Google’s DeepMind Makes AI Program that Learns Sequentially
March 14th, 2017Via: Guardian:
Researchers have overcome one of the major stumbling blocks in artificial intelligence with a program that can learn one task after another using skills it acquires on the way.
Developed by Google’s AI company, DeepMind, the program has taken on a range of different tasks and performed almost as well as a human. Crucially, and uniquely, the AI does not forget how it solved past problems, and uses the knowledge to tackle new ones.
The AI is not capable of the general intelligence that humans draw on when they are faced with new challenges; its use of past lessons is more limited. But the work shows a way around a problem that had to be solved if researchers are ever to build so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI) machines that match human intelligence.
“If we’re going to have computer programs that are more intelligent and more useful, then they will have to have this ability to learn sequentially,” said James Kirkpatrick at DeepMind.
The ability to remember old skills and apply them to new tasks comes naturally to humans. A regular rollerblader might find ice skating a breeze because one skill helps the other. But recreating this ability in computers has proved a huge challenge for AI researchers. AI programs are typically one trick ponies that excel at one task, and one task only.
More: Enabling Continual Learning in Neural Networks
Research Credit: Jb
Former Tesla Executive to Build €4bn Battery Factory to Take on Elon Musk
March 13th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Via: Independent:
NorthVolt, the Swedish company founded by a former Tesla executive, wants to cut the cost of storing power in half with a €4bn (£3.5bn) lithium-ion battery factory.
The Stockholm-based company wants to raise €1bn by 2018, when it plans to break ground on a factory during the second half of the year, according to founder Peter Carlsson, who was Tesla’s former head of sourcing and supply chains. NorthVolt will announce a shortlist of possible Swedish manufacturing sites in about a month.
“Europe will be a very important market for energy storage,” Mr Carlsson said by phone. “There is a huge need for back-up power. There is also a sizable auto industry that has made big promises to go electric.”
Intel Buying Mobileye for $15 Billion
March 13th, 2017Via: Recode:
Cars coming off the assembly line in the next few years will have computing power to rival your cellphones, and they’ll get even more complex as automakers introduce more self-driving technology.
That’s why Intel — known for its chips, data centers and computing capabilities — just bought self-driving tech supplier Mobileye for $15 billion. Intel, which has long been a supplier to the PC industry, lost out on the mobile revolution. It sees cars as “data centers on wheels,” generating as much as four terrabytes of data a day.
Mobileye, which makes an array of cameras and laser-based sensors, already sells its technology to 27 automakers, as well as to other automotive suppliers. It has a firm foothold within the car industry. Intel, meanwhile, has an automotive division, but it doesn’t have as many direct inroads into autonomous driving.
The self-driving industry is still very new and car manufacturers as well as auto suppliers are all creating different parts of the technology. Chipmaker Nvidia, for example, competes with both Intel and Mobileye. In addition to making chips, Nvidia also has mapping technology.
While Mobileye is one of the few companies that has a comprehensive set of technology, no single company currently offers the entire stack of technologies for self-driving. Intel and Mobileye together would be able to marry the data-crunching needs with sensor tech.
Pi-hole: A Black Hole for Internet Advertisements
March 13th, 2017Via: Pi-hole:
FBI Undercover Stings Foil Terrorist Plots — That It Creates
March 12th, 2017Via: Kansas City Star:
Announcements of foiled terrorist plots make for lurid reading.
Schemes to carry out a Presidents Day jihadist attack on a train station in Kansas City. Bomb a Sept. 11 memorial event. Blow up a 1,000-pound bomb at Fort Riley. Detonate a weapon of mass destruction at a Wichita airport — the failed plans all show imagination.
But how much of it was real?
Often not much, according to a review of several recent terrorism cases investigated by the FBI in Kansas and Missouri. The most sensational plots invoking the name of the Islamic State or al-Qaida here were largely the invention of FBI agents carrying out elaborate sting operations on individuals identified through social media as being potentially dangerous.
New GOP Bill Lets Companies Force Employees to Take Genetic Tests
March 12th, 2017Via: ExtremeTech:
A new bill introduced by Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and approved by the House Ways and Means Committee would allow corporations to force employees to undergo genetic testing — and then share those results with third parties. In theory, this is already illegal, thanks to a 2008 law known as GINA. This type of behavior is also regulated by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
The new House bill, HR 1313, gets around these issues by preemptively declaring that workplace wellness programs offered in conjunction with an employer’s sponsored health care plan shall be considered to be in compliance with GINA, the ADA, and other workplace protections. Given that the relevant section of GINA (section 202(b)(2)) specifically states that it shall be unlawful for employers to gather genetic information on employees without the express permission and consent of the employee in question, the GOP just wrote a privacy-shredding exception into a bill and then quietly passed that bill through committee.
Research Credit: Jb
Thousands of Upcoming Nuclear Weapons Shipments During $1 Trillion Nuclear Arsenal Upgrade
March 12th, 2017Via: Los Angeles Times:
The unmarked 18-wheelers ply the nation’s interstates and two-lane highways, logging 3 million miles a year hauling the most lethal cargo there is: nuclear bombs.
The covert fleet, which shuttles warheads from missile silos, bomber bases and submarine docks to nuclear weapons labs across the country, is operated by the Office of Secure Transportation, a troubled agency within the U.S. Department of Energy so cloaked in secrecy that few people outside the government know it exists.
The $237-million-a-year agency operates a fleet of 42 tractor-trailers, staffed by highly armed couriers, many of them veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, responsible for making sure nuclear weapons and components pass through foggy mountain passes and urban traffic jams without incident.
The transportation office is about to become more crucial than ever as the U.S. embarks on a $1-trillion upgrade of the nuclear arsenal that will require thousands of additional warhead shipments over the next 15 years.
The increased workload will hit an agency already struggling with problems of forced overtime, high driver turnover, old trucks and poor worker morale — raising questions about its ability to keep nuclear shipments safe from attack in an era of more sophisticated terrorism.
San Francisco: Imbeciles Paying $1900 Per Month to Live in House with Dozens of Roommates
March 11th, 2017Man, if you thought the Podshare story from January was nuts, be sitting down for this one.
That Podshare place looks like a 5-Star resort compared to this.
Via: Reuters:
Zander Dejah, 25, pays $1,900 a month rent to live in a downtown San Francisco house with at least 40 other people, many of whom sleep in bunk beds.
Dejah is a resident of The Negev, a communal living space that styles itself as a home for millennial tech workers to brainstorm ideas, write code and create apps, even if they have to share toilets and bathrooms with dozens of others. (Related photo essay: here)
Houses like The Negev, located in a neighborhood known as “SoMa” or South of Market, have cropped up around San Francisco as an influx of young professionals, many of whom are tech workers, have faced the city’s notoriously high rents and apartment shortages. It has three floors and roughly 50 rooms, filled with bunk beds, beer bottles and laptops, according to residents.
Dejah, born and raised in New York, graduated last year with a degree in computer science and math from McGill University. Unemployed, he moved to California six months ago and found his room at The Negev on Craigslist.
“I thought New York was expensive,” said Dejah, who quickly landed a job as a virtual reality engineer at consulting firm moBack. “It’s basically an extension of college. We sort of live in a frat house.”
FBI Used Best Buy’s Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public Surveillance
March 11th, 2017Via: OC Weekly:
Recently unsealed records reveal a much more extensive secret relationship than previously known between the FBI and Best Buy’s Geek Squad, including evidence the agency trained company technicians on law-enforcement operational tactics, shared lists of targeted citizens and, to covertly increase surveillance of the public, encouraged searches of computers even when unrelated to a customer’s request for repairs.
California: State DMV Backs Allowing Self-Driving Cars with No Human on Board
March 11th, 2017Via: San Francisco Chronicle:
Self-driving cars with no human behind the wheel — or, for that matter, any steering wheel at all — may soon appear on California’s public roads, under regulations state officials proposed Friday.
The rules represent a delicate balance, trying to ensure the safety of a new technology many people don’t trust while avoiding tough restrictions that could send car companies fleeing to other states.
Until now, California has required all 27 companies testing autonomous cars in the state to have someone in the driver’s seat, ready to take over, when testing on public roads. And those vehicles needed to have steering wheels and brake pedals, even if some self-driving car engineers didn’t consider them necessary.
Both of those requirements would disappear under the new regulations proposed by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Instead, automakers would need to certify to the state that their own testing — either on closed tracks or through computer modeling — shows the cars are ready to operate on public roads with no one behind the wheel. Tests with no driver would require an operator monitoring the car, ready to steer via remote control if necessary.
And if automakers want to deploy cars without such standard controls as a steering wheel and pedals, they would first need the approval of federal highway safety officials.
