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From AlphaGo’s historic victory against world champion Lee Sedol to DeepStack’s sweeping win against professional poker players, artificial intelligence is clearly on a roll.
Part of the momentum comes from breakthroughs in artificial neural networks, which loosely mimic the multi-layer structure of the human brain. But that’s where the similarity ends. While the brain can hum along on energy only enough to power a light bulb, AlphaGo’s neural network runs on a whopping 1,920 CPUs and 280 GPUs, with a total power consumption of roughly one million watts—50,000 times more than its biological counterpart.
Our super-efficient brains run on the energy needed power a single light bulb.Extrapolate those numbers, and it’s easy to see that artificial neural networks have a serious problem—even if scientists design powerfully intelligent machines, they may demand too much energy to be practical for everyday use.
Hardware structure is partly to blame. Our computers, with their separate processor and memory units, are simply not wired appropriately to support the type of massively parallel, energy-efficient computing that the brain elegantly performs.
Recently, a team from Stanford University and Sandia National Laboratories took a different approach to brain-like computing systems.
Rather than simulating a neural network with software, they made a device that behaves like the brain’s synapses—the connection between neurons that processes and stores information—and completely overhauled our traditional idea of computing hardware.
The artificial synapse, dubbed the “electrochemical neuromorphic organic device (ENODe),” may one day be used to create chips that perform brain-like computations with minimal energy requirements.
Made of flexible, organic material compatible with the brain, it may even lead to better brain-computer interfaces, paving the way for a cyborg future. The team published their findings in Nature Materials.
"It's an entirely new family of devices because this type of architecture has not been shown before. For many key metrics, it also performs better than anything that's been done before with inorganics," says study lead author Dr. Alberto Salleo, a material engineer at Stanford.
The biological synapse
The brain’s computational architecture is fundamentally different than a classical computer. Rather than having separate processing and storage units, the brain uses synapses to perform both functions. Right off the bat, this arrangement is better: it saves the energy required to shuttle data back and forth from the processor to the memory module.
The synapse is a structure where the projections of two neurons meet. It looks a bit like a battery cell, with two membranes and a gap between. As the brain learns, electrical currents hop down one neuronal branch until they reach a synapse. There, they mix together with all the pulses coming from other branches and sum up into a single signal.
Neurotransmitters drift between synapses.When sufficiently strong, the electricity triggers the neuron to release chemicals that drift towards a neighboring neuron’s synapse and, in turn, causes the neuron to fire.
Here’s the crucial bit: every time this happens, the synapse is modified slightly into a different state, in that it subsequently requires less (or more) energy to activate the downstream neuron. In fact, neuroscientists believe that different conductive states are how synapses store information.
The artificial synapse
The new device, ENODe, heavily borrows from nature’s design.
Like a biological synapse, the ENODe consists of two thin films made of flexible organic materials, separated by a thin gap containing an electrolyte that allows protons to pass through. The entire device is controlled by a master switch: when open, the device is in “read-only” mode; when closed, the device is “writable” and ready to store information.
To input data, researchers zapped the top layer of film with a small voltage, causing it to release an electron. To neutralize its charge, the film then “steals” a hydrogen ion from its bottom neighboring film. This redox reaction changes the device’s oxidation level, which in turn alters its conductivity.
Just like biological synapses, the stronger or longer the initial electrical pulse, the more hydrogen ions gets shuffled around, which corresponds to larger conductivity. The scalability was welcomingly linear: with training, the researchers were able to predict within one percent of uncertainty the voltage needed to get to a particular state.
In all, the team programmed 500 distinct conductive states, every single one available for computation—a cornucopia compared to the two-state (0 and 1) common computer, and perfect for supporting neuron-based computational models like artificial neural networks.
The master switch design also helped solve a pesky problem that’s haunted previous generations of brain-like chips: the voltage-time dilemma, which states that you can’t simultaneously get both low-energy switching between states and long stability in a state.
This is because if ions only need a bit of voltage to move during switching (low energy), they can also easily diffuse away after the switch, which means the chips can change randomly, explains Dr. J. Joshua Yang and Dr. Qiangfei Xia of the University of Massachusetts, who wrote an opinion piece about the study but was not directly involved.
The ENODe circumvents the problem with its “read-only” mode. Here, the master switch flips open, cutting off any external current to the device and preventing proton changes in the layers.

"A miniature version of the device could cut energy consumption by a factor of several million—well under the energy consumption of a biological synapse."

By decoupling the mechanism that maintains the state of the device from the one that governs switching, the team was able to use a switching voltage of roughly 0.5 millivolts to get to an adjacent state. For comparison, this is about one-tenth the energy needed for a state-of-the-art computer to move data from the processor to the memory unit.
Once locked into a state, the device could maintain it for 25 hours with 0.04 percent variation—a “striking feature” that puts ENODe well above other similar technologies in terms of reliability.
“Just like a battery, once you charge it stays charged” without needing additional energy input, explains study author Dr. A Alec Talin.
ENODe’s energy requirement, though exceedingly low compared to current devices, is still thousands of times higher than the estimates for a single synapse. The team is working hard to miniaturize the device, which could drastically cut down energy consumption by a factor of several million—well under the energy consumption of a biological synapse.
Neuromorphic circuits
To show that ENODes actually mimics a synapse, the team brought their design to life using biocompatible plastic and put it through a series of tests.
First, they integrated the ENODe into an electrical circuit and demonstrated its ability to learn a textbook experiment: Pavlovian conditioning, where one stimulus is gradually associated with another after repeated exposure—like linking the sound of a bell to an involuntary mouth-watering response.
Next, the team implemented a three-layer network and trained it to identify hand-written digits—a type of benchmarking task that researchers often run artificial neural networks through to test their performances.
Because building a physical neural network is technologically challenging, for this test the team used the model of their neuron to simulate one instead.
The ENODe-based neural network managed an accuracy between 93 to 97 percent, far higher than that achieved by previous brain-like chips, reported the authors.
Computational prowess aside, the ENODe is also particularly suited to synapse with the brain. The device is made of organic material that, while not present in brain tissue, is biocompatible and frequently used as a scaffold to grow cells on. The material is also flexible, bendy enough to hug irregular surfaces and may allow researchers to pack multiple ENODes into a tiny volume at high density.
Then there’s the device itself, with its 500 conductance states, that “naturally interfaces with the analog world, with no need for the traditional power-hungry and time consuming analog-to-digital converters,” remarks Yang and Xie.
“[This] opens up a possibility of interfacing live biological cells [with circuits] that can do computing via artificial synapses,” says Talin. “We think that could have huge implications in the future for creating much better brain-machine interfaces.”
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Fedor is a humanoid robot in development in Russia, which is designed to help astronauts in space. It can turn valves, drive car, use drill, do pushups and a lot more useful tasks such as lifting up to 20 kg, walk, crawl, get into the car all by itself, turn door keys, and use various tools.

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ROBOTICS
Humans Can Now Scold a Robot With Their MindsSamantha Cole | Vice MOTHERBOARD"Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), with Boston University, developed a feedback system for humans to mentally change a robot's actions by simply watching and wordlessly judging…the simplicity of MIT CSAIL's new research makes it more accessible to the public, no new language or mental training required."

TRANSPORTATION
Photos of the 11ft-Diameter Hyperloop Test Track Under Construction in NevadaMegan Geuss | Ars Technica"Hyperloop One demonstrated its propulsion system at the Nevada site at a press event last May, where it sent a 10ft sled 116mph on some open-air tracks until the sled hit some sand and slowed down…There are, of course, real technical hurdles for Hyperloop One to overcome if it hopes to ease the traffic between those major cities, and it will be interesting to see how the company engineers around them."
CYBERSECURITY
WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking DocumentsScott Shane, Matthew Rosenberg, Andrew W. Legren| The New York Times"The initial release, which WikiLeaks said was only the first installment in a larger collection of secret C.I.A. material, included 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments, many of them partly redacted by WikiLeaks editors to avoid disclosing the actual code for cyberweapons. The entire archive of C.I.A. material consists of several hundred million lines of computer code, the group claimed."
SPACE
Jeff Bezos Shows off Blue Origin's New Rocket Engine, Fully Assembled for the First TimeLoren Grush | The Verge"The New Glenn looks to be a monster rocket. It will be 23 feet in diameter and range from 270 feet to 313 feet tall, so around one-third the height of 30 Rockefeller Plaza (Rockefeller Center's main skyscraper)…Bezos says the New Glenn will make its first flight from the Florida coast before the end of this decade."
AUTOMATION
Meet Flippy, a Burger-Grilling Robot From Miso Robotics and CaliBurgerLora Kolodny | TechCrunch"Miso Robotics CEO and co-founder David Zito said, 'We focus on using AI and automation to solve the high pain points in restaurants and food prep. That’s the dull, dirty and dangerous work around the grill, the fryer, and other prep work like chopping onions. The idea is to help restaurants improve food quality and safety without requiring a major kitchen redesign.'"

VIRTUAL REALITY
Why Patagonia Is Using 360-Video to Defend Bears Ears National MonumentJeff Beer | Fast Company"In light of Governor Herbert's actions, the brand decided to use these new films in the fight. 'We just knew we had to switch gears for it to defend this place, and public lands across the country,' says Patagonia's vice-president of marketing Cory Bayers. 'We had done some work with Google 360 technology a couple of years ago, but here we thought it could really bring this story and place to life in an exciting new way.'"

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The Brain.fm team uses advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence to generate beautiful and limitless streams of music that are fine-tuned to assist you with whatever project or activity requires 100% of your attention. Continue reading →

Would your burger taste as delicious if it was made by a robot?
You’ll soon be able to find out at CaliBurger restaurants in the US and worldwide.
Cali Group partnered with Miso Robotics to develop Flippy the burger robot, which made its debut this week at the Pasadena, California CaliBurger.

Miso and Cali Group aren’t calling Flippy a mere robot, though; it’s a robotic kitchen assistant. And it’s not the first of its kind. San Francisco-based Momentum Machines has also been working on a burger bot for a few years.
Flippy brings some fresh tech to the table (no pun intended). Whereas in the past a typical assembly line robot (say at a car factory) needed everything lined up perfectly in front of them—precisely and consistently positioned—to do their work, robots like Flippy are using the latest round of machine learning software to locate and identify what’s in front of them and learn from experience.
That is, Flippy’s flexibility is a great example of robots becoming more flexible, in general.
Miso’s CEO compared Flippy to a self-driving car because of the way both use feedback loops to reach higher levels of performance.

Flippy doesn’t look much like how you may imagine a robot either. Its body is a small cart on wheels, and it has no legs and just one arm. The arm’s six axes give it a wide range of motion and allow it to perform multiple functions (as opposed to simply moving up and down or back and forth).
There’s an assortment of detachable tools the bot can use to help it cook, including tongs, scrapers, and spatulas, and a pneumatic pump lets it swap one tool for another, rather than a human having to change it out.
Combined with its AI software, these tools will allow Flippy to eventually expand its chefdom beyond just burgers—it could learn to make items like chicken or fish.

"CaliBurger has committed to using Flippy in at least 50 of its restaurants worldwide over the next two years."

Some of Flippy’s key tasks include pulling raw patties from a stack and placing them on the grill, tracking each burger’s cook time and temperature, and transferring cooked burgers to a plate.
Flippy can’t single-handedly take a burger from raw to ready, though. Rather than adding extra ingredients itself, the bot alerts human cooks when it’s time to put cheese on a grilling patty. People also need to add sauce and toppings once the patty is cooked, as well as wrap the burgers that are ready to eat. Reportedly, Momentum Machines is working to include some of these additional burger assembly steps into its system.
Sensors on the grill-facing side of the bot take in thermal and 3D data, and multiple cameras help Flippy ‘see’ its surroundings. The bot knows how many burgers it should be cooking at any given time thanks to a system that digitally sends tickets back to the kitchen from the restaurant’s counter.
Two of the bot’s most appealing features for restaurateurs are its compactness and adaptability—it can be installed in front of or next to any standard grill or fryer, which means restaurants can start using Flippy without having to expand or reconfigure their kitchens.
CaliBurger has committed to using Flippy in at least 50 of its restaurants worldwide over the next two years.
What does this mean for the chain’s current line cooks, and for the future of low-skilled jobs in the restaurant industry?
Miso’s CEO acknowledged that his company’s product may put thousands of people out of work, but he also said, “Tasting food and creating recipes will always be the purview of a chef. And restaurants are gathering places where we go to interact with each other. Humans will always play a very critical role in the hospitality side of the business given the social aspects of food. We just don’t know what the new roles will be yet in the industry.”
Cali Group’s chairman envisions Flippy working next to human employees, not replacing them completely. But he also noted that the bot is part of a "broader vision for creating a unified operating system that will control all aspects of a restaurant, from in-store interactive gaming entertainment to automated ordering and cooking processes, 'intelligent' food delivery and real-time detection of operating errors and pathogens."
As more restaurant operations become automated, demand for low-skilled jobs like line cooks will decline, but there may be a jump in demand for high-skilled workers like engineers. Even if the number of total jobs stays more or less stable, though, it will be difficult to bridge the resulting skills gap. One possible solution is for the same companies whose technology is eliminating jobs to invest resources in retraining displaced workers to fill newly created jobs that may require different skills.
Meanwhile, robot-made burgers may bring benefits both to consumers and to the restaurant industry; money saved on wages can be applied to sourcing better-quality ingredients, for example, and having machines take over a kitchen’s most hazardous tasks will improve overall safety and efficiency.
Image Credit: Miso Robotics Continue reading →