Tech experts caution on killer AI

Last updated 5 hours ago

Stephen Hawking has warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence.

More than 1,000 tech experts, scientists and researchers have written a letter warning about the dangers of autonomous weapons.

In the latest outcry over "killer robots", the letter warns that "a military AI [artificial intelligence] arms race is a bad idea".

Among the signatories are scientist Stephen Hawking, entrepreneur Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

The letter will be presented at an international AI conference today.

"Killer robots" are currently the subject of much debate and have recently been discussed by committees at the United Nations, which is considering the potential for a ban on certain types of autonomous weapons.

Now, the experts have called for a specific ban on the use of artificial intelligence to manage weapons that would be "beyond meaningful human control".

"Just as most chemists and biologists have no interest in building chemical or biological weapons, most AI researchers have no interest in building AI weapons - and do not want others to tarnish their field by doing so," they add.

MIT professor Noam Chomsky, Google AI chief Demis Hassabis, and consciousness expert Daniel Dennett are among others to have endorsed the letter.

The text, which has been published online by the Future of Life Institute (FLI), will be presented to delegates of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires.

AMA on AI

Prof Hawking, a signatory to the letter, is currently taking part in an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit, in which he is collecting questions about "making the future of technology more human".

He will respond to selected questions throughout the week, but has not yet posted his first reply.

In December, in an exclusive interview with the BBC, the professor raised his concern that AI could spell the end of mankind.

"Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete [with artificial intelligence], and would be superseded," he said.

But Eric Horvitz - a Microsoft Research chief who signed the autonomous weapons letter - has posted a video online in defence of other AI research.

"You look at how much computation has done for our society, for socio-economics, in applications like healthcare - it's been incredible. AI will change so many things," he said.

"With that comes a lot of hope, a lot of possible benefits and also some concerns.

"I think there are very interesting questions that need to be solved along the way, but I expect largely positive beneficial results coming out of this research largely because we guide it."

Automated trucks seek German license

Automated trucks seek German licence

Last updated 10 hours ago

Daimler's self-driving trucks are already being tested in Nevada

Car manufacturer Daimler is hoping to test self-driving trucks on German motorways this year, according to a company executive.

Speaking to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Wolfgang Bernhard said he was "positive" the firm would get certification within weeks.

Daimler has been road-testing its autonomous trucks in Nevada since May.

Although a computer controls the vehicles, a human driver is present at all times.

Daimler is currently seeking certification for a self-driving truck so it can be tested on public roads in Germany.

A spokesman confirmed the firm is seeking approval to operate the vehicles near the city of Stuttgart.

"We're testing in Germany on our own proving grounds. The next step is getting real-life experience on German highways as well," the spokesman told the BBC. "We're looking to do that in the second half of the year."

'Autopilot for trucks'

He added that the system could be thought of as comparable to autopilot technology already in use on aircraft.

"We believe it's safer and more efficient if, on these long highway [journeys], the truck drives by itself," he said.

Daimler's autonomous trucks use a combination of radar, lasers and camera systems to identify obstacles and the boundaries of the road.

A computer system, when driving, can control acceleration, braking and steering. It is also able to perform an emergency stop.

Daimler says that a human driver is always present and able to retake control of the truck immediately if required.

Sharing the road

Alan Stevens, a transport expert at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), said developing the technology is the "right direction" to be going in as there is a strong business case for fully autonomous trucks.

However, he added that there was a long way to go before such vehicles would be roadworthy without an on-board supervisor.

"It's probably got to be 10 or 100 times better than a human driver before it's socially acceptable," he said.

BBC © 2015

Step forward for computing by light

Last updated 8 hours ago

By Yasmin Ali

Science reporter

Engineers and physicists have discovered a property of silicon which could aid the development of faster computers.

Currently, copper wires transfer information in a computer; the process is slowed down as the wires heat up.

"Photonic" and "spintronic" computing is the principle of transferring information by light or electron spin.

This new property means that silicon-based light detectors identify spin, so more information can be transferred.

Spin is a property of sub-atomic particles, which influences the ordering of electrons and nuclei in atoms and molecules.

The discovered property is usually observed in materials containing heavy elements, which are difficult to integrate into existing computing systems that are composed mainly of silicon.

Silicon is a highly symmetrical crystal, but by changing the geometry of it, the team was able to impart "chiral" properties to it. Something is chiral if the mirror image of the object cannot be superimposed on the original.

Something is chiral if the mirror image of the object cannot be superimposed on the original; one example is your hands

This chirality means that silicon-based detectors are able to detect the spin of electrons and light, and as a result allow more information to be transmitted.

"The whole computer running with light is a distant dream, but some copper interconnectors can be replaced with light and photo-detector devices," Professor Ritesh Agarwal, who led this study at the University of Pennsylvania, told BBC News.

"This is only around five years away from now. The technology already exists, but this can bring added functionality."

The discovery was made by accident, while investigating heavier materials.

As well as discovering chirality in silicon, this study has wider implications for materials science.

"It's the same silicon, all we've done is cut it in a particular direction," explained Professor Ritesh Agarwal.

This is a step towards engineering new, useful properties by changing the geometry of a material.

BBC © 2015

Rare system of five stars detected

Rare system of five stars discovered

Last updated Jul 8, 2015, 12:06 AM PST

By Paul Rincon

Science editor, BBC News website

One of the pairs of stars is a so-called contact binary

Astronomers have discovered a very rare system of five connected stars.

The quintuplet consists of a pair of closely linked stars - binaries - one of which has a lone companion; it is the first known system of its kind.

The pair of stars orbit around a mutual centre of gravity, but are separated by more than the distance of Pluto's orbit around the Sun.

The findings have been presented at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno.

The unusual system lies 250 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered in data gathered by the SuperWASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) project.

This uses relatively small and low-cost cameras in the Canary Islands and South Africa to image much of the sky every few minutes.

Measurements of the brightness of individual stars are, over years, assembled into light curves - plots of brightness against time.

When the stars pass in front of one another, they produce a regular pattern of pairs of dips in the light curve.

Data from the new system revealed the existence of two binary stars, one of which was a so-called contact binary.

The system - dubbed 1SWASP J093010.78+533859.5 - is extremely unusual

Co-author Dr Markus Lohr, from the Open University, told BBC News that these contact binaries were stars that orbit so closely they share an outer atmosphere.

The other star pair - a detached binary - has a separation distance of some three million km. The two binaries orbit in the same plane at a distance of 21 billion km.

Follow-up observations of different wavelengths of light coming from the star system uncovered a fifth star, which is linked to the detached binary star.

"This is a truly exotic star system. In principle there's no reason why it couldn't have planets in orbit around each of the pairs of stars. Any inhabitants would have a sky that would put the makers of Star Wars to shame," Dr Lohr said.

"There could sometimes be no fewer than five Suns of different brightnesses lighting up the landscape."

Dr Lohr said the fact the stars all orbited in the same plane suggested they had all formed out of the same "proto-stellar disk" of dust and gas.

He added that systems containing this many linked stars were extremely rare, but at least one other five-star system had been discovered by Nasa's Kepler planet-hunting telescope.

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