Headline Jan 29, 2018/ ''' *ARTIFICIAL* NO INTELLIGENCE '''

''' *ARTIFICIAL* 

NO INTELLIGENCE '''

DAVOS DO DAVOS : ''Artificial Intelligence and robots will kill many jobs.'' Its depressingly blunt statement for anyone to make-

But even more so as it is the prediction of Jack Ma, CEO of Chinese online sales giant Alibaba

THE risk of AI -its huge potential and fears over its potential consequences -is just one of the big issues discussed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, along with breaches of personal data and fake news.

BUT it is probably artificial intelligence and the ability of the machines to not only interact with, but manipulate human beings that raises the most suspicion : Aware of growing governmental and public distrust, the giants of tech are trying to address the issues.

''Technology should always give people new opportunities, not remove them,'' Ma said.

But when IBM President Ginni Rometty admits that ''100 percent of jobs will be somehow affected by technology,'' it might be a tough sell. It's not just about jobs.

''People want to trust technology as long as they know who is behind it,'' said Neelie Kroes, now a member of Open Data Institute, after having been for years, the European Commissioner in charge of digital issues.

In recent months, US-based Uber, which connects individuals with drivers through an application, found itself in the hot seat after several murders perpetrated in by its chauffeurs, notably in the United States and in Lebanon.

''You have to remember that the rating of a driver evaluates his driving but cannot predict if he is a serial killer,'' Uber director Dara Khosrowhahi told a panel at this week's economic gathering in the Swiss resort of Davos.

*''In this situation, who is responsible, the individual or the platform?''*

All this is why Mr. Amodel and Mr. Christiano are working to build reinforcing learning algorithms that accept human guidance along the way. This can ensure that systems don't stray from the task at hand.

Together with others at the London based DeepMind, a lab owned by google, the open AI researchers recently published some of their research in this area.

Spanning two of the world's top A.I. labs -and two that hadn't really worked together in the past -these algorithms are considered a notable step forward in A.I. safety research.

''This validates a lot of the previous thinking,'' said Dylan Hadfield-Mennell, a researcher at the  University of California, Berkeley.
''These types of algorithms hold a lot of promise over the next five or 10 years.''

The field is small, but it is growing. As OpenAI and  DeepMind build teams dedicated to A.I. safety, so too is Google's stateside lab, Google Brain.

Meanwhile, researchers at universities like the U.C. Berkeley and Stanford University are working on similar problems often in collaboration with the big corporate labs.

In some cases, researchers are working to ensure that systems don't make mistakes on their own, as the Coast Runners boat did.

They are also working to ensure that hackers and others had actors can't exploit hidden holes in these systems,

Researchers like Google's Ian Goodfellow, for example, are exploring ways that hackers could fool  A.I. systems into seeing things that aren't there..

Modern computer vision is based on what are called deep neural networks, which are pattern-recognition systems that can learn tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data.

By analyzing thousands of dog photos, a neural network can learn to recognize a dog.

This is how Facebook identifies faces in snapshots, and it's hoe Google instantly searches for images inside its photos app.

But Mr. Goodfellow and others have shown that hackers can alter images so that a neural network will believe that include things that aren't really there.

Just by changing a few pixels in the photo of an elephant, for example, they could fool the neural network into thinking it depicts a car.

That becomes problematic when neural networks are used in security cameras. Simply by making a few marks on your face, the researchers said, you could fool a camera into believing you're someone else.

''If you train an object-recognition system on a million images labelled by humans, you can still create your new images where a human and the machine disagree 100 percent of the time,'' Mr. Goodfellow said.

''We need to understand that phenomenon.''

Another big worry is that A.I. systems will learn to prevent humans from turning them off. If the machine is designed to chase a reward, the thinking goes, it may find that it can chase that reward only if it stays on.

Mr. Hadfield-Menell and others at UC Berkeley recently published a paper that takes a mathematical approach to the problem.

A machine will seek to preserve its off switch, they showed, if it is specifically designed to be uncertain about its reward function. That gives it an incentive to accept or even seek out human oversight.

Much of this work is still theoretical. But given the rapid progress of A.I. techniques and their growing importance across so many industries, researchers believe that starting early is the best policy.

''There's a lot of uncertainty around exactly how rapid progress in A.I. is going to be,'' said Shane Legg, who oversees safety work at DeepMind.

''The responsible approach is to try to understand different ways in which these technologies can be misused, different ways they can fail and different ways of dealing with these issues.''

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Social Scientists, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all ''register'' on !WOW! -the World Students Society and Twitter- !E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Job Killers '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

TUNES EAST TIMOR

DILI : EAST TIMOR Parliament dissolved, new elections called.

East Timor is set to hold fresh elections after President Francisco Guterres dissolved parliament Friday, ending a month-long political impasse-

That plunged Asia's youngest democracy into a post-election stalemate.

Fighting among lawmakers paralysed the former Portuguese colony and has left it on the brink of its worst period of political instability in more than a decade.

Speaking at the presidential palace, Guuterres called new parliamentary elections to put an end to a   ''serious institutional crisis'' and blasted leaders for turning ''their backs to each other''  .

''I am convinced that people must be called to vote one again in order to help, to overcome the challenges that lies [ahead] in our very young democracy,'' he said, adding that the-

Date for new elections will be set within 30 days. 

EU FUTURE : BRIGHT IN TRANSITION

LONDON : Britain will only replicate the ''effects'' of the EU's customs union during transition to a future relationship when the government will sign its-

Own trade deals for the first time in 40 years. Brexit minister David Davis will say on Friday.

In a speech aimed at the Brexit campaigners who fear negotiators are being ''cowed'' by the European Union, Davis will say-

Britain can start negotiating and even sign, trade deals during the transition phase, when little will change.

Prime Minister Theresa May is coming under increasing pressure from those who voted to leave the  EU at a referendum in June 2016, with some fearing that the expected transition agreement could pave the way for Brexit in name only.

''Of course maintaining access to each other's markets on current terms means we will replicate the effects of the EU customs union during the implementation period,''  Davis will say in a speech in Middlesbrough, a town in north-eastern England.

- Agencies.

INDONESIA -BIODIESEL- ARGENTINA

BRUSSELS : WTO rules EU must change duties on Indonesian Biodiesel.

THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO) has ruled in favor of several challenges by  Indonesia to anti-dumping duties imposed on its biodiesel exports to the  European Union saying-

The measures needed to be changed.

The ruling is the latest in a series of  legal challenges to duties the EU set in 2013 in  biodiesel imports from Indonesia and Argentina

A WTO panel on the case, brought by Indonesia in 2014, said in a ruling made public on Thursday  that the  EU needed to bring its measures into conformity with WTO agreements.

Argentina has already secured a WTO ruling criticizing the way the EU set anti-dumping duties.

This prompted the EU to cut duties to between 4.5 and 8.1 percent from initial rates of 22 to 25.7 percent.

The rates for Indonesia remain those set in 2013 -between 8.8 and 20.5 percent.

THE GENERAL COURT of the European union, the second highest EU court, also delivered a series of rulings in September 2016 to annul each set of duties in their present form.

Agencies.

NORTH KOREA NEVER

NORTH KOREA shipped coal to Russia last year which was then delivered to South Korea and Japan in a likely violation of UN sanctions-

THREE Western Intelligence sources said.

THE UN Security council banned North Korean exports of coal last Aug 5 under sanctions intended to cut off an important source of the-

Foreign currency Pyongyang needs to fund its nuclear weapon and long-range missile programmes.

But the secretive communist state has at least three times since then shipped coal to the Russian ports  of Nakhodka and Kholmsk, where it was unloaded at docks and reloaded onto-

Ships that took it to South Korea or Japan, the sources said.

A Western shipping source said separately that some of the cargoes reached Japan and South Korea in October last year.

A security source also confirmed the coal trade via Russia and said it was continuing.

''Russia's port of Nakhodka is becoming a transshipping hub for North Korean coal,'' said one of the European security sources, who-

Requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of international diplomacy around North Korea.

GERMAN *IS* RAPPER KILLED

A GERMAN rapper turned Islamic State fighter who reportedly married the FBI translator hired to spy on him-

Has been killed in an airstrike in Syria, a US-based monitoring group has said.

Denis Cuspert, who performed under the stage name Deso Dogg, became one of the extremist group's most famous Western fighters, appearing in numerous propaganda videos including one that apparently pictured him with a man's severed head.

The German-Ghanaian was killed on Wednesday during an airstrike in the town of Gharanji, in Syria's Deir Ezzor province, said a statement from the pro-IS Wafa Media Foundation translated into English by the SITE monitoring group.

The jihadist group also posted eight graphic photographs on the Telegram messaging app that it said were of his bloody corpse, SITE said.

Cuspert's death has been reported before, including by the Pentagon which announced he had been killed in an airstrike in Syria in October 2015.

It later acknowledged that he appeared to have survived the attack.

Jihadist sources in April 2014 also said Cuspert had been killed in Syria but they later retracted the claim.

Daniela Greene, an FBI translator with ''top security'' clearance allegedly sneaked off to Syria in June 2014 to marry Cuspert after she grew attracted to the extremist while spying on him, according to US court documents.

- Agencies. 

JOKO WIDODO : *PAKISTAN ZINDABAD*

ISLAMABAD : THIS GREAT PRESIDENT: Joko Widodo -The Indonesian President, opened his address to the joint session of the parliament with a great salutation to the nation and people of Pakistan:

Pakistan Zindabad : [Long Live and prosper Pakistan] and said that :

Wars and conflicts benefit no one while democracy was the best and only way to serve people's interests.

The Indonesian president is currently on a two-day visit to Pakistan. He is the second Indonesian president who has addressed the parliament of Pakistan, with-

Dr. Ahmed Sukarno the first president of Indonesia who addressed the National Assembly on June, 1963.

In his address, Widodo said the economy of a country or a region grows only if there is political stability and security. ''Conflicts and wars benefit no one....I repeat.......conflicts and wars will benefit no one,'' he stressed, adding-

''People, mainly women and children, always become the most impacted ones in conflicts and wars.''

Calling for end to conflicts in the countries as well as the world, the Indonesian president said, ''respect for humanity should be our lives as nations.''

He said history had taught that weapons and military power would neither be able to resolve conflicts nor create and maintain world peace.''

Emphasizing the importance of dialogue, Widodo said conflict in Indonesian area of Aceh continued for more than 30 years which was then resolved through negotiations.

''It is the habit of dialogue that makes ASEAN, the association of 10 countries in South East Asia,    able to be the engine of stability and prosperity in South East Asia,'' he said.

''We must be part of a solution and not part of the problem. Let us work together for the creation of peaceful and prosperous world in the name of all mankind living in this world,'' he concluded.

!WOW! -the World Students Society has the honor to invite the Indonesian President, and the Students, Professors and Teachers of Indonesia, to join up the Ecosystem : 2011.

PARISIANS BRACE FOR FLOODING RISKS

PARIS: Leaks were starting to appear Friday in the basements of Paris buildings as the Seine inched higher, with forecasters warning that the river could stay high throughout next week, especially if more rain is dumped on France.

The Vigicrues flooding agency scaled back its peak predictions for the river in the capital, saying it will top out at 5.8 to 6 metres [19 to 19.7 feet] between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, compared with 6.2 metres previously.

That would still bring the Seine four to five metres above its normal height, causing headaches for commuters as well as people living near its overflowing banks.

It's enough to worry Joao de Macedo, superintendant at a residential building in Paris's 16th Arrondissement.

''There are six studios in the basement, and we've had to set up cinderblocks outside to keep the windows from breaking and covering everything in water,'' he said.

Inside the studios, tables and dressers have been lifted off the floor as water seeps through the walls.

In the streets outside, where the river was nearly lapping the tires of parked vehicles, a young woman found it ''great to see ducks instead of cars''.

The December-January period is now the third-wettest on record since data collection began in 1900, according to Meteo France.

But forecasters said the rainfall had not been enough to push the Seine beyond their expectations.

''We've been reassured, it will keep the water level high but not lift it,'' said Francois Duquesne of the  Vigicrues floods agency, though he warned of the risk for more rain next week.

''If it rains again starting toward the middle of next week, something I'm not sure of all at this point, we're not necessarily done with this yet,'' said Marc Mortureux, risks prevention director at the French environment ministry.

Agencies.

PUTIN TAKES EPIPHANY'S ICY PLUNGE

RUSSIA : Russian President Vladimir Putin and many orthodox pilgrims braved a bitter winter snap overnight to take the annual plunge into-

Icy water in a traditional ritual marking the baptism of Jesus.

In some areas, the extreme temperatures -which are in parts of Siberia dropped to minus 68 degree Celsius  [minus 90 degree Fahrenheit] -the local authorities cancelled the rite which marks  Epiphany.

Surrounded by Orthodox priests and glittering religious icons, and with the temperature hovering around minus 5 degree C-

Putin lowered himself into the freezing waters of Lake Seliger some 350 kilometres [220 miles] northwest of Moscow.

Many other Russians followed suit, submerging themselves in the in the freezing waters in a widely-observed ritual normally observed in 18-19 of January and which last year saw two million people take the plunge.

In Norilisk, a city beyond the Arctic Circle, local authorities on Thursday banned the extreme bathing rite ''for security reasons'' as temperatures hit minus 52 Celsius and strong winds whipped up a blizzard, RIA Novosti news agency reported.

- Agencies

Headline Jan 28, 2018/ ''' *ROBOTICS* FOR ROMANTICS '''

''' *ROBOTICS* FOR ROMANTICS '''

*PROUD TO PAKISTAN* : From and on behalf the entire world, and over, the World Students Society gives the students of Pakistan a standing ovation

Merium, Rabo, Haleema, Saima, Zilli, Dee, Sameen, Paras, Sorat, Sarah, Aqsa, Seher, Eman, Tooba,  Armeen, Hussain, Shahzaib, Sharayar, Mustafa, Bilal, Salar, Zaeem, Haider- Danyial/UK, and Ghazi

The students of Pakistan in turn thank the students of the entire world, in particular, the students of Indonesia, Malaysia, North Korea, Singapore. India, China, Israel and Cambodia......

And....... make preparations to go attend some real Robotic marriages.........

*HONG KONG : OH  -DEAR, Lifelike robots made in Hong Kong meant to win over humans as artist and robotics scientist, Hanson continues to grapple with-

Animatronic theme park shows, sculpting props and characters for Disney attractions like Pooh's Hunny Hunt and Mermaid Lagoon.

He studied film, animation and video, eventually earning a doctorate in interactive arts and technology from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Hanson says he makes his robots as human-like as possible to help alleviate fears about robots, artificial intelligence and automation. That runs contrary to a tendency in the industry to use cute robo-pets or overtly machine like robots like-

Star Wars R2-D2 to avoid the ''uncanny valley'' problem with human likenesses such as wax models and robots that many people find a bit creepy.

Some experts see Sophia as mainly a clever marketing gimmick.

''It's a good advertising tool, whatever that company produces as a business plan,'' said Roland Chin,  chair professor of computer science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Global market revenue for service robotics is forecast to grow from $3.7 billion in 2015 to $15 billion in 2020 according to IHS Markit.

That includes both professional and domestic machines like warehouse automatons, smart vacuums and fuzzy companion robots. 

But as these machines train themselves through hours of data analysis, they may also find their way to unexpected, unwanted and perhaps even very harmful behavior.

That's a concern as these techniques move into online services, security devices and robotics.

Now, a small community of A.I. researchers, including Mr. Amodel, is beginning to explore mathematical techniques that aim to keep the worst from happening.

At OpenAI, Mr. Amodel and his colleagues Paul Christiano are developing algorithms that can not only learn tasks through hours of  trial and error, but also receive regular guidance from human teachers along the way.

With a few clicks here and there, the researchers now have a way of showing the autonomous system that it needs to win points in Coast Runners while also moving toward the finish line.

They believe that these kinds of algorithms -a blend of human and machine instruction -can help keep automated systems safe.

FOR YEARS, Mr. Musk, along with the other pundits, philosophers and technologists, have warned that machines could spin outside our control and somehow learn malicious behavior their designers didn't anticipate.

At times, these warnings have seemed overblown, given that today's autonomous car systems can even get tripped up by the most basic tasks, like recognizing a fake lane or a red light.

But researchers like Mr. Amodel are trying to get ahead of the risks. In some ways, what these scientists are doing is a bit like a parent teaching a child right from wrong.

Many specialists in the A.I. field believe a technique called reinforcement learning -a way for machines to learn specific tasks through extreme trial and error -could be a primary path to artificial intelligence.

Researchers specify a particular reward the machine should strive for, and as it navigates a task at random, the machine keeps a close track of what brings the reward and what doesn't.

WHEN OpenAI trained its bot to play Coast Runners, the reward was more points.

The video game training has real world implications.

If a machine can learn to navigate a racing game like Grand Theft Auto, researchers believe, it can learn to drive a real car.

If it can learn to use a web browser and other common software apps, it can learn to understand natural language and maybe even carry on a conversation.

At places like Google and University of California, Berkeley, robots have already used the techniques to learn simple tasks like picking things up or opening a door.

The Honor and Serving of the latest Operational Technology on Robotics continues.

With respectful dedication to the Future, Scientists, Inventors and Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all ''register'' on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter -!E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Cue the Crown '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless