Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Swarms of Drones, Piloted by Artificial Intelligence, May Soon Patrol Europe’s Borders
May 12th, 2019Step 1: Facilitate and encourage illegal immigration to the point of collapsing European society. Step 2: Deploy swarms of surveillance drones to interrogate/track/identify individuals at random. You know, since we created the problem in the first place, we’ll come up with a “solution.” Step 3: ….. (Fill in the blank) Hmm. I know. How about: […]
Privacy Experts, Senators Demand Investigation of Amazon’s Child Data Collection Practices
May 12th, 2019Via: The Intercept: Last year, a coalition of privacy advocates and child psychologists warned against putting an Amazon Alexa speaker anywhere near your child on the fairly reasonable grounds that developing minds shouldn’t befriend always-on surveillance devices, no matter how cute the packaging. Now, a group of privacy researchers, attorneys, and U.S. senators are calling […]
IBM: Use AI to Identify Vaccine-Hesitant Parents
May 8th, 2019Mmm hmm. IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black Via: IEEE: Growing skepticism toward vaccines has sparked a flareup of measles outbreaks affecting New York City neighborhoods, cruise ships, international airports and even Google’s Mountain View headquarters. To help family physicians reach out to […]
Computer Chips Based on Biological Neurons May Help Simulate Larger and More-Complex Brain Models
May 5th, 2019Via: The Scientist: Neuromorphic chips’ ability to perform complex computational tasks while consuming very little power has caught the attention of the tech industry. The potential commercial applications of neuromorphic chips include power-efficient supercomputers, low-power sensors, and self-learning robots. But biologists have a different application in mind: building a fully functioning replica of the human […]
Robots Edge Closer to Unloading Trucks in Amazon-Era Milestone
May 4th, 2019Via: Bloomberg: As FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. beef up automation to keep pace with surging e-commerce and a potential threat from Amazon.com Inc., they’ve been stumped at a crucial stage: loading and unloading trucks. Robot makers are getting close to solving part of that puzzle. Siemens AG and Honeywell International Inc. have […]
For Lower-Paid Workers, the Robot Overlords Have Arrived
May 2nd, 2019Via: Wall Street Journal: It’s time to stop worrying that robots will take our jobs — and start worrying that they will decide who gets jobs. Millions of low-paid workers’ lives are increasingly governed by software and algorithms. This was starkly illustrated by a report last week that Amazon.com tracks the productivity of its employees […]
Lettuce-Farming Robots Might Grow Your Next Salad
April 26th, 2019Via: Bloomberg: Your next salad might include leafy greens grown by robots in California greenhouses. About 75 percent of the lettuce farmed in the U.S. comes from that state’s Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley. Cultivating it requires warm temperatures, not too much rain, and lots of time and labor. Startups such as Iron Ox, […]
Walmart Experiments with AI to Monitor Stores in Real Time
April 25th, 2019Enable face recognition so the system can tempt Bubba with three cents off his next bag of Doritos with alerts on his phone as he’s standing in front of the chips. Via: AP: Inside one of Walmart’s busiest Neighborhood Market grocery stores, high resolution cameras suspended from the ceiling point to a table of bananas. […]
Amazon Automatically Tracks and Fires Warehouse Workers for ‘Productivity’
April 25th, 2019Via: The Verge: The documents also show a deeply automated tracking and termination process. “Amazon’s system tracks the rates of each individual associate’s productivity,” according to the letter, “and automatically generates any warnings or terminations regarding quality or productivity without input from supervisors.” (Amazon says supervisors are able to override the process.)
The Pentagon Is Investing in Space Robots to Repair Satellites
April 24th, 2019Via: Nextgov: The Pentagon’s research office wants to send robots into space to inspect and repair the nation’s satellites. Today the U.S. has more than 400 military, government and commercial satellites circling the globe in geosynchronous Earth orbit, or GEO, a celestial path about 22,000 miles above the ground. These high-altitude satellites are ideal for […]
