Lifeboat Foundation

Producing fake sound reflections that simulate the presence or absence of an object could allow the military to hide assets underwater.

A hologram plate simulates the presence of a three-dimensional object by reflecting the appropriate light waves. Now researchers have demonstrated an equivalent behavior with sound by precisely mimicking the acoustic pattern scattered from an object [1]. The technique could be useful in military efforts to hide or disguise underwater objects, or it may be useful in modifying the reflected sounds of objects so that they are easier to identify by people with impaired vision.

The sound waves reflected from an object can be used to reconstruct its position and shape, an idea routinely exploited in sonar and ultrasound imaging. In principle, using similar concepts, a cleverly produced pattern of scattered waves streaming out of a small region could signify that an object is present when it is not. Several recent attempts to realize such “acoustic cloning” have been unsuccessful because of limitations in recording the precise pattern of waves an object reflects, a necessary preliminary step.

In the exercise, an engineer equipped with a set of virtual reality (VR) goggles is orchestrating the robot’s actions.

Advanced proposition.

Continue reading “IHMC’s Nadia: A task-ready humanoid robot with a boxing edge” »

The use of drones capable of deciding whether to kill humans is alarming critics.

The Pentagon is concerned about the US nuclear arsenal’s viability, but critics worry about a renewed arms race.

WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency has set its sights on an ambitious launch schedule for 2024 following two successful launches this year that marked steady progress for the fledgling U.S. Space Force agency.

“Starting next September, it’s an 11-launch campaign over 11 months, one launch a month,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said Dec. 7 at a National Security Space Association online forum.

SDA is developing a network of satellites known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture — a large constellation of lower-cost, mass-produced satellites in low Earth orbit. This is different from the traditional DoD approach of using small numbers of expensive, highly-customized satellites.

The feeling that we belong to something much larger and deeper than ourselves has long been a common human experience. Palaeontologist and Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin wrote about “a noosphere” of cognitive realisation evolving towards an “Omega point” of divine planetary spiritualisation. But it is hard to envisage that ever occurring. It is easier to envisage that we belong in an evolving intelligent power that has entered a momentous posthuman dimension though artificial intelligence.

Some futurists believe we are on the way to realising a posthuman world in which we will live on as cyborgs, or in some new embodiment of intelligent power that will absorb and supersede human intelligence. It is no longer fanciful to foresee a future in which we will have everyday interactions with androids that are powered by artificial general intelligence. They will look, move, and seem to think and respond like a human person, be skilled in simulating emotional responses realistically, and greatly out-perform us in mental activities and manual tasks. It may be we will regard them only as tools or mechanical assistants. But from their expression of human-like behaviours we may become attached to them, even to the extent of according them rights. Their design will have to ensure they don’t carry any threat, but will we be able to trust fully that this will remain the case given their technical superiority? And how far can we trust that the military, malicious groups, and rogue states won’t develop androids trained to kill people and destroy property? We know only too well about our human propensity for violent conflict.

It would be ironic if, to gain more power and control over the world, we used our human intelligence to create AI systems and devices which, for all the benefits they bring, end up managing our lives to our detriment, or even controlling us. And irony, as Greek dramatists were well aware, is often a component of fate.

Under a new announcement, AUKUS members have unveiled their plans to make use of advanced AI to hunt for Chinese submarines.

Took-ranch/Wikimedia Commons.

Continue reading “AUKAS allies plan AI-power to pinpoint China’s stealth submarines” »

Military tech startup Anduril Industries is shaking up the U.S. defense industry as it is one of the few privately held technology companies finding success as a Defense Department contractor. But what makes the company’s software so unique that it is being used across multiple branches of the U.S. military and in both the Russia-Ukraine War and Israel-Hamas War?

WSJ explains how this startup is operating in order to disrupt the U.S. defense industry.

Continue reading “Can Palmer Luckey Reinvent the U.S. Defense Industry?” »

US-China consensus on regulating the military use of AI mentions no specifics, amid challenge posed by the lack of a common definition for such systems Mutual vulnerability could still push the rival powers to create a common set of binding regulations, observers say.