Lifeboat Foundation News Blog: Robotics/AI

Archive for the ‘robotics/AI’ category: Page 2431

Nov 29, 2007

Planning for First Lifeboat Foundation Conference Underway

Posted by Matt McGuirl in categories: biological, biotech/medical, cybercrime/malcode, defense, existential risks, futurism, geopolitics, lifeboat, nanotechnology, robotics/AI, space

Planning for the first Lifeboat Foundation conference has begun. This FREE conference will be held in Second Life to keep costs down and ensure that you won’t have to worry about missing work or school.

While an exact date has not yet been set, we intend to offer you an exciting line up of speakers on a day in the late spring or early summer of 2008.

Several members of Lifeboat’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) have already expressed interest in presenting. However, potential speakers need not be Lifeboat Foundation members.

If you’re interested in speaking, want to help, or you just want to learn more, please contact me at matt@lifeboat.com.

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Mar 15, 2007

2007 DARPA Military Technology Plan: Future Medical Promise or Danger?

Posted by Steven Palter in categories: biological, biotech/medical, defense, lifeboat, robotics/AI

DARPA (the defense advanced research projects agency) is the R&D arm of he US military for far-reaching future technology. What most people do not realize is how much revolutionary medical technology comes out of this agency’s military R&D programs. For those in need of background, you can read about the Army & DARPA’s future soldier Landwarrior program and its medtech offshoots as well as why DARPA does medical research and development that industry won’t. Fear of these future military technologies runs high with a push towards neural activation as a weapon, direct brain-computer interfaces, and drones. However, the new program has enormous potential for revolutionary medical progess as well.

It has been said technology is neutral, it is the application that is either good or evil. (It is worth a side-track to read a discussion on this concept)

The Areas of Focus for DARPA in 2007 and Forward Are:

Chip-Scale Atomic Clock
Global War on TerrorismUnmanned Air Vehicles
Militarization of Space
Supercomputer Systems
Biological Warfare Defense
Prosthetics
Quantum Information Science
Newton’s Laws for Biology
Low-Cost Titanium
Alternative Energy
High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System

the potential for the destructive use of these technologies is obvious, for a a complete review of these projects and the beneficial medical applications of each visit docinthemachine.com

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Dec 22, 2006

UK Government Report Talks Robot Rights

Posted by Michael Anissimov in categories: robotics/AI, supercomputing

In an important step forward for acknowledging the possibility of real AI in our immediate future, a report by the UK government that says robots will have the same rights and responsibilities as human citizens. The Financial Times reports:

The next time you beat your keyboard in frustration, think of a day when it may be able to sue you for assault. Within 50 years we might even find ourselves standing next to the next generation of vacuum cleaners in the voting booth. Far from being extracts from the extreme end of science fiction, the idea that we may one day give sentient machines the kind of rights traditionally reserved for humans is raised in a British government-commissioned report which claims to be an extensive look into the future. Visions of the status of robots around 2056 have emerged from one of 270 forward-looking papers sponsored by Sir David King, the UK government’s chief scientist.

The paper covering robots’ rights was written by a UK partnership of Outsights, the management consultancy, and Ipsos Mori, the opinion research organisation. “If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,” said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The idea will not surprise science fiction aficionados.
It was widely explored by Dr Isaac Asimov, one of the foremost science fiction writers of the 20th century. He wrote of a society where robots were fully integrated and essential in day-to-day life.In his system, the ‘three laws of robotics’ governed machine life. They decreed that robots could not injure humans, must obey orders and protect their own existence – in that order.

Continue reading “UK Government Report Talks Robot Rights” »

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