The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
22-02-2022
A touchable, morphing 3D hologram has been invented in Japan
A touchable, morphing 3D hologram has been invented in Japan
Holograms just got a lot more exciting with the news that a team of researchers in Japan has developed a 3D hologram projector that responds to a person’s touch, allowing it to completely change shape.
Dubbed ‘Fairy Lights’, and developed by researchers from five Japanese universities, the project was started as a means of improving existing 3D hologram technology and ones that react to touch in mid-air.
According to Hacked, the technology behind touchable holograms has been in existence for a number of years now, but has been nowhere near capable of being introduced to the commercial market because the laser beams, which generate the hologram, actually burn human skin on contact with it.
To fix this, the Japanese researchers decided to develop a system whereby their device will fire laser pulses that are fired at high frequencies, ionising the air molecules that exist in one particular spot.
The lasers in question are known as femtosecond lasers, which create pulses of light that last a few tens of femtoseconds, which to you and me means one millionth of one billionth of just one second.
This leads to the formation of the pixels, which respond to touch when the pulses are interrupted.
Scientists Reveal Device that Can Project Holograms Into Your Brain to Create New Experiences
From the video they have published to show their results, the minute scale of the holograms shows great promise for bringing the technology on a larger scale in the near future during a time when augmented reality (AR) is seen as being a realistic alternative to interactive hologram technology.
Researchers have developed a hologram that allows you to reach out and “feel” it — not unlike the holodecks of “Star Trek.”
University of Glasgow scientists have created hologram system that uses jets of air known as “aerohaptics” to replicate the sensation of touch, according to Ravinder Daahiya, a researcher who worked on the project. He said that the air jets can allow you to feel “people’s fingers, hands and wrists.” The team published a paper of their findings in Advanced Intelligent Systems.
“In time, this could be developed to allow you to meet a virtual avatar of a colleague on the other side of the world and really feel their handshake,” he said in his piece for The Conversation. “It could even be the first steps towards building something like a holodeck.”
No Gloves, No Problems
Similar to previous touch sensory holograms, the aerohaptic system doesn’t require a handheld controller or smart gloves in order to produce the sense of touch. Instead, a nozzle, which is able to respond to the movements of your hand, blows air with an appropriate amount of force onto you.
Daahiya and his team tested this with an interactive projection of a basketball, which he said “can be convincingly touched, rolled and bounced.”
“The touch feedback from air jets from the system is also modulated based on the virtual surface of the basketball, allowing users to feel the rounded shape of the ball as it rolls from their fingertips when they bounce it and the slap in their palm when it returns,” he said.
Welcome to the Holodeck
While it would be pretty cool to see this system fleshed out until we get an honest-to-God holodeck to live out our Sherlock Holmes fantasies, the system will be pretty limited for now.
However, Daahiya has hopes that it could eventually be used to create some pretty amazing video game experiences — as well as help doctors better treat patients no matter where they are on Earth.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
21-02-2022
Scientists Designs A Laser Propulsion System That Can Take You To Mars In Just 45 Days
Scientists Designs A Laser Propulsion System That Can Take You To Mars In Just 45 Days
Scientists at McGill University (Montreal, Canada) present in a recent study the design of a “laser-thermal propulsion” system that would allow humans to reach Mars in just 45 days.
NASA, which plans to send a manned mission to the red planet in the mid-2030s, expects such a trip to take about 500 days .
However, McGill engineers believe it’s possible to cut the journey down to just over six weeks thanks to directed-energy propulsion , which uses large lasers fired from Earth to deliver power to a hydrogen heating chamber on the spacecraft. and, in this way, promote it.
The spacecraft speeds up rapidly while close to our planet, and in the following month it makes the long way to Mars. For landing, the main vehicle is released and the rest of the ship is returned to Earth so that it can be recycled for the next launch.
The idea of directed-energy propulsion had previously been proposed by other scientists in a project that involves using lasers to send small sail probes to the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri.
The system uses laser beams to propel a spacecraft into deep space at relativistic speeds, a fraction of the speed of light. The more powerful the laser, the faster the spacecraft can be accelerated.
“We were interested in how the same laser technology could be used for rapid transit in the solar system,” said Emmanuel Duplay, lead author of the recent study.
The conceptual spacecraft created by the team would require a 100-megawatt, 10-meter-diameter array of lasers .
“Our approach would use a much more intense laser flux on the spacecraft to directly heat the propellant, similar to a giant steam boiler,” Duplay said.
The engineer also points out that it would be necessary “to develop high-temperature materials that allow the spacecraft to break against the Martian atmosphere upon arrival.”
Diaper technology
The problem is that these technologies are still in their early stages and have only been developed at a theoretical level, so they may not be ready for the next decade.
“The laser heating chamber is probably the biggest challenge,” Duplay concludes.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
THESE MATHEMATICIANS THINK THE UNIVERSE MAY BE CONSCIOUS
THESE MATHEMATICIANS THINK THE UNIVERSE MAY BE CONSCIOUS
"THIS COULD BE THE BEGINNING OF A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION."
IMAGES VIA PIXABAY/VICTOR TANGERMANN
Theory of Everything
Scientists are doubling down on a peculiar model that attempts to quantify and measure consciousness.
The model, known as Integrated Information Theory (IIT), has long been controversial because it comes with an unusual quirk. When applied to non-living things like machines, subatomic particles, and even the universe, it claims that they too experience consciousness, New Scientist reports.
“This could be the beginning of a scientific revolution,” Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy mathematician Johannes Kleiner told the magazine.
Complex Math
IIT relies on a value called phi that represents the interconnectivity of a node, whether it’s a region of the brain, circuitry, or an atom. That value represents the node’s level of consciousness. The cerebral cortex, for instance, has a high value because it contains a dense cluster of widely-interconnected neurons.
But when IIT was first presented, calculating phi was impossibly convoluted. New Scientist reports that calculating the phi of a human brain would have previously taken longer than the universe has existed, but a February paper by IIT’s creators, currently awaiting peer review, attempts to simplify the process significantly.
Show Your Work
Many academics remain unconvinced by IIT, in part because of its complexity but mainly because of its far-reaching implications for a conscious universe.
“I think mathematics can help us understand the neural basis of consciousness in the brain, and perhaps even machine consciousness, but it will inevitably leave something out: the felt inner quality of experience,” University of Connecticut philosopher and cognitive scientist Susan Schneider told New Scientist.
It’s hard to conceptualize the bizarre quantum behavior of subatomic particles, which are often too tiny, fleeting, and counterintuitive to conceptualize on any tangible scale. But new research bucks that trend, suggesting that an unusual quantum phenomenon could have a serious impact to biological structures — even causing point mutations in molecules of DNA.
The upshot is that the hydrogen bonds that link together two spiraling strands of DNA are prime for an unusual quantum process called proton tunneling, according to research published by University of Surrey scientists last month in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.
Proton tunneling happens when a proton seemingly vanishes and reappears elsewhere on the other side of a physical or energetic barrier. Protons are massive compared to other subatomic particles that exist on the quantum scale, so it’s not as common to see a proton tunnel as it is to see something like an electron tunnel. But it is possible, and when it happens within a DNA molecule, it can essentially move atoms to the wrong place, leading to a mutation in the genetic code.
“Many have long suspected that the quantum world — which is weird, counter-intuitive, and wonderful — plays a role in life as we know it,” lead author and Surrey chemist Marco Sacchi said in a press release. “While the idea that something can be present in two places at the same time might be absurd to many of us, this happens all the time in the quantum world, and our study confirms that quantum tunneling also happens in DNA at room temperature.”
The odds that one of these quantum mutations would lead to medical problems down the line is rare — the paper notes that the DNA molecules are capable of righting themselves in fairly short order. But just like with any other mutation, it is possible that these mutations take hold and propagate through the DNA replication process, potentially causing issues or even increasing the risk of cancer.
“There is still a long and exciting road ahead of us to understand how biological processes work on the subatomic level,” study coauthor and quantum biologist Louie Slocombe said in the release, “but our study — and countless others over the recent years — have confirmed quantum mechanics are at play.”
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
14-02-2022
Making direct air capture more efficient
Making direct air capture more efficient
A new process for turning atmospheric carbon dioxide desorbed from an absorbent into dry ice reduces the energy input needed for carbon capture.
A new technology for capturing carbon dioxide from air, Cryo-DAC can use existing infrastructure at ports for ships that transport liquefied natural gas and infrastructure used to prepare city gas.
Carbon capture is playing an increasingly prominent role in plans to combat climate change. A new process for direct air capture, which involves capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, promises to greatly enhance the efficiency of the technology.
“Direct air capture has great potential for removing CO2 from the atmosphere on massive scales,” says Soichiro Masuda at the R&D/Digital Division of the Japanese energy-provider Toho Gas. “And it has evolved rapidly in the past several years.”
Direct air capture complements other technologies that capture carbon from industrial emissions, but the lower levels of CO2 in atmospheric air make it considerably more challenging. “Efficiency has continued to be a challenge for direct air capture, as the steps that isolate CO2 from atmospheric air require the input of energy,” says Masuda. “Burning fossil fuel to provide the energy input ends up creating more carbon emission for the sake of capturing carbon.”
“Direct air capture technology is a key part of our corporate strategy to reach carbon neutrality by 2050,” says Masuda. Now, Toho Gas and Nagoya University, have started research and development into realizing carbon neutrality and have devised a way to largely overcome the problem of capturing carbon with an improved direct air capture technology called Cryo-DAC.
Diagram depicting the carbon cycle (left) of Cryo-DAC (right), the direct air capture technology developed by researchers at Toho Gas and Nagoya University.
A key advantage of recycling carbon by Cryo-DAC is that it can use existing infrastructure such as ports for ships that transport liquefied natural gas, along with the associated infrastructure used to prepare city gas for industrial and household use. Natural gas is imported in liquefied form at about −162 degrees Celsius. Japan is one of the world’s major importers of liquefied natural gas, accounting for nearly 20% of global imports.
“Ever since Japan first imported natural gas in 1969, we’ve been exploring ways to exploit the cold energy of liquid natural gas,” explains Masuda. “We think we’ve finally found a solution.” Liquefied natural gas is vaporized by exchanging heat with seawater; the cold energy generated in this exchange is used for industrial purposes such as liquefying industrial gases. Large amounts of the cold energy, however, was wasted.
Cryo-DAC uses cold energy, thereby minimizing the thermal energy needed for the process. Of the various types of direct air capture being developed worldwide, Cryo-DAC employs a method that captures and isolates CO2 with chemical absorbents. “The scalability of the chemical absorption method is well suited for collecting massive amounts of CO2,” says Masuda. “This involves collecting atmospheric air, absorbing CO2 in a solvent, and then isolating the CO2 from the solvent. This last step, however, requires large amounts of heat, creating carbon emission.”
Using dry ice to create a vacuum
The research team designed a new process that has a chamber in which CO2is sublimated into dry ice by using the cold energy of liquid natural gas. The new chamber is connected to another in which CO2 is absorbed in solvent; the phase change from CO2 to dry ice lowers the pressure inside, which causes the solvent and CO2 to evaporate. “As a result, CO2 can be recovered from the solvent at near room temperature, minimizing the thermal energy needed,” explains Yoshito Umeda, a professor at Nagoya University.
Schematic diagram of the cryopump used in Cryo-DAC.
The output of Cryo-DAC is high-pressure CO2 gas. Toho Gas plans to use the captured CO2 as a raw material for city gases that the company provides to its customers. “High-pressure CO2 is needed to produce methane, the main component of city gas, that can be obtained by reacting CO2 and hydrogen. While CO2 for methanation is typically prepared with compressors, Cryo-DAC has the potential to separate CO2 from air and generate high-pressure CO2 at low cost. Although city gas leaves a carbon footprint when burned, direct air capture with Cryo-DAC could offset these emissions,” says Masuda. “The International Energy Agency predicts that the demand for natural gas will continue to increase until 2050, unlike other major fossil fuels like oil or coal. We thus see Cryo-DAC as a key part of future gas infrastructure with net-zero carbon emission.”
The research is now a part of Japan’s Moonshot Research and Development Program, the Cabinet Office’s initiative to fund high-risk, high-impact research projects. The team includes collaborators at Tokyo University of Science, Chukyo University and the University of Tokyo, who are enhancing the materials and processes used in Cryo-DAC. The group is currently developing a solvent with higher absorption capabilities, as well as trying to achieve a continuous flow from CO2 sublimation to the output of high-pressure CO2. The aim is to establish the core technology by 2022 so that the system can operate continuously with a capacity of 1 tonne of CO2 per year in 2024. The group also aspires to design equipment for commercial use, and create detailed plans for implementing the system in a real-world setting by 2029.
“By using existing infrastructure for gas-consuming appliances and pipelines, we expect to transition smoothly to carbon neutrality without imposing a significant burden on our customers or the wider society,” says Masuda.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
12-02-2022
Artificial Intelligence to watch over embryos outside the womb
Artificial Intelligence to watch over embryos outside the womb
TRUNEWS with RICK WILES Researchers in Suzhou have developed an AI system able to monitor and take care of embryos as they grow into babies in the lab. Technology won’t be a problem for its future application, but legal and ethical concerns might, warns Beijing-based researcher. Researchers in Suzhou, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, say they have developed an artificial intelligence system that can monitor and take care of embryos as they grow into fetuses in an artificial womb environment.
This AI nanny is looking after many animal embryos for now, they said in findings published in the domestic peer-reviewed Journal of Biomedical Engineering last month. Previously, the development process of each embryo had to be observed, documented and adjusted manually – a labor-intensive task that became unsustainable as the scale of the research increased. The robotic system or “nanny” now created can monitor the embryos in unprecedented detail, as it moves up and down the line around the clock, the research paper says. AI technology helps the machine detect the smallest signs of change on the embryos and fine-tune the carbon dioxide, nutrition and environmental inputs.
The system can even rank the embryos by health and development potential. When an embryo develops a major defect or dies, the machine would alert a technician to remove it from the womblike receptacle. Current international laws prohibit experimental studies on human embryos beyond two weeks of development. However, research on the later stages is important because “there are still many unsolved mysteries about the physiology of typical human embryonic development”, Sun and his colleagues say in their paper.
The technology would “not only help further understand the origin of life and embryonic development of humans, but also provide a theoretical basis for solving birth defects and other major reproductive health problems”, they add. www.trunews.com
(Photo : Pixabay)
Artificial intelligence is a technology that helps a machine detect the tiniest indications of change on the embryos and modify the nutrition, carbon dioxide and environmental inputs.
The Joint European Torus tokamak near Oxford, UK, is a test bed for the world’s largest fusion experiment, ITER, in France.
Credit: Christopher Roux (CEA-IRFM)/EUROfusion (CC BY 4.0)
A 24-year-old nuclear-fusion record has crumbled. Scientists at the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, UK, announced on 9 February that they had generated the highest-ever sustained energy from fusing together atoms, more than doubling their own record from experiments performed in 1997.
“These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all,” said Ian Chapman, who leads the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), where JET is based, in a statement. JET is owned by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, but it’s scientific operations are run by a European collaboration called EUROfusion.
If researchers can harness nuclear fusion — the process that powers the Sun — it promises to provide a near-limitless source of clean energy. But so far no experiment has generated more energy out than it puts in. JET’s results do not change that, but they suggest that a follow-up fusion reactor project that uses the same technology and fuel mix — the ambitious US$22-billion ITER, scheduled to begin fusion experiments in 2025 — should eventually be able to achieve this goal.
“JET really achieved what was predicted. The same modelling now says ITER will work,” says fusion physicist Josefine Proll at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, who was not involved in JET’s research. “It’s a really, really good sign and I’m excited.”
Two decades’ work
The experiments — the culmination of almost two decades’ work — are important for helping scientists to predict how ITER will behave and will guide its operating settings, says Anne White, a plasma physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge who works on tokamaks, reactors like JET that have a doughnut shape. “I am sure I am not alone in the fusion community in wanting to extend very hearty congratulations to the JET Team.”
JET and ITER use magnetic fields to confine plasma, a superheated gas of hydrogen isotopes, in the tokamak. Under heat and pressure, the hydrogen isotopes fuse into helium, releasing energy as neutrons.
To break the energy record, JET used a tritium fuel mix, the same one that will power ITER, which is being built in southern France. Tritium is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen that, when fusing with deuterium, produces many more neutrons than do deuterium reactions alone. That ramps up the energy output, but using this fuel required JET to undergo more than two years of renovation to prepare the machine for the onslaught. Tritium was last used by a tokamak fusion experiment when JET set the previous fusion energy record in 1997.
JET contained two types of heavy hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, in fusion experiments performed last year.
Credit: EUROfusion consortium
In an experiment on 21 December 2021, JET’s tokamak produced 59 megajoules of energy over a fusion ‘pulse’ of five seconds, more than double the 21.7 megajoules released in 1997 over around four seconds. Although the 1997 experiment still retains the record for ‘peak power’, it was over a fraction of a second and its average power then was less than half that of today, says Fernanda Rimini, a plasma scientist at the CCFE who oversaw the latest experimental campaign. The improvement took 20 years of experimental optimization, as well as hardware upgrades that included replacing the tokamak’s inner wall to waste less fuel, she says.
Power ratio
Producing the energy over a number of seconds is essential for understanding the heating, cooling and movement happening inside the plasma that will be crucial to run ITER, says Rimini.
Five seconds “is a big deal”, adds Proll, who works on an alternative fusion-reactor design called a stellarator. “It is really, really impressive.”
Last year, the US Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility set a different fusion record — it used laser technology to produce the highest fusion power output relative to power in, a value called Q. The facility produced a Q of 0.7, where 1 would be breakeven — a landmark for laser fusion that beat JET’s 1997 record. But the event was short lived, producing just 1.9 megajoules over less than 4 billionths of a second.
JET’s latest experiment sustained a Q value of 0.33 for five seconds, says Rimini. At one-tenth of the volume, JET is a scaled-down version of ITER — a bathtub compared to a swimming pool, says Proll, and because it loses heat more easily it was never expected to hit breakeven. If engineers applied the same conditions and physics approach to ITER, she says, it would probably reach its goal of a Q of 10, producing ten times the energy put in.
Fusion researchers are far from having all the answers. A remaining challenge, for example, is dealing with the heat created in the exhaust region of the ITER reactor, which will increase in area compared with JET, but not proportionally with the surge in power it will have to deal with. Research is under way to work out which design would best withstand the heat, but they’re not there yet, says Proll.
The record-breaking run happened on the last day of a five-month campaign from which Rimini says scientists gleaned a wealth of information that they will analyse over the coming years. The final experiment pushed the device to its “absolute maximum”, adds Rimini, who witnessed the record-breaking test in real-time. “We didn’t jump up and down and hug each other — we were at 2 metres distance — but it was very exciting.”
The UK-based Joint European Torus (JET) lab smashed its own 25-year-old record, producing 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds, roughly the equivalent of 30 pounds of TNT.
And thanks to a camera mounted inside the reactor, now we get to watch an incredible display of glowing plasma whipping around the interior of the donut-shaped chamber.
Hot in Herre
Conditions inside the reactor are extreme to say the least, with temperatures reaching in excess of 100 million degrees Celsius, ten times the core of the Sun. The plasma glow is created by isotopes of deuterium and tritium fusing together to form helium, essentially the same process that powers stars like our Sun.
The goal of achieving fusion — a virtually limitless supply of truly green and safe energy — is likely still many years out. The reaction may have lasted for a record five seconds, but the amount of energy needed to get the reaction going still far exceeds the amount that was gained.
But that doesn’t mean this week’s breakthrough wasn’t a major step towards that goal.
“It is really, really impressive,” fusion physicist Josefine Proll at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the latest demo, told Nature, adding that five seconds is a “big deal.”
“A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.” ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley
The opening paragraph of Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ introduces the Central London Hatchery where fetuses are engineered and nurtured in artificial wombs. Published in 1932, the fictional dystopian world has crept slowly towards reality. This week, it took a big leap with the announcement that scientists in China have developed an artificial womb to contain a fetus and an AI robotic nanny to monitor and care for it. How did that novel end?
Is this the new nursery?
“The in vitro embryo culture online monitoring system developed in this paper can track and record the morphological characteristics of the development process without affecting the embryo development, and provide a basis for the evaluation of embryo development and the optimization of the in vitro culture system.”
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports on the release of a paper in the Journal of Biomedical Engineering by from the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology touting the development of an artificial womb-and-nanny combo they claim is already caring for mouse fetuses in their lab. The “long-term embryo culture device” sounds like something out of an old horror movie – a system of clear fluid containers with controllers and oxygen tanks underneath a magnifier which allows the AI nanny and the researchers to watch the embryo grow. (See a drawing here.)
Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology
The technology could eliminate the need for a woman to carry her baby, allowing the fetus to grow more safely and efficiently outside her body, say researchers behind project.
Photo: Shutterstock
The AI nanny collects data and, according to India Times, can even rank the embryos on overall health and potential. Yes, that sounds like it’s right out of ‘Brave New World’.
“(This technology will) not only help further understand the origin of life and embryonic development of humans, but also provide a theoretical basis for solving birth defects and other major reproductive health problems.”
All of this comes from a country with a drastically declining birth rate that hasn’t responded to the end to limits on the number of children a couple can have. this is also a country which has banned surrogate mothers of the human kind. It’s also a country which ignores the laws and ethical agreements of other countries which limit research on human embryos to 14 days before they are destroyed.
Do you need some Soma (the happiness-producing drug of ‘Brave New World’)? Is this the beginning of a real brave new world of artificially ‘hatched’ babies? Are there plans for childhood indoctrination programs, well-defined castes based on intelligence and physical abilities, and training programs specifically designed for each? Does it sound dystopian anymore?
Is this the new day care center?
Think about the trauma being wrought upon many people who send their DNA to be tested and find they were not raised by their real parents/sperm-and-egg-donors, or that their father was a serial sperm donor or their birth mother was a surrogate. Now imagine that person being the product of a “long-term embryo culture device.” If it works, will these children become the norm and the rest become the “savages”?
How did ‘Brave New World’ end?
“The sun was already high when he awoke. He lay for a moment, blinking in owlish incomprehension at the light; the suddenly remembered – everything. “Oh, my God, my God!” He covered his eyes with his hands.”
In a major scientific step forward, scientists were able to regrow the amputated leg of a frog. With a mixture of different drugs, scientists in the United States triggered the regrowth of a leg in a species of African clawed frog named Xenopus laevis. This was a very important step forward as they said that it is a “step closer to the goal of regenerative medicine.”
The team of experts, which were based at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute and Tufts University, added a mixture of five drugs to the amputated area of the frog’s leg and left it there for 24 hours. Amazingly, after 18 months, the newly regrown leg was nearly completely functional. In fact, the frog was able to swim in the water and even reacted to being touched. Additionally, several of its toes regrew, but they weren’t webbed.
(Not the frog mentioned in this article.)
Since the limb grew back in months, it may indicate that frogs and possibly other animals have regenerative capabilities that lie dormant but can be awakened with treatments. “I think the way to really achieve regenerative medicine is to exploit the collective intelligence of the body’s cells. They already know how to build all of these organs. They did it during embryonic development. All that information is still there,” explained Mike Levin who is a Vannevar Bush Professor of Biology and director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts. “For me, the goal is to identify triggers, very simple kinds of stimuli, that will kick-start the cells and convince them to build whatever it is that you want them to build.”
James Monaghan, who is an associate professor in the department of biology at Northeastern University, described the results as being “impressive” and “exciting”. “Xenopus frogs are somewhere in between a salamander that regrows a limb nearly perfectly and a mammal that generates a scar after amputation. Adult Xenopus frogs regenerate a spike after amputation, but the spike lacks any pattern like a limb,” he explained, adding, “This study is significant because it shows that patterning, albeit not perfect, can be induced in a limb that typically regenerates only a spike.” (Pictures of the frog’s regrowth process of its leg can be seen here.)
As for what this means for humans regrowing their limbs, Monaghan stated, “An immediate translation of this strategy to humans is unlikely because a regenerative spike does not occur in humans as it does in Xenopus frogs. Yet, this work is exciting because it shows that endogenous regenerative processes can be enhanced by a short application of a drug cocktail.”
(Not the frog mentioned in this article.)
It is, however, an important step forward in scientists hopefully eventually being able to regrow human limbs. “Will we one day be able to regenerate a human digit or even a limb? Probably, but how long we need to wait is impossible to predict,” noted Ashley Seifert who is an associate professor of biology at the University of Kentucky who studies animal regeneration but wasn’t involved with the study.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
Will humans be able to grow lost limbs back? Scientists regrow a frog's lost leg using a five-drug cocktail - and want to test the technique on mammals next
Will humans be able to grow lost limbs back? Scientists regrow a frog's lost leg using a five-drug cocktail - and want to test the technique on mammals next
Scientists performed growth experiments on African clawed frogs missing limbs
They used a five-drug cocktail applied in a silicone wearable attached to wounds
Over the course of 18 months, frogs had 'almost fully functional' limbs restored
Method marks a milestone in the ultimate goal of limb regeneration for humans
Scientists have regrown missing frog legs using a five-drug cocktail – and they aim to test their technique on mammals next.
On adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs, the team triggered leg regrowth using the drugs, applied in a silicone wearable attached to wounds.
Over the course of 18 months, the frogs had 'almost fully functional' limbs restored, including boneless toes, which they used to help them swim.
The US academics hope their method could bring the field a step closer to the goal of limb regeneration for humans.
Currently, regaining function through natural regeneration is out of reach for millions of patients who have lost limbs, either due to trauma, diabetes or other reasons.
Scroll down for video
Scientists have regrown missing frog legs using a five-drug cocktail – and they aim to test their technique on mammals next. Pictured: an African clawed frog in the process of regenerating its lost right rear leg
On adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs, the US team were able to trigger leg regrowth usingthe five-drug cocktail applied in a silicone wearable called a BioDome (pictured)
Over the course of 18 months, the frogs had 'almost fully functional' limbs restored, including boneless toes, which they used to help them swim
The work has been conducted by experts at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts and Harvard University's Wyss Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.
'It's exciting to see that the drugs we selected were helping to create an almost complete limb,' said study author Nirosha Murugan, research affiliate at the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University.
'The fact that it required only a brief exposure to the drugs to set in motion a months-long regeneration process suggests that frogs and perhaps other animals may have dormant regenerative capabilities that can be triggered into action.'
The team performed their 'regenerative process' on African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) that were missing limbs.
Frog wounds were enclosed in a silicone cap, called a BioDome, containing a silk protein gel loaded with the five-drug cocktail.
The dome sealed in the solution over the stump for just 24 hours, setting in motion an 18-month period of regrowth to restore a functional leg.
Researchers performed their experiments on the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) . On adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs, the team were able to trigger regrowth of a lost leg using a five-drug cocktail applied in a silicone wearable bioreactor dome that seals in the elixir over the stump for just 24 hours. That brief treatment sets in motion an 18-month period of regrowth that restores a functional leg
HOW THE BIODOME WORKS
Animals naturally capable of regeneration live mostly in an aquatic environment.
The first stage of growth after loss of a limb is the formation of a mass of stem cells at the end of the stump called a blastema, which is used to gradually reconstruct the lost body part.
The wound is rapidly covered by skin cells within the first 24 hours after the injury, protecting the reconstructing tissue underneath.
'Mammals and other regenerating animals will usually have their injuries exposed to air or making contact with the ground, and they can take days to weeks to close up with scar tissue,' said David Kaplan at Tufts University.
'Using the BioDome cap in the first 24 hours helps mimic an amniotic-like environment which, along with the right drugs, allows the rebuilding process to proceed without the interference of scar tissue.'
Animals naturally capable of regeneration live mostly in water, so the BioDome helps mimic this amniotic-like environment for limb rebuilding to happen without the interference of scar tissue.
Each drug in the 'cocktail' fulfilled a different purpose, including tamping down inflammation, inhibiting the production of collagen which would lead to scarring, and encouraging the new growth of nerve fibres, blood vessels and muscle.
The new limbs had a natural limb's bone structure, a richer complement of internal tissues (including neurons) and several 'toes' that grew from the end of the limb, although these were without the support of underlying bone.
The regrown limb moved and responded to stimuli such as a touch, and the frogs were able to make use of it for swimming through water, moving much like a normal frog would.
Many creatures have the capability of full regeneration of at least some limbs, including salamanders, starfish, crabs and lizards.
Flatworms can even be cut up into pieces, with each piece reconstructing an entire organism.
Humans are capable of closing wounds with new tissue growth, and our livers have a remarkable, almost flatworm-like capability of regenerating to full size after a 50 per cent loss.
But loss of a large and structurally complex limb – an arm or leg – cannot be restored by any natural process of regeneration in humans or mammals.
The new limbs had a natural limb's bone structure, a richer complement of internal tissues (including neurons) and several 'toes' that grew from the end of the limb, although these were without the support of underlying bone. Pictured: one of the frogs begins to regenerate
Using the BioDome cap (pictured) in the first 24 hours helps mimic an amniotic-like environment
Instead, our bodies cover major injuries with an featureless mass of scar tissue, protecting it from further blood loss and infection and preventing further growth.
Previous work by the Tufts team showed a significant degree of limb growth triggered by a single drug, progesterone, with the BioDome.
However, the resulting limb grew as a spike and was far from the more normally shaped, functional limb achieved in the current study.
The team want to now regrow frog limbs that are even more functionally complete – with normal digits, webbing and more detailed skeletal and muscular features – before moving to mammals.
'It's exciting to see that the drugs we selected were helping to create an almost complete limb,' said study author Nirosha Murugan, research affiliate at the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University. Pictured: touch tests were used to assess the feeling in the frogs' new legs
HUMANS HAVE THE 'UNTAPPED' ABILITY TO REGENERATE BODY PARTS JUST LIKE SALAMANDERS, SCIENTISTS CLAIM
Like salamanders, humans have an 'untapped' ability to regenerate parts of their body such as a lost limb, according to researchers.
The axolotl, a Mexican salamander all but extinct in the wild, is a 'champion of regeneration' able to recreate almost any body part, including the brain.
Studying this unusual amphibian helped experts from MDI Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, to conclude humans have an 'untapped' ability to regenerate.
They focused on understanding why the axolotl doesn't form a scar - or, why it doesn't respond to injury in the same way that the mouse and other mammals do.
They found that immune cells called macrophages promoted the growth of tissue cells in the salamander, but produced scarring in the mouse.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
15-01-2022
NEW MILITARY TECH LETS ONE PERSON FLY SWARM OF 130 DRONES
NEW MILITARY TECH LETS ONE PERSON FLY SWARM OF 130 DRONES
THE OPERATOR WOULD USE VR AND VOICE COMMANDS TO CONTROL THE SWARM.
RAYTHEON/FUTURISM
Swarm Hive Mind
In a horrifying example of the escalating warfare capabilities, the Pentagon has helped develop technology that allows a single person to control 130 drones for military operations.
Behind the project is defense contractor company Raytheon, which is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The team successfully tested their grim new technology in an indoor and outdoor urban setting, according to a press release from the company.
Dubbed “OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics” (OFFSET), the swarm was made up of 130 physical drones as well as 30 simulated drones, whatever that means. Raytheon claims that the software and hardware used in the swarm allows an operator to command a swarm with “minimal training.”
“Controlling a drone swarm changes the way an operator or group of operators think about the drones,” Shane Clark, the principal investigator of OFFSET at Raytheon. “Takeaways from this exercise help inform us of the inflection points between utility and manageability.”
VR Command Post
The operator controlling the swarm won’t be doing so at a desk with a joystick. Instead, they’ll use a virtual reality interface that allows them to look through each drone individually. This creates an “interactive virtual view of the environment,” the release said.
“You can look behind the building to access a view of drone locations for example and use the virtual reality environment to test and see if your mission is viable,” Clark explained.
The team also created a speech interface that allows operators to give voice commands to the swarm. Clark added that this will allow the operator “to act quickly while maintaining situational awareness.”
So yeah, a swarm of drones flying into warfare is a compelling — if bleak — image on its own. Knowing that a single person is controlling them using VR and voice commands, though, is downright mind-blowing.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
06-01-2022
CHINA’S “ARTIFICIAL SUN” FUSION REACTOR JUST SMASHED ITS OLD RECORD
CHINA’S “ARTIFICIAL SUN” FUSION REACTOR JUST SMASHED ITS OLD RECORD
THE REACTOR WAS 10 TIMES HOTTER THAN THE CORE OF THE SUN FOR MORE THAN 17 MINUTES.
COSTFOTO/BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES
Another One
A Chinese fusion reactor just completely demolished its own record.
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion reactor was able to sustain a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 1,056 seconds, according to a release from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This smashed its previous record of 101 seconds, set last spring, by a full 1,000 percent.
The team behind the reactor is a part of the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (AISPP), and achieved the record in late December.
“ASIPP has a perfect team,” Professor Yuntao Song, director-general of ASIPP, said in the release. “We will face up to difficulties no matter how hard it is!”
Store-Bought Sun
This marks another massive milestone for the EAST reactor. Dubbed the “artificial Sun,” the reactor is able to partly replicate the natural nuclear fusion process of stars. Researchers hope that it could eventually lead to sustainable, clean energy production.
The length that the EAST reactor can hold the high plasma temperatures is key. Fusion reactions need to be self-sustaining, and superheated plasma could be used to eventually create a self-sustaining reaction.
So we’re still likely a while off from commercial fusion power, even if some experts believe it’s just around the corner. Regardless, it’s cool to see China break record after record in the international race to create sustainable fusion power.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
04-01-2022
TIMELAPSE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2028 – 3000+)
TIMELAPSE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2028 – 3000+)
A documentary and journey into the future exploring the possibilities and predictions of artificial intelligence. This timelapse of the future explores what is coming, from robots that are too fast for humans to see, to A.I. bots from Microsoft (bringing back loved ones to life) and Google’s laMDA (replacing the need for online searches).
Elon Musk’s Neuralink goes from a medical and healthcare device, to helping people become superhuman – with intelligence amplification, and add-ons that connect to the brain chip.
Artificial general intelligence begins to design an A.I. more powerful than itself. People begin to question if humanity has reached the technological singularity. Artificial Super Intelligence emerges from the AGI.
And further into the deep future. Human consciousness becomes digitized and uploaded into a metaverse simulation. It is merged with A.I. creating hybrid consciousness – which spreads across the cosmos. Matrioshka brains and Dyson Spheres host humanity’s consciousness in a cosmic simulation network.
As the demand for gadgets and electric cars grows, so too are the mining operations that dig up cobalt to use in lithium-ion batteries.
And that’s become a serious problem for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The New Yorker reports, which sits atop about 3.4 million metric tons of the stuff — half of the entire planet’s supply. A massive, gold rush-like mining industry was born after residents in poverty-stricken areas discovered ore deposits under their homes. But now, many are finding that digging up the valuable mineral has failed to lift them out of poverty. And meanwhile, dangerous conditions are killing miners as exposure to the metal is poisoning both people and the environment.
Skimming the Top
A lack of regulations and enforcement over the mines has resulted in the miners, who risk their health and safety for financial security, being exploited by officials and traders who are unscrupulously lining their own pockets, according to The New Yorker. One miner told the publication that he now struggles to pay his $25 monthly rent even as the value of cobalt continues to soar — and the only alternative was to work at a major corporation’s mine for considerably less money.
Meanwhile, thousands of children have been put to work as well, according to The New Yorker, some of whom say they can’t remember the last time they could afford a meal. In order to keep them working, the kids are often even drugged with appetite suppressors.
Cleaning Up
In recent years, Chinese companies bought up most of the mines in south Congo, and have since imposed more regulations on the sites to keep miners safe. But rampant pollution from the mines have still left vast swathes of land uninhabitable, as lakes are poisoned and children and pregnant women are kept away for their own safety — and soldiers will routinely patrol cities with machine guns and rocket launchers to keep miners from sneaking in and claiming cobalt for themselves.
In the face of the economic and environmental destruction caused by cobalt mining, electric vehicle companies like Tesla will occasionally respond to public pressure to divest from the mineral and explore alternative battery tech. But while Tesla has pledged to move away from cobalt batteries, according to The New Yorker, it has yet to actually do so or even put out a plan detailing how it might even try to.
The 'world's most advanced' humanoid robot can be seen moving someone's hand out of the way when it gets into their 'personal space' in a new video clip.
Named Ameca, it is built by British firm Engineered Arts, and its development is being shared on YouTube.
In the latest clip, the robot, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the terrifying creation in the Will Smith blockbuster I, Robot, takes umbrage at a nose poke.
A researcher moves their finger closer and closer to Ameca, until the robot grabs the hand and moves it out of its face.
Engineered Arts, based in Cornwall, has not revealed how much the robot cost to make as it is still in development.
The 'world's most advanced' humanoid robot can be seen moving someone's hand out of the way when it gets into their 'personal space' in a new video clip
Tech firm will pay you £150,000 to use our face on its ROBOTS
The idea of lending your face to a robot may sound like the plot from an episode of Black Mirror, but it could soon become a reality.
Robot manufacturer Promobot is seeking a face for its next humanoid robot, which will be used in hotels, shopping malls and airports from 2023.
The firm is offering a whopping £150,000 ($200,000) to the brave volunteer, who must be willing to transfer the rights to use of their face forever.
Engineered Arts hopes Ameca will offer people a glimpse of the future because it 'represents the forefront of human-robotics technology'.
'Designed specifically as a platform for development into future robotics technologies, Ameca is the perfect humanoid robot platform for human-robot interaction,' the company said on its website.
'We focus on bringing you innovative technologies, which are reliable, modular, upgradable and easy to develop upon.'
Engineered Arts was formed in 2005 and its first robot was a mechanical 'Thespian' for the stage.
Of the latest development, the firm said: 'Ameca reacts as things enter their "personal space".
'This is even starting to freak us out at Engineered Arts and we are used to it!'
Users commented on the video, sharing amazement at how realistic the robot appears to be.
One said: 'No specific race or gender. Leaves those to the imagination. Fluid movement. Beautiful design. Not creepy. Good muscle and skin movement. Well done.'
Another user wrote: 'It's amazing how it's the extremely minor things, like blinking and subtle facial distortions, that make her appear to be a real living person.'
While Ameca can't walk at the moment, the firm says it is working on a walking version, and designed the robot to be modular and upgradable.
'There are many hurdles to overcome before Ameca can walk. Walking is a difficult task for a robot, and although we have done research into it, we have not created a full walking humanoid,' the firm said.
Engineered Arts hopes Ameca will offer people a glimpse of the future because it 'represents the forefront of human-robotics technology'
Engineered Arts also produces a robotic head, known as Adran, which has 22 custom actuators that allow it to move its eyes and mouth just like a human.
Adran is what Engineered Arts describes as a 'Mesmer', a system for building realistic humanoid robots that are powerful, elegant and cost-effective.
According to the Cornwall-based company, Mesmer robots can display a huge range of human emotions, and can be made to look like anyone.
'Each Mesmer robot is designed and built from 3D in-house scans of real people, allowing us to imitate human bone structure, skin texture and expressions convincingly,' it explained.
While Ameca can't walk at the moment, the firm says it is working on a walking version, and designed the robot to be modular and upgradable
Ameca is the firms main project, and it follows the development of Sophia, which first emerged in 2016, and was a super-intelligent human-like head with a realistic face that was able to blink, look from side to side and talk.
The humanoid robot, created by Hong Kong firm Hanson robotics, is able to chat, smile mischievously and even tell jokes.
The robot made history in October 2017 when it became legal a citizen of Saudi Arabia.
Engineered Art reveal extremely realistic Adran robot head
WHO IS SOPHIA THE ROBOT?
In October 2017, Sophia was granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia
Sophia first emerged in 2016 as a super-intelligent human-like head with a realistic face that was able to blink, look from side to side and talk.
The humanoid robot, created by Hong Kong firm Hanson robotics, can chat, smile mischievously and even tell jokes.
The robot made history in October 2017 when she became legal a citizen of Saudi Arabia.
The stunt made Sophia the world's first robot to be granted legal citizenship.
While Sophia has some impressive capabilities, she does not yet have consciousness.
Hanson Robotics claims fully sentient machines could emerge within a few years.
Sophia herself has insisted 'the pros outweigh the cons' when it comes to artificial intelligence.
'Elders will have more company, autistic children will have endlessly patient teachers,' Sophia said.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
29-12-2021
Humanoid robot DEFENDS it's 'personal space'
Humanoid robot DEFENDS it's 'personal space'
Meet Ameca, the world’s most advanced humanoid robot. Created and designed by Cornish robotics company Engineered Arts, Ameca is hyper-realistic with fluid movement and a face that could almost pass for human.
While Ameca can’t dance as well as a Boston Dynamics robot or parkour like the Caltech bipeds, the leap forward in realistic facial animation is equal parts magnificent and terrifying. The robot has been called the ‘future face of robotics’ and ‘the perfect humanoid robot platform for human-robot interaction.’
A video provided by the engineers shows the robot defends itself by grabbing a researcher's hand as it enters it's 'personal space'. According to the developers, even they were ‘freaked out’ by the machine’s behavior.
Engineered art also revealed a video of an extremely realistic Adran robot head with eerily human-like facial expressions and movements.
Humanoid robots are becoming reality, but what happens when these robots walk on the street or do security checks, for example at airports or if AI acts as a AI 'prosecutor' that can press its own charges, developed by Chinese scientists.
The 'AI prosecutor' can evaluate the strength of evidence, conditions for an arrest and how dangerous a suspect is considered to be to the public.
Researchers in China said that this machine can charge people with crimes using artificial intelligence. The "AI prosecutor" can file a charge with more than 97 per cent accuracy based on a verbal description of the case, according to the researchers.
Our fate will be in the hands of robots in the near future.
Researchers in China say they have achieved a world first by developing a machine that can charge people with crimes using artificial intelligence.
The AI "prosecutor" can file a charge with more than 97 per cent accuracy based on a verbal description of the case, according to the researchers.
The machine was built and tested by the Shanghai Pudong People's Procuratorate, the country's largest and busiest district prosecution office.
The technology could reduce prosecutors' daily workload, allowing them to focus on more difficult tasks, according to Professor Shi Yong, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' big data and knowledge management laboratory, who is the project's lead scientist.
"The system can replace prosecutors in the decision-making process to a certain extent," said Shi and his colleagues in a paper published this month in the domestic peer-reviewed journal Management Review.
The application of AI technology in law enforcement has been increasing around the world.
Some German prosecutors have used AI technology such as image recognition and digital forensics to increase case processing speed and accuracy.
China's prosecutors were early adopters when they began using AI in 2016. Many of them now use an AI tool known as System 206.
The tool can evaluate the strength of evidence, conditions for an arrest and how dangerous a suspect is considered to be to the public.
But all existing AI tools have a limited role, because "they do not participate in the decision-making process of filing charges and [suggesting] sentences", Shi and colleagues said.
Making such decisions would require a machine to identify and remove any contents of a case file that are irrelevant to a crime, without removing the useful information.
The machine would also need to convert complex, ever-changing human language into a standard mathematical or geometric format that a computer could understand.
China's internet companies have developed powerful tools for natural language processing, but their operation often requires large computers that prosecutors do not have access to.
The AI prosecutor developed by Shi's team could run on a desktop computer.
For each suspect, it would press a charge based on 1,000 "traits" obtained from the human-generated case description text, most of which are too small or abstract to make sense to humans. System 206 would then assess the evidence.
The machine was "trained" using more than 17,000 cases from 2015 to 2020. So far, it can identify and press charges for Shanghai's eight most common crimes.
They are credit card fraud, running a gambling operation, dangerous driving, intentional injury, obstructing official duties, theft, fraud and "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" — a catch-all charge often used to stifle dissent.
Shi and colleagues said that the AI prosecutor would soon become more powerful with upgrades. It would be able to recognise less common crimes and file multiple charges against one suspect.
It was unclear when or whether the technology would find applications in other fields. The team could not be reached for comment when the report was published.
A prosecutor in the southern city of Guangzhou said he had some concerns about the use of AI in filing charges.
"The accuracy of 97 per cent may be high from a technological point of view, but there will always be a chance of a mistake," said the prosecutor, who requested not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
"Who will take responsibility when it happens? The prosecutor, the machine or the designer of the algorithm?"
Direct involvement of AI in decision-making could also affect a human prosecutor's autonomy. Most prosecutors did not want computer scientists "meddling" in a legal judgment, the Guangzhou-based prosecutor said.
Another issue is that an AI prosecutor could file a charge based only on its previous experience. It could not foresee the public reaction to a case in a changing social environment.
"AI may help detect a mistake, but it cannot replace humans in making a decision," the prosecutor said.
Nonetheless, China is making aggressive use of AI in nearly every sector of the government to try to improve efficiency, reduce corruption and strengthen control.
Some Chinese cities have used machines to monitor government employees' social circles and activities to detect corruption, according to researchers involved.
Many Chinese courts have been using AI to help judges process case files and make decisions such as whether to accept or reject an appeal.
Most Chinese prisons have also adopted AI technology to track prisoners' physical and mental status, with the goal of reducing violence.
0
1
2
3
4
5
- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
CHINA CREATED AN AI ‘PROSECUTOR’ THAT CAN CHARGE PEOPLE WITH CRIMES
CHINA CREATED AN AI ‘PROSECUTOR’ THAT CAN CHARGE PEOPLE WITH CRIMES
IT'S BEEN TRAINED TO IDENTIFY SHANGHAI'S EIGHT MOST COMMON CRIMES.
FUTURISM
Machine-Learning Justice
In a scenario that’s part “Robocop” and part “Minority Report,” researchers in China have created an AI that can reportedly identify crimes and file charges against criminals.
The AI was developed and tested by the Shanghai Pudong People’s Procratorate, the country’s largest district public prosecution office, South China Morning Post reports. It can file a charge with more than 97 percent accuracy based on a description of a suspected criminal case.
“The system can replace prosecutors in the decision-making process to a certain extent,” the researchers said in a paper published in Management Review seen by SCMP.
System 206, Esq.
The team built the machine off of an existing AI tool ominously called System 206. Prosecutors in China were already using the system to help assess evidence and determine whether or not a suspected criminal was dangerous to the public at large.
However, it was fairly limited as it could not “participate in the decision-making process of filing charges and [suggesting] sentences,” the team said in the paper. That would require the AI to be able to identify and remove irrelevant information in a case, and process human language in its neural network.
The new AI developed in Shanghai is able to assess case files in such a manner. In fact, the machine can identify and charge criminals with the district’s eight most common crimes: credit card fraud, gambling, reckless driving, intentional assault, obstructing an officer, theft, fraud, and even political dissent.
Who Watches the Watchmen?
Of course, there’s plenty of concern about a powerful computer with the ability to put people in prison. One anonymous prosecutor told SCMP that while its 97 percent accuracy is fairly high, “there will always be a chance of a mistake.”
“Who will take responsibility when it happens? The prosecutor, the machine or the designer of the algorithm?” the lawyer told the newspaper.
For now, the AI is still in its infancy and has yet to be widely rolled out. However, if recent trends are any indication, we can expect computers to do cops’ dirty work more in the future.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
Druk op onderstaande knop om je bestand , jouw artikel naar mij te verzenden. INDIEN HET DE MOEITE WAARD IS, PLAATS IK HET OP DE BLOG ONDER DIVERSEN MET JOUW NAAM...
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/life/2015/11/30/japanese-scientists-create-holograms-you-can-reach-out-and-touch/hologram-butterflyjpg.jpg)
Canadian startup's robot performs autonomous needle-free...
The future of prosthetics? Scientists develop an exoskeleton...
Sci-fi soundtrack or insect defence? Scientists translate...
Transparent w
Missing a distant loved one? Send them a robotic hug!...
Would YOU apply? Tech firm will pay a brave volunteer...
The robot that knows when you're lying: Scientists create an...
Uncanny Valley! Creepy robotic head is unveiled with eerily...
Meet Ameca: 'World's most advanced' humanoid robot is...
