In a hilarious appearance on “Last Week Tonight” – John Oliver’s HBO show – guest Stephen Hawking spoke about some rather interesting concepts. Among these were the concepts of “imaginary time” and, more interestingly, artificial intelligence. And much to the surprise of Oliver, and perhaps more than a few viewers, Hawking’s was not too keen on the idea of the latter. In fact, his predictions were just a tad bit dire.
Of course, this is not the first time Oliver had a scientific authority on his show, as demonstrated by his recent episode which dealt with Climate Change and featured guest speaker Bill Nye “The Science Guy”. When asked about the concept of imaginary time, Hawking explained it as follows:
Imaginary time is like another direction in space. It’s the one bit of my work science fiction writers haven’t used.
In sum, imaginary time has something to do with time that runs in a different direction to the time that guides the universe and ravages us on a daily basis. And according to Hawking, the reason why sci-fi writers haven’t built stories around imaginary time is apparently due to the fact that “They don’t understand it”. As for artificial intelligence, Hawking replied without any sugar-coating:
Artificial intelligence could be a real danger in the not too distant future. [For your average robot could simply] design improvements to itself and outsmart us all.
Oliver, channeling his inner 9-year-old, asked: “But why should I not be excited about fighting a robot?” Hawking offered a very scientific response: “You would lose.” And in that respect, he was absolutely right. One of the greatest concerns with AI, for better or for worse, is the fact that a superior intelligence, left alone to its own devices, would find ways to produce better and better machines without human oversight or intervention.
At worst, this could lead to the machines concluding that humanity is no longer necessary. At best, it would lead to an earthly utopia where machines address all our worries. But in all likelihood, it will lead to a future where the pace of technological change will impossible to predict. As history has repeatedly shown, technological change brings with it all kinds of social and political upheaval. If it becomes a runaway effect, humanity will find it impossible to keep up.
Keeping things light, Oliver began to worry that Hawking wasn’t talking to him at all. Instead, this could be a computer spouting wisdoms. To which, Hawking replied: “You’re an idiot.” Oliver also wondered whether, given that there may be many parallel universes, there might be one where he is smarter than Hawking. “Yes,” replied the physicist. “And also a universe where you’re funny.”
Well at least robots won’t have the jump on us when it comes to being irreverent. At least… not right away! Check out the video of the interview below:
Source: cnet.com
Brainwaves can now be used to control an impressive number of things these days: prosthetics, computers, quadroptors, and even cars. But recent research released by the Technische Universität München (TUM) in Germany indicates that they might also be used to flying an aircraft. Using a simple EEG cap that read their brainwaves, a team of researchers demonstrated that thoughts alone could navigate a plane.
According to the researchers, the accuracy with which the test subjects stayed on course was what was truly impressive. Not to mention the fact that the study participants weren’t all pilots and had varying levels of flight experience, with one having no experience at all. And yet, of the seven participants, all performed well enough to satisfy some of the criteria for getting a pilot’s license. Several of the subjects also managed to land their planes under poor visibility.
It’s official: all of Tesla’s electric car technology is now available for anyone to use. Yes, after hinting that he might be willing to do so last weekend, Musk announced this week that his companies patents are now open source. In a blog post on the Tesla website, Musk explained his reasoning. Initially, Musk wrote, Tesla created patents because of a concern that large car companies would copy the company’s electric vehicle technology and squash the smaller start-up.
But that turned out to be an unnecessary worry, as carmakers have by and large decided to downplay the viability and relevance of EV technology while continuing to focus on gasoline-powered vehicles. At this point, he thinks that opening things up to other developers will speed up electric car development. And after all, there’s something to be said about competition driving innovation.
And the move should come as no surprise. As the Hyperloop demonstrated, Musk is not above making grandiose gestures and allowing others to run with ideas he knows will be profitable. And as Musk himself pointed in a webcast made after the announcement, his sister-company SpaceX – which deals with the development of reusable space transports – has virtually no patents.
As it stands, auto emissions account for a large and growing share of greenhouse gas emissions. For decades now, the technology has been in development and the principles have all been known. However, whether it has been due to denial, intransigence, complacency, or all of the above, no major moves have been made to effect a transition in the auto industry towards non-fossil fuel-using cars.
This past week, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (commonly referred to as E3) kicked off. This annual trade fair , which is presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), is used by video game publishers, accessory manufacturers, and members of the computing industry to present their upcoming games and game-related merchandise. The festivities wrapped up this Friday, and was the source of some controversy and much speculation.
Nowhere was this more clear than with Nintendo, which was the source of quite a bit of buzz when the Expo began. But it was evident that games – particularly for the Wii U – were not going to materialize until 2015. The company got a jump on the next-generation console battle by launching its Wii U in late 2012, a year ahead of Sony and Microsoft, but poor sales have led to big game developers largely abandoning it.
The companies have some respective big guns in the works, such as Halo 5: Guardians and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, but they’re also scheduled for release in 2015. However, with the brisk sales of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, both companies have the luxury of taking their time with big games. Nintendo is not so fortunate, since the jump they made with the Wii U leaves them with a big gap that they aren’t apparently filling.
The software giant bumbled the Xbox One launch last year and alienated many gamers, mainly by focusing on TV and entertainment content instead of gaming and tying several unpopular policies to the console, which included restrictions on used games. The company eventually relented, but the Xbox One still came bundled with the voice- and motion-sensing Kinect peripheral and a price tag that was $100 higher than Sony’s rival PlayStation 4.
That was certainly the focus for Microsoft at E3. TV features weren’t even mentioned during the company’s one-and-a-half-hour press conference on Monday, with Microsoft instead talking up more than 20 upcoming games. As Mike Nichols, corporate vice-president of Xbox and studios marketing, said in an interview:
But this new virtual reality headset, which was recently bought by Facebook for $2 billion, was undeniably the hottest thing on the show floor. And the demo booth, where people got to try it on and take it for a run, was booked solid throughout the expo. Sony also wowed attendees with demos of its own VR headset, Project Morpheus. And while the PlayStation maker’s effort isn’t as far along in development as the Oculus Rift, it does work and adds legitimacy to the VR field.
Legendary Japanese creator Hideo Kojima also had to defend the torture scenes in his upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, starring Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland (man loves torture!), which upset some viewers. Kojima said he felt the graphic scenes were necessary to explain the main character’s motivations, and that games will never be taken seriously as culture if they can’t deal with sensitive subjects.
If one were to draw any conclusions from this year’s E3, it would undoubtedly be that times are both changing and staying the same. From console gaming garnering less and less of the gamers market, to the second coming of virtual reality, it seems that there is a shift in technology which may or may not be good for the current captains of industry. At the same time, competition and trying to maintain a large share of the market continues, with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo at the forefront.
This past Thursday, the 2014 FIFA World Cup got underway. And all over the world, fans were glued to their television sets to watch the opening kickoff and the opening match between Croatia and Brazil. Unfortunately, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Steve Swanson, and Alexander Gerst – all of whom are serious “futbol” fans – were all stuck on board the ISS several hundred kilometers away.
And of course, Wiseman, Swanson and Gerst were sure to wish the teams and fans well in the competition before getting on with their own match. Not only is the resulting video fun thing to watch, it is also a fine representation of the age we live in, where social media and high-speed communications allow everyone – even astronauts – the ability to instantly communicate with the world.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup made history when it opened in Sao Paolo this week when a 29-year-old paraplegic man named Juliano Pinto kicked a soccer ball with the aid of a robotic exoskeleton. It was the first time a mind-controlled prosthetic was used in a sporting event, and represented the culmination of months worth of planning and years worth of technical development.
The result of many years of development, the mind-controlled exoskeleton represents a breakthrough in restoring ambulatory ability to those who have suffered a loss of motion due to injury. Using metal braces that were tested on monkeys, the exoskeleton relies on a series of wireless electrodes attached to the head that collect brainwaves, which then signal the suit to move. The braces are also stabilized by gyroscopes and powered by a battery carried by the kicker in a backpack.
The amber colors are due to the scattering of longer wavelengths of light by dust and pollution in our atmosphere. As astronomer Raminder Signh Samra of the H.R. MacMillian Space Centre in Vancouver said:
Scientists are not entirely sure what accounts for this optical illusion of a larger moon near the horizon, but they suspect it has something to do with the human mind trying to make sense of the moon’s proximity to more familiar objects like mountains, trees and houses in the foreground.
Hence why it may have made it appear unusually large to some keen-eyed sky-watchers. As Samra explained:
The study was published online late last month in Lab on a Chip. The study’s senior author, Ali Khademhosseini – PhD, biomedical engineer, and director of the BWH Biomaterials Innovation Research Center – explained the challenge and their goal as follows:
They were also able to successfully embed these functional and perfusable microchannels inside a wide range of commonly used hydrogels, such as methacrylated gelatin or polyethylene glycol-based hydrogels. In the former case, the cell-laden gelatin was used to show how their fabricated vascular networks functioned to improve mass transport, cellular viability and cellular differentiation. Moreover, successful formation of endothelial monolayers within the fabricated channels was achieved.
The OPALS system sought out and locked onto a laser beacon from the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory ground station at the Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood, California. It then transmitted its own 2.5-watt, 1,550-nanometer laser and modulated it to send the video at a peak rate of 50 megabits per second. According to NASA, OPALS transmitted the video in 3.5 seconds instead of the 10 minutes that conventional radio would have required.
Stories by Williams 