Videos

I.R.I.S. - The day an AI goes rogue

A short film by Hasraf HaZ Dulull, I.R.I.S. is a military artificial intelligence with an expanded battle capacity plus strike autonomy. A short action film at heart, events unfold as the military sends in humans to attempt to regain control over the system. The script and scenes are not very informative, but do offer some nice visuals and a drone swarm I haven't seen used before.

Wanderers: a short film presenting humanity's expansion into the Solar System

In the short film Wanderer, Erik Wernquest pairs Carl Sagan's spoken thoughts with views of humans at various locations within our solar system. "For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled." Sagan himself reads these words and explains his view that our "everlasting itch for things remote" will push us beyond the limitations of our planet.

Building a better space suit

MIT professor Dava Newman presents the design and possible uses for a new spacesuit design. In addition to providing a history of space suit design and an overview of current designs, she elaborates on additional uses for the research such as better protective suits for healthcare workers and eventually exoskeletons to solve many of today's limitations for those without the ability to walk or maintain their posture for long periods of time.

What will future jobs look like?

Andrew McAfee, one of the authors of The Second Machine Age, gives a presentation on the future of jobs as one of his TED talks. He provides a nice overview of the benefits and challenges of "the new machine age" and, on the human side, who will be impacted. At 15 minutes long, it's a fairly complete overview on the topic and how our societies might adapt to prepare our children and the adult unemployed for this change.

Train your Robot Well - This Week in Law

Our Final Invention book cover#255 of This Week in Law's weekly discussion focuses on the various issues we may face when regulating robots in the future. The discussion revolves around James Barrat's book Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era.  Based on Barrat's writings, they discuss how a super intelligence might come to view its human 'captors' - humans that used to be the smartest creatures on the planet and now occupy a lower rung of intelligence as we are surpassed by our creation.

Topics include building sympathy into machines to instill ethics, robotic personhood, and a range of issues we might encounter after the Singularity occurs. The discussion of robotics lasts around an hour and is a very deep discussion.

Available as a video or audio download.

A stronger, sexier, younger body

Robot stripper on screenI've been watching this video make the rounds for about two weeks. My first thought upon seeing it was, "How long before Madonna is on the phone with Kurzweil and Kaku to figure out when she can dump her brain into it and plan a new world tour?" Humorous, but hardly kind. Though I'm no fan of Madonna and believe she is narcissistic to the extreme, I also have to admit most of humanity is the same way. If we could push our minds into machines like these, how many of us would and how often?

Pages