Alice Kaerast from the Sky Betting & Gaming Engineering team has produced a comprehensive list of big data news sources, including blogs podcasts newsletters There were a couple of podcasts in it that I've added to my listening list. High praise indeed. I wish more sources would make their content available via RSS feeds. I really don't want news and articles in my inbox. If I can't add … [Read more...]
AI-first world
In his recent keynote Google CEO Sundar Pichai said In fact, when I look at where computing is headed, it's clear to me that we are evolving from a mobile-first to an AI-first world. Devices like Amazon's Echo and Google Home are "always-on" intelligent assistants designed to sit quietly and await our bidding. As the devices recede into the background it's the AI-powered services that will … [Read more...]
First death in a self-driving car
The first death in a self-driving car occurred in May 2016. It was in a Tesla Model S travelling along a Florida highway. Apparently the car's Autopilot system got confused by a white truck against a bright sky and failed to brake. When AI systems fail, they sometimes fail big. Tesla noted in a press release this is the first fatality in 130 million miles, compared to an average of one fatality … [Read more...]
Campaign to Stop Killer Robots
There's an international coalition that is [...] working to preemptively ban fully autonomous weapons. To be clear, this isn't the type of robot used to kill a sniper recently. We are talking about systems designed to make a kill decision without human intervention. What really drew my attention to the (serious) campaign, however, was the name---Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. If only all … [Read more...]
Robot kills person?
I noticed some headlines in the last few days about the "unprecedented" use of a robot to kill a person. At first, I was worried that, as we prepare to have robots move among us, one of our faithful servants had already broken Asimov's first law of robotics A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. However, it turns out that the Dallas … [Read more...]