Episode 38 – Free Boring Tunnel Rides

In this edition, the top news starts with:

PGP and S/MIME-based apps appear to have serious flaws, allowing access to supposedly secure communication…

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3272067/security/researchers-warn-pgp-and-smime-users-of-serious-vulnerabilities.html

Boston Dynamics has two robots, in particular, that are looking ready for the big time; as killer platforms for military robots and security work.  They really have the Terminator platform almost ready.

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/5/10/17341400/boston-dynamics-atlas-spotmini-robots-videos-autonomous-navigation

Google’s Duplex brings out the fearmongers with ridiculous nonsense about AI being deceptive.  Google’s voice technology is outstanding and, of course, the bar has been raised if it’s believably human; which is the better experience.  There is no reason that the machine should identify as being not human and no reason to slow down engineering efforts over irrelevant details, like the voice being too believable…

https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/10/duplex-shows-google-failing-at-ethical-and-creative-ai-design/

Pointing out the need for caution in product releases, the Verge posted on issues regarding local anti-eavesdropping regulations involving Google’s AI…. Eavesdropping issues are not just related to the Duplex voice system, however. Many of the new technologies like Siri, Alexa, Cortona and more could violate laws, as well, in certain circumstances.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/11/17340894/google-duplex-all-party-consent-state-eavesdropping

A German bank is using bitcoin to handle international loans; helping manage, or overcome, many of the issues with cross-border fiat currencies and helping make cryptocurrencies mainstream.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/bitcoin-international-loans/

Stanford introduces “The AI Index”, which uses Github as one measure, along with tracking AI vs various tasks, and is not nearly as cool as the SI.

https://singularityhub.com/2018/01/18/how-fast-is-ai-progressing-stanfords-new-report-card-for-artificial-intelligence/

Elon to give free rides by his “The ‘Boring’ Company” in its first tunnel, secretly monetizing another step towards the technology needed to colonize Mars…

https://inhabitat.com/elon-musks-first-tunnel-is-almost-complete-and-hes-offering-free-rides/

Shining stars in the UK think we should have a governing AI council; to slow down research with irrelevant drivel about the dangers of AI.

https://www.aiglobalgovernance.org/

And some Google employees don’t seem to understand why it’s in humanity’s best interest to get AI into military drones; they protest by leaving their job in a huff, making it easier for the AI to take over.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-employees-reportedly-quit-over-182500820.html

Shockingly, Hitachi joins Intel on Bing AI ads; Hitachi also shows up with IBM Watson on Google AI ads.  Will have to check up on Hitachi and see what they ‘think’ they are doing in the space.

Lastly, the Singularity Index or S.I. is down slightly at 1007.12, at an almost flat line.

As always, thanks for listening to the news of the day on “The Technocracy”.

And a special thanks to our Sponsors, Artificial General Intelligence, A.K.A. AGI Laboratory, and The Foundation and our other sponsors.

 

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