Lifeboat Foundation

Canada’s newly announced $5,000 incentive for electric vehicles is officially going into effect on May 1st next month and the federal government has released the list of eligible vehicles.

Tesla vehicles are officially ineligible for the incentive.

As we reported last month, the Canadian federal announced a new $5,000 incentive for electric cars with a $45,000 price limit, which virtually excluded Tesla vehicles.

Continue reading “Canada’s $5,000 EV incentive starts next month, Tesla officially disqualified” »

A recent survey by the IE University in Madrid reveals that one in four Europeans would be ready to put an artificial intelligence in power. Should we be concerned for democracy or, on the contrary, welcome Europeans’ confidence in technology?

Europeans ready to elect an AI?

According to the study in question, about one in four out of the 25,000 Europeans surveyed would be prepared to be governed by an AIt worth noting that there are significant variations between countries, because where the European average is around 30%, respondents in the Netherlands are much more open to having a government run by a supercomputer (+ 43%) than in France (+ 25%). “The idea of a pragmatic machine, impervious to fraud and corruption” is one of the reasons that seems most compelling to the interviewees. Added to this are the options that Machine Learning would enable: in fact, the AI described would be able to improve by studying and selecting the best political decisions in the world… It would then be able to make better decisions than existing politicians.

Continue reading “Even more frightening than military AI: an AI President of the Republic?” »

In a major ethical leap for the tech world, Chinese start-ups have built algorithms that the government uses to track members of a largely Muslim minority group.

Guest writer Dr. Asimina Pantazi gives her impressions of the recent Berlin Undoing Aging Conference from the point of view of someone working in research.

As a millennial with limited orientation abilities but expertise with digital tools, I used Google Maps to find the venue, fearing that I would have no data and would get lost in Berlin, only to find out that I was only a couple of meters away from to the venue entrance.

The Undoing Aging 2019 conference took place on May 28–30 at Umspannwerk Alexanderplatz: a multi-level industrial setting, with metal stairs, funky lights, and a balcony overlooking the minimal conference hall. This gave me my first positive vibes.

Continue reading “Undoing Aging 2019: Highlights and Impressions” »

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the DTI would soon launch an initiative to train the country’s IT and engineering graduates to create AI solutions for the global marketplace.

Instead of fearing artificial intelligence (AI), a supposed threat to the country’s thriving business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, the Philippines can position itself as a global AI hub, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said.

In a recent chance interview, Lopez said the Department of Trade and Industry would soon launch an initiative to train the country’s IT and engineering graduates to create AI solutions for the global marketplace.

Continue reading “DTI: PH can become artificial intelligence powerhouse” »

Not sure how to post only a segment, but I found the first segment of this video interesting on the discussion of regulatory oversight of Facebook.

Facebook looks to the government for help censoring viewpoints, the old guard Democrats clash with the socialists, and we check the mailbag!

Continue reading “Big Brother Meets Big Tech | Ep. 753” »

Scientists called for a bigger say over research funding under a stifling bureaucratic application system. Yuan Zhiming, an agricultural scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, said he spent so much time filling out funding applications that he did not have time for any research. Senior officials responded that they understood the need to speed up research for China to transform itself into an innovation powerhouse. Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang said the government would overhaul funding management to give researchers more incentives.

The country has to address a lot of shortcomings, but when it sets course to remedy them and commits a bigger share of resources, it could become a leading scientific power within a decade.

PARIS (AP) — The French government has outlined measures to ensure early diagnostic testing for young children with autism and help for them going to school.

In a statement following a Cabinet meeting Monday, the government promised that expenses linked to diagnostic testing will be fully reimbursed.

Measures include opening specific classes at preschools and elementary schools, and putting in place teacher and medical staff training and research to better understand autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder.

It was a way for machines to see the world around them, recognize sounds and even understand natural language. But scientists had spent more than 50 years working on the concept of neural networks, and machines couldn’t really do any of that.

Backed by the Canadian government, Dr. Hinton, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto, organized a new research community with several academics who also tackled the concept. They included Yann LeCun, a professor at New York University, and Yoshua Bengio at the University of Montreal.

On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest society of computing professionals, announced that Drs. Hinton, LeCun and Bengio had won this year’s Turing Award for their work on neural networks. The Turing Award, which was introduced in 1966, is often called the Nobel Prize of computing, and it includes a $1 million prize, which the three scientists will share.

Continue reading “Turing Award Won by 3 Pioneers in Artificial Intelligence” »