The advancement of robotics and artificial intelligence will make 75 million jobs obsolete by the year 2022, according to a new report. Sounds dreadful, but the same report goes on to predict the creation of 133 million new jobs over the same period.
Robots in factories are really good at picking up objects they’ve been pre-programmed to handle, but it’s a different story when new objects are thrown into the mix. To overcome this frustrating inflexibility, a team of researchers from MIT devised a system that essentially teaches robots how to assess unfamiliar…
Security experts have identified thousands of instances in which owners of 3D printers have made their devices available online and without the need for authentication. That certainly makes remote access to 3D printers convenient, but wow, what an awful idea given the tremendous potential for abuse.
For the first time ever, scientists have 3D-printed an array of light sensors onto an eyeball-shaped surface. Eventually, a scaled-up version of the device could restore vision to the blind, or even improve the vision of sighted people.
Humanoid robots are still relatively primitive here in the 21st century. Sure, we have Roombas that can vacuum our floors and Boston Dynamics robots that are doing backflips. But when it comes to the dream of our own personal robot servant, we’re still in the Dark Ages. You can’t go down to Costco and pick up a fully…
New research shows that children are more likely than adults to give in to peer pressure from robots, a disturbing finding given the rapidly increasing rate at which kids are interacting with socially intelligent machines.
Alvin Toffler, who died in 2016, will be remembered for his many contributions to the work of futurism. Toffler was a prolific writer, most notably the author of the 1970 best-selling book Future Shock, and a man who became friends with important figures across the political spectrum in Washington DC, including Newt…
When you think of jetpacks, your first thought is probably an image of some fun, care-free piece of pop culture like The Jetsons or James Bond. Or maybe even the Super Bowl. But jetpacks were serious business for the U.S. military in the 1960s. And, believe it or not, there were plenty of futuristic ideas that…
Boston Dynamics is preparing to build its terrifying army of robot dogs, according to a Saturday report in Inverse that the company has set a target date of July 2019 as the time it will be ready to manufacture 1,000 of its compact SpotMini models annually.
Summer is finally upon us, which means it’s time to put together a reading list, whether it’s for the beach, your cottage, or the hammock in your backyard. Here are 15 science and technology books that will keep your nerdy brains engaged and titillated.
Current prosthetic limbs aren’t yet capable of transmitting complex sensations like texture or pain to the user, but a recent breakthrough by scientists at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in which a synthetic layer of skin on an artificial hand transmitted feelings of pain directly to the user, takes us one step…
Boston Dynamics, the makers of the very GIFable robots that will inevitably turn on us all, is preparing to unleash the first horseman of the robot apocalypse on the public. Starting in 2019, the company will make its SpotMini robot commercially available, the company revealed Friday.
Two years ago, a consortium of scientists, lawyers, and entrepreneurs announced a plan to synthesize an artificial human genome from scratch—an extremely ambitious endeavor that’s struggled to secure funding. Project organizers have now disclosed details of a scaled-down version of the venture, but with a goal that’s…
A neuroscientist from Yale University is claiming to have developed a technique that preserves the brain tissue of pigs for an extended period following decapitation. The brains are apparently not conscious, but the new technique is raising a number of important ethical issues.
China’s state-owned aerospace corporation is embarking on a plan that would see tens of thousands of fuel-burning, cloud-seeding chambers dispersed across the Tibetan Plateau in an attempt to increase rainfall in the region. It sounds impressive, but it’s an open question as to whether this extensive rain-making…
The common conception of a technologically enabled apocalypse foresees a powerful artificial intelligence that, either deliberately or by accident, destroys human civilization. But as a new report from the RAND Corporation points out, the reality may be far subtler: As AI slowly erodes the foundations that made the…
Having to assemble furniture from Ikea is about as fun as having to binge watch a season of Fuller House, so how cool would it be to have robots that could do the job? Researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore having now taken us a significant step closer to achieving that dream.
A new report by the Lords Select Committee in the UK claims that Britain is in a strong position to be a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence. But to get there—and to keep AI safe and ethical—tech firms should follow the Committee’s newly proposed “AI Code.”
Over 150 experts in AI, robotics, commerce, law, and ethics from 14 countries have signed an open letter denouncing the European Parliament’s proposal to grant personhood status to intelligent machines. The EU says the measure will make it easier to figure out who’s liable when robots screw up or go rogue, but critics…
