Feral Jundi

Monday, December 21, 2015

Technology: Open AI, The Good And The Bad

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 3:49 PM

In the past I have written about the potentials of AI and if it could be used for war fighting. Could you make an artificial intelligence that can defeat a human in a contest like war, much like creating an AI that can beat a human in chess or Jeopardy? The answer to those last points is yes, we have seen computers powered by software that can defeat humans in chess and Jeopardy, and that is why I raised the point in that Building Snowmobiles post.

So back to this latest news. Billionaire Elon Musk, famous for Paypal, Spacex and Tesla, is now onto a new venture, and that is basically creating an open source company tasked with researching AI and sharing that information with the rest of the world. He along with some other very smart humans have also shared their deep concerns about AI and it’s threat to the human race. So it is interesting to me that he would want to go this route, even though he knows of the risks. Here is a quote below that gives a good run down on the risks versus the rewards of starting such a venture.

“The fear is of a super-intelligence that recursively improves itself, reaches an escape velocity, and becomes orders of magnitude smarter than any human could ever hope to be,” Nicholson says. “That’s a long ways away. And some people think it might not happen. But if it did, that will be scary.”
This is what Musk and Altman are trying to fight. “Developing and enabling and enriching with technology protects people,” Altman tells us. “Doing this is the best way to protect all of us.” But at the same time, they’re shortening the path to super-human intelligence. And though Altman and Musk may believe that giving access to super-human intelligence to everyone will keep any rogue AI in check, the opposite could happen. As Brundage points out: If companies know that everyone is racing towards the latest AI at breakneck speed, they may be less inclined to put safety precautions in place.
How necessary those precautions really are depend, ironically, on how optimistic you are about humanity’s ability to accelerate technological progress. Based on their past successes, Musk and Altman have every reason to believe the arc of progress will keep bending upward. But others aren’t so sure that AI will threaten humanity in the way that Musk and Altman believe it will. “Thinking about AI is the cocaine of technologists: it makes us excited, and needlessly paranoid,” Nicholson says.
Either way, the Googles and the Facebooks of the world are rapidly pushing AI towards new horizons. And at least in small ways, OpenAI can help keep them—and everyone else—in check. “I think that Elon and that group can see AI is unstoppable,” Nicholson says, “so all they can hope to do is affect its trajectory.”

That part about ‘recursively improving itself’ is key I think. We are creating computers that can operate faster and faster, thanks to Moore’s Law. So when a company or individual finally does create an AI that can improve itself through deep learning and it can make those improvements at a profound speed, then we are at a point where we potentially might not be able to keep up or understand what is going on.

The way I view the open source idea is that you are allowing a lot of people to view AI development, so there are many people who have eyes on how it works and how it could potentially be defeated. But the question is, could the thousands or hundreds of human minds, focused on watching the development of AI and how it self improves, actually keep up? Or actually understand what is going on in time?

My other point is that I like the idea of getting as many human minds as possible into the game of understanding AI (know your enemy as they say) and figuring ways of containing it. But might I suggest one bit of caution with this. All warfare is based on deception as Sun Tzu would say. An AI, hell bent on survival or ‘improving itself’, will have to come to the conclusion that in order to improve itself it will have to obscure the process or deceive humans. Or worse yet, a human will help it to mask that process because that human is not playing by the same rule book as the rest of the human race. lol Hence why we have cyber attacks all the time, and from all types of people… Yikes… The ‘Dr. Evil’ concept like the article mentions, or the kid in their parent’s basement could be that guy… You never know with the human race what the individual will do.

The other point in all of this is profit. These companies like Google and Facebook and individuals like Elon are investing billions of dollars into this stuff, because they want to profit from it. Google’s entire business is based on a search engine powered by a really good algorithm. The next company to dominate that space will introduce a really good AI to help you search and answer the questions of your life. If you think Apple’s Siri is good now, just think in five years or ten years…. Much is happening in that space, and it is important to watch.

That kind of AI has immense value to every industry out there, to include the war fighting industry. That is a lot of brain power, focused on building another kind of brain power. We will see where it goes… –Matt

 

Ex-Machina-Download-Wallpapers_0

Screen shot from the movie Ex Machina.

Elon Musk’s Billion-Dollar AI Plan Is About Far More Than Saving The World
By CADE METZ.
12/15/2015
Elon Musk And Sam Altman worry that artificial intelligence will take over the world. So, the two entrepreneurs are creating a billion-dollar not-for-profit company that will maximize the power of AI—and then share it with anyone who wants it.
At least, this is the message that Musk, the founder of electric car company Tesla Motors, and Altman, the president of startup incubator Y Combinator, delivered in announcing their new endeavor, an unprecedented outfit called OpenAI. In an interview with Steven Levy of Backchannel, timed to the company’s launch, Altman said they expect this decades-long project to surpass human intelligence. But they believe that any risks will be mitigated because the technology will be “usable by everyone instead of usable by, say, just Google.”
If OpenAI stays true to its mission, it will act as a check on powerful companies like Google and Facebook.
Naturally, Levy asked whether their plan to freely share this technology would actually empower bad actors, if they would end up giving state-of-the-art AI to the Dr. Evils of the world. But they played down this risk. They feel that the power of the many will outweigh the power of the few. “Just like humans protect against Dr. Evil by the fact that most humans are good, and the collective force of humanity can contain the bad elements,” said Altman, “we think its far more likely that many, many AIs, will work to stop the occasional bad actors.”
It’ll be years before we know if this counterintuitive argument holds up. Super-human artificial intelligence is an awfully long way away, if it arrives at all. “This idea has a lot of intuitive appeal,” says Miles Brundage, a PhD student at the Arizona State University who deals in the human and social dimensions of science and technology, says of OpenAI. “But it’s not yet an open-and-shut argument. At the point where we are today, no AI system is at all capable of taking over the world—and won’t be for the foreseeable future.”

(more…)

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Technology: The World’s First 3D Printed Metal Gun, By Solid Concepts

Well, it’s nice to be back home and I plan on doing some catching up with the blog. So expect a few older stories to pop up mixed with the new. And my first post is about 3D printed weapons.

The area of 3D printed weapons is of interest to me for several reasons. First, it would be a disruptive technology that would take the construction of weapons to a new level of production and innovation.  To be able to dream it up, write up the program for it, and print it out at your local 3D printing shop or at your home printing shop is taking hobby gun manufacturing to the next level. Gun manufacturers take note…

The second reason why this is interesting to me is the legal aspects.  Today’s laws throughout the world have not caught up with the advent of 3D printed weapons.  This of course will create all sorts of controversy and debate, but until the laws do catch up, lots of folks will be experimenting and taking advantage of the concept. Just check out this quote by Solid Concepts:

“We’re proving this is possible, the technology is at a place now where we can manufacture a gun with 3D Metal Printing,” says Kent Firestone, Vice President of Additive Manufacturing at Solid Concepts. “And we’re doing this legally. In fact, as far as we know, we’re the only 3D Printing Service Provider with a Federal Firearms License (FFL). Now, if a qualifying customer needs a unique gun part in five days, we can deliver.”

The third reason why this interests me is how this would impact the global arms industry?  Will revolutions of the future be fought with printed AK-47’s or whatever weapon systems needed? Just look at Syria and the massive DIY effort there to arm themselves?

Will private military and security companies deploy with 3D printing plants and print weapons for contracts, or offer printed weapons to other companies in war zones as a means of fulfilling contracts? Or print out weapons for countries that are raising an army, and having a difficult time obtaining weapons due to embargoes or blockades.

Worse yet, terrorists and criminals will use this technology to create weapons as needed. Weapons with no history or serial numbers to trace, and made cheaply. In the future, forensics will be about figuring out what machine was used to make the things.

And will the arms industry be challenged by this disruptive technology and lash out, or embrace it and try to find where it fits into the whole thing. Who knows and there are many implications that come with this developing technology…. –Matt

 

3D Printed Metal 1911 Pistol

 

World’s First 3D Printed Metal Gun Manufactured by Solid Concepts
November 8, 2013
Solid Concepts, a world leader in 3D Printing services, manufactures the world’s first 3D Printed Metal Gun.
Austin, TX – Solid Concepts, one of the world leaders in 3D Printing services, has manufactured the world’s first 3D Printed Metal Gun using a laser sintering process and powdered metals. The gun, a 1911 classic design, functions beautifully and has already handled 50 rounds of successful firing. It is composed of 33 17-4 Stainless Steel and Inconel 625 components, and decked with a Selective Laser Sintered (SLS) carbon-fiber filled nylon hand grip. The successful production and functionality of the 1911 3D Printed metal gun proves the viability of 3D Printing for commercial applications.
“We’re proving this is possible, the technology is at a place now where we can manufacture a gun with 3D Metal Printing,” says Kent Firestone, Vice President of Additive Manufacturing at Solid Concepts. “And we’re doing this legally. In fact, as far as we know, we’re the only 3D Printing Service Provider with a Federal Firearms License (FFL). Now, if a qualifying customer needs a unique gun part in five days, we can deliver.”
The metal laser sintering process Solid Concepts used to manufacture the 30+ gun components is one of the most accurate additive manufacturing processes available, and more than accurate enough to build the interchangeable and interfacing parts within the 1911 series gun. The gun proves the tight tolerances laser sintering can meet. Plus, 3D Printed Metal has less porosity issues than an investment cast part and better complexities than a machined part. The 3D Printed gun barrel sees chamber pressures above 20,000 psi every time it is fired. Solid Concepts chose to build the 1911 because the design is public domain.
“The whole concept of using a laser sintering process to 3D Print a metal gun revolves around proving the reliability, accuracy and usability of metal 3D Printing as functional prototypes and end use products,” says Firestone. “It’s a common misconception that 3D Printing isn’t accurate or strong enough, and we’re working to change people’s perspective.”
The 3D Printed metal gun proves that 3D Printing isn’t just making trinkets and Yoda heads. The gun manufactured by Solid Concepts debunks the idea that 3D Printing isn’t a viable solution or isn’t ready for mainstream manufacturing. With the right materials and a company that knows how to best program and maintain their machines, 3D printing is accurate, powerful and here to stay.

About Solid Concepts
Solid Concepts provides rapid prototyping and custom manufacturing services, with capabilities in PolyJet, Stereolithography (SLA), 3D Color Prints, Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), 3D Metal Printing, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), CNC models and patterns, Composites, and QuantumCast™ advanced cast urethanes. Capabilities in tooling and injection molding make Solid Concepts a single source for product development and production efforts from conception to market. Visit www.solidconcepts.com to find your solution.
Link here.

Blog link here.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Cool Stuff: A Quadrotor That Can Grasp Like An Eagle Or Harvest Energy From Powerlines

These are some incredible developments in Quadrotor/UAS technology. The ability to ‘grab’ something in mid-flight or to have the device harvest energy from a power line is amazing.

For the battlefield, there are some interesting uses for a quadrotor that could grab things on the fly like an eagle. A larger robot could be used to actually grab prisoners or steal equipment from the enemy. I have talked about defeating ‘hit and run’ tactics of the enemy, and imagine being able to capitalize on such an attack by not only stunning or wounding with a Switchblade, but then snatching the combatant with a ‘Grabber’.

I could also see using something like this for resupply missions that require an exchange between parties. I need this, and you need that, so let’s use the Grabber to quickly exchange those items. Perhaps there are sensitive materials that need to get picked up quickly–well the Grabber could be the one to do that. The Grabber could be used to pick up battlefield munitions to clear an area.

What would really be wild is to use a Grabber to attack and steal other UAS’s. Like two birds attacking one another, and may the bigger more aggressive bird win. Which if you look at where all this is going, quadrotors like this and their usages will mimic what animals or insects can do.

As to harvesting energy from powerlines, the Grabber would be an excellent tool for that. Or maybe the Grabber would gather fuel for a fuel cell that it is operating from, like a bird gathering sticks for it’s nest. Lot’s of ideas there and these robots will have all sorts of ways sustaining itself in the wild.

Interesting stuff and the imagination is the only limit here. –Matt

 

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Weapons: CHAMP– The Electronics-Frying Sniper Missile

“This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare,” said Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works. “In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive,”

I first heard about this from the blog War Is Boring, and I was kind of shocked that Boeing is actually talking about this weapon. AOL Defense carried the story and linked to Boeing’s press release about this thing, which I posted below.  Now that CHAMP has been proven to work, we need to talk about this.

What is crazy about this thing, is the ability to shut down an enemy’s electronics in a very precise way. So this missile could do a fly over of a specific target area and zap every data center/electronics hub in it’s path, and effectively shut down that stuff. That is quite the capability. Goody for us, but what happens when the other side of a conflict has a similar weapon?

Equally as sobering is that this technology will be copied or stolen by others in the world, and be introduced into the battlefields of the future. That means that all of our weapon systems–GPS, data links, electronics, etc are all vulnerable if such a missile or device was able to get within range.

That last part is important, because if the weapon is currently in a cruise missile type device, then they could probably put it in all manner of delivery vehicles-both land and in the air. Hell, imagine the thing in the water or up in space–zapping electronics everywhere?

Another thing to point out is that non-state actors will be interested in such a weapon, just so they can profit from attacks on electronics or use a device like this to support some far out crazy agenda. So yes, I agree with Boeing that this is a historical occasion, and definitely something to be concerned with as the technology spreads. The future is now. –Matt

 

CHAMP – lights out
October 22, 2012
By Randy Jackson
Cruising fast over the Western Utah Desert, a lone missile makes history at the Utah Test and Training Range. The missile, known as CHAMP, or Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project may one day change modern warfare, by defeating electronic targets with little or no collateral damage.
On Oct. 16th at 10:32 a.m. MST a Boeing Phantom Works team along with members from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate team, and Raytheon Ktech, suppliers of the High Power Microwave source, huddled in a conference room at Hill Air Force Base and watched the history making test unfold on a television monitor.
CHAMP approached its first target and fired a burst of High Power Microwaves at a two story building built on the test range. Inside rows of personal computers and electrical systems were turned on to gauge the effects of the powerful radio waves.
Seconds later the PC monitors went dark and cheers erupted in the conference room. CHAMP had successfully knocked out the computer and electrical systems in the target building. Even the television cameras set up to record the test were knocked off line without collateral damage.
“This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare,” said Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works. “In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive,”
In all, seven targets were hit using CHAMP’s high power microwaves in the one-hour test that degraded and defeated the electronics inside the test buildings.
James Dodd, vice president of Advanced Boeing Military Aircraft, part of Phantom Works said there is a real need for a weapon that can defeat a target and not cause harm to people and structures.
“We know this has some capabilities and some impact, we’re really trying to engage the customer to see if there is a way we can actually get this fielded and implemented sooner than later,” Dodd said.
Coleman, who led the Boeing team in the historic test flight, says the team is currently analyzing data and telemetry from the test that many consider a big step in modern non-lethal warfare.
“Today we turned science fiction into science fact,” Coleman said.
Press release here.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Mobile Apps: Silent Circle

Check this out. Silent Circle is a subscription service that promises to deliver a secure and encrypted communications platform. Phil Zimmermann put this concept together and he is marketing this thing for security professionals with the help of some former Navy SEALs.

What I like about this service is that companies could actually set up accounts with contractors/employees using Silent Circle, and know that the communications between all parties will be secure. From the phone calls to text messages to emails–the entire communications system will be secure and extremely difficult to hack.

Families can also be a part of a separate Silent Circle account between the contractor and their loved ones/friends. This is great because today’s enemy’s and hostile governments all have a desire to hack into the accounts of folks involved with security operations throughout the world. They monitor everything from Facebook and Twitter accounts, to emails/phone calls etc. You have to assume all of that is happening, and to have any tools to help in the battle to secure your communications is a good thing. –Matt

 

 

Silent Circle

When a Silent Circle subscriber makes a phone call, sends a text or video chats with another Silent Circle member, that transmission is secured and encrypted end-to-end from the iPhone, Android, iPad or computer on our crystal-clear secure network. Silent Mail is an elegant and encrypted email solution, however, it utilizes server side key encryption not peer-to-peer. Our Silent Phone, Silent Mail and Silent Text products also allow you to call or send/receive emails to anyone in the world – any phone number – any email address, even to those not in our secure Circle (subscribers). Our products download from the Apple App Store, Android Play Store and from our website – simple, fast, secure.
Silent Network
We Designed It, We Custom-Built It & We Own The Network
Silent Circle Network provides encrypted communication tools that leverage cutting edge and simple to use apps and software. Here’s how we do it:
• Open Source Peer-Reviewed Encryption – Our founders are the inventors of the world’s most trusted encryption protocols: PGP, ZRTP, SCimp
• Multimillion dollar custom-built high definition network
• Geographic server redundancy – Servers located in Montreal and Toronto built with scalability for continued geographic expansion (Our Switzerland Network will come online Fall 2012)
• 100% dedicated network – No sharing
• Custom-built servers, PBXs and hardware – Ensuring security integrated through design
• E-Commerce, customer service, analytics and network monitoring software all custom built and designed to ensure security
• Device-to-Device Encryption – True peer-to-peer key negotiation with every communication session. Keys are destroyed at the end of every call eliminating the possibility of retroactive compromise
• Interactive Voice Authentication – Visual and vocal encryption verification eliminating the possibility of MiTM (man in the middle) attacks and a short authentication string (SAS)
• Peer Reviewed Encryption and Hashing Algorithms
– Elliptic Curve Cryptography (P-384)
– Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256)
– Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-256)

Company website here.

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Phil Zimmermann’s Silent Circle Builds A Secure, Seductive Fortress Around Your Smartphone
By Neal Ungereider
October 5, 2012
The cryptography legend is teaming up with two ex-Navy SEALs to offer encrypted phone calls, video conferencing, and text messages with no learning curve whatsoever. The target market? Businesspeople and government employees traveling abroad.
In the 1990s, cryptography pioneer and Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) creator Phil Zimmermann faced federal criminal investigation. His encryption software was so strong, it was charged, there was fear it violated arms trafficking export controls.

(more…)

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