Is our love affair with AI really about building a new kind of deity to meet human needs no amount of rationality can fill? Max Barry’s disturbing novel Providence lays out the case, says Sally Adee Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532760-700-providence-review-chilling-sci-fi-where-an-ai-becomes-god-by-accident/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tag: accident
How Google Kneecapped Amazon’s Smart TV Efforts
Amazon has sold millions of Fire TV streaming devices in recent years, but its efforts to expand the Fire TV platform to smart TVs and cable set-top boxes have been slow-going. That’s not by accident, according to industry insiders: They say Google has long prevented consumer electronics manufacturers from doing business with Amazon, reports news outlet Protocol. From the report: At…
Engineers crack 58-year-old puzzle on way to quantum breakthrough
A happy accident in the laboratory has led to a breakthrough discovery that not only solved a problem that stood for more than half a century, but has major implications for the development of quantum computers and sensors.In a study published today in Nature, a team of engineers at UNSW Sydney has done what a celebrated scientist first suggested in 1961…
Uber Resumes Autonomous Car Testing in San Francisco
Just over a month after Uber received a California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) license to test driverless cars on public roads, the company has resumed autonomous testing in San Francisco. From a report: Uber says it will limit its time on the road to a “few weeks” while it completes a codebase and infrastructure update and that two of its…
An AI Surveillance Company is Watching Utah
An anonymous reader quotes Motherboard:
The state of Utah has given an artificial intelligence company real-time access to state traffic cameras, CCTV and “public safety” cameras, 911 emergency systems, location data for state-owned vehicles, and other sensitive data. The company, called Banjo, says that it’s combining this data with information collected from social media, satellites, and other apps, and claims its algorithms…