Quoted: Google’s Eric Schmidt on fears about artificial intelligence
“These concerns are normal. They’re also to some degree misguided.” — Eric Schmidt, Google chairman, on fears that machines will take over the world. He’s not into doom and gloom, he wants to talk...
View ArticleRise of the cuddly machines? Elon Musk donates $10M toward...
Elon Musk apparently doesn’t want to do all the talking about the possible perils of artificial intelligence. So he’s paid up. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has donated $10 million to the Future of Life...
View ArticleQuoted: Microsoft Research chief’s optimism about artificial intelligence
“There have been concerns about the long-term prospect that we lose control of certain kinds of intelligences. I fundamentally don’t think that’s going to happen.” — Eric Horvitz, managing director of...
View ArticleQuoted: IBM’s Watson, all grown up
“It feels very much like Watson has grown up and gone places by itself. Left the nest.” — Jennifer Chu-Carroll, one of IBM’s specialists in natural language processing, on the evolution of Watson. The...
View ArticleGoogle A.I. chief: Relax, robots aren’t going to kill us all
The head of artificial intelligence at Google’s DeepMind thinks we’re all being silly to worry about machines rising up to crush humanity. (Or maybe he’s just a superintelligent machine sent from the...
View ArticleFacebook and privacy: Recognizing people in photos; issues in Europe
Facebook is testing an algorithm that can recognize people in photos even when their faces are hidden, New Scientist reports. The system uses other cues such as hair, clothing and the shape of people’s...
View ArticleApple to Siri: Time to get smarter
As Apple continues to integrate its virtual assistant Siri into more of its product line, most recently with the introduction of its new Siri-enhanced remote control for Apple TV, the Cupertino tech...
View ArticleApple’s calling in the robots
In what one blog called an “AI arms race,” Apple has purchased another company, the second in the past week, that it will use to beef up the artificial-intelligence capabilities of its iconic iPhone....
View ArticleNvidia launches supercomputer for self-driving cars
Self-driving car technology, which has stirred concerns over driver safety, is rapidly becoming viewed as something that could actually add to road safety. Nvidia, the Santa Clara based visual...
View ArticleReport from Davos: 5 million jobs to be lost by 2020 because of tech advances
A new report predicts a loss of 5 million jobs in the next five years because of technological advances, but don’t blame it all on the robots. The other culprits: artificial intelligence, 3-D printers...
View ArticleGoogle’s computer-brain art draws noisy crowd
Anti-gentrification activists bewail the exodus of artists and their art from an increasingly pricey San Francisco overrun with big-data jockeys and software engineers. Now Google may have hit on a...
View ArticleGoogle AI faces off against a top human mind in epic Go tilt
It’s probably the toughest match yet for any computer program set up to battle the human intellect. Tonight, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo goes up against the world champion in the world’s most difficult...
View ArticleGoogle’s Go victory heralds robot takeover
Maybe the robots are poised to take over after all. In the first match of their planned five-game series, Google’s Go-playing computer program defeated Korean champion — and human being — Lee Sedol....
View ArticleGoogle joins Microsoft, Cisco in Facebook’s Open Compute Project
Even a 600-pound gorilla needs friends. The mighty but previously standoffish Google today climbed onto the membership list of Facebook’s Open Compute Project, joining tech companies including...
View ArticleGoogle AI leaves world Go champion ‘grim and ashen’ after second game
After his second straight loss to a computer, world Go champion Lee Sedol would do well to ignore comments made by the last guy to get whupped by Google’s AlphaGo program in the ancient Chinese board...
View ArticleNext use for Minecraft: AI research
Minecraft has been used to teach geography and math. Now it’s being tapped for an even higher academic calling: artificial intelligence research. Microsoft, which now owns and develops the virtual...
View ArticleGoogle wins last Go match, Facebook AI head casts bitter barb
Google’s artificial intelligence system AlphaGo won the final Go game of five against human world champion Lee Sedol on Tuesday. “I don’t necessarily think AlphaGo is superior to me,” Sedol told the...
View ArticleThe rise and fall of Microsoft’s ‘Hitler-loving sex robot’
A Microsoft experiment has made it clear: if we want artificial intelligence in this world, it better not think like us. The tale of this illuminating but aborted millennial-focused project was told...
View ArticleMicrosoft’s Nazi sex-bot returns, high on ‘kush’
Microsoft’s Nazi sex-bot Tay, taken offline last week after tweeting such gems as “Hitler was right” and “Daddy I’m such a bad naughty robot” reappeared briefly Wednesday, apparently too stoned to make...
View ArticleWill Facebook teach the world to like bots?
The talk of the town around Facebook’s developer conference this week: bots. Among other things, the social network is expected to unveil tools for businesses to use chat bots to communicate with their...
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