Researchers build living robots from frog cells

Scientists envision a new type of organism ready to assist humans.

Image source: Kriegman, Blackiston, Levin, and Bongard
  • Computers designed, and scientists have constructed, programmable living robots.
  • Study announces potentially self-healing, biodegradable, purpose-build automatons.
  • Two "xenobots" are already bumbling their way around dishes of water in a lab.
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Will robots have rights in the future?

Perhaps sooner than we think, we'll need to examine the moral standing of intelligent machines.

  • If eventually we develop artificial intelligence sophisticated enough to experience emotions like joy and suffering, should we grant it moral rights just as any other sentient being?
  • Theoretical philosopher Peter Singer predicts the ethical issues that could ensue as we expand the circle of moral concern to include these machines.
  • A free download of the 10th anniversary edition of The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty is available here.
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Spot, Boston Dynamics' robot dog, has joined a police squad

The semiautonomous could help to protect officers, but some are concerned about how exactly police plan to use it.

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  • Spot is a four-legged, semiautonomous robot developed by Boston Dynamics.
  • The robot has been used in at least two police "incidents," according to documents obtained by the ACLU.
  • The ACLU said that government agencies should be more transparent about how they plan to use robots in the field.
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The future of the mind: Exploring machine consciousness

What if consciousness is just a blip in the universe, a momentary flowering of experience that is unique to life in early technological civilizations—but eventually vanishes?

  • The hard problem of consciousness, as coined by the philosopher David Chalmers, asks: Why must we be conscious? Given that the brain is an information processing engine, why does it need to feel like anything to be us?
  • The problem of AI consciousness is equally complicated. We know humans are conscious, but when it comes to AI, the question is: Could the AIs that we humans develop be conscious beings? Could it feel like something to be them? And how could we possibly know for sure, short of them telling us?
  • How might superintelligence render consciousness extinct? Over 6 chapters in this video, philosopher and cognitive scientist Susan Schneider explores the philosophical problems that underlie the development of AI and the nature of conscious minds.
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Androids that offer "digital immortality" begin mass production in Russia

A company claims to make the world's first humanoid android and offers 'digital immortality".

Promobot
  • Promobot, a Russian company, makes the world's first humanoid android.
  • The model Robo-C robot can't walk but has a sophisticated personality AI.
  • The android can be made to look like any human.
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