innocent lives. I might sound crazy, but I have Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, among myriad other brilliant scientists and researchers to back me up. Decades ago, AI-controlled war machines were restricted to the movies. Through the years, there have been countless jokes made about "Skynet" being...
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Just a few days after Steve Wozniak stirred fears with comments about the inevitability of humans becoming pets for superior robots, the Twittersphere has found further “evidence” that humanity’s end is nigh. A robot at an automotive plant in Germany killed a worker this week and the reporter who first covered the news is named Sarah O’Connor. Lop the “O” off her name, and you have the lead character of the original Terminator movie (and its sequel). Now would probably be a good time for sci-fi fans everywhere to take a collective deep breathe and chill the heck out. The Volkswagon employee apparently entered a security cage that is designed to protect humans from the robot while it works. The...
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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has reportedly spent many sleepless nights fretting about the day when technology would have dominion over humans. Like the turning point when the student surpasses the master, his fear was of a future where artificial intelligence would become smarter than people and take over the world, but then he had an epiphany. Wozniak surmised that when (not if, mind you) AI machines become smarter than us piddling mortals, they'll keep us around because they'll realize we're needed, that we as the human population are part of a delicate ecosystem, and like other creatures of the planet, we have our place (hopefully he's right and things don't...
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Have you ever wanted to be in possession of your very own cyborg roach? Well, let's be honest: Of course you have. Well, those dreams can now become a reality thanks to "Roboroach", a Kickstarter project that's become a retail product. Roboroach's goal is to teach people about neurotechnologies, and it comes to us in the form of a super-small 4.4 gram PCB. That PCB is to be affixed to the backside of a roach, and the process from there seems a little tedious: You'll need to latch on a couple of electrodes to the bug's antennas. Once installed, you'll be able to control the roach for a couple of minutes - after those couple of minutes, the bug will adapt, and the Roboroach will no longer work....
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When I first heard that Tesla founder Elon Musk equated artificial intelligence to 'summoning the demon', I had to do a double-take. After all, many consider Musk to be nothing short of a genius; he's accomplished many amazing things to prove it. Yet, he really did say this, so is he just trying to rile people up, and see their reactions? Or does he genuinely believe it? Talking at MIT's Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's Centennial Symposium last week, Musk said, "With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he's like... yeah, he's sure he can control the demon—it doesn't...
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Well, this thing just looks...frightening! And in more ways than one. Parrot's stable of robo-copters aren't anything new at this point. The company has already shocked the tech/toy world with their first flying objects, but now, the SkyNET is taking things to a new level. And yes, it's really called SkyNET. Straight out of Arnold's Terminator realm, this do-it-yourself robotic helicopter is reportedly cheap to build and easy to operate. But it's more than just a toy. It's a potential threat to your home Wi-Fi network, which makes it all the more interesting. The device is part helicopter and part technological breakthrough, and it can be configured to hover around and wreck wireless networks....
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