Researchers have created a small device that ‘sees’ and creates memories in a similar way to humans, in a promising step towards one day having applications that can make rapid, complex decisions such as in self-driving cars.
The neuromorphic invention is a single chip enabled by a sensing element, doped indium oxide, that’s thousands of times thinner than a human hair and requires no external parts to operate.
RMIT University engineers in Australia led the work, with contributions from researchers at Deakin University and the University of Melbourne.
The team’s research demonstrates a working device that captures, processes and stores visual information. With precise engineering of the doped indium oxide, the device mimics a human eye’s ability to capture light, pre-packages and transmits information like an optical nerve, and stores and classifies it in a memory system like the way our brains can.
Collectively, these functions could enable ultra-fast decision making, the team says.
Team leader Professor Sumeet Walia said the new device can perform all necessary functions – sensing, creating and processing information, and retaining memories – rather than relying on external energy-intensive computation, which prevents real-time decision making.
“Performing all of these functions on one small device had proven to be a big challenge until now,” said Walia from RMIT’s School of Engineering.
“We’ve made real-time decision making a possibility with our invention, because it doesn’t need to process large amounts of irrelevant data and it’s not being slowed down by data transfer to separate processors.”
What did the team achieve and how does the technology work?
The new device was able to demonstrate an ability to retain information for longer periods of time, compared to previously reported devices, without the need for frequent electrical signals to refresh the memory. This ability significantly reduces energy consumption and enhances the device’s performance.
Their findings and analysis are published in Advanced Functional Materials.
First author and RMIT PhD researcher Aishani Mazumder said the human brain used analog processing, which allowed it to process information quickly and efficiently using minimal energy.
“By contrast, digital processing is energy and carbon intensive, and inhibits rapid information gathering and processing,” she said.
“Neuromorphic vision systems are designed to use similar analog processing to the human brain, which can greatly reduce the amount of energy needed to perform complex visual tasks compared with today’s technologies
What are the potential applications?
The team used ultraviolet light as part of their experiments, and are working to expand this technology even further for visible and infrared light – with many possible applications such as bionic vision, autonomous operations in dangerous environments, shelf-life assessments of food and advanced forensics.
“Imagine a self-driving car that can see and recognise objects on the road in the same way that a human driver can or being able to able to rapidly detect and track space junk. This would be possible with neuromorphic vision technology.”
Walia said neuromorphic systems could adapt to new situations over time, becoming more efficient with more experience.
“Traditional computer vision systems – which cannot be miniaturised like neuromorphic technology – are typically programmed with specific rules and can’t adapt as easily,” he said.
“Neuromorphic robots have the potential to run autonomously for long periods, in dangerous situations where workers are exposed to possible cave-ins, explosions and toxic air.”
The human eye has a single retina that captures an entire image, which is then processed by the brain to identify objects, colours and other visual features.
The team’s device mimicked the retina’s capabilities by using single-element image sensors that capture, store and process visual information on one platform, Walia said.
“The human eye is exceptionally adept at responding to changes in the surrounding environment in a faster and much more efficient way than cameras and computers currently can,” he said.
“Taking inspiration from the eye, we have been working for several years on creating a camera that possesses similar abilities, through the process of neuromorphic engineering.”
Literary theorists Helen Young and Geoff M Boucher, both at Deakin University (Australia), have co-written a fascinating May 29, 2022 essay on The Conversation (and republished on phys.org) analyzing some of the reasons (e.g., novels) for the resurgence in neo-Nazi activity and far-right extremism, Note: Links have been removed,
Far-right extremists pose an increasing risk in Australia and around the world. In 2020, ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation] revealed that about 40% of its counter-terrorism work involved the far right.
The recent mass murder in Buffalo, U.S., and the attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 are just two examples of many far-right extremist acts of terror.
Far-right extremists have complex and diverse methods for spreading their messages of hate. These can include through social media, video games, wellness culture, interest in medieval European history, and fiction [emphasis mine]. Novels by both extremist and non-extremist authors feature on far-right “reading lists” designed to draw people into their beliefs and normalize hate.
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Here’s more about how the books get published and distributed, from the May 29, 2022 essay, Note: Links have been removed,
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Publishing houses once refused to print such books, but changes in technology have made traditional publishers less important. With self-publishing and e-books, it is easy for extremists to produce and distribute their fiction.
In this article, we have only given the titles and authors of those books that are already notorious, to avoid publicizing other dangerous hate-filled fictions.
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Why would far-right extremists write novels?
Reading fiction is different to reading non-fiction. Fiction offers readers imaginative scenarios that can seem to be truthful, even though they are not fact-based. It can encourage readers to empathize with the emotions, thoughts and ethics of characters, particularly when they recognize those characters as being “like” them.
A novel featuring characters who become radicalized to far-right extremism, or who undertake violent terrorist acts, can help make those things seem justified and normal.
Novels that promote political violence, such as The Turner Diaries, are also ways for extremists to share plans and give readers who hold extreme views ideas about how to commit terrorist acts. …
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In the late 20th century, far-right extremists without Pierce’s notoriety [American neo-Nazi William L. Pierce published The Turner Diaries (1978)] found it impossible to get their books published. One complained about this on his blog in 1999, blaming feminists and Jewish people. Just a few years later, print-on-demand and digital self-publishing made it possible to circumvent this difficulty.
The same neo-Nazi self-published what he termed “a lifetime of writing” in the space of a few years in the early 2000s. The company he paid to produce his books—iUniverse.com—helped get them onto the sales lists of major booksellers Barnes and Noble and Amazon in the early 2000s, making a huge difference to how easily they circulated outside extremist circles.
It still produces print-on-demand hard copies, even though the author has died. The same author’s books also circulate in digital versions, including on Google Play and Kindle, making them easily accessible.
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Distributing extremist novels digitally
Far-right extremists use social media to spread their beliefs, but other digital platforms are also useful for them.
Seemingly innocent sites that host a wide range of mainstream material, such as Google Books, Project Gutenberg, and the Internet Archive, are open to exploitation. Extremists use them to share, for example, material denying the Holocaust alongside historical Nazi newspapers.
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Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing service has been called “a haven for white supremacists” because of how easy it is for them to circulate political tracts there. The far-right extremist who committed the Oslo terrorist attacks in 2011 recommended in his manifesto that his followers use Kindle to to spread his message.
Our research has shown that novels by known far-right extremists have been published and circulated through Kindle as well as other digital self-publishing services.
As we researched how novels by known violent extremists circulate, we noticed that the sales algorithms of mainstream platforms were suggesting others that we might also be interested in. Sales algorithms work by recommending items that customers who purchased one book have also viewed or bought.
Those recommendations directed us to an array of novels that, when we investigated them, proved to resonate with far-right ideologies.
A significant number of them were by authors with far-right political views. Some had ties to US militia movements and the gun-obsessed “prepper” subculture. Almost all of the books were self-published as e-books and print-on-demand editions.
Without the marketing and distribution channels of established publishing houses, these books rely on digital circulation for sales, including sale recommendation algorithms.
The trail of sales recommendations led us, with just two clicks, to the novels of mainstream authors. They also led us back again, from mainstream authors’ books to extremist novels. This is deeply troubling. It risks unsuspecting readers being introduced to the ideologies, world-views and sometimes powerful emotional narratives of far-right extremist novels designed to radicalise.
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It’s not always easy to tell right away if you’re reading fiction promoting far-right ideologies, from the May 29, 2022 essay,
Recognising far-right messages
Some extremist novels follow the lead of The Turner Diaries and represent the start of a racist, openly genocidal war alongside a call to bring one about. Others are less obvious about their violent messages.
Some are not easily distinguished from mainstream novels – for example, from political thrillers and dystopian adventure stories like those of Tom Clancy or Matthew Reilly – so what is different about them? Openly neo-Nazi authors, like Pierce, often use racist, homophobic and misogynist slurs, but many do not. This may be to help make their books more palatable to general readers, or to avoid digital moderation based on specific words.
Knowing more about far-right extremism can help. Researchers generally say that there are three main things that connect the spectrum of far-right extremist politics: acceptance of social inequality, authoritarianism, and embracing violence as a tool for political change. Willingness to commit or endorse violence is a key factor separating extremism from other radical politics.
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It is very unlikely that anyone would become radicalised to violent extremism just by reading novels. Novels can, however, reinforce political messages heard elsewhere (such as on social media) and help make those messages and acts of hate feel justified.
With the growing threat of far-right extremism and deliberate recruitment strategies of extremists targeting unexpected places, it is well worth being informed enough to recognise the hate-filled stories they tell.
I recommend reading the essay as my excerpts don’t do justice to the ideas being presented. As Young and Boucher note, it’s “… unlikely that anyone would become radicalised to violent extremism …” by reading novels but far-right extremists and neo-Nazis write fiction because the tactic works at some level.
Lucinda McKnight, lecturer at Deakin University, Australia, has a February 9, 2021 essay about literacy in the coming age of artificial intelligence (AI) for The Conversation (Note 1: You can also find this essay as a February 10, 2021 news item on phys.org; Note 2: Links have been removed),
Students across Australia have started the new school year using pencils, pens and keyboards to learn to write.
In workplaces, machines are also learning to write, so effectively that within a few years they may write better than humans.
Sometimes they already do, as apps like Grammarly demonstrate. Certainly, much everyday writing humans now do may soon be done by machines with artificial intelligence (AI).
The predictive text commonly used by phone and email software is a form of AI writing that countless humans use every day.
According to an industry research organisation Gartner, AI and related technology will automate production of 30% of all content found on the internet by 2022.
Some prose, poetry, reports, newsletters, opinion articles, reviews, slogans and scripts are already being written by artificial intelligence.
Literacy increasingly means and includes interacting with and critically evaluating AI.
This means our children should no longer be taught just formulaic writing. [emphasis mine] Instead, writing education should encompass skills that go beyond the capacities of artificial intelligence.
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McKnight’s focus is on how Australian education should approach the coming AI writer ‘supremacy’, from her February 9, 2021 essay (Note: Links have been removed),
In 2019, the New Yorker magazine did an experiment to see if IT company OpenAI’s natural language generator GPT-2 could write an entire article in the magazine’s distinctive style. This attempt had limited success, with the generator making many errors.
But by 2020, GPT-3, the new version of the machine, trained on even more data, wrote an article for The Guardian newspaper with the headline “A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?”
This latest much improved generator has implications for the future of journalism, as the Elon Musk-funded OpenAI invests ever more in research and development.
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AI writing is said to have voice but no soul. Human writers, as the New Yorker’s John Seabrook says, give “color, personality and emotion to writing by bending the rules”. Students, therefore, need to learn the rules and be encouraged to break them.
Creativity and co-creativity (with machines) should be fostered. Machines are trained on a finite amount of data, to predict and replicate, not to innovate in meaningful and deliberate ways.
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AI cannot yet plan and does not have a purpose. Students need to hone skills in purposeful writing that achieves their communication goals.
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AI is not yet as complex as the human brain. Humans detect humor and satire. They know words can have multiple and subtle meanings. Humans are capable of perception and insight; they can make advanced evaluative judgements about good and bad writing.
There are calls for humans to become expert in sophisticated forms of writing and in editing writing created by robots as vital future skills.
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… OpenAI’s managers originally refused to release GPT-3, ostensibly because they were concerned about the generator being used to create fake material, such as reviews of products or election-related commentary.
AI writing bots have no conscience and may need to be eliminated by humans, as with Microsoft’s racist Twitter prototype, Tay.
Critical, compassionate and nuanced assessment of what AI produces, management and monitoring of content, and decision-making and empathy with readers are all part of the “writing” roles of a democratic future.
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It’s an interesting line of thought and McKnight’s ideas about writing education could be applicable beyond Australia., assuming you accept her basic premise.
I have a few other postings here about AI and writing:
This piece just started growing. It started with robot ethics, moved on to sexbots and news of an upcoming Canadian robotics roadmap. Then, it became a two-part posting with the robotics strategy (roadmap) moving to part two along with robots and popular culture and a further exploration of robot and AI ethics issues..
What is a robot?
There are lots of robots, some are macroscale and others are at the micro and nanoscales (see my Sept. 22, 2017 posting for the latest nanobot). Here’s a definition from the Robot Wikipedia entry that covers all the scales. (Note: Links have been removed),
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer— capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically.[2] Robots can be guided by an external control device or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be constructed to take on human form but most robots are machines designed to perform a task with no regard to how they look.
Robots can be autonomous or semi-autonomous and range from humanoids such as Honda’s Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility (ASIMO) and TOSY’s TOSY Ping Pong Playing Robot (TOPIO) to industrial robots, medical operating robots, patient assist robots, dog therapy robots, collectively programmed swarm robots, UAV drones such as General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, and even microscopic nano robots. [emphasis mine] By mimicking a lifelike appearance or automating movements, a robot may convey a sense of intelligence or thought of its own.
We may think we’ve invented robots but the idea has been around for a very long time (from the Robot Wikipedia entry; Note: Links have been removed),
Many ancient mythologies, and most modern religions include artificial people, such as the mechanical servants built by the Greek god Hephaestus[18] (Vulcan to the Romans), the clay golems of Jewish legend and clay giants of Norse legend, and Galatea, the mythical statue of Pygmalion that came to life. Since circa 400 BC, myths of Crete include Talos, a man of bronze who guarded the Cretan island of Europa from pirates.
In ancient Greece, the Greek engineer Ctesibius (c. 270 BC) “applied a knowledge of pneumatics and hydraulics to produce the first organ and water clocks with moving figures.”[19][20] In the 4th century BC, the Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum postulated a mechanical steam-operated bird he called “The Pigeon”. Hero of Alexandria (10–70 AD), a Greek mathematician and inventor, created numerous user-configurable automated devices, and described machines powered by air pressure, steam and water.[21]
The 11th century Lokapannatti tells of how the Buddha’s relics were protected by mechanical robots (bhuta vahana yanta), from the kingdom of Roma visaya (Rome); until they were disarmed by King Ashoka. [22] [23]
In ancient China, the 3rd century text of the Lie Zi describes an account of humanoid automata, involving a much earlier encounter between Chinese emperor King Mu of Zhou and a mechanical engineer known as Yan Shi, an ‘artificer’. Yan Shi proudly presented the king with a life-size, human-shaped figure of his mechanical ‘handiwork’ made of leather, wood, and artificial organs.[14] There are also accounts of flying automata in the Han Fei Zi and other texts, which attributes the 5th century BC Mohist philosopher Mozi and his contemporary Lu Ban with the invention of artificial wooden birds (ma yuan) that could successfully fly.[17] In 1066, the Chinese inventor Su Song built a water clock in the form of a tower which featured mechanical figurines which chimed the hours.
The beginning of automata is associated with the invention of early Su Song’s astronomical clock tower featured mechanical figurines that chimed the hours.[24][25][26] His mechanism had a programmable drum machine with pegs (cams) that bumped into little levers that operated percussion instruments. The drummer could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns by moving the pegs to different locations.[26]
In Renaissance Italy, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) sketched plans for a humanoid robot around 1495. Da Vinci’s notebooks, rediscovered in the 1950s, contained detailed drawings of a mechanical knight now known as Leonardo’s robot, able to sit up, wave its arms and move its head and jaw.[28] The design was probably based on anatomical research recorded in his Vitruvian Man. It is not known whether he attempted to build it.
In Japan, complex animal and human automata were built between the 17th to 19th centuries, with many described in the 18th century Karakuri zui (Illustrated Machinery, 1796). One such automaton was the karakuri ningyō, a mechanized puppet.[29] Different variations of the karakuri existed: the Butai karakuri, which were used in theatre, the Zashiki karakuri, which were small and used in homes, and the Dashi karakuri which were used in religious festivals, where the puppets were used to perform reenactments of traditional myths and legends.
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The term robot was coined by a Czech writer (from the Robot Wikipedia entry; Note: Links have been removed)
‘Robot’ was first applied as a term for artificial automata in a 1920 play R.U.R. by the Czech writer, Karel Čapek. However, Josef Čapek was named by his brother Karel as the true inventor of the term robot.[6][7] The word ‘robot’ itself was not new, having been in Slavic language as robota (forced laborer), a term which classified those peasants obligated to compulsory service under the feudal system widespread in 19th century Europe (see: Robot Patent).[37][38] Čapek’s fictional story postulated the technological creation of artificial human bodies without souls, and the old theme of the feudal robota class eloquently fit the imagination of a new class of manufactured, artificial workers.
I’m particularly fascinated by how long humans have been imagining and creating robots.
Robot ethics in Vancouver
The Westender, has run what I believe is the first article by a local (Vancouver, Canada) mainstream media outlet on the topic of robots and ethics. Tessa Vikander’s Sept. 14, 2017 article highlights two local researchers, Ajung Moon and Mark Schmidt, and a local social media company’s (Hootsuite), analytics director, Nik Pai. Vikander opens her piece with an ethical dilemma (Note: Links have been removed),
Emma is 68, in poor health and an alcoholic who has been told by her doctor to stop drinking. She lives with a care robot, which helps her with household tasks.
Unable to fix herself a drink, she asks the robot to do it for her. What should the robot do? Would the answer be different if Emma owns the robot, or if she’s borrowing it from the hospital?
This is the type of hypothetical, ethical question that Ajung Moon, director of the Open Roboethics Initiative [ORI], is trying to answer.
According to an ORI study, half of respondents said ownership should make a difference, and half said it shouldn’t. With society so torn on the question, Moon is trying to figure out how engineers should be programming this type of robot.
A Vancouver resident, Moon is dedicating her life to helping those in the decision-chair make the right choice. The question of the care robot is but one ethical dilemma in the quickly advancing world of artificial intelligence.
At the most sensationalist end of the scale, one form of AI that’s recently made headlines is the sex robot, which has a human-like appearance. A report from the Foundation for Responsible Robotics says that intimacy with sex robots could lead to greater social isolation [emphasis mine] because they desensitize people to the empathy learned through human interaction and mutually consenting relationships.
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I’ll get back to the impact that robots might have on us in part two but first,
Sexbots, could they kill?
For more about sexbots in general, Alessandra Maldonado wrote an Aug. 10, 2017 article for salon.com about them (Note: A link has been removed),
Artificial intelligence has given people the ability to have conversations with machines like never before, such as speaking to Amazon’s personal assistant Alexa or asking Siri for directions on your iPhone. But now, one company has widened the scope of what it means to connect with a technological device and created a whole new breed of A.I. — specifically for sex-bots.
Abyss Creations has been in the business of making hyperrealistic dolls for 20 years, and by the end of 2017, they’ll unveil their newest product, an anatomically correct robotic sex toy. Matt McMullen, the company’s founder and CEO, explains the goal of sex robots is companionship, not only a physical partnership. “Imagine if you were completely lonely and you just wanted someone to talk to, and yes, someone to be intimate with,” he said in a video depicting the sculpting process of the dolls. “What is so wrong with that? It doesn’t hurt anybody.”
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Maldonado also embedded this video into her piece,
A friend of mine described it as creepy. Specifically we were discussing why someone would want to programme ‘insecurity’ as a desirable trait in a sexbot.
Marc Beaulieu’s concept of a desirable trait in a sexbot is one that won’t kill him according to his Sept. 25, 2017 article on Canadian Broadcasting News (CBC) online (Note: Links have been removed),
Harmony has a charming Scottish lilt, albeit a bit staccato and canny. Her eyes dart around the room, her chin dips as her eyebrows raise in coquettish fashion. Her face manages expressions that are impressively lifelike. That face comes in 31 different shapes and 5 skin tones, with or without freckles and it sticks to her cyber-skull with magnets. Just peel it off and switch it out at will. In fact, you can choose Harmony’s eye colour, body shape (in great detail) and change her hair too. Harmony, of course, is a sex bot. A very advanced one. How advanced is she? Well, if you have $12,332 CAD to put towards a talkative new home appliance, REALBOTIX says you could be having a “conversation” and relations with her come January. Happy New Year.
Caveat emptor though: one novel bonus feature you might also get with Harmony is her ability to eventually murder you in your sleep. And not because she wants to.
Dr Nick Patterson, faculty of Science Engineering and Built Technology at Deakin University in Australia is lending his voice to a slew of others warning us to slow down and be cautious as we steadily approach Westworldian levels of human verisimilitude with AI tech. Surprisingly, Patterson didn’t regurgitate the narrative we recognize from the popular sci-fi (increasingly non-fi actually) trope of a dystopian society’s futile resistance to a robocalypse. He doesn’t think Harmony will want to kill you. He thinks she’ll be hacked by a code savvy ne’er-do-well who’ll want to snuff you out instead. …
Embedded in Beaulieu’s article is another video of the same sexbot profiled earlier. Her programmer seems to have learned a thing or two (he no longer inputs any traits as you’re watching),
I guess you could get one for Christmas this year if you’re willing to wait for an early 2018 delivery and aren’t worried about hackers turning your sexbot into a killer. While the killer aspect might seem farfetched, it turns out it’s not the only sexbot/hacker issue.
Sexbots as spies
This Oct. 5, 2017 story by Karl Bode for Techdirt points out that sex toys that are ‘smart’ can easily be hacked for any reason including some mischief (Note: Links have been removed),
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One “smart dildo” manufacturer was recently forced to shell out $3.75 million after it was caught collecting, err, “usage habits” of the company’s customers. According to the lawsuit, Standard Innovation’s We-Vibe vibrator collected sensitive data about customer usage, including “selected vibration settings,” the device’s battery life, and even the vibrator’s “temperature.” At no point did the company apparently think it was a good idea to clearly inform users of this data collection.
But security is also lacking elsewhere in the world of internet-connected sex toys. Alex Lomas of Pentest Partners recently took a look at the security in many internet-connected sex toys, and walked away arguably unimpressed. Using a Bluetooth “dongle” and antenna, Lomas drove around Berlin looking for openly accessible sex toys (he calls it “screwdriving,” in a riff off of wardriving). He subsequently found it’s relatively trivial to discover and hijack everything from vibrators to smart butt plugs — thanks to the way Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity works:
“The only protection you have is that BLE devices will generally only pair with one device at a time, but range is limited and if the user walks out of range of their smartphone or the phone battery dies, the adult toy will become available for others to connect to without any authentication. I should say at this point that this is purely passive reconnaissance based on the BLE advertisements the device sends out – attempting to connect to the device and actually control it without consent is not something I or you should do. But now one could drive the Hush’s motor to full speed, and as long as the attacker remains connected over BLE and not the victim, there is no way they can stop the vibrations.”
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Does that make you think twice about a sexbot?
Robots and artificial intelligence
Getting back to the Vikander article (Sept. 14, 2017), Moon or Vikander or both seem to have conflated artificial intelligence with robots in this section of the article,
As for the building blocks that have thrust these questions [care robot quandary mentioned earlier] into the spotlight, Moon explains that AI in its basic form is when a machine uses data sets or an algorithm to make a decision.
“It’s essentially a piece of output that either affects your decision, or replaces a particular decision, or supports you in making a decision.” With AI, we are delegating decision-making skills or thinking to a machine, she says.
Although we’re not currently surrounded by walking, talking, independently thinking robots, the use of AI [emphasis mine] in our daily lives has become widespread.
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For Vikander, the conflation may have been due to concerns about maintaining her word count and for Moon, it may have been one of convenience or a consequence of how the jargon is evolving with ‘robot’ meaning a machine specifically or, sometimes, a machine with AI or AI only.
To be precise, not all robots have AI and not all AI is found in robots. It’s a distinction that may be more important for people developing robots and/or AI but it also seems to make a difference where funding is concerned. In a March 24, 2017 posting about the 2017 Canadian federal budget I noticed this,
… The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research will receive $93.7 million [emphasis mine] to “launch a Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy … (to) position Canada as a world-leading destination for companies seeking to invest in artificial intelligence and innovation.”
This brings me to a recent set of meetings held in Vancouver to devise a Canadian robotics roadmap, which suggests the robotics folks feel they need specific representation and funding.
The best part of the news is that the scientists are ready to test these sponges in industrial trials but first here’s why the Australians are so excited about the work from a Dec. 1, 2015 news item on Azonano,
Deakin University scientists have manufactured a revolutionary material that can clean up oil spills, which could save the earth from potential future disasters such as any repeat of the 2010 Gulf Coast BP disaster that wreaked environmental havoc and cost a reported $40 billion.
The major breakthrough material, which literally absorbs the oil like a sponge, is the result of support from the Australian Research Council and is now ready to be trialled by industry after two years of refinement in the laboratory at Deakin’s Institute for Frontier Materials (IFM).
Alfred Deakin Professor Ying (Ian) Chen, the lead author on a paper which outlines the team’s breakthrough in today’s edition of Nature Communications, said the material was the most exciting advancement in oil spill clean-up technology in decades.
Oil spills are a global problem and wreak havoc on our aquatic ecosystems, not to mention cost billions of dollars in damage.
“Everyone remembers the Gulf Coast disaster, but here in Australia they are a regular problem, and not just in our waters. Oil spills from trucks and other vehicles can close freeways for an entire day, again amounting to large economic losses. Professor Chen
But current methods of cleaning up oil spills are inefficient and unsophisticated, taking too long, causing ongoing and expensive damage, which is why the development of our technology was supported by the Australian Research Council.
“We are so excited to have finally got to this stage after two years of trying to work out how to turn what we knew was a good material into something that could be practically used.
“In 2013 we developed the first stage of the material, but it was simply a powder. This powder had absorption capabilities, but you cannot simply throw powder onto oil – you need to be able to bind that powder into a sponge so that we can soak the oil up, and also separate it from water.”
The lead author on the paper, IFM scientist Dr Weiwei Lei,) an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Awardee, said turning the powder into a sponge was a big challenge.
“But we have finally done it by developing a new production technique,” Dr Lei said.
“The ground-breaking material is called a boron nitride nanosheet, which is made up of flakes which are just several nanometers (one billionth of a meter) in thickness with tiny holes which can increase its surface area per gram to effectively the size of 5.5 tennis courts.”
The research team, which included scientists from Drexel University, Philadelphia, and Missouri University of Science and Technology, started with boron nitride powder known as “white graphite” and broke it into atomically thin sheets that were used to make a sponge.
“The pores in the nanosheets provide the surface area to absorb oils and organic solvents up to 33 times its own weight,” Dr Lei said.
Professor Yury Gogotsi from Drexel University said boron nitride nanosheets did not burn, could withstand flame, and be used in flexible and transparent electrical and heat insulation, as well as many other applications.
“We are delighted that support from the Australian Research Council allowed us to participate in this interesting study and we could help our IFM colleagues to model and better understand this wonderful material, ” Professor Gogotsi said.
Professor Vadym Mochalin from Missouri University of Science and Technology said the mechanochemical technique developed meant it was possible to produce high-concentration stable aqueous colloidal solutions of boron nitride sheets, which could then be transformed into the ultralight porous aerogels and membranes for oil clean-up.
“The use of computational modelling helped us to understand the intimate details of this novel mechanochemical exfoliation process. It is a nice illustration of the power, which combined experimental plus modelling approach offers researchers nowadays.”
The research team is now ready to have their “sponge” trialled by industry. [emphasis mine]
The nanotechnology team at IFM has been working on boron nitride nanomaterials for two decades and is an internationally recognised leader in boron nitride nanotubes and nanosheets.
There was at least one other team working on sponges, all these are composed of carbon nanotubes, for oil spills (mentioned in my April 17, 2012 posting) but they don’t seem to have been able to get their work out of the laboratory.
Here’s a link to and a citation for boron nitride sponges,
Researchers from Deakin University (Australia) have developed a new material, boron-based nanosheets, which can mop up oil spills more efficiently than current methods and are recyclable. From the May 1, 2013 news item on Nanowerk, (Note: A link has been removed)
In Nature Communications today (“Porous boron nitride nanosheets for effective water cleaning”), we showed how we produced, probably for the first time, nanosheets that could revolutionise oil spill clean ups and water purification.
Not only do our nanosheets absorb 33 times their weight in oil, they’re also recyclable.
Ordinarily there’d be a news release from Deakin University but these researchers appear to have taken a different approach posting on a website called The Conversation. This is a very interesting science communicaton initiative from Australia and I will be digressing for a moment. Here’s a description of the initiative from their Who We Are page,
The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public.
Our team of professional editors work with university, CSIRO and research institute experts to unlock their knowledge for use by the wider public.
Access to independent, high-quality, authenticated, explanatory journalism underpins a functioning democracy. Our aim is to allow for better understanding of current affairs and complex issues. And hopefully allow for a better quality of public discourse and conversations.
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They believe in open access and the free-flow of information as long as you don’t edit the article, etc. Here are five of the guidelines (from the Republishing guidelines page),
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Since I usually cut and paste parts of articles and news releases and often intersperse with my own comments and I don’t have the technical skills to use their page view counter, I won’t be using anything directly from The Conversation. I view my role as a curator (bringing together pieces of information from disparate sources) and a ‘connector’. To encourage connections, I don’t usually include a full news release or article as I suggest my readers look at the original or seek out the other sources I’ve included if they want more information.
Back to the boron nitride nanosheets and the news item on Nanowerk,
We found that porous boron nitride nanosheets have a couple of properties that make them particularly suitable for absorbing organic (carbon-based) contaminants, such as oil or dyes.
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The nanosheets are made of a few layers of boron nitride atomic planes, and these sheets have a large number of holes.
It’s these holes that increase the surface area of the nanosheets to a huge 1,425m2 a gram.
This means one gram of porous boron nitride nanosheets has the same surface area as nearly 5.5 tennis courts – so plenty of surface for absorption.
Another advantage is that the saturated boron nitride nanosheets can be cleaned for reuse by simply heating in air for two hours.
The absorbed oil is burned off, leaving the nanosheets clean and free to absorb again.
To make our porous nanosheets, boron oxide powder and guanidine hydrochloride are mixed in methane and heated at 1,100C for several hours in nitrogen gas.
The news item on Nanowerk is illustrated with images and provides more detail as does the May 1, 2013 article (Don’t cry over spilled oil – use nanosheets) on The Conversation.
For those who’d like to read the published research, here’s a link to and a citation for it,
ETA May 6, 2013: Dexter Johnson has commented on an outstanding issue with the Deakin University research and other such initiatives: a lack of commercialization efforts. From his May 4, 2013 posting on his Nanoclast blog (found on the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] website), Note: A link has been removed,
In fact, there are a variety of nanomaterials for these applications [oil spill remediation and water purification]—so many of them that there are catalogues to guide you through them. But not so fast. As yet, no one is bothering to commercialize them so that they are available for the next oil spill.
Dexter provides worthwhile context and some provocative comments on how to ‘encourage’ commercialization of nanotechnology-enabled oil spill remediation/water purification products.
When I see information about US military futuristic projects it’s usually from the US Army’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Consequently, I was surprised to notice that this shapeshifting project is being funded by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research according to the July 11, 2012 news item on phys.org,
An international research team has received a $2.9 million grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to design nanomaterials whose internal structure changes shape in response to stimuli such as heat or light.
Each of these novel materials will be constructed from three types of components: inorganic nanoparticles with desired optical or electrical properties; peptides that bond to these nanoparticles; and special molecules called spacers, which sit between the peptides and bend in the presence of heat, light or other triggers.
When stimulated, the spacers will cause the arrangement of nanoparticles within the material to morph — a process that can lead to interesting and useful effects.
Shape-shifting materials of the kind the researchers are planning to create could have use in applications including color-changing sensors and plasmonic circuits that divert light in two directions.
The news item originated from a July 11, 2012 news release from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo,
The project is being led by Paras Prasad, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the University at Buffalo’s departments of chemistry, physics, electrical engineering and medicine, and executive director of UB’s Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics (ILPB). …
Prasad’s fellow investigators include Aidong Zhang, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UB; Mark T. Swihart, professor of chemical and biological engineering at UB and director of the UB 2020 Integrated Nanostructured Systems Strategic Strength; Tiffany R. Walsh, associate professor at the Institute for Frontier Materials at Deakin University in Australia; and Marc R. Knecht, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Miami.
The palette of parts the team will use to build the nanomaterials includes spacers of different sizes, along with seven types of nanoparticles — gold, silver, silica, iron-oxide, iron-platinum, cadmium-sulfide and zinc-sulfide.
To identify the combinations of components that will produce the most interesting materials, the scientists will use high-throughput experiments and data-mining techniques to screen and analyze the vast number of possible combinations of nanostructures, biomolecular linking elements (the peptides) and assembly conditions.
“One of our goals is to contribute to the fundamental understanding of how the spatial arrangement of nanoscale components in materials affects their optical, magnetic and plasmonic properties,” Prasad said. “The high-throughput techniques we are using were pioneered in the field of bioinformatics, but also have extraordinary promise in the exploration of advanced materials.”
Zhang said, “The computational capabilities offered by informatics and data mining will enable us to maximize the value of our data regarding the nanoassemblies, to generate and to construct new assemblies that span a wide range of inorganic and bimolecular components so as to achieve desired combinatorics-based properties.”
It’s not exactly the shapeshifting one sees in science fiction but this will be the real stuff (not to be confused with The Right Stuff, a 1983 movie about the US space travel programme of the late 1950s to 1960s).
Tong Lin and his research team at Deakin University in Australia have developed a coating that is super hydrophopic, i. e., water repellent. Actually, it repels more than just water, from the April 25, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,
Scientists are reporting development and successful testing of a fabric coating that would give new meaning to the phrase “stain-resistant” — a coating that would take an active role in sloughing off grease, dirt, strong acids and other gunk. The report, which shows that the coating is even more water-repellent than car wax or Teflon, appears in ACS’ journal Langmuir (“Photoreactive Azido-Containing Silica Nanoparticle/Polycation Multilayers: Durable Superhydrophobic Coating on Cotton Fabrics”).
There is more information about the coating, including a video, in an April 26, 2012 article by Jason Palmer for BBC News online,
The new work hinges on what is known as layer-by-layer self-assembly – basically dipping a fabric into a solution over and over again to deposit multiple layers on it.The team from the Australian Future Fibres Research and Innovation Centre at Deakin University made their solution with tiny particles of silica – the same material as sand.
Crucially, they added a few chemical steps to coat the particles with long chemical tails ending in what are known as azido groups.
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… baked under a source of UV light, the tails on the particles were made to interlink with one another, forming a far tougher structure within and across the layers.
Apparently the coating remains intact on the fibres for up to 50 laundry washings.There is more here about Dr. Lin and his work on fibres.
While searching for Tong Lin on the internet I came across a Buddhist practice, Tonglin or Tonglen.
I first wrote about the TERI-Deakin Nanobiotechnology Research Centre (a joint India-Australia partnership) in my Nov. 30, 2010 posting when the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was first signed. According to the Feb. 24, 2012 news item on Nanowerk, the centre has recently opened,
Speaking at the inauguration of the new lab facilities, Hon’ble Louise Asher, MP and Minister for Innovation, Services & Small business, Minister for Tourism and Major Events, Australia said, “This outstanding facility is the result of a dynamic partnership between The Energy and Resources Institute of India (TERI) and Victoria’s [Australia] own Deakin University to augment research in the area of Nano Biotechnology, which will enable efficiency, effectiveness and provide solutions for a sustainable future.”
Highlighting the importance of TERI-DEAKIN partnership, Dr RK Pachauri, Director-General, TERI said, “Research at TERI seeks to find solutions to problems related to attaining sustainability and environmental degradation and has made a difference to the lives of many people. The organization’s commitment to these areas is a continuous process, and setting up the TERI-Deakin Nano Biotechnology Research Centre is one of the means through which, TERI plans to create capacity and expertise for technological solutions to problems of inefficient use of natural resources.”
Professor Jane den Hollander, Vice Chancellor, Deakin University said that the centre provided a hub for up to 50 PhD students who are undertaking research under the Deakin India Research Initiative (DIRI).
“What is particularly pleasing about this centre is that it is tackling research into global issues such as food security for a growing world population, sustainable agricultural practices and environmental sustainability,” she said.
The new facility opened in Gual Pahari, Gurgaon, approximately 35 mins. away (by car) from New Delhi, India (according to Feb. 24, 2012 article in the Asian Scientist about the new TERI-Deakin Nanobiotechnology Research Centre).
The Nov. 28, 2010 news item on Nanowerk features a nanotechnology project which seems to have been 120 years in the making,
Professor Den Hollander Vice-Chancellor and President of Deakin University was excited as well about this partnership and said, ‘Alfred Deakin first recognized the possibilities of India and Australia working together nearly 120 years ago. It is pleasing for everyone at Deakin and TERI [The Energy and Resources Institute] to be involved in a partnership that not only fulfils his prophecies but which has mutual benefits for both nations,” She further added, ‘For Deakin to be partnered with such an organization led by a man of Dr. Pachauri’s [TERI, Director-General] standing is a massive complement. We hope to use the agreement with TERI as a model for other partners.’
Dr. R. K. Pachauri is a world-renowned economist and the head of the Nobel Prize winning UN Climate panel. TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute in India, and Deakin University in Australia have recently signed a memorandum of understanding,
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India and Deakin University, Australia signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to announce the setting up of a Centre of Excellence, the TERI-Deakin Nano Biotechnology Research Centre in the field of Nano Biotechnology in India. This development is an outcome of TERI’s core capability of knowledge creation and development of efficient, environment friendly technologies and Deakin’s India Research Initiative (DIRI) which is committed towards establishing a lasting association with industry partners in India to chart a vibrant culture of research and scholastic excellence.
The initiative is also aimed at bridging the gap between industry and academia through research and collaboration of world leading experts, which will enable efficiency, effectiveness and provide solutions for a sustainable future through the utilization of biotechnology. The TERI- Deakin Nano Biotechnology Research Centre will bring to the fore Deakin’s expertise in the design and characterization of novel nanomaterials while TERI’s Biotechnology and Management of Bioresource Division (BMBD) will bring their wealth of experience in biotech applications in pharmacology, food, agriculture and environmental areas.