A small series of posts over the next week or so on the concept of "Type 1". These will be People, Planet and Challenges. Why? Simply put, my recent experience of public discourse and political debate in Australia (and those seeking public office) suggests we need to look closely for genuine intellectual honesty, strategic vision and coherent world views that can…
Listen very closely. Did you pick it? Google AI and engineering teams have announced Google Duplex, a new technology for conducting natural conversations to carry out “real world” tasks over the phone. Google says: The technology is directed towards completing specific tasks, such as scheduling certain types of appointments. For such tasks, the system makes the conversational experience as natural…
The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence is being staged in Melbourne this week. This is the main international gathering of researchers in AI. Held biennially in odd-numbered years since 1969, IJCAI is sponsored jointly by IJCAI and the national AI societie(s) of the host nation(s). The theme of this Year’s conference is Autonomy and AI and is intended to…
On July 27, 2016, Michigan-based Vayu, Inc., in collaboration with the Stony Brook University Global Health Institute completed the first ever series of long-range, fully autonomous drone delivery flights with blood and stool samples, setting records in the process. The samples were flown from villages in rural Madagascar to Stony Brook University's Centre ValBio, a central testing facility located adjacent…
Stephen Hawking: There's a story that scientists built an intelligent computer. The first question they asked it was: "Is there a God?" The computer replies: "There is now." And a bolt of lightning struck the plug so it couldn't be turned off. Nick Bostrom: Most of the world is completely oblivious to the most major things that are going to happen…
The team at BD is at it again. SpotMini is a new smaller version of the Spot robot. SpotMini is all-electric (no hydraulics) and runs for about 90 minutes on a charge, depending on what it is doing. SpotMini is one of the quietest robots Boston Dynamics have ever built.