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Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

For discussions of events and conditions not necessarily related to Peak Oil.

Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Tue 23 May 2017, 12:19:37

DARPA’s Biotech Chief Says 2017 Will “Blow Our Minds

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The Pentagon’s research and development division, DARPA—the creative force behind the internet and GPS—retooled itself three years ago to create a new office dedicated to unraveling biology’s engineering secrets. The new Biological Technologies Office (BTO) has a mission to “harness the power of biological systems” and design new defense technology. Over the past year, with a budget of about $296 million, it has been exploring challenges including memory improvement, human–machine symbiosis and speeding up disease detection and response.
... I think in the future there are a wide variety of devices that can be controlled via neural activity, not just the assisted kind but also a kind able-bodied individuals could ultimately use in their everyday lives. Another thing we aspire to do in 2017 is think about neural technology in everyday life.

I’m really intrigued by using neural technology to change how we interact with each other, how we communicate with each other and even maybe make decisions. I’m thinking about cognitive assistance. There are a whole host of ideas about how it could help a wide variety of people. The door is just opening up to even think about these kinds of concepts, and to think about technology today to go down that road.


- Justin Sanchez - Director Biological Technologies Office (BTO) Neuroprosthetic Research


ARM Wants to Put Its Chips Inside Your Brain

Neural implants are all the rage in Silicon Valley. Now the well-known chip designer thinks its low-power processors could help make them a reality.

New technology could make brain implants a commonplace reality

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Researchers at Harvard Medical School are preparing to begin tests for a new kind of brain implant that could lead to the long-term restoration of sight for blind people.

Unfortunately, the kind of electrodes that have been used up until now have not been able to make any lasting change as the scar tissue that forms after their implantation reduces their electrical connection to the brain cells.

The new implants have the potential to make a difference as rather than being implanted directly into the brain itself they’ll be able to rest on the surface of the organ beneath the skull.

The implants, that are being tested on monkeys in the next month, are intended specifically to stimulate the visual cortex in an attempt to create the sensation of sight without any actual input from the eyes themselves. (... kinda like the Matrix)

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So, You Regret That Brain Implant. Now What?

If anyone understands the unique level of risk associated with getting a neural implant, it’s Dr. Phil Kennedy. In 2014, he was forced to fly to Belize to have a surgeon there perform an experimental brain surgery the FDA had deemed too dangerous for approval. Kennedy’s goal was to wire his brain with intracranial electrodes of his own design, with a plan to awaken with a simple, working interface between his brain and a computer, and a lifetime of all-new possibilities.

Instead, he awoke to find himself far more limited than he had been before. His movements were imprecise, and his mouth simply would not form the words he wanted. Dismayed, Kennedy stumbled through the first few days heavily disabled, plagued by headaches and other complications. It seemed obvious that he had made a huge mistake but, having put the devices inside his skull, what was there to be done about it now?

With months of effort, Kennedy was eventually able to regain his full powers of movement and speech, and in a recent phone-call with Inverse he made it clear that the experience hasn’t dulled his enthusiasm for the technology in the slightest. When asked how, given his ordeal, he feels about the prospect of having millions of people receive neural implants in the near future, he replied that a neurally wired world can’t come quickly enough.

“Even for people who are able-bodied, controlling a computer and accessing the cloud directly … I think it’s a great idea,” he said, with totally unironic enthusiasm. “I’m totally for it. It’s my ultimate goal!”
... The permanence of coming neural implants is worrying for a number of reasons, but foremost among them is the fact that science currently has a much, much better ability to pick up brain information than it does to make sense of it.

Users might get an implant in 2020, fully comfortable with what it can do at that time, only to find that advances in brain science crop up years later to augment its existing mind-reading and -controlling abilities beyond what the user finds acceptable. ...

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Video - Believe it or not, the nose thing is not an option.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 25 May 2017, 12:17:18

It's happening: Google's AI is building more AIs

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We've reached AI inception, but Google CEO Sundar Pichai still wants to "go deeper."

Put away your machine learning degrees -- artificial intelligence is now at the stage where it's ready to replicate and improve on itself, according to Google.

Googlers have designed AIs that are capable of "learning to learn," said CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking Wednesday at Google I/O, the company's annual developer's conference in Mountain View, California.

"We are excited about designing better machine learning models, but these days it is really painstaking," said Pichai. Instead of relying on human labor to design new models, Google is now delegating the responsibility to machine learning models it already built.


Google Researchers are Teaching their AI to Build Its Own, More Powerful AI - What could possibly go wrong?

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Google has announced another big push into artificial intelligence, unveiling a new approach to machine learning where neural networks are used to build better neural networks - essentially teaching AI to teach itself.

These artificial neural networks are designed to mimic the way the brain learns, and Google says its new technology, called AutoML, can develop networks that are more powerful, efficient, and easy to use.


Google’s New AI Can ‘Engineer’ Better than Human Engineers

One of the more noteworthy remarks to come out of Google I/O ’17 conference this week was CEO Sundar Pichai recalling how his team had joked that they have achieved “AI inception” with AutoML. Instead of crafting layers of dreams like in the Christopher Nolan flick, however, the AutoML system layers artificial intelligence (AI), with AI systems creating better AI systems.

So far, they have used the AutoML tech to design networks for image and speech recognition tasks. In the former, the system matched Google’s experts. In the latter, it exceeded them, designing better architectures than the humans were able to create.

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Google’s AlphaGo Just Beat the Top Chinese Go Master - Again

Google's artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo, beat Chinese Go master Ke Jie for a second time on Thursday, taking an unassailable 2-0 lead in a best of three series meant to test the limits of computers in taking on humans at complex tasks. Ke will try to salvage some pride for humanity in the third and final game on Saturday.

Ke, the 19-year-old world no. 1, was visibly frustrated, tugging his hair and laying his head on the table during the final moments of the second match against AlphaGo on Thursday.

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"There's still hope for Ke in the third game, but humans are too prone to make mistakes and once there's an apparent error, it will be fatal"

-Liu Zhiqing, head of the Computer and Go Research Center at the Beijing University

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60 million Chinese fans struggled to get information on the event after authorities banned live coverage, amid online speculation in China that it was linked to Google's tense history with Beijing.

Researchers Have Created an AI That Is Naturally Curious

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

Most current AIs are trained using ‘Reinforcement Learning’ — they are rewarded when they perform a task that helps them to reach a goal or complete a function. This is a useful and effective strategy for teaching AI to complete specific tasks — as shown by the AI who beat the AlphaGo world number one — but less useful when you want a machine to be autonomous and operate outside of direct commands. This is crucial step to integrating AI into the real world and having it solve real world problems because, as Agrawal says, “rewards in the real world are very sparse.”

Brenden Lake, a Data Science Fellow at New York University said in an email to MIT that this work is encouraging. “Developing machines with similar qualities is an important step toward building machines that learn and think like people.”

However, to some, this could be extremely worrying. Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have already discussed AI as a serious threat to humanity, and we must consider the consequences of introducing improvements to thought capacity to a process of learning that we already don’t fully understand.

The rise of the Android-powered car

Google, A.I. and the rise of the super-sensor

Google Lens Will Turn Your Smartphone Camera Into A Search Box
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 25 May 2017, 13:15:21

AI-Powered Dynamic Pricing Turns Its Gaze to the Fuel Pumps

Price as a Game of Russian Roulette:

Analysis "AI" could soon be making petrol more expensive at times of peak demand like the start of a bank holiday weekend or the school run (or right before a hurricane).


Danish data analytics company a2i touts fuel pricing as an ideal implementation of its learning algorithms. The company claims that PriceCast Fuel, its dynamic pricing product, can improve fuel retailers' margins by around 5 per cent.

"With the use of Artificial Intelligence PriceCast Fuel detects behavioral patterns in Big Data (all available data relevant to the sale) and relates to customer and competitor reactions with a frequency and level of accuracy that users of traditional pricing systems only can dream about," the company explains in a brochure [PDF]. "Dynamically mapping customer and competitor behavior in order to identify the optimal route (price setting) throughout the day, makes it possible to relate to any given change in the local situation for a given station and re-route accordingly when necessary and within seconds."

PriceCast can do traditional rule-based pricing where, for example, the supplier wants to set the lowest price possible. But a2i can also incorporate "Restricted AI" or "Advanced AI" pricing.
The company says it isn't ripping off anyone.

CEO Ulrik Blichfeldt told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month [paywalled]:
"This is not a matter of stealing more money from your customer. It's about making margin on people who don't care, and giving away margin to people who do care"

a2i claims several fuel suppliers in Europe have signed on, but only one is prepared to go public. Why the shyness? Well, that isn't too hard to work out.

Real-time dynamic pricing has long been a Silicon Valley fantasy. Here's Affirm co-founder and CEO Max Levchin four years ago:
On a Saturday morning, I load my two toddlers into their respective child seats, and my car's in-wheel strain gauges detect the weight difference and reports that the kids are with me in a moving vehicle to my insurance via a secure message through my iPhone. The insurance company duly increases today's premium by a few dollars


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AI-powered dynamic pricing sticks in the craw because it makes it blatantly obvious that the consumer is being gamed.

The "smart" consumer will shop around, but dynamic pricing turns shopping into a 24/7 poker game – a full-time hobby, or neurosis. To the VC and AI nerds of Silicon Valley this is how it should be, squeezing every last ounce of "inefficiency" out of a marketplace.

"This is the nightmare world of Big Data, where the moment-by-moment behavior of human beings – analog resources – is tracked by sensors and engineered by central authorities to create optimal statistical outcomes," commented Nick Carr.

Also, how do we know if we've been offered the lowest price. And what happens when the pricing bots gang up on us? "A cabal of AI-enhanced price-bots might plausibly hatch a method of colluding that even their handlers could not understand, let alone be held fully responsible for," notes The Economist.


The economics behind Uber's new pricing model

Uber is changing the way it calculates fares, moving to a system that charges what customers are "willing to pay", based on factors like whether you are travelling to a wealthy suburb. But while this change has been met with mild outrage, it is actually a very common practice called "price discrimination."

Price discrimination is the practice of charging different "types" of consumers different prices for the same product or service.

Regardless of the mechanism, the objective is to exploit the different "willingness to pay" (WTP) between consumers and thereby increase profits. WTP describes the maximum amount a consumer would pay for a particular product or service. Given consumers differ in incomes and other circumstances, this presents an opportunity that firms may exploit through price discrimination.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 25 May 2017, 16:18:34

Chinese online retailer developing one-ton delivery drones

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China's biggest online retailer, JD.com Inc., announced plans Monday to develop drone aircraft capable of carrying a ton or more for long-distance deliveries.

The company will target deliveries to more rural areas of the country’s northern Shaanxi Province, and will have hundreds of routes and drone bases.

“It’s very expensive to have a car drive out, even if you are 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the base,” says JD spokesman Josh Gartner, “You have to drive 10 kilometers each way when you merely have a couple of orders.”

Additionally,”The routes may be very difficult to drive on, sometimes it might take a couple of hours, when drones can do it within minutes.”

JD’s plan to fly a ton or more wouldn’t be the heaviest load carried by an unmanned aerial device. The US Marines have unmanned cargo choppers that can ferry loads of as much as 6,000 pounds, up from about 3,000 pounds when it first started testing them in 2010. The Marines have flown unmanned cargo helicopters for the past year and a half in Afghanistan, completing about 1,300 missions.


Trump wants to be able track and destroy drones flying over the U.S.

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The new proposal would allow the government to track, commandeer, disable, hack or destroy private drones.

Yesterday the Trump Administration circulated a draft of a new proposal that would allow the federal government to track, commandeer, disable, hack or destroy drones flying in the United States.

... This new proposal from the Trump administration would provide the federal government more power than the ability to remotely identify personal aircraft. If passed, the government would be able to seize control and confiscate a drone, including its payload, without prior consent to evaluate if it poses a security threat to areas that receive special government protection. That means an SD card or images stored on the drone could be searched.

It also means that drones may have less privacy protection than a cellphone, which currently cannot be searched without a warrant.


The proposal says that the government would need to “respect privacy, civil rights and civil liberties” when it intercepts a drone or its communications, and that no court would have jurisdiction “to hear any cause or claim” arising from any of the new powers to track, hack or seize a drone granted in the new proposal. So if there is a privacy complaint, it’s unclear that it could be disputed in court.

The draft legislation would create an exception for drones in US hacking and surveillance laws, as well as FAA aircraft regulations. Currently, intercepting UAS signals could count as wiretapping or accessing a “protected computer.” Destroying or disabling a drone, meanwhile, could count as aircraft sabotage under FAA rules. If passed, the law would supersede them.

It could also let law enforcement ban drone recording — an important journalistic resource — in just about any area it chooses.

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Dakota Access Pipeline protests: No More Pesky Drones Recording Oil Spills or Police Abuse


Texans Could Soon Be Jailed for Flying Drones over Oil Facilities, Animal Factory Farms

Texans caught flying drones over oil and gas well pads, cell towers and large animal feeding operations could face jail time starting September 1. Critics of the proposal claim it will have a chilling effect on citizens and journalists researching the environmental and public health effects of the oil and gas industry and large-scale animal factory farms.

House Bill 1643, authored by Representative Drew Springer, R-Muenster, adds oil and gas drilling sites, telecommunications infrastructure and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) — factory farms where animals are kept in confined spaces — to the state’s “critical infrastructure” list. The list currently includes dams, power plants, refineries, pipelines and other facilities considered a security risk. Flying a drone lower than 400 feet above one of these facilities is a Class B misdemeanor and could result in up to 180 days in jail. Researchers at state agencies, including public higher education institutions, are exempt from the law.
“It’s taking a law that’s already unconstitutional and making it worse,”

... said Alicia Calzada, a Haynes and Boone media attorney who also provides counsel for the National Press Photographers Association. The law tramples on the public and the media’s First Amendment rights, she said.

The bill passed the Senate Wednesday and is now headed to the governor’s desk.

Critics say the 'ag gag' measure is a sneaky attempt to push back against environmental and animal rights advocates, who might use drones to uncover shady business practices. In 2011, a hobbyist flying a drone over the Trinity River spotted Columbia Packing Company diverting pig blood into the river. The drone footage was used by Dallas County investigators, and a grand jury indicted the company and its two vice presidents on 18 counts.

Calzada, the media attorney, says that Springer’s proposal to add oil and gas facilities, telecommunications infrastructure and animal factory farms to the critical infrastructure list should be considered against the backdrop of that 2013 law. Texas’ drone regulations make it more risky for reporters and citizens to monitor emissions from an oil and gas site or waste disposal at a CAFO, she said.

According to a recent Texans for Public Justice report, the oil and gas industry provided 10 percent of Springer’s campaign contributions between 2013 and 2016, and lobbyists for the industry are the No. 1 source of campaign funds for Texas lawmakers.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Fri 26 May 2017, 12:25:32

Pot calling kettle black ...

Trump called Kim Jong Un a ‘Madman with Nuclear Weapons’: report

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President Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “a madman with nuclear weapons” during a private phone call with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in April, according to a new report.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that it had obtained a transcript of the call between Duterte and Trump, in which Trump questioned whether Kim is "stable." Trump told Duterte:
[Kim is] playing with his bombs, his toys,” “His mind is not working well and he just might go crazy one moment.”

“All his rockets are crashing,” Trump added. “That’s the good news. We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons on the loose like that. We have a lot of firepower, more than he has, times 20 – but we don’t want to use it. [The U.S. has] a lot of firepower over there.”

A senior Trump administration official told The Post that the transcript is accurate but declined to speak on the record about a “leaked document from a foreign government.”

U.S. President Donald Trump also told his Philippine counterpart that Washington has sent two nuclear submarines to waters off the Korean peninsula, comments likely to raise questions about his handling of sensitive information.
“We have two submarines — the best in the world. We have two nuclear submarines, not that we want to use them at all”

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Trump has said “a major, major conflict” with North Korea is possible because of its nuclear and missile programs and that all options are on the table but that he wants to resolve the crisis diplomatically. (... by eliminating ambassadors and reducing the State Dept budget by 30%)
Trump also praised Duterte for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem

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Almost 9,000 people, many small-time users and dealers, have been killed in the Philippines since Duterte took office on June 30. According to Police about one-third of the victims were shot by officers in self-defense or resisting arrest during legitimate operations.


The Video That Suggests Trump Is Suffering from Alzheimer's

At 70 years old, Trump is the oldest person to be elected president. His father Fred was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease six years before his death. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, “age, family history and heredity” are the most important risk factors in developing the disease. Most sufferers start to show signs of the illness at age 65.

The blogger behind the Neurocritic laid out what he sees as proof of Trump’s mental deterioration. He notes that President Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 83, though he began to manifest symptoms far earlier. Researchers have combed through records of off-the-cuff speeches Reagan delivered and found significant declines in his mastery of language. By his second term, Reagan’s speech showed a deep drop-off in the use of unique words; a marked increase in the use of non-specific nouns (thing, something, anything); an uptick in filler words (well, so, basically, actually, literally, um, ah); and a greater use of low-imageability, high frequency verbs (get, give, go, have, do).

Trump seems to have parallels in all these areas. He has become notorious for his word salads, incomprehensible soliloquies delivered at the speaking level of a fourth-grader. He frequently falls back on words like “tremendous” and often drags on without using specifics. Trump often speaks at length while saying nothing.

Alex Leo of the Daily Beast transcribed one sentence Trump delivered at a campaign stop in South Carolina, a series of dead ends, unfinished thoughts and ramblings:
Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my, like, credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger, fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

In the clip below, David Pakman shows how typical Trump bluster could actually be indicative of something more problematic. He compares old footage of Trump to the Trump of today, and looks at how Trump's physical problems may also be linked to Alzheimer's:
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Fri 26 May 2017, 12:28:02

Heads-Up: Augmented Reality Prepares for the Battlefield

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- Video - Straight out of Call of Duty: The Pentagon's research and development arm is developing an augmented reality system that overlays critical information over a soldier's field of vision. The Tactical Augmented Reality (TAR) package allows soldiers to see in the dark, view the location of geotagged enemies in 3D space, receive video feeds from surveillance platforms, and even see from behind obstacles or through buildings. In essence, TAR replaces NVG, GPS, plus it does much more.

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Developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, Tactical Augmented Reality combines an 1-inch by 1-inch eyepiece with a tablet and weapon-mounted thermal night vision sight. The eyepiece, mounted on the wearer's helmet, projects data over the wearer's field of view not unlike the heads-up display available to fighter pilots. If a Soldier is pointing his or her weapon, the image of the target, plus other details like the distance to target, can be seen through the eyepiece.

The eyepiece even has a split screen, so for example, if the rifle is pointed rearward and the Soldier is looking forward, the image shows both views. In addition the TAR's wireless system allows a Soldier to share his or her images with other members of the squad or HQ.

According to DARPA, early versions of the eyepiece technology have already been fielded to "certain units," likely special operations forces using them in the field. Current versions use a black and white or green monochrome field of view, but agency is working on a full color version.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Fri 26 May 2017, 13:07:59

Scientists Predict AI Will Allow Us to Translate Dolphin Language by 2021

A Swedish startup dubbed Gavagai AB has recently started using Artificial Intelligence analysis software to unlock the secrets of the dolphin language, after successfully mastering 40 different human dialects. As the software improves, the startup believes that in the future it will even be possible for humans to directly communicate with dolphins.

In the past, we’ve seen jokes about dolphins and humans talking to each other, but it seems talking to the aquatic mammals in now a real possibility, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). Gavagai AB is currently working with researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology to gather as much data as possible on the language dolphins speak, in order to soon decode it.

According to Digital Trends, research suggests dolphins communicate in a language that shares similarities with our own. It relies on sentences made out of individual words whose order is relevant to determine meaning; dolphins even pause to let each other speak. As such, decoding their language mainly involves linking a certain sound to a specific meaning.

Bottlenose dolphins in Africa use signature whistles to identify each other, say scientists investigating dolphin communication . These signature whistles are exchanged by groups of dolphins when they meet at sea and are used to address each other, similar to how humans use names.

Gavagai’s team, with the help of the company’s AI language analysis tool, will monitor Bottlenose dolphins at a wildlife park south of Stockholm, in an attempt to use collected data to compile a dolphin language dictionary.

The dolphin project -- a planned four-year effort -- came about because Gavagai’s AI software has proven capable in real-life, natural language processing, CEO Lars Hamberg said by phone. Although there is no immediate business purpose, the research on dolphins will help the company sharpen its tool for other tasks, he said.

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Scientists to probe dolphin intelligence using an interactive touchpad

The eight-foot underwater touchscreen features specialized dolphin-friendly "apps" and a symbolic keyboard to provide the dolphins—which are intelligent and highly social—with opportunities to interact with the system.

While the research is still in its early stages, the team has embarked on studies aimed at understanding dolphin vocal learning and communication, their capacity for symbolic communication, and what patterns of behavior may emerge when the animals have the ability to request items, videos, interactions and images.

"It has always been hard to keep up with dolphins, they are so smart; a fully interactive and programmable system will help us follow them in any direction they take us." ... "Giving dolphins increased choice and control allows them to show us reflections of their way of thinking and may help us decode their vocal communication."

Already, the scientists have begun to introduce the dolphins to some of the system's interactive apps, so the animals can explore on their own how touching the screen results in specific contingencies. "Without any explicit training or encouragement from us, one of the younger dolphins, Foster, spontaneously showed immediate interest and expertise in playing a dolphin version of Whack-a-Mole," Reiss says, "in which he tracks and touches moving fish on the touchscreen."

Still Think Humans are the Most Intelligent Animals? Here’s Why Whales and Dolphins Have us Beat

... According to a comparison of cetacean to primate brains from Michigan State University, “They have the distinct advantage over us in that their primary sense is the same as their primary means of communication, both are auditory. With primates, the primary sense is visual and the primary means of communication is auditory.”

Communication is so great in cetaceans that there is a strong possibility they are able to project (yes … literally project) an “auditory image” that replicates a sonar message they may receive. The process is a bit confusing, but MSU describes it in this circumstance: “So a dolphin wishing to convey the image of a fish to another dolphin can literally send the image of a fish to the other animal. The equivalent of this in humans would be the ability to create instantaneous holographic pictures to convey images to other people.”

Specialized brain cells called spindle neurons are most often associated with an organism’s ability to “recognize, remember, reason, communicate, perceive, adapt to change, problem solve and understand.”

Though this “advanced ability” is most often associated with organisms that are deemed to be the most intelligent, (*cough* humans *cough*) the truth is that spindle neurons have been isolated in the brains of both whales and dolphins, which suggests that whales do a lot more thinking than previously thought.

Dolphins, for example, have been known to recognize themselves in mirrors, solve problems, follow recipes, and associate a part of their anatomy with that of a human’s (such as when a dolphin waves it’s fin whenever a trainer waves their arm). Recent studies even indicate that dolphins are capable of creating personalized whistles that act as names for individual members of a pod. With this name, dolphins are able to communicate more efficiently while roaming the open seas.

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... Yangtze river dolphin, was declared extinct, its river habitat seriously impacted by the construction of dams and boat traffic.

Endangered dolphins like the Maui’s dolphin are on the brink of extinction due to entanglement in fishing gear. The Maui’s, a sub-species of Hector’s dolphin found in the waters of New Zealand, teeter on the brink with estimates suggesting less than 100 of these dolphins remain in existence.

There are only 30 Vaquitas dolphins left
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Fri 26 May 2017, 18:45:26

Can We Quantify Machine Consciousness?

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Could sufficiently advanced computers ever become conscious?

Artificial intelligence might endow some computers with self-awareness. Here’s how we’d know


... Here we will survey the intellectual lay of the land concerning coming developments. Our view is that as long as such machines are based on present-day computer architectures, they may act just like people—and we may be tempted to treat them that way—but they will, in fact, feel nothing at all. If computers are built more like the brain is, though, they could well achieve true consciousness. ...

There is a fundamental theory of consciousness that offers hope for a principled answer to the question of consciousness in entities vastly different from us, including machines. That theory does not start from behavior or from the brain. Instead, it begins from consciousness itself—from our own experience, the only one we are absolutely certain of. This is the bedrock of certainty that René Descartes, father of modern philosophy, science, and analytic geometry, referred to in the most famous deduction in Western thought: I think, therefore I am.

This theory, called integrated information theory, or IIT, has been developed over the past two decades. It attempts to define what consciousness is, what it takes for a physical system to have it, and how one can measure, at least in principle, both its quantity and its quality, starting from its physical substrate.

IIT is too involved for us to explain here; we can only sketch its general outlines. The theory identifies five essential properties that are true of every conceivable experience of consciousness: (1) Every experience exists intrinsically (for the subject of that experience, not for an external observer); (2) each experience is structured (it is composed of parts and the relations among them); (3) it is integrated (it cannot be subdivided into independent components); (4) it is definite (it has borders, including some contents and excluding others); and (5) it is specific (every experience is the way it is, and thereby different from trillions of possible others).
“The theory can be used to assess the quantity and quality of consciousness for any physical system, whether it is the brain of a human, an octopus, or a bee—or the circuit board of a digital computer”

IIT predicts that conventional digital computers running software will experience nothing like the movie we see and hear inside our heads. Because smart digital assistants and lifelike future robots are incapable of experience, as IIT insists, their software can be safely copied, edited, sold, pirated, or deleted. And they can be turned off, modified, destroyed, and replaced at will.

But the same need not be true for unconventional architectures.
Special-purpose machines built following some of the same design principles as the brain, containing what’s called neuromorphic hardware, could in principle be capable of substantial conscious experience.

The key is that the logic and memory gates are heavily interconnected with a high degree of partially overlapping fan-in and fan-out between gates. (Compartmentalized components with highly specific functions do not contribute to intrinsic causal power.) The way the “brain” of the system is actually wired up, its (bio)physics, makes all the difference, not its input-output behavior.

Such a neuromorphic machine, if highly conscious, would then have intrinsic rights, in particular the right to its own life and well-being. In that case, society would have to learn to share the world with its own creations.

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The future of AI is neuromorphic. Meet the scientists building digital 'brains' for your phone

Neuromorphic chips are being designed to specifically mimic the human brain – and they could soon replace CPUs

Traditional CPUs process instructions based on “clocked time” – information is transmitted at regular intervals, as if managed by a metronome. By packing in digital equivalents of neurons, neuromorphics communicate in parallel (and without the rigidity of clocked time) using “spikes” – bursts of electric current that can be sent whenever needed. Just like our own brains, the chip’s neurons communicate by processing incoming flows of electricity - each neuron able to determine from the incoming spike whether to send current out to the next neuron.

What makes this a big deal is that these chips require far less power to process AI algorithms. For example, one neuromorphic chip made by IBM contains five times as many transistors as a standard Intel processor, yet consumes only 70 milliwatts of power. An Intel processor would use anywhere from 35 to 140 watts, or up to 2000 times more power.

Eliasmith and his team are keenly focused on building tools that would allow a community of programmers to deploy AI algorithms on these new cortical chips.

Central to these efforts is Nengo, a compiler that developers can use to build their own algorithms for AI applications that will operate on general purpose neuromorphic hardware. Pretty soon, anyone with an understanding of Python could be building sophisticated neural nets made for neuromorphic hardware.

“Things like vision systems, speech systems, motion control, and adaptive robotic controllers have already been built with Nengo,” Peter Suma, a trained computer scientist and the other CEO of Applied Brain Research, tells me.

Perhaps the most impressive system built using the compiler is Spaun, a project that in 2012 earned international praise for being the most complex brain model ever simulated on a computer. Spaun demonstrated that computers could be made to interact fluidly with the environment, and perform human-like cognitive tasks like recognizing images and controlling a robot arm that writes down what it’s sees. The machine wasn’t perfect, but it was a stunning demonstration that computers could one day blur the line between human and machine cognition. Recently, by using neuromorphics, most of Spaun has been run 9000x faster, using less energy than it would on conventional CPUs – and by the end of 2017, all of Spaun will be running on Neuromorphic hardware.


Memristor Image Processor Uses Sparse Coding to See

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Researchers led by Wei Lu at the University of Michigan have designed hardware specifically to run brain-like “sparse coding” algorithms. Their system learns and stores visual patterns, and can recognize natural images while using very little power compared to machine learning programs run on GPUs and CPUs.


Apple Is Working on a Dedicated Chip to Power AI on Devices

Apple is working on a processor devoted specifically to AI-related tasks, according to a person familiar with the matter. The chip, known internally as the Apple Neural Engine, would improve the way the company’s devices handle tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence -- such as facial recognition and speech recognition, said the person, who requested anonymity discussing a product that hasn’t been made public


This robot arm’s AI thinks like we do about how to grab something - With 99% accuracy on first try

The researchers presented Dex-Net with dozens of objects it hadn’t seen before, and its chosen grip only failed one time. That suggests the system is fairly robust despite being trained on synthetic data — plus, it comes up with its candidate grip in an average of less than a second. Video



Google Plans to Demonstrate the Supremacy of Quantum Computing

Why Soul Machines made an AI baby

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At Soul Machines, a company that uses artificial intelligence to create lifelike avatars that respond to human emotion, a fair amount of their work could be considered unsettling to the average person who fears the coming takeover by our AI-robot overlords.

It’s a company that pretty much lives in the uncanny valley, that space between fake and real that can creep people out, but that’s not usually what happens when people meet BabyX, said Soul Machines founder Mark Sagar.

Instead, he says, when the baby begins to whimper or cry, some respond in human ways, demonstrating what appears to be sympathy similar to the kind they may lavish on a human baby.

“I’ll probably get about 10 or 15 percent of people respond with ‘that’s creepy,’ and others it doesn’t bother them at all. Ultimately it’s about creating an emotional connection and then people jump right into that,” he said.

To see which of these two camps you fall into, watch the video below.


Google AlphaGo AI took on 5 grandmaster Go players at once and still won

Are five human heads better than one computer brain? Not when it comes to playing Go. AlphaGo, the AI created to play the game of Go better than anyone alive, has defeated a team made up of five Go champions in a demonstration match on Friday.

The team included Chen Yaoye, Zho Ruiyang, Mi Yuting, Shi Yue and Tang Weixing, and on the AlphaGo side – just AlphaGo, obviously. The match ended when the human players resigned in the face of AlphaGo’s certain victory.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Sat 27 May 2017, 08:54:14

British Airways: Flights Cancelled Amid Global Computer Failure

Computer problems are causing delays for British Airways passengers worldwide, the airline has said.

The carrier apologised for the "global system outage" and said it was "working to resolve the the problem as quickly as possible".

BA staff in Heathrow's Terminal 5 were resorting to using white boards, according to passenger Gareth Wharton.

Delays have also been reported in Rome, Prague, Stockholm and Malaga due to the system failure

BA staff were unable to say how long delays would be, telling him "all flights are grounded around the world".

The failure affects the passenger and baggage manifests. Check in, bag drop, take-offs and landings are all delayed as Heathrow Airport faces a logjam of delayed flights blocking gates

BA aircraft landing at Heathrow are unable to park up as outbound aircraft cannot vacate the gates, which has resulted in passengers being stuck on aircraft.

Journalist Martyn Kent said he had been sitting on a plane at Heathrow for 90 minutes. He said the captain told passengers the IT problems were "catastrophic".

"We were told that we couldn't even get on other flights because they are unable to see what flights we can be moved to."

The airline said the terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick airports had "become extremely congested" and that all flights before 18:00 BST are cancelled. A BA spokesperson said:
"Please do not come to the airports."


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AlphaGo retires from competitive Go after defeating world number one 3-0

AlphaGo is going out on top. After beating Ke Jie, the world’s best player of the ancient Chinese board game Go, for the third time today at the Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen, Google’s DeepMind unit announced that it would be the last event match the AI plays. In a statement, DeepMind co-founder and co-CEO Demis Hassabis said the reason was that this week’s summit represented “the highest possible pinnacle for AlphaGo as a competitive program.”

“The research team behind AlphaGo will now throw their considerable energy into the next set of grand challenges, developing advanced general algorithms that could one day help scientists as they tackle some of our most complex problems, such as finding new cures for diseases, dramatically reducing energy consumption, or inventing revolutionary new materials,” Hassabis says. “If AI systems prove they are able to unearth significant new knowledge and strategies in these domains too, the breakthroughs could be truly remarkable. We can’t wait to see what comes next.”
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Tue 30 May 2017, 13:17:43

Elon Musk: Automation Will Force Universal Basic Income

Video- Musk says that Universal Basic Income — or an economic idea where everyone gets a paycheck from the government to spend how they wish — is one of the only solutions to the rise of robotic automation.

Automation on large scales will absolutely change everything. The going term right now is the rise of the “post-scarcity economy.” And, while I know that sounds boring as hell, for you it means that in the not-too-distant future, money won’t matter and all of our economies will totally collapse. And yeah, I’m serious.

Post-scarcity is something that we should all be able to at least kind of understand. Traditional economies work because things are rare. Food, for example, isn’t infinite. If it was, it’d be free. After all, how could you charge for something that is unlimited? Like air? Or the sun? There’s no practical way to do that.

That’s essentially why the Star Trek universe abandoned money. After you have replicators, which are basically magical boxes that make anything from anything in seconds, stuff doesn’t have intrinsic value. You can’t control the supply or demand of anything because the demand is whatever and the supply is unlimited. In that system, as you can already tell, nothing about traditional economics works. What’s a supply and demand curve even mean under those circumstances?

Again, think about it — if you have 30 or even 40% unemployment, then the economy, as we’ve traditionally structured it has nothing to do but collapse. If that many people are unemployed, they won’t have enough money to buy… anything, really. That, in turn, shatters demand for goods and then everyone else suddenly becomes unemployed. If this happens, inflation is screwed, money has no meaning and the entire system we’ve created would utterly cease to function.

The answer; UBI!


MOL Studies Autonomous Vessels

Carrier Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) has received Japanese government funding for its project to develop autonomous ocean-going vessels.

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Japan Readies Strategy for Drones, Autonomous Vehicles

Japan aims to finalize on June 9 plans to allow package delivery by drone sometime from 2020 and the commercialization of self-driving trucks by 2022. The government plans to temporarily ease regulations for some firms, the sources said, using what is known as a regulatory sandbox to allow companies to test new technologies right away, free of the burden normally imposed by regulation.

The move to drones and autonomous vehicles is urgent for Japan, because its workforce has shrunk dramatically enough to force companies to start scaling back operations.

The government also plans to encourage more usage of Big Data and artificial intelligence to help diagnose medical conditions, said several government sources, who declined to be identified because the plans have not yet been finalized.


Project INSIGHT: State-of-the-art autonomous low-speed vehicle designed for city environment

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Texas Poised to Be Next to Allow Autonomous Testing

No driver will be required for trials on public roads.

The legislation was passed by the House on May 20. That approval came several weeks after the Senate unanimously backed the measure. Once signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R), it will become law as of Sept. 1.

It also will not “require a licensed human operator to operate a motor vehicle” but the “owner of the automated driving system is considered the operator,” and could be held responsible if there is an incident. The legislation also prohibits local entities from imposing their own rules or fees for autonomous testing. There has already been limited autonomous testing near the cities of Dallas and Austin.


Uber Under Investigation Over Unauthorised Autonomous Tests

According to Forbes, Californian regulators are preparing to conduct an unscheduled site inspection of the San Francisco headquarters of Uber's autonomous truck unit.

The inspection is to determine whether Uber broke Californian law when it tested driverless trucks on state highways without permission. According to California's laws, autonomous vehicles over 10,000 pounds (4536 kilogrammes) cannot be tested on California's roads.

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The First Time America Freaked Out Over Automation

In 1958, America found itself in the midst of its worst economic slump since the Great Depression. The Nation termed it an “Automation Depression.”We are stumbling blindly into the automation era with no concept or plan to reconcile the need of workers for income and the need of business for cost-cutting and worker-displacing innovations,” the magazine said in November 1958. “A part of the current unemployment … is due to the automation component of the capital-goods’ boom which preceded the recession. The boom gave work while it lasted, but the improved machinery requires fewer man-hours per unit of output.” This conundrum, moreover, would outlast present conditions and become even more apparent in an economy that was supposed to accommodate 1 million new job seekers every year.
“The problem we shall have to face some time,” the Nation concluded, “is that the working force is expansive, while latter-day industrial technology is contractive of man-hours.”

Said the Nation: “Automation … is a ghost which frightens every worker in every plant, the more so because he sees no immediate chance of exorcising it.” Science Service, a nonprofit institution, remarked:
“With the advent of the thinking machine, people are beginning to understand how horses felt when Ford invented the Model T.”

Decades later, many of the same concerns have resurfaced. The impact of automation on jobs has become one of America’s most pressing economic issues. In industry after industry—food services, retail, transportation—the robots are coming or already have arrived. Most factory floors, once crowded with blue-collar laborers, emptied out long ago because of technology; what once took 1,000 people to manufacture can be cranked out these days by less than 200.

Many Americans, especially people with limited education and skills, are going to be displaced by machines over the next 10 to 20 years. And as a country, we’re not very good at training and retraining and preparing the most vulnerable for a new future. In the meantime, our national politics have been totally upended, with Donald Trump having played on people’s anxieties and swept into office on the pledge of bringing back millions of those same lost jobs.

Whether Trump’s rhetoric is grounded in reality is a different matter. Consider, for instance, the Carrier factory in Indiana, where Trump boasted in November he had saved 1,100 jobs. The CEO of the heating and air-conditioning manufacturer later admitted that many of those positions would ultimately be replaced by automation anyway. (The kicker: The company recently announced that it was moving 632 of those jobs to Monterrey, Mexico.)

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Kurt Vonnegut tapped his vivid imagination to write his first novel, Player Piano, published in 1952. In it, he renders a future society that is run by machines; there is no more need for human labor. Early on in the book, the main character, an engineer named Paul Proteus, is chatting with his secretary, Katharine:
“Do you suppose there’ll be a Third Industrial Revolution?”

Paul paused in his office doorway. “A third one? What would that be like?”

“I don’t know exactly. The first and second ones must have been sort of inconceivable at one time.”

“To the people who were going to be replaced by machines, maybe. A third one, eh? In a way, I guess the third one’s been going on for some time, if you mean thinking machines. That would be the third revolution, I guess—machines that devaluate human thinking. Some of the big companies like EPICAC do that all right, in specialized fields.”

“Uh-huh,” said Katharine thoughtfully. She rattled a pencil between her teeth. “First the muscle work, then the routine work, then, maybe, the real brainwork.”

“I hope I’m not around long enough to see that final step.”

Vonnegut, who worked at GE in public relations from 1947 through 1950, had found his muse in building 49 at the company’s Schenectady Works. There one day he saw a milling machine for cutting the rotors on jet engines. Usually, this was a task performed by a master machinist. But now, a computer-guided contraption was doing the work. The men at the plant “were foreseeing all sorts of machines being run by little boxes and punched cards,” Vonnegut said later:
“The idea of doing that, you know, made sense, perfect sense. To have a little clicking box make all the decisions wasn’t a vicious thing to do. But it was too bad for the human beings who got their dignity from their jobs.”


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“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Wed 31 May 2017, 10:24:24

pstarr wrote:...
Marathon Robotics is helping train the Australian Defense Force by outfitting Segways with fake bodies in hoodies for snipers to practice on.


"Siri! Help me! Help me! I don't want to dieeeeeeeeee . . . :shock:

Note to self: Stop wearing the Black hoodie... Video

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Wed 31 May 2017, 11:28:42

Russian Lawmaker: We Would Use Nukes if US or NATO Enters Crimea

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A nuclear-capable SS-N-19 Shipwreck cruise missile is launched from a Kirov-class nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser. The ship is equipped with 20 launchers for the SS-N-19 missile, which can carry a 500-kiloton warhead. Other tactical nuclear weapon systems include the SS-N-16 anti-submarine rocket, and the SA-N-6 anti-air missile.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Russia would be forced to use nuclear weapons in any conflict in which U.S. or NATO forces entered eastern Ukraine, a member of Russia’s parliament told an international gathering of government security officials on Sunday.
“On the issue of NATO expansion on our borders, at some point I heard from the Russian military — and I think they are right — If U.S. forces, NATO forces, are, were, in the Crimea, in eastern Ukraine, Russia is undefendable militarily in case of conflict without using nuclear weapons in the early stage of the conflict,” Russian parliamentarian Vyacheslav Alekseyevich Nikonov told attendees at the GLOBSEC 2017 forum in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Russian military leaders have discussed Moscow’s willingness to use nuclear weapons in a conflict with military leaders in NATO, as part of broader and increasingly contentious conversations about the alliance’s expansion, Nikonov said.
While the Soviet Union maintained a policy against the first use of nukes, Putin’s government turned away from that strict prohibition in 2000 with the signing of a new military doctrine that allows for the limited use of nuclear weapons “in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.”

Putin has also shown a growing willingness to invest in nuclear-weapons technology. In March, he vowed to put more money into new intercontinental ballistic missiles, so-called “strategic” nuclear forces, and to prioritize those military investments “above all” other areas.

Why is the Russian government telegraphing its willingness to go nuclear in Ukraine? In a word, NATO....

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RIA Novosti quoted Vice Admiral Oleg Burtsev, deputy head of the Russian Navy General Staff, saying that the role of tactical nuclear weapons on submarines “will play a key role in the future,” that their range and precision are gradually increasing, and that Russia “can install low-yield warheads on existing cruise missiles” with high-yield warheads. https://fas.org/blogs/security/2009/03/russia-2/

Russia’s nuclear posture is now approaching a situation where there are more tactical nuclear weapons in the inventory than strategic weapons. And NATO’s remnant of the Cold War tactical nuclear posture in Europe seems stuck in the mud of nuclear dogma and bureaucratic inaction.
None of these tactical nuclear weapons are limited or monitored by any arms control agreements, and – for all the worries about terrorists stealing nuclear weapons – are the most easy to run away with.

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https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/dis ... pubID=1103 ... in light of the evolving security situation, the Alliance must now consider the role and future of tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs)
.

Two clear conclusions emerge from this analysis. First, in the more than 2 decades since the end of the Cold War, the problem itself—that is, the question of what to do with weapons designed in a previous century for the possibility of a World War III against a military alliance that no longer exists—is understudied, both inside and outside of government. Tactical weapons, although less awesome than their strategic siblings, carry significant security and political risks, and they have not received the attention that is commensurate to their importance.

Second, it is clear that whatever the future of these arms, the status quo is unacceptable. It is past the time for NATO to make more resolute decisions, find a coherent strategy, and formulate more definite plans about its nuclear status. Consequently, decisions about the role of nuclear weapons within the Alliance and the associated supporting analysis are fundamental to the future identity of NATO.

So far, NATO remains a “nuclear alliance,” but it is increasingly hard to define what that means.


3rd US Naval Strike Force Deployed to Deter North Korea

The United States is sending a third aircraft carrier strike force to the western Pacific region in an apparent warning to North Korea to deter its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, two sources have told VOA.

The USS Nimitz, one of the world’s largest warships, will join two other supercarriers, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Ronald Reagan, in the western Pacific, the sources told VOA's Steve Herman.

The U.S. military has rarely simultaneously deployed three aircraft carriers to the same region.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, will test a system to shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time next week.It is intended to simulate a North Korean ICBM aimed at the U.S.


The Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system has been inconsistent, succeeding in nine of 17 attempts against missiles without intercontinental range capability since 1999. The most recent test, in June 2014, was successful -- but three straight subsequent tests were failures.

In the most recent Pentagon report examining weapons testing across the Department of Defense, this long-range system was criticized, saying it "demonstrates a limited capability to defend the US homeland from small numbers of simple intermediate-range or intercontinental ballistic missile threats launched from North Korea or Iran."

The report went on to say the Defense Department continues to discover new failure modes during testing.
Tuesday’s launch marked the first intercept test of the GMD system since 2014, and the first against an ICBM-class target—bringing the system’s stats to now 10 for 18 overall, and two for last five attempts

“At best [the GMD] system provides limited capability to defend United States against a small, unsophisticated ICBM attack,” ... The “tests are undertaken in a controlled, scripted environment and the system was given info in advance that no real enemy would provide.” It also hasn’t been tested against more than one target, “or by firing multiple interceptors against a single target. Nor has the system yet demonstrated a capability vs. decoys and countermeasures that an adversary could use to fool the system, including North Korea.”
For the record: The U.S. has spent $330 Billion trying to develop ICBM interceptor technology

Pentagon Wants to Get Started on New Air Force Two and Doomsday Planes

The Pentagon wants to “better align” the new Air Force Two with its new Air Force One and another project to replace the E-4B & E6, the so-called “Doomsday Planes,” flying operations centers that could be used by the president and defense secretary in a nuclear war. The defense secretary routinely flies on the E-4B when he travels overseas.

Trump’s Pentagon budget also includes a $7.8 million request to begin work to merge the missions of the E-4B 'Nightwatch' and Navy E-6 TACAMO 'Mercury' — another nuclear command plane — into a “uniformly-configured aircraft.”

The E-6B does many things: it can perform the so-called Looking Glass mission (mirroring the ground-based C3 center at Offutt AFB and relaying orders), talk to submarines trailing a 26,000 ft wire antenna, launch commands to ICBMs (InterContinental Ballistic Missiles) via Airborne Launch Control System, and perform C3 (Command Control Communication) operations to forces operating in theatre.

The Looking Glass was also designed to help ensure continuity and reconstitution of the US government in the event of a nuclear attack on North America.

The new plane would be called the Survivable Airborne Operations Center.

The Doomsday Plane has been flying since 1980 and the E-6 has been around since the early 1990s. - Dawn's Early Light

Bird of Doom ... This is an example of how war, and especially nuclear war, twists logic and rationality into bizarre pretzels, where things that seem immoral, absurd or unthinkable not only become rational and thinkable, but imperative and inevitable. There is, in this sort of thinking, a deep injury to our collective morality. What sort of crazy world do we live in where something like Looking Glass is normal, and indeed indispensable? A plane that roams the skies 24 hours a day, hoping against hope that the mission it was designed for will never occur? There’s a kind of nihilism in that thought, and one that makes you wonder where humanity went wrong.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 01 Jun 2017, 14:05:12

Robert Work: War Without Fear - How AI Changes Conflict

Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work is both a classically trained Marine Corps officer and the Pentagon’s foremost advocate of artificial intelligence.

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... There’s widespread agreement in the military that artificial intelligence, robotics, and human-machine teaming will change the way that war is waged, Work told an AI conference here Thursday, but I am starting to believe very, very deeply that it is also going to change the nature of war.”
“The nature of war is all about a collision of will, fear, uncertainty, and chance, Work said, summarizing Clausewitz. “You have to ask yourself, how does fear play out in a world when a lot of the action is taking place between unmanned systems?”

Human fallibility is central to Clausewitz and to classic theories of war as far back as Sun Tzu. But if machines start making the decisions, unswayed by fear, rage, or pride, how does that change the fundamental calculus of conflict?

“Uncertainty is going to be different now,” Work went on. While he didn’t use the utopian language of millennial Revolution in Military Affairs — whose promise to “lift the fog of war” with high-tech sensors failed utterly in Afghanistan and Iraq — Work did argue that computerized decision-making aids could help commanders see with greater clarity.

“Clausewitz had a term called coup d’oeil,” Work said, essentially a great commander’s intuitive grasp of what was happening on the battlefield. It’s a quality Clausewitz and Napoleon considered innate, individual, impossible to replicate, but, Work said, “learning machines are going to give more and more commanders coup d’oeil.”

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Introducing artificial intelligence to the battlefield could create unprecedented uncertainty. The interactions of opposing AIs could form an increasingly unpredictable feedback loop, a military application of chaos theory.

“We’ve never gotten to the point where we’ve had enough narrow AI systems working together throughout a network for us to be able to see what type of interactions we might have,” Work said.

“We are not going to design weapons that decide what target to hit,” he said. That doesn’t mean a human has to pull the trigger every time:We’re going to say when we launch you, you can hit one of these five targets, and oh by the way, here’s the priority that we want to service them in; and if you don’t find the fifth target, you don’t get to decide if you’re going to go kill something else. You will either dive into the ocean or self-destruct.

The problem with such self-imposed restrictions, of course, is that they put you at a disadvantage against adversaries who don’t share them. If we require our AIs to get permission from slow-thinking humans before opening fire, will our enemies out-draw us with AIs that shoot first and ask humans later?

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“If one country restrains itself to not develop artificial general intelligence or living AI….adversaries would have an incentive to develop more complex adaptive machines that would be out of control,” because it could give them a crushing advantage, said David Hanson, CEO of Hanson Robotics. Even outside the military field, Hanson said, “many companies are aspiring to make really complex adaptive AI that may not entirely be transparent and its very value is in the fact that it’s surprising.” AI is potentially more powerful — and profitable — than any other technology precisely because it can surprise its makers, finding solutions they’d never thought of.
“It’s very hard to control autonomy, not because it’s wild or because it wants to be free, (but because) we’re creating these complex, adaptive technological systems”

“It’s generally a matter of engineering how much risk and uncertainty are you willing to handle,” ... “In some domains, we might say, actually it’s pretty okay to try things and fail fast and learn from experience. In other systems, especially (involving) big missiles and explosions, you might want to be very conservative.”
... Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead! The Terminator (1984)


An Expert Says AI Will Create Two Global Superpowers in 50 Years

In this video interview with Quartz, AI expert Kai-Fu Lee shares his concern that AI might make global inequality worse over the next 50 years. He stresses the need for nations to coordinate their responses, if the worst effects are to be avoided. He also predicts that technological change will create a world dominated by two superpowers: China and US. Other countries will align with one or other of the powers, and essentially be subsidized by them.


Experts say there's a 50% chance AI will outperform humans in every job in 45 years
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 01 Jun 2017, 14:10:39

The Next Big Leap in AI Could Come From Warehouse Robots

Kindred thinks the path to smarter software is by giving it a physical body

Ask Geordie Rose and Suzanne Gildert, co-founders of the startup Kindred, about their company’s philosophy, and they’ll describe a bold vision of the future: machines with human-level intelligence. Rose says these will be perhaps the most transformative inventions in history — and they aren’t far away. More intriguing than this prediction is Kindred’s proposed path for achieving it. Unlike some of the most cash-flush corporations in Silicon Valley, Kindred is focusing not on chatbots or game-playing programs, but on automating physical robots.

The first step toward their new shared goal is an industrial warehouse robot called the Orb. It’s a robotic arm that sits inside a hexagonal glass encasement, equipped with a bevy of sensors to help it see, feel, and even hear its surroundings. The arm is operated using a mix of human control and automated software. Because so many warehouse workers today spend a significant amount of time sorting products and scanning barcodes, Kindred developed a robotic arm that can do some elements automatically. Meanwhile, humans step in when needed to manually operate the robot to perform tasks that are difficult for machines, like gripping a single product from a cluster of different items.

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Vancouver’s Kindred hires former Wal-Mart executive as COO

A Vancouver company attempting to build robots that can think and work has recruited Jim Liefer, a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. senior executive as its chief operating officer.

... “His skills and expertise are critical for the stage we’re at now, and the objective of that is to create a scalable, profitable, service-based business that provides intelligent robots to work with people in e-commerce distribution centres,” said chief executive officer Geordie Rose, revealing for the first time the market niche Kindred will target with its first generation of commercially-available robots.

Mr. Liefer said Kindred’s robots will be able to help with the pick-and-pack work flow in e-commerce warehouses, retrieving multiple items for individual orders and preparing them to be shipped. “There’s complexity around how those items are picked and assembled in such a way that they can then be cartonized and provided to the consumer,” Mr. Liefer said. “That’s where the main targets are for Kindred for this product.” Kindred’s robot will be ready to deploy for pilot testing by the end of March.

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Kindred’s founders have said their goal is to create autonomous robots similar to Star Wars’ C-3P0 and Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.


Best Buy pledges $600 million in cuts, more automation

Best Buy will implement more automation into its supply chain and call centers, Best Buy Chief Financial Officer Corie Barry said. "We believe there’s real opportunity to take waste out of the system through automation," she said, though she didn't give specifics.


Making the Machines That Replace Humans

MIAMISBURG, Ohio—A humanoid robot greets visitors to the Dayton-area offices of Yaskawa Motoman, a Japanese company that produces the machines being installed at thousands of factories around the globe. Its right arm is holding a screen, which playfully challenges visitors to compete with the robot in a manual task: tracing the word YASKAWA as quickly as possible.

It’s a trick, of course: The robot always wins. On the multiple times I tried, I never beat the robot, and lost in both accuracy and speed by large margins. The robot could complete, in just a few seconds, a task that took me eight seconds at my fastest, and much more at my slowest (and most accurate). After it beats the visitor, the robot twirls the screen between its two arms, showing off yet another task that a human can’t do nearly as well. And then, a message pops up on the screen, in bright red: “YOU LOSE. ROBOTS WILL ALWAYS WIN ... ALWAYS!!”

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AI experts predict the future: Truck drivers out of jobs by 2027, surgeons by 2053

Google has hung up its AlphaGo gloves after trouncing the world's best human Go players, but when will AI beat humans at other tasks, such as writing a best-selling novel or doing surgery?

To answer that question, a team of researchers led by Katja Grace of Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute surveyed several hundred machine-learning experts to get their educated guess. The researchers used the responses to calculate the median number of years it would take for AI to reach key milestones in human capabilities.

Teachers may need to be on the alert for machine-written essays by 2026 and truck drivers could be made redundant by 2027, according to the results.

Meanwhile, AI will surpass human capabilities in retail by 2031. The experts also predict that AI will be capable of writing a best-seller by 2049, and doing a surgeon's work by 2053.

Overall, the respondents believe there is a 50 percent chance that AI beats humans at all tasks in 45 years and will automate all human jobs within 120 years.

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Robots and the Zen of Rock Balancing

Robots are good at a few simple things. They can lift and carry huge objects, fly around like dragonflies, and murder our families while we watch, their cold circuits flitting with nascent feelings of remorse and anger. But they can’t stack rocks very well.

This is because rocks are all different. However, imagine a situation when a robotic arm needs to move rubble or build a foundation for a house. Knowing how to manage heavy boulders and tiny pebbles would be a valuable skill. Researchers at ETH Zurich have unveiled such a robot in their new project, “Autonomous Robotic Stone Stacking with Online next Best Object Target Pose Planning.”

The system is completely autonomous and the robot receives no human input to pick up and stack non-homogenous rocks.

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The project involves a robotic arm and camera system. The camera measures the rocks and estimates their weight and center of gravity while the arm gently lifts the rocks and plops them on top of each other. The arm can stack up to six rocks – a challenge for humans – but it works best with four.
As for more complex balancing, like those crazy stone stacking videos on YouTube, we’re told that it’s something that’s certainly possible with two arms, especially if they can detect when a rock has been placed unstably and then make small adjustments to compensate.

It’s only a matter of time before these robots abandon rocks, however, and begin stacking the skulls of their enemies. I, for one, welcome our rock stacking robotic overlords.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Mon 05 Jun 2017, 12:51:06

NYPD Must Face Lawsuit Over 'Sound Cannons' at Protests: Judge
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York City Police Department failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit claiming it used excessive force by employing military-grade sound cannons, which can emit ear-piercing noise, to disperse protesters.

Armed with videos of the protest, they objected to the NYPD's use from 10 feet away of a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which can be used to disperse crowds through volumes that can top 120 decibels, louder than sandblasters and power saws.

Gideon Oliver, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement he hopes the NYPD will change its policies to reflect how LRADs are "potentially deadly crowd control tools, requiring training and supervision to use safely."

According to the plaintiffs, the NYPD began employing LRADs during the 2004 Republican National Convention, but waited a decade before using them regularly at protests.
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On full power, the device can emit a concentrated, ear-damaging 150 decibel [dB] high energy acoustic wave, which retains a level of 100dB over distances of 500 metres. Supersonic airliner Concorde emitted about 110dB, most household smoke detectors about 85dB
The wave is focused within a 15-30 degree 'beam', allowing the LRAD to be aimed at a specific target

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Mitsubishi Electric’s AI Can Follow and Separate Simultaneous Speech

In one type of demonstration, two people spoke a sentence in different languages simultaneously into a single microphone. The speech separation technology separated the two sentences in real time (about 3 seconds), and then reconstructed and played them back consecutively with impressive accuracy...

... The beauty of this system, he adds, is that it is not speaker dependent, so no speaker-specific training is involved. Similarly, it is not language dependent.


The Reason You Can't Be Anonymous Anymore

Being anonymous allows us to try new things or express ideas without being judged.

Imagine walking into a roomful of strangers. Perhaps you’ve travelled to a new city. You don’t know anyone, and no one knows you. You’re free to do anything or go anywhere or talk to anyone. How do you feel?

Perhaps you feel free of the judgment and scrutiny from acquaintances or associates. Perhaps you feel energised that you can use this opportunity to experience life on your terms, at your own speed. But whatever your feelings would be, you would at least safely assume that you can enter this isolated situation without being monitored or tracked by a far-flung company or individual – right?

Wrong. What you’re experiencing as you walk into that room is anonymity: a sociocultural phenomenon that’s afforded privacy and freedom. But in the year 2017, it’s pretty much all but dead. It’s emerging as one of the major challenges of our age: how should we go about both ensuring national security and enhancing our lives through technology, whilst also maintaining a basic right to privacy that feels like it has existed since the beginning of human history?”

... Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump signed a law that repealed requirements for internet service providers to get permission from customers before gathering and sharing their personal data, like your web history and what apps you use.

Swire says we’re living in a “Golden Age of Surveillance: If you’re a person of interest in an investigation, looking up details like financial records, medical records, web history or call history is a breeze. And that hints at a larger, serious privacy concern in the age of cybersecurity breaches and digital services that keep your bank information and home addresses on record. It’s hard to go undetected these days.


Leaked Documents Reveal Counterterrorism Tactics Used at Standing Rock to “Defeat Pipeline Insurgencies”

A shadowy international mercenary and security firm known as TigerSwan targeted the movement opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline with military-style counterterrorism measures, collaborating closely with police in at least five states, according to internal documents obtained by The Intercept. The documents provide the first detailed picture of how TigerSwan, which originated as a U.S. military and State Department contractor helping to execute the global war on terror, worked at the behest of its client Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline, to respond to the indigenous-led movement that sought to stop the project.

Internal TigerSwan communications describe the movement as “an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component” (sounds like tRump's base) and compare the anti-pipeline water protectors to jihadist fighters. One report, dated February 27, 2017, states that since the movement “generally followed the jihadist insurgency model while active, we can expect the individuals who fought for and supported it to follow a post-insurgency model after its collapse.Drawing comparisons with post-Soviet Afghanistan, the report warns, “While we can expect to see the continued spread of the anti-DAPL diaspora … aggressive intelligence preparation of the battlefield and active coordination between intelligence and security elements are now a proven method of defeating pipeline insurgencies.
More than 100 internal documents leaked to The Intercept by a TigerSwan contractor, as well as a set of over 1,000 documents obtained via public records requests, reveal that TigerSwan spearheaded a multifaceted private security operation characterized by sweeping and invasive surveillance of protesters.

As policing continues to be militarized and state legislatures around the country pass laws criminalizing protest, the fact that a private security firm retained by a Fortune 500 oil and gas company coordinated its efforts with local, state, and federal law enforcement to undermine the protest movement has profoundly anti-democratic implications. The leaked materials not only highlight TigerSwan’s militaristic approach to protecting its client’s interests but also the company’s profit-driven imperative to portray the nonviolent water protector movement as unpredictable and menacing enough to justify the continued need for extraordinary security measures.

... Records from the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board show that TigerSwan has operated without a license in North Dakota for the entirety of the pipeline security operation, claiming in a communication with the board, “We are doing management and IT consulting for our client and doing no security work.” In September, the licensing board learned about the company’s position as a Dakota Access contractor and wrote a letter to its North Carolina headquarters requesting that it submit a license application.

TigerSwan then did so, but the board denied the application on December 19. After James Reese wrote a letter objecting to the decision, the security board’s executive director responded on January 10 that “one reason for the denial concerns your failure to respond to the Board’s request for information as to TigerSwan’s and James Reese’s activities within the State of North Dakota.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Mon 05 Jun 2017, 14:29:03

US Intel Community Launches Face-ID Contest

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The Facebook algorithm that auto-tags people in photographs might be slightly creepy, but also of interest to the intelligence community.

The IC’s research and development unit is hosting a new contest in search of the best facial recognition algorithms that can identify individuals in images taken from the “wild,” for example, sources such as security footage.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity’s “Face Recognition Prize Challenge” seeks algorithms that can accurately and quickly match a photo found in passive footage to another of the same individual from a gallery, as well as systems that can verify, or match, two images of the same person while rejecting photos of other individuals. The most accurate search algorithm wins $25,000. The fastest wins $5,000, and the most accurate verification algorithm wins $20,000.

The challenge is just one of several biometric-themed projects IARPA has launched recently. Such projects may attract mainstream attention as President Donald Trump directs the Homeland Security Department to invest in biometric tracking that could follow travelers (and citizens consumers)entering and exiting the United States. IARPA’s Odin project, for instance, awards funds to companies developing technology that can detect when people are trying to disguise their fingerprints or iris scans. Another, called Janus, is aimed at improving face recognition in videos.


This Dystopian Device Warns You When AI Is Trying to Impersonate Actual Humans

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Scared of a future where you can no longer discern if you're dealing with a human or a computer? A team of Australian researchers have come up with what they call the Anti-AI AI.

The wearable prototype device is designed to identify synthetic speech and alert the user that the voice they're listening doesn't belong to a flesh-and-blood individual. Developed as a proof of concept in just five days, the prototype makes use of a neural network powered by Google's Tensorflow machine learning software.

As artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic technology rapidly evolve, we're facing an uncertain future where machines can seemingly do all sorts of things better than people can – from mastering games to working our jobs, and even making new, more powerful forms of AI.

While the gravest concerns envision a future dystopia where unregulated, super-powerful AIs threaten humanity's very existence, the truth is we're already entering a new, unsettling era in which machines can deceive humans by impersonating the ways we speak and look.

As this technology gets even more sophisticated, it's becoming easier to imagine a world where soon it may be difficult or even impossible to tell when a 'person' you're talking to on the phone – or watching on TV – is or isn't a real human being.


BBC: 'Minority Report' Style Facial Recognition In UK - 2015

Fortress Britain’s Coming Crackdown

The U.K. government is stationing troops in cities and fast-tracking new laws to access encrypted messages.


National Guard White Paper: The Role of National Guard Intelligence During Civil Disturbances

Recent large-scale civil disturbances in two states led the respective governors to mobilize state National Guard (NG) forces. These incidents raised questions and concerns about the appropriate and effective use of NG intelligence capabilities to support domestic civil disturbance operations. Domestic missions are no different from overseas missions in that a key requirement for mission success is situational awareness (SA)—leaders and commanders at all levels must be aware of the situation on the ground and have a deep understanding of the operational environment in which their forces are operating and the inherent threats faced in that environment. Overseas, where the threat is by definition foreign, the intelligence component provides the preponderance of threat data. Domestically, defining threat information may entail the collection of information concerning U.S. persons. By law, the military and civilian intelligence components face constraints in the manner they may lawfully collect, disseminate, and retain such information. ...


21st-century propaganda: A guide to interpreting and confronting the dark arts of persuasion

“There are two kinds of propaganda,” wrote Aldous Huxley in 1958 in Brave New World Revisited, a retrospective on his famous novel:
rational propaganda in favor of action that is consonant with the enlightened self-interest of those who make it and those to whom it is addressed…

(in other words, arguments couched in facts and logic)
…and non-rational propaganda that is not consonant with anybody’s enlightened self-interest, but is dictated by, and appeals to, passion.

This latter kind, Huxley went on
avoids logical argument and seeks to influence its victims by the mere repetition of catchwords…

Make America Great Again!
…by the furious denunciation of foreign or domestic scapegoats…

Lock her up! Lock her up!
…and by cunningly associating the lowest passions with the highest ideals, so that atrocities come to be perpetrated in the name of God and the most cynical kind of Realpolitik is treated as a matter of religious principle and patriotic duty.

To Huxley’s readers, most of whom had lived through the era of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, these methods would all have been familiar. But over time it came to seem, at least in the West, as if his “rational propaganda”—still possibly misleading, but nonetheless rooted in the language of reason and fact and enlightened self-interest—had won out as the primary form of political discourse.

And then 2016 happened.

... The dictators of the early 20th century knew all about repetition, distraction, antagonism, and so on, even if they didn’t know the science behind them. That’s why, as we saw at the start, Huxley’s description of non-rational propaganda so neatly matches Trump’s verbal tics. As the historian Timothy Snyder observes in his recent book On Tyranny, Trump’s methods for undermining truth are very similar to those identified by Victor Klemperer, a scholar and diarist who lived through Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet aftermath.



Poland Is Preparing for 15 Years of Rising Tension with Russia

Lasers, small drones, and more troops are among the ways Poland is preparing for 15 years of rising tensions — and perhaps even war — with Russia, according to a new report from its Ministry of Defense.
“Taking into account the asymmetry of military capabilities between Russia and NATO’s eastern flank members, such a situation creates a direct threat for Poland and the region,” reads the unclassified summary of the report, published in Polish and English. “It is not unrealistic that Russia could incite a regional conflict and dragging into it one or several NATO countries. Russia is also likely to provoke proxy wars in various parts of the world in order to exert pressure on the Western countries…It is highly probable for Moscow to incite social tensions and frozen conflicts in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.”

Titled “The Concept of Defence of the Republic of Poland,” the report lays out some key areas of investment for Poland’s military over the next 15 years, including small, kamikaze-style drones for use against Russian radar and lasers to disable enemy missiles and aircraft.

“On drones, we put more stress on simpler and more,” Tomasz Szatkowski, Undersecretary of State for Poland’s Ministry of National Defence said Saturday at the GLOBSEC 2017 Security Forum in Bratislava.
“What would enable that swarm is machine-to-machine intelligent actions. If one set of machines is already being targeted, don’t keep sending decoys against that specific site and divert the decoys to another site.” What’s needed, he said, was “machine-to-machine conversation that allows our decoys and those penetrating strike weapons to be able to get to the target, learn on their way in, understand who is being targeted and who needs to be released to attack.”

Also, “Some of the aspects of directed energy might allow us to control” how Russia might escalate a given military situation,” Szatkowski said


Stinger Missiles Can Now Shoot Down Small Drones

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The U.S. Army and Raytheon modified the shoulder-fired weapon — better known for being able to shoot down aircraft and cruise missiles — as part of a Pentagon search for new ways to down that kind of small, cheap drones that Islamic State militants have been known to pack with explosives.

Raytheon swapped out the Stinger’s direct-impact warhead, which explodes upon collision with an aircraft, for a proximity fuze that detonates when it detects a nearby airborne target, Raytheon said.


Draper's Cyborg DragonflEye Takes Flight

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A live dragonfly with a cybernetic backpack and optical implants is now airborne.

DragonflEye consists of a living, slightly modified dragonfly that carries a small backpack of electronics. The backpack interfaces directly with the dragonfly’s nervous system to control it, and uses tiny solar panels to harvest enough energy to power itself without the need for batteries.


Flying metal detectors? Navy tests new unmanned mine-detection system

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MIW RAC is a portable, remote-controlled system that can detect buried or underwater mines during amphibious beach landings. It's designed to help explosive ordnance disposal teams quickly find mines and dangerous metal obstacles within coastal surf zones and very-shallow-water zones. MIW RAC would provide a new, real-time aerial complement to existing underwater mine-detection capabilities.

"Everyone wants to know where they are going and what they are about to get into," said Oelrich, who is overseeing the development of MIW RAC. "It helps to have a rapid capability to just fly something in the air and survey an area before you put troops on the ground or bring a vessel ashore."

While the quadcopter and tablet device are available commercially, the heart of MIW RAC is its proprietary magnetometer sensor suite—which has an extensive detection range and uses complex algorithms to differentiate between various types of objects.

Image https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... n-tanzania
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Mon 05 Jun 2017, 14:31:31

IBM Unveils World’s First 5nm Processor: 30 Billion Transistors on Fingernail-Sized Chip

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In less than two years since developing a 7nm test node chip with 20 billion transistors, scientists have paved the way for 30 billion switches on a fingernail-sized chip. IBM, working with Samsung and GlobalFoundries, has unveiled the world's first 5nm silicon chip. Beyond the usual power, performance, and density improvement from moving to smaller transistors, the 5nm IBM chip is notable for being one of the first to use horizontal gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, and the first real use of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.

... IBM says that, compared to commercial 10nm chips (presumably Samsung's 10nm process), the new 5nm tech offers a 40 percent performance boost at the same power, or a 75 percent drop in power consumption at the same performance. Density is also through the roof, with IBM claiming it can squeeze up to 30 billion transistors onto a 50-square-millimetre chip (roughly the size of a fingernail), up from 20 billion transistors on a similarly-sized 7nm chip.

At some point, though, it probably won't be worth the time, cost, and complexity of producing ever-smaller transistors and chips. Someone will realise that much larger gains can be had by going properly 3D: stacking dozens of logic dies on top of each other, connected together with through-silicon vias (TSVs).


We Could Build an Artificial Brain Right Now

Large-scale brainlike systems are possible with existing technology—if we’re willing to spend the money. The development of such physical brainlike circuitry is actually pretty far along.

So, what would it take to integrate these building blocks into a brain-scale computer? In 2013, Bo Marr, a former graduate student of mine at Georgia Tech, and I looked at the best engineering and neuroscience knowledge of the time and concluded that it should be possible to build a silicon version of the human cerebral cortex with the transistor technology then in production. What’s more, the resulting machine would take up less than a cubic meter of space and consume less than 100 watts, not too far from the human brain.

Here's how ...


Scientists Slash Computations for Deep Learning up to 99%

Rice University computer scientists have adapted a widely used technique for rapid data lookup to slash the amount of computation—and thus energy and time—required for deep learning, a computationally intense form of machine learning.

"This applies to any deep-learning architecture, and the technique scales sublinearly, which means that the larger the deep neural network to which this is applied, the more the savings in computations there will be," said lead researcher Anshumali Shrivastava, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice. While we've shown a 95 percent savings with 1,000 neurons, the mathematics suggests we can save more than 99 percent with a billion neurons."
"The savings increase with scale because we are exploiting the inherent sparsity in big data"

"Adding more neurons to a network layer increases its expressive power, and there's no upper limit to how big we want our networks to be," Shrivastava said. "Google is reportedly trying to train one with 137 billion neurons." By contrast, he said, there are limits to the amount of computational power that can be brought to bear to train and deploy such networks. https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.08194


How AI Can Keep Accelerating After Moore’s Law

... “Look at the computation a cockroach does,” he says. “There are existence proofs that show many more orders of magnitude of performance and efficiency are available. We can have decades of scaling left in AI.”
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Mon 05 Jun 2017, 15:06:27

US Air Force Research lab working on externally mounted pods with combat lasers and power systems

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China has built a nuclear submarine mass production superfactory

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China’s Bohai Shipyard has built a new large-scale plant to mass produce nuclear submarines.

Western production lines for the most part can only build one submarine at a time, and only the US is capable of building two submarines simultaneously, but China is now capable of building four submarines at one time.
China currently has about three submarine production lines and can build 5 to 6 submarines at one time. This would mean in three years China could be building ten to twelve submarines at one time.

China already has at least four type 094/094A ballistic missile submarines and at least five Type 093/093G attack submarines, so it is speculated that the new facility is to build the successor third-generation classes of Type 096 ballistic missile submarines and Type 095 attack submarines. The new submarines will be built using modular fabrication techniques. The projection is made that Chinese nuclear submarine production will double its rate within two to three years.


China attempting to leap beyond current US technology with first electric drive on a military submarine

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Chinese state media has reported that the Cihina is fitting its newest nuclear sub with an electromagnetic engine that sounds a lot like Tom Clancy’s fictional Red October engine.

Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, China’s top naval engineer, is notably responsible for the development of multiple Chinese naval electromagnetic programs, including the electromagnetic catapult and railguns. He said the Chinese navy is adding a “shaftless” rim-driven pumpjet, a revolutionary and silent propulsion system to their newest attack submarine, the Type 095 SSN.

This electric drive is an attempt to leap beyond current submarine technology to technology with a long history of attempted development. This is similar to China making a stronger commitment to develop a submersible arsenal ship. China is taking technology and designs with decades of history and actually implementing them.

Previous submarine pumpjets are “shrouded propellers,” which consist of a tubular nozzle covering the propeller. By removing the shaft of the propeller, the reduction in the number of moving parts decreases the noise made by the pumpjet, as well as saving hull space. Smaller civilian rim driven electric pumpjets are easier to maintain, and have less cavitation (bubbles that form during propeller movement), which make them even more quiet.

When coupled with quieter reactors like the Type 095’s reported natural circulation reactor, the rim-driven pumpjet and IEPS can drastically reduce the acoustic signature of any SSN. The US and UK military and researchers have been working on electric drive propulsion tests for at least two decades.


China developing arsenal ship that would have a high speed hydroplaning mode and submersible capability

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Reports claim there has been substantial design work and concept proofing for a new underwater arsenal ship in China. A leading chinese naval engineer Professor Dong Wei Cai continued to work on a key aspect of the arsenal ship design: the high-speed wave hydroplane up until his recent death.

There are two concepts in circulation:
1. a high-speed warship with much of its hull submerged but otherwise has a functional superstructure with defense weapons and radar
2. other is almost completely submerged arsenal ship with two conning towers.

Both ship designs could displace roughly about 20,000 tons at full load.

These warships could carry hundreds of guided missiles.

The arsenal ship would have most of its hull inherently submerged, with only the bridge and a few other parts of the ship above the waterline which reduce the radar cross section. This would be in situations where the ship is hiding or trying to protect itself.

But when traveling with a high-speed naval taskforce, the arsenal ship will sacrifice stealth to use its flat hull bottom to hydroplane at high speeds, cutting across the waves like a speedboat or amphibious armored vehicle.


China claims to have developed hypersonic anti missile with 8000+mph speed

China has developed a new type of ultrafast anti-missile interceptor capable of knocking down an incoming projectile that is flying 10 times faster than a bullet, according to the nation’s largest missile maker.

China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, one of the major defense contractors for the People’s Liberation Army, recently revealed that its Second Academy in Beijing has made a “new-generation aerospace defense missile” that incorporates top space technologies, and which it describes as one of the cornerstones of a world power’s strategic prowess.


Breakthrough can make body armor and armor in tanks with one third of the current weight

A quarter-inch thick design repeatedly stopped a round fired from a 9mm handgun and multiple shots from a 44 magnum.

It could potentially lighten the average 26-pound body armor kit worn by servicemen in the field by as much as two thirds.

It could possibly be used to reduce or replace the thick metal plates that protect military aircraft, tanks and other vehicles.
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Re: Fully Automated Combat Robots Pt. 2

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 08 Jun 2017, 16:59:00

We Need to Talk About the Power of AI to Manipulate Humans

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From 2007 to 2014 I was CEO of Cognea, which offered a platform to rapidly build complex virtual agents, using a combination of structured and deep learning. It was used by tens of thousands of developers, including half a dozen Fortune 100 companies, and acquired by IBM Watson in 2014.

I always assumed we would want to keep some distance between ourselves and AI, but I found the opposite to be true. People are willing to form relationships with artificial agents, provided they are a sophisticated build, capable of complex personalization. We humans seem to want to maintain the illusion that the AI truly cares about us.

This puzzled me, until I realized that in daily life we connect with many people in a shallow way, wading through a kind of emotional sludge. Will casual friends return your messages if you neglect them for a while? Will your personal trainer turn up if you forget to pay them? No, but an artificial agent is always there for you. In some ways, it is a more authentic relationship.

This phenomenon occurred regardless of whether the agent was designed to act as a personal banker, a companion, or a fitness coach. Users spoke to the automated assistants longer than they did to human support agents performing the same function. People would volunteer deep secrets to artificial agents, like their dreams for the future, details of their love lives, even passwords.

These surprisingly deep connections mean even today’s relatively simple programs can exert a significant influence on people—for good or ill.
Every behavioral change we at Cognea wanted, we got. If we wanted a user to buy more product, we could double sales. If we wanted more engagement, we got people going from a few seconds of interaction to an hour or more a day.

Unfortunately, the commercial forces driving technology development are not always benevolent. The giant companies at the forefront of AI—across social media, search, and e-commerce—drive the value of their shares by increasing traffic, consumption, and addiction to their technology. They do not have bad intentions, but the nature of capital markets may push us toward AI hell-bent on influencing our behavior toward these goals.

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They Live (1988)

If you can get a user to think, “I want pizza delivered,” rather than asking the AI to buy vegetables to cook a cheaper, healthier meal, you will win. If you can get users addicted to spending 30 hours a week with a “perfect” AI companion that doesn’t resist abuse, rather than a real, complicated human, you will win.

I saw over and over that an agent programmed to be neutral or subservient would cause people to escalate their negative behavior, and become more likely to behave the same toward humans.


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If We Want Robots to Be Good, We May Need to Destroy Their Self-Confidence

We’ve all worried about artificial intelligence reaching a point in which its cognitive ability is so far beyond ours that it turns against us. But what if we just turned the AI into a spineless weenie that longs for our approval? Researchers are suggesting that could be a great step towards improving the algorithms, even if they aren’t out to murder us.

In a new paper, a team of scientists has begun to explore the practical (and philosophical) question of how much self-confidence AI should have. Dylan Hadfield-Menell, a researcher at the University of California and one of the authors of the paper, tells New Scientist that Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm is a perfect example of machine confidence gone awry. The algorithm is good at serving up what it believes you’ll click on, but it’s so busy deciding if it can get your engagement, it doesn’t ask whether or not it should. Hadfield-Menell feels that the AI would be better at making choices and identifying fake news if it was programmed to seek out human oversight.

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Does he beat his dog when he gets home?


Artificial Stupidity: Fumbling The Handoff From AI To Human Control

Science fiction taught us to fear smart machines we can’t control. But reality should teach us to fear smart machines that need us to take control when we’re not ready. From Patriot missiles to Tesla cars to Airbus jets, automated systems have killed human beings, not out of malice, but because the humans operating them couldn’t switch quickly enough from passively monitoring the computer to actively directing it.
“How do you establish vigilance at the proper time?” wrote Army Maj. Gen. Michael Vane after automated Patriots shot down two friendly aircraft in 2003. “(It’s) 23 hours and 59 minutes of boredom, followed by one minute of panic.”

That human-machine handoff is a major stumbling block for the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy, which bets America’s future military superiority on artificial intelligence.
... “You can get lulled into a sense of complacency because you think, ‘oh, there’s a person in the loop,'” said Scharre. When that human is complacent or inattentive, however, “you don’t really have a human in the loop,” he said. “You have the illusion of human judgment.”

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The Army’s famous Patriot missile defense system ran afoul of the “illusion of human judgment” in 2003.

Army engineering psychologist John Hawley wrote in a paper published by CNAS:
“One of the hard lessons of my 35 years of experience with Patriot is that an automated system in the hands of an inadequately trained crew is a de facto fully automated system,”

“The inherent difficulty of integrating humans with automated components has created a situation that has come to be known as the ‘dangerous middle ground’ of automation – somewhere between manual control and full and reliable automation.”

It’s the worst of both worlds. In the end, of 11 Patriot launches, two shot down allied aircraft: a British Tornado and a US Navy F-18 — the latter after the Army had instituted new safety measures intended to put humans firmly in control.

“One of the most common myths about automation is that as a system’s automation level increases, less human expertise is required,” ... The opposite is true: “Operators often must have a deep knowledge of the complex systems under their control to be able to intervene appropriately when necessary.”
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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