Tag: Business For Sale

The U.S. is alarmingly close to an autonomous weapons arms race

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One of the Pentagon’s primary jobs is anticipating what the wars of the future will look like so that it can allocate the resources necessary to make sure the U.S. has the edge in those battles. When people in the defense industry talk about the tools of future war, they usually mention applications of AI, autonomous weaponry, and a very different role for warm-blooded human beings during battle. These technologies are in their early stages of maturity; defense forces don’t yet understand the best ways to deploy them in battle. Military leaders in other wealthy countries, including China and Russia , are also talking about such matters, though we don’t know where they’re placing their bets. For a number of reasons—some old, some new—the U.S. could easily get pulled into a race to develop and use autonomous weapons before it understands how to use them predictably, effectively, and ethically. Cold War 2.o We may enter a period of escalation that recalls the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. “There’s an AI arms race where I’m worried about your development of this technology and you’re worried about my development of this technology, and neither of us communicates that we’re aware of the limitations,” said Chris Meserole, director of research and policy for the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative at the Brookings Institution. Read More …

Google Ventures-backed Merlin Labs is building AI that can fly planes

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Merlin Labs, which develops autonomous systems that fly airplanes, has emerged from stealth with $25 million in funding from Google Ventures and others. The company says it wants to be the “the definitive autonomy platform for things that fly.” Merlin announced Wednesday it signed a deal to outfit 55 twin-turboprop King Air planes owned by Dynamic Aviation with AI flight systems. The startup also has a contract with the Air Force to develop autonomous transport planes. Boston-based Merlin Labs, which currently has roughly 50 employees (including full-time contractors), has a dedicated flight facility at the Mojave Air & Space Port where it’s been testing its AI platform. The system has already piloted hundreds of unmanned test flights from takeoff to touchdown, Merlin’s co-founder and CEO Matthew George tells me. [Photo: Merlin Labs] The first Dynamic Aviation King Air to be outfitted with a Merlin Labs AI system is now doing test flights in the Mojave. Eventually, the AI-enabled King Airs will do flights that are too “dull, dirty, or dangerous” for human pilots, George says. Currently, Dynamic Aviation uses humans for flying fire surveillance missions, transporting goods, and patrolling far out over the ocean, but it hopes Merlin’s AI will be able to ultimately take over the cockpit. Dynamic Aviation offers these flights as a service to customers that include federal defense and intelligence agencies, state and local governments, and private companies. Read More …

Google Ventures-backed Merlin Labs is building AI that can fly planes

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Merlin Labs, which develops autonomous systems that fly airplanes, has emerged from stealth with $25 million in funding from Google Ventures and others. The company says it wants to be the “the definitive autonomy platform for things that fly.” Merlin announced Wednesday it signed a deal to outfit 55 twin-turboprop King Air planes owned by Dynamic Aviation with AI flight systems. The startup also has a contract with the Air Force to develop autonomous transport planes. Boston-based Merlin Labs, which currently has roughly 50 employees (including full-time contractors), has a dedicated flight facility at the Mojave Air & Space Port where it’s been testing its AI platform. The system has already piloted hundreds of unmanned test flights from takeoff to touchdown, Merlin’s co-founder and CEO Matthew George tells me. [Photo: Merlin Labs] The first Dynamic Aviation King Air to be outfitted with a Merlin Labs AI system is now doing test flights in the Mojave. Eventually, the AI-enabled King Airs will do flights that are too “dull, dirty, or dangerous” for human pilots, George says. Currently, Dynamic Aviation uses humans for flying fire surveillance missions, transporting goods, and patrolling far out over the ocean, but it hopes Merlin’s AI will be able to ultimately take over the cockpit. Dynamic Aviation offers these flights as a service to customers that include federal defense and intelligence agencies, state and local governments, and private companies. Merlin’s AI will have to get clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) before Dynamic’s King Airs can go pilotless. George says his company has been working closely with the regulator to get its AI flight system certified as safe. But the FAA currently does not have a certification for autonomous systems that fly fixed-wing aircraft (the only aviation regulator in the world that does is in New Zealand). The agency is working on the requirements of the certification now, George says. Read More …

Beyond Beeple’s $69M NFT: How creators can (and will) thrive in the crypto economy

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On March 11, 2021, an NFT ( non-fungible token ) created by the digital artist Beeple sold at Christie’s for $69 million dollars. Overnight, NFTs became the No. 1 topic within the creator economy. After a wave of eye-popping sales to crypto-rich investors, the hype exposed the world to the opportunities that crypto offers artists. A new creator crypto economy has emerged. During my time at Patreon, I saw the potential of a direct-to-fan monetization model. By empowering creators to earn a steady, sustainable revenue stream through direct engagement with their communities, the system—which puts control and ownership into the hands of creators—will build a more beautiful and rewarding creator economy. For artists to maximize the benefits of crypto, they will need to think beyond NFTs and begin building a more cohesive and inclusive system where all fans (including the crypto whales) can participate. Artists can focus on what they love: releasing art and bringing value to their communities. NFTs are just one part of a larger crypto revolution While the NFT craze seemingly exploded out of nowhere, another blockchain development has been simmering in the background: the concept of social tokens. Social tokens are custom cryptocurrencies made by creators—artists, musicians, celebrities, and others—to foster deeper connections with their communities and to power financial transactions within their fan ecosystems. Read More …

Today’s AI isn’t prepared for the messiness of reality

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What began as a warning label on financial statements has become useful advice for how to think about almost anything: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” So why do so many in the AI field insist on believing the opposite? Too many researchers and practitioners remain stuck on the idea that the data they gathered in the past will produce flawless predictions for future data. If the past data are good, then the outcome will also be good in the future. That line of thinking received a major wake-up call recently when an MIT study found that the 10 most-cited data sets were riddled with label errors (in the training dataset, a picture of a dog is labeled as a cat, for example). These data sets form the foundation of how many AI systems are built and tested, so pervasive errors could mean that AI isn’t as advanced as we may think. After all, if AI can’t tell the difference between a mushroom and a spoon, or between the sound of Ariana Grande hitting a high note and a whistle (as the MIT study found and this MIT Tech Review article denotes), then why should we trust it to make decisions about our health or to drive our cars? The knee-jerk response from academia has been to refocus on cleaning up these benchmark data sets Read More …