China debuts the world’s first AI news anchor
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As it gets easier to create high quality, natural sounding “human-like” avatars we’ll see more emerge and take on new and varied roles. Over the past couple of years there’s been a huge increase in the amount of press columns devoted to the topic...
Meet the robot surgeon that’s going to be taking aim at your organs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Surgery is getting the robotic treatment, and it could mean better working conditions for doctors, and better outcomes for patients. When Luke Hares met with gynecological surgeon Mark Slack four years ago to talk him through his idea of Versius, the first UK built surgical...
First came robots, then robotic plants that grow
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Robotic plants could help find mines and pollutants buried in soil, or be used to explore alien planets for signs of organic material. Plants are getting a lot of attention all of a sudden, whether it’s from researchers who are trying to turn them...
A robot taught itself how to identify and manipulate objects autonomously
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Robots that can autonomously identify and skill-fully manipulate objects without needing to be previously trained could revolutionise the robotics industry. Human dexterity is an impressive skill that requires both our body’s fine motor skills and highly efficient visual acuity, and despite recent advances from...
Canada ends its three year Universal Basic Income trial two years early
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Governments fear the fall out from the mass automation of jobs by AI will be extreme so they’re investigating new welfare systems to limit the damage, but solutions are illusive. 4,000 people in Ontario, Canada just lost their Universal Basic Income (UBI) cash and...
Ocado shows off the world’s most advanced automated warehouse
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As technology and robotics get better it won’t be long before all warehouses are completely automated. They call it “The Hive,” or “The Grid.” Or sometimes just: “The machine.” It’s a huge structure that fills a warehouse on the outskirts of Andover, a small...
OpenAI’s robot hand handles objects with human-like dexterity
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Robots struggle with tasks that involve dexterity, but that problem could soon be solved. Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances are increasingly making headlines as we witness breakthrough after breakthrough, whether it’s in the creation of self-driving cars, or in the creation of the world’s first...
Rolls Royce is building cockroach like robots and snakes to fix airplane engines
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In the future we’ll see more maintenance jobs performed by robots of all sizes. Typically engineers want to get bugs out of their creations but that’s not the case for Rolls Royce, the engineering company who are building everything from autonomous cargo ships and...
Scientists put a worms mind into a Lego robot to control it, and it worked
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The convergence of biological intelligence with robotics will be an area of increasing interest in the future. It’s not something you do every day, put a worms brain into a Lego robot… but then again you’re probably not a scientist. This is the promise...
An AI just wrote, directed and produced its own appalling film, but it’s the future
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today AI’s that are involved in film production are, for the most part, really awful, but over time they’ll improve and one day they’ll go head to head with the best human directors. Benjamin is a genius who may have created a film that’s...
Robots in extreme environments, going where no human can, or wants to go
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Robots are on the rise, they’re getting more capable of handling more situations, and this presents businesses around the world, and especially in the UK, with new opportunities. Robots are set to play an increasing role in our future, and today there are many...
Nvidia unveil Isaac, a virtual simulator to help companies create advanced robots
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the world comes to rely more and more on bots and robots we need better, and faster, ways to train them. A newly expanded simulator system could be our high-speed ticket to building fully autonomous bots and robots, or so says Nvidia’s CEO....
EU law makers are thinking of letting people sue robots
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As automation, in the form of autonomous hardware and software based robots, becomes more commonplace, law makers are debating who should be responsible for their actions. If a robot, acting autonomously, injures or otherwise wrongs a human, who will be held responsible? Some European...
Slow human co-workers get Flippy the burger flipping robot fired
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the world continues to embrace automation one of the biggest problems could be figuring out the best way for robots and humans to work together. After debuting to much fanfare last year Flippy the burger flipping robot, made by Miso Robotics, who was...
World’s most advanced humanoid robot, ATLAS, goes for a run in the park
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the field of robotics continues to advance we’re beginning to witness the first signs of the emergence of robots that, outside of their traditional factory setting, could be truly useful. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses...
Scientists turn a Drangonfly into a controllable, living drone
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF While many people are focused on traditional drones there are others who are trying to create bio-machine drone hybrids, and their uses could include surveillance and other nefarious purposes. At a certain point it becomes really difficult to scale down machines, after all, a...
Las Vegas goes high tech with cocktail mixing robots
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The resent resurgence in interest in the field of robotics means we are now seeing more robots appearing in more places taking on more tasks. Las Vegas who recently met its goal to be 100 percent powered by renewable energy is full of dazzling...
UK Government mulls creating the world’s first Robo-Regulator for fintechs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Regulating industries and companies is an increasingly complicated task, and some are arguing that it’s one that should be automated and given to the machines, but that opens up its own set of challenges. The love affair British politicians have enjoyed with fintech since...
The robots of the future might not have a brain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The classical view of an intelligent robot is one whose intelligence comes from a centralised location, such as a brain, or in their case, a centralised computing platform, but there’s no reason why this has to be the case. The classical view of a...
JPMorgan is automating the world of finance
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The world of finance is being automated faster than almost any other industry and JPMorgan is leading the charge. At JPMorgan Chase a learning machine is parsing financial deals that once kept legal teams busy for thousands of hours. The program, called COIN, for...
