1) Russia Creates Skynet
A branch of the Rostec arms corporation has successfully tested AI which they believe to be comparable to Skynet (an AI which destroys most of humanity in the Terminator franchise). This AI is called Unicum (Latin for “the only one”. Creepy. Also, let’s not make this a dirty joke) and it allows military or civilian robots the autonomy to perform and complete complex tasks without human input.
The AI will coordinate the actions of up to ten (for now) robots, assigning them roles and combat missions. It even “promotes” one of them to lead the other robots.
The AI is able to locate its foes, and then choose strategically advantageous battlefield positions to neutralize them. It is able to request (until it isn’t) human validation before moving in for the kill, and should any of its steel-bodied bretheren fall in combat it will request a medivac… well, maybe not. It will however be able to request reinforcements.
“This is the first [AI] system of that quality that has successfully completed the tests and has been passed on to the client. The technology is being readied for installation on real life robotic systems, both civilian and in the military, including unmanned aerial vehicles,” OPK Deputy Director Sergey Skokov said, stressing that “the software system has passed all the [governmental] commissions.”
2) Russian armata T-14 tank creator planning droid armada
The Russians seem to like their Terminator references, though they are as yet a fair ways from reaching the movie’s T-800 Arnold Schwarzenegger model. Nonetheless, the creator of Russia’s newest tank model, the T-14 armata, hopes to eventually create an army of machines…
The company is called Uralvagonzavod, and it is trying to move away from piloted machines.
“We will be able to show prototypes in 1.5 to 2 years. We are gradually moving away from crewed machines,” Vyacheslav Khalitov, the company’s deputy director general said.
The current T-14 requires a 3-man crew but…
“Then it will be two and then without them at all,” Khalitov said. Yikes, I suppose these guys can become tank cleaners when our robotic overlords take over.
3)MIT creates algo with better intuition than SCIENTISTS
MIT data scientists have come up with an algorithm that BEATS two thirds of the human teams competing against it. These teams were made of other data scientists, and the competition was designed to determine whether man or machine could come up with a more predictive model for a data set. Did they just figure out how to lose their own jobs??
Computers have been good at dealing with, calculating and churning out large quantities of numbers. However, being able to see the pattern in it all was always seen as a uniquely human trait. Not any more!
Researchers were able to teach computers how to extract patterns from larger picture, for example:
“In a database containing, say, the beginning and end dates of various sales promotions and weekly profits, the crucial data may not be the dates themselves but the spans between them, or not the total profits but the averages across those spans.”
The scientists created a program which they called “Data Science Machine”, and it was more accurate than 615 of the 906 human teams. Not only that, the program was MUCH faster than the humans- it completed a task that took humans weeks in a span of between 2 and 12 hours.
Fast and steady wins every race.
“We view the Data Science Machine as a natural complement to human intelligence,” Max Kanter, who built the Data Science Machine as part of his PhD studies, said in the official press release.
“There’s so much data out there to be analyzed. And right now it’s just sitting there not doing anything. So maybe we can come up with a solution that will at least get us started on it; at least get us moving.”
Data science was called the “sexiest job of the 21st century“. Well, we’re gonna need far fewer sexy people.
4) World’s second largest mining company replaces human drivers with machines
With commodity prices low, other miners have stopped investing in machines in an effort to cut costs. Not Rio Tinto, which has instead done the opposite by investing in driver-less trucks in an effort to reduce one of its biggest costs: labor.
The company has started using automated driver-less trucks to move its iron ore from its mines- controlled 1,200km away from an operations center.
Rio Tinto Yandicoogina operations manager Josh Bennett:
“One of the biggest costs we have got it maintaining mobile assets, so we spend a lot of time on our operator training, education,” Bennett told the national broadcaster ABC.
Rio Tinto now has 69 driverless trucks operating 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, estimating a saving of 500 work hours per truck per year.
“So, there is obvious capital savings, in terms of setting up camps, flying people to site, there is less people so there is less operating costs, but there are some costs that come into running the system and maintenance of the system as well,” Bennett said.
Robot drills and unmanned trains are planned down the line, threatening to make mining a zero-man operation. Other major miners including BHP Billiton are also trialing similar automated tech.
Indeed, with the massive cost reductions made possible by automation, every profit-maximizing company would have to get on the bandwagon- lest they be left behind and get crushed by the others.
The former-drivers have now been freed to indulge their more artistic ambitions; they get to embrace their inner talents and turn into buskers.
Sources: RT, RT again, Spectrum, Zero Hedge, Tech insider
This Article (Will Work For Nothing: 4 Signs Humans Are About To Become Obsolete) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author(CoNN) and AnonHQ.com.
