The US Military’s Replicator program will churn out thousands of military drones
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of war isn’t with massive platforms like aircraft carriers, it will increasingly be dominated by drones and other robot-like systems. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, read about exponential tech and trends, connect, watch...
An AI controlled drone killed – didn’t kill its operator in battle simulations
WHY THIS MATTERS INN BRIEF You have to be very careful how you assign AI tasks because some AI’s might just do anything to accomplish their goals, including killing the human operators and destroying comms infrastructure. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses...
The USAF’s Project VENOM is turning old F-16’s into drone wingmen
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In military terms over match refers to military superiority, and the US is worried it’s loosing its over match capability to China. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, read about exponential tech and trends, connect, watch...
Blockchain could help autonomous swarms of drones and robots communicate securely
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more devices and robots talk to one another directly we need to find new ways to secure their communications, and blockchain is ideal … Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, read about exponential tech...
Unmanned military drones team up with manned fighter jets during BAE trial
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The balance of future wars, it can be argued, will be won or lost on the quality of the AI’s that “run” future war machines … but first they have to play nice and team up. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community,...
Meet Arrow the world’s first and only supersonic drone
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today’s drones are slow and kind of dumb, tomorrow’s are fast and smart – and they’re going to get faster and smarter … Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Drones are getting...
An autonomous US Navy Stingray drone successfully refuelled an F-18 in mid flight
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of war will eventually be autonomous – and every new technological development is helping bring it closer to becoming a reality. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Around the world...
For the first time the UN believes a hunter killer drone autonomously killed humans in battle
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We already have the technology to create fully autonomous weapons systems that can hunt and kill targets, as well as the ability to create fully autonomous kill chains, but this is the first example of one being used. Possibly. Love the Exponential Future? Join...
World’s largest drone that will launch satellites from mid air finally unveiled
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Access to space used to be expensive and slow, startups are changing that and fast. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Recently I’ve been writing about the myriad of new methods companies...
AI fighter pilot obliterates human USAF pilot in simulated dogfights
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI’s learn in fundamentally different ways to humans, and increasingly that seems to be their advantage in human-machine competitions. Interested in the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from our XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Who’s better in a dog fight...
USAF ramps up AI drone wingman concept, preps for 2023 launch
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of warfare will increasingly be autonomous and AI driven, and SkyBorg is another step on the road to realising that future. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. When it comes to developing future weapons the US...
USAF topguns will fight against AI drones in 2021 as era of autonomous warfare nears
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of air combat will increasingly fought by autonomous systems, not human pilots, and the race to create those systems has already begun. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. I’ve been talking about the rise of fully...
Our Algorithmic Society, the deadly consequences of unpredictable code
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With AI regulation so far behind the curve, and as our society and decision making becomes increasingly reliant on automated algorithms and not human decision making what happens when algo’s go bad? Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog....
DARPA closes in on its ambitions to build the worlds first flying aircraft carriers
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of warfare will include drones, and that flips the idea of today’s aircraft carriers on its head. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. A while ago I wrote an article that discussed the impending emergence of...
Airbus and Audi join forces and unveil their flying taxi concept
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It seems noone wants to be left out of the flying Robo-Taxi race, so now Audi are teaming up with Airbus to develop their own concept. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Flying Robo-Taxis, which rather than the...
Volocopter completes its first flying taxi flight in Europe
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As multiple technologies develop and converge the future of transport is increasingly looking skywards. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. The team at Volocopter, who in 2017 flew their flying taxi around the skyscrapers of Dubai, has ticked...
Amazon trained their delivery bot Scout in the virtual world so it could handle the real one
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Training AI software and robots in the virtual world will dramatically accelerate disruption and the world’s rate of change. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Amazon, who are already on their way to becoming a fully autonomous retailer, recently...
Shooting lasers at drones helps DARPA keep them airborne forever
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more companies field drones one of their biggest hurdles is keeping them airborne for long periods of time, DARPA’s latest program hopes to solve that. DARPA, the bleeding edge research arm of the US Military that’s bought and bringing you everything from conscious robots and autonomous...
The founder of China’s largest online retailer envisions a “100% robotic workforce”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There are particular industries and companies that lend themselves for full automation, and E-Commerce is just one of them. “I hope my company would be 100% automation someday … no human beings anymore, 100% operated by AI and robots.” That’s Richard Liu’s audacious goal,...
Collapsing bee colonies prompt researchers to build robo bees
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We rely on bees to pollinate nearly 75 percent of our crops, but as colonies continue to collapse researchers are looking for new alternatives to pollinate crops. Food security continues to come under the spotlight which is why we’ve recently seen research that uses...