Tag Archives: show

#430854 Get a Live Look Inside Singularity ...

Singularity University’s (SU) second annual Global Summit begins today in San Francisco, and the Singularity Hub team will be there to give you a live look inside the event, exclusive speaker interviews, and articles on great talks.
Whereas SU’s other summits each focus on a specific field or industry, Global Summit is a broad look at emerging technologies and how they can help solve the world’s biggest challenges.
Talks will cover the latest in artificial intelligence, the brain and technology, augmented and virtual reality, space exploration, the future of work, the future of learning, and more.
We’re bringing three full days of live Facebook programming, streaming on Singularity Hub’s Facebook page, complete with 30+ speaker interviews, tours of the EXPO innovation hall, and tech demos. You can also livestream main stage talks at Singularity University’s Facebook page.
Interviews include Peter Diamandis, cofounder and chairman of Singularity University; Sylvia Earle, National Geographic explorer-in-residence; Esther Wojcicki, founder of the Palo Alto High Media Arts Center; Bob Richards, founder and CEO of Moon Express; Matt Oehrlein, cofounder of MegaBots; and Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and the Craig Newmark Foundation.
Pascal Finette, SU vice president of startup solutions, and Alison Berman, SU staff writer and digital producer, will host the show, and Lisa Kay Solomon, SU chair of transformational practices, will put on a special daily segment on exponential leadership with thought leaders.
Make sure you don’t miss anything by ‘liking’ the Singularity Hub and Singularity University Facebook pages and turn on notifications from both pages so you know when we go live. And to get a taste of what’s in store, check out the below selection of stories from last year’s event.
Are We at the Edge of a Second Sexual Revolution?By Vanessa Bates Ramirez
“Brace yourself, because according to serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, all our existing beliefs about procreation are about to be shattered again…According to Varsavsky, the second sexual revolution will decouple procreation from sex, because sex will no longer be the best way to make babies.”
VR Pioneer Chris Milk: Virtual Reality Will Mirror Life Like Nothing Else BeforeBy Jason Ganz
“Milk is already a legend in the VR community…But [he] is just getting started. His company Within has plans to help shape the language we use for virtual reality storytelling. Because let’s be clear, VR storytelling is still very much in its infancy. This fact makes it even crazier there are already VR films out there that can inspire and captivate on such a profound level. And we’re only going up from here.”
7 Key Factors Driving the Artificial Intelligence RevolutionBy David Hill
“Jacobstein calmly and optimistically assures that this revolution isn’t going to disrupt humans completely, but usher in a future in which there’s a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence. He highlighted 7 factors driving this revolution.”
Are There Other Intelligent Civilizations Out There? Two Views on the Fermi ParadoxBy Alison Berman
“Cliché or not, when I stare up at the sky, I still wonder if we’re alone in the galaxy. Could there be another technologically advanced civilization out there? During a panel discussion on space exploration at Singularity University’s Global Summit, Jill Tarter, the Bernard M. Oliver chair at the SETI Institute, was asked to explain the Fermi paradox and her position on it. Her answer was pretty brilliant.”
Engineering Will Soon Be ‘More Parenting Than Programming’By Sveta McShane
“In generative design, the user states desired goals and constraints and allows the computer to generate entire designs, iterations and solution sets based on those constraints. It is, in fact, a lot like parents setting boundaries for their children’s activities. The user basically says, ‘Yes, it’s ok to do this, but it’s not ok to do that.’ The resulting solutions are ones you might never have thought of on your own.”
Biohacking Will Let You Connect Your Body to Anything You WantBy Vanessa Bates Ramirez
“How many cyborgs did you see during your morning commute today? I would guess at least five. Did they make you nervous? Probably not; you likely didn’t even realize they were there…[Hannes] Sjoblad said that the cyborgs we see today don’t look like Hollywood prototypes; they’re regular people who have integrated technology into their bodies to improve or monitor some aspect of their health.”
Peter Diamandis: We’ll Radically Extend Our Lives With New TechnologiesBy Jason Dorrier
“[Diamandis] said humans aren’t the longest-lived animals. Other species have multi-hundred-year lifespans. Last year, a study “dating” Greenland sharks found they can live roughly 400 years. Though the technique isn’t perfectly precise, they estimated one shark to be about 392. Its approximate birthday was 1624…Diamandis said he asked himself: If these animals can live centuries—why can’t I?” Continue reading

Posted in Human Robots

#430686 This Week’s Awesome Stories From ...

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
DeepMind’s AI Is Teaching Itself Parkour, and the Results Are AdorableJames Vincent | The Verge“The research explores how reinforcement learning (or RL) can be used to teach a computer to navigate unfamiliar and complex environments. It’s the sort of fundamental AI research that we’re now testing in virtual worlds, but that will one day help program robots that can navigate the stairs in your house.”
VIRTUAL REALITY
Now You Can Broadcast Facebook Live Videos From Virtual RealityDaniel Terdiman | Fast Company“The idea is fairly simple. Spaces allows up to four people—each of whom must have an Oculus Rift VR headset—to hang out together in VR. Together, they can talk, chat, draw, create new objects, watch 360-degree videos, share photos, and much more. And now, they can live-broadcast everything they do in Spaces, much the same way that any Facebook user can produce live video of real life and share it with the world.”
ROBOTICS
I Watched Two Robots Chat Together on Stage at a Tech EventJon Russell | TechCrunch“The robots in question are Sophia and Han, and they belong to Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based company that is developing and deploying artificial intelligence in humanoids. The duo took to the stage at Rise in Hong Kong with Hanson Robotics’ Chief Scientist Ben Goertzel directing the banter. The conversation, which was partially scripted, wasn’t as slick as the human-to-human panels at the show, but it was certainly a sight to behold for the packed audience.”
BIOTECH
Scientists Used CRISPR to Put a GIF Inside a Living Organism’s DNAEmily Mullin | MIT Technology Review“They delivered the GIF into the living bacteria in the form of five frames: images of a galloping horse and rider, taken by English photographer Eadweard Muybridge…The researchers were then able to retrieve the data by sequencing the bacterial DNA. They reconstructed the movie with 90 percent accuracy by reading the pixel nucleotide code.”
DIGITAL MEDIA
AI Creates Fake ObamaCharles Q. Choi | IEEE Spectrum“In the new study, the neural net learned what mouth shapes were linked to various sounds. The researchers took audio clips and dubbed them over the original sound files of a video. They next took mouth shapes that matched the new audio clips and grafted and blended them onto the video. Essentially, the researchers synthesized videos where Obama lip-synched words he said up to decades beforehand.”
Stock Media provided by adam121 / Pond5 Continue reading

Posted in Human Robots