That "galaxy, far, far away" in the famed opening lines of "Star Wars" flicks actually is part of "our reality," according to a commentary released on a key site, KurzweilAI, that deals with artificial intelligence and the like. It's because the newest chapter of the long-running series, "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," has a robot as a key character. The robot previously was part of the "Imperial Empire" but was captured and reprogrammed to become part of the rebel group that sets out to steal plans for the "Death Star" and uncover a fatal flaw. Jonathan Roberts, a professor of robotics at Queensland University of Technology, warns that robotic technology used in military conflicts could be turned back against those who created and released it. "Without giving away too many spoilers, K-2SO is part of the Rebellion freedom fighter group that are tasked with stealing the plans to the first Death Star, the infamous moon-sized battle station from the original Star Wars movie," he said. "Some robotics engineers and researchers are working on exactly this and have started to develop the algorithms that will enable autonomous military robots to be ethical.

Crime Prediction software analyzes existing patterns from police databases It uses the data to predict when and where an event is likely to occur next It's hoped this can alert patrol teams to which districts may need more attention It's hoped this can alert patrol teams to which districts may need more attention Nanotech'superbatteries' that can last longer and charge... Water discovery! Scientists find a new state of matter for... Travelling star heading towards Earth could cause a... Consumer Reports refuses to recommend Apple's new MacBook... Nanotech'superbatteries' that can last longer and charge... Water discovery! Scientists find a new state of matter for... Travelling star heading towards Earth could cause a... Consumer Reports refuses to recommend Apple's new MacBook... Minority Report-style crime prediction has edged closer to reality with a new AI software launched in Dubai. CCTV footage shows group of youths launch brutal assault on man Male guests in a Chinese wedding flock to harass a bridesmaid Guests throw chairs as huge fight breaks out during wedding Man's amazing backflip saves child from out of control car Santa delivers! Little girl asks Santa for her daddy to come home Fearless free solo climber passes rock climbers at speed Video shows Brooklyn lawyer who verbally attacked Ivanka on plane POTUS and FLOTUS give their last holiday message from the White House Girl walks around London with no jeans - can the public tell?

Last week I went to the workshops at NIPS (biggest ML conference in the world) and I also attended part of the ML and the Law symposium the day before. I found out a little bit too late about the symposia but I was still able to attend two panels on which there were both lawyers and computer scientists. They were very insightful and informative -- did you know that this Spring, the European Union passed a regulation giving its citizens a "right to an explanation" for decisions made by machine-learning systems? The panel discussions were motivated by the problem of explaining ML-powered decisions which have an important impact on people's lives: We need to be able to test how systems get to their conclusions; if we can't test, we can't contest. Individuals are entitled to know which data is being processed of them, and to explanations of how predictions & decisions work, in terms they can understand.

'Never,' Defense Secretary Carter Says « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary IN FLIGHT TO ANDREWS AFB: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is pushing hard for artificial intelligence -- but the US military will "never" unleash truly autonomous killing machines, he pledged today. "In many cases, and certainly whenever it comes to the application of force, there will never be true... IN FLIGHT TO ANDREWS AFB: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is pushing hard for artificial intelligence -- but the US military will "never" unleash truly autonomous killing machines, he pledged today. "In many cases, and certainly whenever it comes to the application of force, there will never be true...

Big Tech's AI Predictions for 2017 Lolita Taub The Huffington Post "For the final Cognitive Business post of the year, I asked artificial intelligence centric Fortune 500 leaders for their 2017 enterprise AI predictions. Microsoft, IBM, Baidu, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, GE, SAS, and Oracle responded. What they had to say is exciting..." Artificial Intelligence Is Going to Make It Easier Than Ever to Fake Images and Video James Vincent The Verge "Smile Vector is just the tip of the iceberg. It's hard to give a comprehensive overview of all the work being done on multimedia manipulation in AI right now, but here are a few examples: creating 3D face models from a single 2D image; changing the facial expressions of a target on video in real time using a human "puppet"; changing the light source and shadows in any picture... live-streaming the presidential debates but making Trump bald..." Artificial Feathers Let Drones Morph Their Wings Like Birds Evan Ackerman IEEE Spectrum "Thanks to overlapping feathers and a joint at the end of the wing, most birds can fold their primary flight feathers back, which significantly reduces the surface area of their wings... These folding wings can vary their surface area by 41 percent. When the wing is completely retracted, lift decreases by 32 percent, and drag decreases by 40 percent, boosting the top speed of the drone from 6.3 meters per second to 7.6 meters per second."

Yesterday I was lucky enough to meet with Ben Goertzel in his lab at Hong Kong Science Park to take a tour of Hanson Robotics and meet with the team working on his Artificial General Intelligence project, OpenCog. The lab itself was not that impressive, a fairly cramped space filled with synthetic disembodied faces attached to robot frames. But it was a humdrum of activity as all around people were fiddling with wires and adjusting faces and furiously typing away at their keyboards. And even though the space they are working out of may not be overwhelming awe inspiring, what they are attempting to do here is. To put it simply, they are trying to create humanoid robots that are as intelligent as we are.

Artificial intelligence has become a new-age fear for Americans who fear an "I, Robot" society. However, AI can be used to accomplish tasks that would otherwise be nothing short of a miracle. "(AI) is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines and especially intelligent computer programs," said John McCarthy from Stanford University's Computer Science Department. AI emerged during WWII, with Allan Turing's "Bombe" machine, which significantly reduced the work of code breakers and ultimately cracked the "Enigma" code. Without Turing's machine, it is likely the German U-Boats would have continued their dominance in the Atlantic, which would have led to a drastic turn in the war with a successful blockade on Britain.

REVOLVING DOOR -- "Trump appoints his business attorney to manage international negotiations," by CNN's Elise Labott and Teddy Schleifer: "Jason Greenblatt, the executive vice president and chief legal officer for Trump's business empire, will take on the title of special representative for international negotiations. A source familiar with the appointment told CNN that Greenblatt will primarily will be working on Israel-Palestinian peace process, the American relationship with Cuba and trade agreements."

A drone belonging to a film crew was reportedly shot down Friday in the Iranian capital Tehran by the country's anti-aircraft forces after it approached the president and the supreme leader's offices. The drone was shot down as "it approached the no-fly zone" near the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a source told Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA), according to Reuters. The drone belonged to a documentary-making team that had acquired permission to shoot but "unintentionally started moving it towards the no-fly zone." According to Tehran's deputy governor general for security affairs, Mohsen Hamedani, the state television crew were shooting Friday prayers and "did not know about the prohibited airspace." In August, the commander of Tehran air defense forces said that the capital's airspace was under full control and "no aircraft can enter it without permission."

On this Christmas Eve, I give you the greatest successes in the tech world over the past year. In case it wasn't already apparent, Elon Musk has done pretty well for himself in the past 12 months. Roberto Baldwin detailed how Musk's car company made major strides toward vertically integrating sun to volts and realizing his master plan to get everyone driving (or being driven by) his EVs. Meanwhile, where Musk's extra-terrestrial pursuits with SpaceX saw some setbacks, Mariella Moon explained how NASA truly thrived in 2016 (particularly on social media), despite having fewer relative resources than in years past. Turns out, most of us think learning about space is cool, but apparently not cool enough to get Congress to increase the agency's funding. Netflix increased its own funding by raising the cost of its streaming services.