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☆ CEOs like Jamie Dimon, Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk want the government to fight inequality and 'reignite the American dream'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Ethan Dodd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

His proposals include investing in American industry, teaching students workplace skills, and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit. Forecasting "storm clouds ahead," Dimon wants the government to drive economic growth by subsidizing industry, investing in the workforce, and reducing income inequality. Following in Buffett's footsteps, Dimon said JPMorgan owes its business success to the "extraordinary conditions our country creates" for economic growth. Akin to Musk, Dimon said he didn't want the government to micromanage industry, believing "Adam Smith's invisible hand still prevails." He suggested expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax refund that allows lower-income working individuals and families to keep more of their earned income.

☆ The next world power will be the first to harness the power of AI, former defense official argues in new book
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +17 min

Paul Scharre, a former defense official, argues AI dominance will determine the next global power. The battle for AI power will revolutionize world militaries and economies. His book, "Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," was released on February 28. In his latest book, "Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," Scharre explores how the international battle for the most powerful AI technology is changing global power dynamics. Over time, regulation in some fashion of AI technology; probably much of which will be sector-specific.

☆ Venture Capital Investors Are Trying to Take Over Pandemic Response
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +19 min

Private capital has been eyeing public health for years. Several founders and investors told me that the failure of Kleiner's fund made Silicon Valley wary of investing in pandemic preparedness. Venture investors love that kind of thing. Public health and private industryWhen COVID hit, Charity Dean was the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health. In the end, almost every pandemic-related product created by Silicon Valley will ultimately require the government as a primary customer.

☆ One of the biggest autonomous transportation tests is operating deep underwater
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Barbara Collins | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Boeing's lineup of unmanned, undersea vehicles (UUV) can operate autonomously for months at a time on a hybrid rechargeable propulsion power system. More than 80% of the ocean remains unexplored by humans but could soon be mapped by autonomous underwater robots. Autonomous robot submarines — also referred to as autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs — are able to explore high-pressure areas of the ocean floor that are unreachable by humans through preprogrammed missions, allowing them to function without humans aboard, or controlling them. Navies worldwide are investing in unmanned underwater vehicles to elevate their fleet of below-water defense tools. The U.K.'s Ministry of Defence also announced in August the donation of six autonomous underwater drones to Ukraine to aid in their fight against Russia by locating and identifying Russian mines.

☆ The US military let artificial intelligence fly a fighter jet and even battle simulated enemies in air-to-air combat
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A recent series of US military tests saw AI fly a fighter jet and battle simulated enemies. The modified jet practiced beyond-visual-range engagements and dogfighting, the 412th Test Wing revealed. It can be piloted by autonomous AI programs and mirror the flight characteristics of aircraft like the F-16 jet or MQ-20 drone. One of the two programs tested by the US military was a product of the Air Force Research Laboratory's Autonomous Air Combat Operations, or AACO. This program piloted the VISTA in one-on-one engagements against a simulated enemy beyond visual range, the 412th Test Wing said.

☆ The Pentagon once hid 10 giant red balloons across the US — and offered $40,000 to the first people to find them all
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Chris Panella | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Pentagon's DARPA group once challenged people to find 10 giant red balloons across the US. Those locations included Union Square in San Francisco, Collins Avenue in Miami, Lee Park in Memphis, Tennessee, and Katy Park in Katy, Texas, Popular Science reported. MIT Media Lab Postdoctoral Human Dynamics researcher Riley Crane, who led MIT's successful group, told Popular Science. Twitter also proved to be useful for the challenge, allowing quick and widespread conversation about the possible locations of the balloons, Popular Science reported. But Crane told Popular Science that MIT's strategy focused more on creating a trusted team with goals of helping themselves, science, and charity.

☆ Fact Check-Video does not show Joe Biden making transphobic remarks
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A clip that seemingly shows U.S. President Joe Biden making transphobic remarks has been shared on social media as if authentic. There is no evidence that Biden ever made these remarks. Footage of this speech (bit.ly/3XbOjH5) shows Biden wearing similar clothes and the same flags behind him as in the manipulated video. Neither this clip nor the official transcript of this speech (here) include any of the remarks made in the video being shared online. There is no evidence that U.S. President Joe Biden made a series of transphobic remarks.

☆ NASA and DARPA plan to test a nuclear-powered rocket that could take humans to Mars in record time
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

NASA aims to test a nuclear-powered rocket within five years, the agency said Tuesday. The space agency aims to put humans on Mars for the first time by the late 2030s. The agency is teaming up with the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to make a rocket that could reach Mars in record time. The agency aims to put humans on Mars, for the first time, by the late 2030s or early 2040s. Transit to Mars using a nuclear-powered rocket could take four months, a lot shorter than the usual nine months for older rocket models, Reuters reported.

☆ Military tech is racing towards a dangerous AI future, and Russia's war in Ukraine is paving the way, drone experts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Currently, the drones are guided at launch by a human operator, according to independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe. But more advanced drone technology is enabling what Rogers calls "on" the loop of control. "In the case of the systems that we have seen used, there's still a human operator authorizing the use of force," she said. Under pressure and potentially under fire, a drone operator may take the machine's prompt less as a suggestion and more as an infallible instruction. In a fully autonomous future of drone warfare, he asked, will drone AI be programmed "to avoid those who are waving a white flag?"

☆ U.S. to test nuclear-powered spacecraft by 2027
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Joey Roulette | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The United States plans to test a spacecraft engine powered by nuclear fission by 2027 as part of a long-term NASA effort to demonstrate more efficient methods of propelling astronauts to Mars in the future, the space agency’s chief said on Tuesday. NASA will partner with the U.S. military's research and development agency, DARPA, to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion engine and launch it to space "as soon as 2027," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said during a conference in National Harbor, Maryland. NASA officials view nuclear thermal propulsion as crucial for sending humans beyond the moon and deeper into space. DARPA in 2021 awarded funds to General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin to study designs of nuclear reactors and spacecraft. By around March, the agency will pick a company to build the nuclear spacecraft for the 2027 demonstration, the program's manager Tabitha Dodson said in an interview.

☆ Marines fooled a DARPA robot by hiding in a cardboard box while giggling and pretending to be trees
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Former Pentagon policy analyst Paul Scharre discusses global power and AI in his upcoming book. He writes that Marines trained the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's robots. The robots, trained to identify humans, were fooled by Marines doing somersaults and hiding in boxes. In the passages, Scharre details how, at the end of their training course, the Marines devised a game to test the DARPA robot's intelligence. Another took branches from a fir tree and walked along, grinning from ear to ear while pretending to be a tree, according to sources from Scharre's book.

☆ Fact Check-Robot was designed to run on plant-based items, not human or animal flesh
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) was intended to consume vegetation, not animals, one of the robot’s inventors told Reuters. A Facebook video with 11,000 shares at the time of writing (here) has been reshared by others with comments including, “Flesh eating robot !!!! It’s a crazy world,” “they couldn't create zombies so theeeey created ROBOT ZOMBIE” and “EATR ROBOT.. eats biological ( canbeflesh) as fuel? “It would not recognize bodies, human or animal, as fuel,” Finkelstein said. The EATR was never intended to consume human or animal flesh, and its design makes consuming flesh impossible, the robot’s inventor told Reuters.

☆ EnCharge AI, a chip startup born in Princeton lab, raises $21.7 mln
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Jane Lanhee Lee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

OAKLAND, Calif., Dec 14 (Reuters) - EnCharge AI, a chip startup born at a Princeton University lab, on Wednesday said it raised $21.7 million as it looks to commercialize its computing technology that is designed to run artificial intelligence applications more efficiently. Its first products will be cards that can be easily slotted into server racks for companies to run AI applications, said Naveen Verma, CEO and co-founder of EnCharge AI and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton. EnCharge AI chips work by computing data directly in the memory on the chip, using a special chip design and software. The chips will first be used in factories, warehouses and retail spaces to run AI applications, said Verma. EnCharge AI said the latest funding round was led by Anzu Partners with participation from AlleyCorp, Scout Ventures, Silicon Catalyst Angels, Schams Ventures, E14 Fund and Alumni Ventures.

☆ Self-driving truck startup Kodiak Robotics wins $50 million deal to help develop driverless Army vehicles
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( John Rosevear | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Self-driving truck startup Kodiak Robotics said Tuesday that it won a two-year, $49.9 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to help develop automated combat vehicles for the U.S. Army. The company said the vehicles will be tailored for reconnaissance, surveillance and other missions that would present a high risk to a human driver. The contract was awarded by the DoD's Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and is part of the Army's ongoing Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program. DIU said it received 33 responses to its initial solicitation in October, and selected Kodiak and another vendor, development software provider Applied Intuition, after an extensive review process. The award marks the latest development in the DoD's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge self-driving competitions, which began in 2004.

☆ Arun Majumdar's mom cooked over a coal stove on the floor, and now he's the first leader of Stanford's new climate school — here is his story
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Building a successful climate school that both educates people and scales up technological solutions in its accelerator arm requires thinking beyond the bubble of Silicon Valley. Majumdar's understanding of the importance of a global perspective for the climate school is also personally informed. He was also a professor, did research, and worked at Google for a stint before eventually getting the opportunity to lead the launch of the Stanford climate school. The lessons he learned at ARPA-E are helping form the foundation for the accelerator arm at the Stanford climate school. Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBCSo far, the sustainability school at Stanford seems to be popular with students.

☆ Smart bombs were a game-changer for militaries. Smart bullets may be next.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( Travis Pike | Sandboxx News | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Smart bullets aren't new, but they're still early in development, and they have some drawbacks. If DARPA, aka the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has its way, smart bullets will become a very real thing. Beyond offensive combative measures, guided smart bullets can be used to defeat future threats from swarming UAVs to incoming missiles. Smart bullets currently availableAs of this writing, smart bullets aren't being deployed. Regardless, smart bullets could provide a new surgical option for snipers, infantrymen, and naval personnel.

☆ These startups are beating Elon Musk in the race to let you mind meld with your computer
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-17 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +21 min

That's when I started reporting on them, and like any good nerd I was compelled by what scientists could learn with these "brain computer interfaces." The race for implantable brain chips has been a long, deliberate marathon. Graham Felstead, who has severe paralysis, was the first person to have a BCI inserted via the blood vessels. Brain chips will enable them to perform simple actions on their own and reduce the need for round-the-clock care. "When we started in 2015 and I was pitching venture capitalists on brain computer interfaces, no one knew what a brain computer interface was," says Matt Angle, the CEO of Paradromics.

☆ Meet 11 people leading the aviation industry's push to slash emissions and ditch fossil fuels
▼ + stars: | 2022-05-31 | by ( Maia Anderson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Experts have estimated that aviation is responsible for nearly 2% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and 2.5% of carbon-dioxide emissions. Some aviation giants, like United, are signing purchase agreements to buy electric aircraft. Today he serves as CEO and chairman of the company, which aims to be a pioneer in electric aircraft. In 2000 he founded Aviation Technology Group, which developed the ATG Javelin very light jet before ceasing operations in 2007. He is also a founding member of the Nordic Network for Electric Aviation.

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