H+ Weekly - Issue #63
ISSUE #63
Inside - Demis Hassabis talks about artificial general intelligence. Uber will test its fleet of autonomous cars in Pittsburg. Some guy made a bionic hand out of a coffee machine. There's also an excellent video about CRISPR down below. And there's usual stuff - robots, AI, drones and more!
MORE THAN A HUMAN
Every Olympian Is Kind of a Cyborg
This article focuses not what the athletes are putting into their bodies, but what they are putting on their bodies and shows how technology affects gears used by them.
MIT's New Temporary Tattoos Turn Your Skin Into An Interface
And become a stylish cyborg!
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Demis Hassabis: Towards General Artificial Intelligence
An hour long lecture by Demis Hassabis, the CEO of DeepMind, where he discusses what is happening at the cutting edge of AI research, including the recent historic AlphaGo match, and its future potential impact on fields such as science and healthcare, and how developing AI may help us better understand the human mind.
Can Computers Be Programmed to Think Creatively?
Here, Margaret Boden, a Professor of cognitive science at the University of Sussex, examines what it means to be "creative" and whether we can ever translate this into our computers.
A.I. Apocalypse: More Myth Than Reality | Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker believes there's some interesting gender psychology at play when it comes to the robopocalypse. Could artificial intelligence become evil or are alpha male scientists just projecting?
A Look at IBM’s Watson 5 Years After Its Breathtaking Jeopardy Debut
Five years ago Watson won Jeopardy. This article tells the story of Watson - how it begins, how it works, what it does now and what awaits Watson in the future.
Artificial Intelligence & Personhood
Hank from CrashCourse explores artificial intelligence, including weak AI and strong AI, and the various ways that thinkers have tried to define strong AI including the Turing Test, and John Searle’s response to the Turing Test, the Chinese Room. Hank also tries to figure out one of the more personally daunting questions yet: is his brother John a robot?
Teaching Creativity to Robots
Pindar Van Arman is a painter and a software developer. In his TED Talk, he talks about his robots that can paint and asks the question: can a robot be creative?
Interview with Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI)
Here's a video where Bloomberg looks at the opportunities surrounding Artificial Intelligence, and OpenAI research director Ilya Sutskever discusses the next big advancements coming in the space.
ROBOTICS
Mind-Controlled Robo-Skeleton Enables Paraplegics to Regain Some Motion
Using what are called brain–machine interfaces (BMIs) researchers for the first time were able to show that the process of learning to use a BMI-controlled device can trigger a significant neurological recovery in patients with chronic spinal cord injuries.
How Rethink Robotics Sees The Future Of Collaborative Robots
According to Rethink Robotics, the future of robotics are robots able to work alongside humans and learn from them. Forbes spent some talking to Jim Lawton, the company’s Chief Product and Marketing Officer, to learn more about what we can expect the future of robotics to look like.
Singapore launch test of self-driving taxis
Delphi Automotive Plc will launch a small test fleet of automated taxis in Singapore next year, aiming to ferry passengers around a city district in one of the first real-world tests of automated rides on demand.
Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month
Meanwhile in Pittsburgh you might find yourself in a self-driving Volvo XC90 if you call Uber. The cars will be supervised by humans in the driver’s seat, but other than that the car will drive by itself.
Watch a Lightning-fast Robot Arm Build a House in Just Two Days
Fastbrick Robotics has announced its new bricklaying machine, the Hadrian X, that can build a house four times faster than its human counterpart with precision.
The World's Police Robots
A list of selected robots used by police around the world, from surveillance to bomb disposal to lethal robots.
Hedberg — The Bionic Hand Made from One Keurig Coffee Maker
This is awesome. This guy took a coffee maker and made a working bionic hand from it.
Customized Drones Give Pilots an “Out of Body” Racing Experience
A drone racing pilot shares his experience and tells what he feels when he puts goggles on.
Robot Octopus Points the Way to Soft Robotics With Eight Wiggly Arms
Researchers from Italy created this beautiful soft robot inspired by octopus. It looks like an octopus, behaves like an octopus. Even wiggles through the water like an octopus.
GOAT Robot Leg Demonstrates Explosive Jumping
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University created a robot named GOAT that can jump and land.
The Sushi Robot
Here's a video of a robot that was programmed to make sushi. It's from Japan, obviously.
Robot Learns to Flip Pancakes
And here's a robot that learns how to flip a pancake using reinforced learning. First, a human showed the robot how to flip a pancake and then the robot by trial and error tried to do the same. 50 trials later and the robot learned how to do it.
Biohybrid robots built from living tissue start to take shape
A nice primer into biohybrid robotics. It's was written more for the people who never heard about biobots, but it does a good job explaining what are soft robots and why are they better than hard robots.
BIOTECHNOLOGY
Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever – CRISPR
Excellent video about CRISPR and gene editing. How we get where we are, what can we do today and what we'll be able to do in not so far future.
Reversing Aging: Clinical Trials For “Young-to-Old” Blood Transfusions Begin
California-based startup Ambrosia is starting clinical trials that will see older people pumped with blood from younger donors, in the hopes of rejuvenating their bodies.
You Can Soon Grow Human-Animal Hybrids, But You Can’t Breed ‘Em
Last year, though, the National Institutes of Health banned funding of animal-human chimeras. After a nearly year-long ban, the NIH said it would soon lift its moratorium and again start accepting grant applications from research labs that want to develop human-animal chimeras.
OTHER
How to Drive with One Arm (AND NO LEGS)
If you ever wonder how you can drive a car with just one arm and no legs, then here's your answer.
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