Lifeboat Foundation

MEET FLIPPY. STARTING in 2021, this tireless fry-station specialist toiled in 10 Chicago-area locations of White Castle, America’s first fast-food hamburger chain. Working behind a protective shield to reduce burn risk, Flippy could automatically fill and empty frying baskets as well as identify foods for frying and place them in the correct basket. While Flippy safely cooked French fries, White Castle employees could focus on serving customers and performing other restaurant tasks. That’s because Flippy is an AI-powered robot.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, more than half a million industrial robots are installed around the world, most in manufacturing. Now, a shortage of qualified workers is pushing more companies to explore using robots in a wide range of roles, from filling online orders in warehouses to making room service deliveries in hotels.

The restaurant industry is using AI to improve the human side of hospitality.

Is the Executive Director of the Innovative Genomics Institute (https://innovativegenomics.org/people/brad-ringeisen/), an organization founded by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Jennifer Doudna, on the University of California, Berkeley campus, whose mission is to bridge revolutionary gene editing tool development to affordable and accessible solutions in human health and climate.

Dr. Ringeisen is a physical chemist with a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Wake Forest University, a pioneer in the field of live cell printing, and an experienced administrator of scientific research and product development.

Continue reading “Dr. Brad Ringeisen, Ph.D. — Executive Director, Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI)” »

The first “AI incident” almost caused global nuclear war. More recent AI-enabled malfunctions, errors, fraud, and scams include deepfakes used to influence politics, bad health information from chatbots, and self-driving vehicles that are endangering pedestrians.

The worst offenders, according to security company Surfshark, are Tesla, Facebook, and OpenAI, with 24.5% of all known AI incidents so far.

In 1983, an automated system in the Soviet Union thought it detected incoming nuclear missiles from the United States, almost leading to global conflict. That’s the first incident in Surfshark’s report (though it’s debatable whether an automated system from the 1980s counts specifically as artificial intelligence). In the most recent incident, the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) was forced to shut down Tessa, its chatbot, after Tessa gave dangerous advice to people seeking help for eating disorders. Other recent incidents include a self-driving Tesla failing to notice a pedestrian and then breaking the law by not yielding to a person in a crosswalk, and a Jefferson Parish resident being wrongfully arrested by Louisiana police after a facial recognition system developed by Clearview AI allegedly mistook him for another individual.

Serious Safety Questions about the first paying space tourism flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo while wishing them the best.

Congratulations to Virgin Galactic for a successful mission today! I looked great! But there are still serious safety questions about the missions going forward about paying space tourism flights on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. I do wish Virgin Galactic the best on their venture going forward!

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Artificial intelligence (AI) proponents say the technology will transform every industry from healthcare and automobiles to yogurt.

Danone S.A., a renowned multinational food company, plans to use AI and a top-secret robot stomach to revolutionize its operations and drive growth in the highly competitive yogurt market.

By harnessing the power of AI, Danone aims to improve its products and operations on several fronts to boost profits and keep the company at the forefront of the yogurt industry.

The Europe Union is introducing “crash test” systems for artificial intelligence to ensure new innovations are safe before they hit the market.

The trade bloc launched four permanent testing and experimental facilities across Europe on Tuesday, having injected €220 million ($240 million) into the project. The centers, which are virtual and physical, will from next year give technology providers a space to test AI and robotics in real-life settings within manufacturing, health care, agriculture and food, and cities.

Weeds are one of the most “tedious, time-consuming and challenging” elements of farming, Carbon Robotics told Fox Business via email.

The LaserWeeder can eliminate over 200,000 weeds per hour and offer up to 80% cost savings in weed control.

Carbon Robotics CEO and founder Paul Mikesell “knows farmers and has a lot of friends who are farmers,” he said.

The technology could eventually revolutionize health care. We’ve seen CRISPR start to be used experimentally to treat children with cancer, for example. It is being explored for lots of genetic diseases. And last year, a company used CRISPR to try to treat a woman with dangerously high cholesterol.

But CRISPR could also transform farming, including aquaculture. This week, I wrote about researchers who inserted an alligator gene into catfish. The idea isn’t to make these fish more alligator-like, but to make them more resistant to disease. It turns out that alligators have a particular talent for fighting off infections.

These gene-edited fish, pigs, and other animals could soon be on the menu.

Continue reading “How CRISPR is making farmed animals bigger, stronger, and healthier” »

In a 1931 essay, Winston Churchill wrote about how he sees the future of food production: “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium,” he wrote.

Fast forward some 90 years, and Churchill’s prediction is coming true, thanks in part to Israeli food-tech company Aleph Farms, which has developed a unique method to cultivate steak meat from isolated cow cells.

First to develop cultured steak.