We need to ban lethal autonomous weapons, or “killer robots”, as we have done with biological weapons, land mines and blinding lasers, and Australia should take a leading role in making that happen.
Crewed submarines like the HMAS Rankin might become a thing of the past.
United States Navy, Photographer's Mate 1st Class David A. Levy
Autonomous submarines might do for naval warfare what drones are doing for air warfare. So should Australia consider autonomous subs as a replacement for the Collins class?
A robot for an MP – who’d vote for that?
Shutterstock/Mombo
The FIRST robotics competition brings school students together to build a robot to complete a challenge. And it’s an inspiring way to encourage interest in STEM.
Go is a beautiful and complex game that’s endured for thousands of years.
Alexandre Keledjian
An artificial intelligence has defeated a world champion of Go, the ancient Chinese strategy game. But what is Go, and why is it worth teaching to a computer?
The historic match between South Korean Go champion Lee Se-dol and the AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence system developed by Google.
EPA/Jeon Heon-Kyun
Google’s artificial intelligence made a surprise move in the recent Go challenge that has some people worried about what happens when AI makes a non-human decision that we could not anticipate.
All that computer power will still need a helping hand from our uniquely human expertise.
Computers image via www.shutterstock.com
Computers are getting better and better at the jobs that previously made sense for researchers to outsource to citizen scientists. But don’t worry: there’s still a role for people in these projects.
Consciousness is one of the most mysterious phenomena we know of. But evidence is emerging that it might just be a very special kind of information processing.
Modeled by artificial intelligence: The Roberts Court, 2010-2016.
Steve Petteway, US Supreme Court
Our data-driven model was able to create a reasonably accurate assessment of justices’ views on issues, predict their alignments on cases and identify who might be a swing vote.
Spectators in South Korea look on as AlphaGo takes on Go champion Lee Se-dol.
EPA/JEON HEON-KYUN
A machine has bested us at yet another intellectually challenging game. It shows artificial intelligence is progressing rapidly, but it doesn’t mean humans are redundant quite yet.
Can software really be considered the “driver” of an autonomous vehicle? This is one question that needs to be resolved before driveless cars can hit the roads.
Even talking to a colleague at an academic conference overseas could have harsh ramifications.
Shutterstock
Robots and intelligent machines will one day takeover the tasks currently carried out by medical staff. But are we ready to place our health care in the hands of a machine?
Just Go for it: programming a computer to play an ancient game.
Donar Reiskoffer/Wikimedia Commons
While it’s impressive, developing a computer to win at Go is not a big step toward the type of artificial intelligence used by the thinking machines we see in the movies.