H+ Weekly - Issue #122
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This week - DeepMind is getting serious about ethics; AI meets religion; beauty in transhuman future; ping-pong robot; how to turn your skin cells into stem cells; and more!
MORE THAN A HUMAN
How Will We Define Beauty in a Transhuman Future?
Interesting food for thoughts. How are we going to define "beauty" when genetic engineering, biohacking and 3d printing will allow us to become whoever (or whatever) we want?
A New Era of Humans
Josiah Zayner announced that he had "successfully had the OpenHuman DNA synthesized, turned that DNA into a plasmid vector and sequenced it". "It means that anyone has an inexpensive way to take any gene from any organism and effectively insert it into Human cells", he writes.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
DeepMind launches new research team to investigate AI ethics
DeepMind is getting serious about ethics. The company announced the formation of a new research group dedicated to the thorniest issues in artificial intelligence. These include the problems of managing AI bias; the coming economic impact of automation; and the need to ensure that any intelligent systems we develop share our ethical and moral values.
Deus ex machina: former Google engineer is developing an AI god
When the technology meets religion. Way of the Future, a religious group founded by Anthony Levandowski, wants to create a deity based on artificial intelligence for the betterment of society.
Google's A.I. has nearly twice the IQ of Siri, study says — but a six-year-old child is smarter than both
Chinese researchers published a paper comparing IQ scores of AI assistants from Google, Apple, Baidu and Microsoft. Although Google's AI IQ score (which was the highest from all AIs) was considerably higher than it was in 2014, it is still below IQ score of a six-year-old child.
How AI Will Change Strategy: A Thought Experiment
An interesting thought experiment on how a better prediction system can change Amazon. It shows how a better AI can change not only a big company like Amazon, but the entire industry.
Is AI Riding a One-Trick Pony?
Today's AI is based on deep learning, which itself is based on backpropagation proposed by Geoffrey Hilton over 30 years ago. It works remarkably well, but we are hitting its limitations and maybe we will need to choose another approach for the AIs of the future.
ROBOTICS
Red Bull launches into drone racing
It is an excellent news for drone racing. Red Bull organised its own drone race, further promoting the sport and helping it grow.
Ping pong robot takes on Olympian at Tokyo tech fair
Another episode of man versus machine series - Jun Mizutani, Japan's first-ever Olympic singles table tennis medal-winner, versus FORPHEUS, a fourth-generation table-tennis robot developed by automation parts maker Omron.
BIOTECHNOLOGY
Now That Anyone Can Hack Biology—Should We Be Afraid?
According to Singularity Hub - no, you should not be afraid. Instead, we should embrace biohacking as it has can benefit the society as a whole and do research that big companies or organisation don't want to do.
Richard Branson Thinks, By 2050, We Will No Longer Need to Kill Any Animals for Meat
Will see if Branson's prediction will become reality. In the meantime, he became a key investor in a startup company aiming to grow sustainable cultured meat.
Reprogramming Skin to Grow New Organs Is Now Possible
Researchers have created a technology that uses nanotubes to transform skin cells into stem cells, which then can be transformed into any tissue our body needs.
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Conrad Gray (@conradthegray)
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