Artificial intelligence eventually could bring about mankind's demise, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking said in an interview published earlier this week.

The primitive forms of artificial intelligence we already have have proved very useful, but I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," Hawking told the BBC in an interview commemorating the launch of a new system designed to help him communicate.

"Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate," he added. "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."

The Technologies

Because he is almost entirely paralyzed by a motor neuron disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Hawking relies on technology to communicate. His new platform was created by Intel to replace a decades-old system.

Dubbed "ACAT" (Assistive Context Aware Toolkit), the new technology has doubled Hawking's typing speed and enabled a tenfold improvement in common tasks such as navigating the Web and sending emails.

Whereas previously conducting a Web search meant that Hawking had to go through multiple steps -- including exiting from his communication window, navigating a mouse to run the browser, navigating the mouse again to the search bar, and finally typing the search text -- the new system automates all of those steps for a seamless and swift process.

Newly integrated software from SwiftKey has delivered a particularly significant improvement in the system's ability to learn from Hawking to predict his next characters and words; as a result, he now must type less than 20 percent of all characters.

The open and customizable ACAT platform will be available to research and technology communities by January of next year, Intel said.

What A Scenario'

Hawking's cautionary statements about AI echo similar warnings recently delivered by Elon Musk, CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla Motors.

Musk, Hawking and futurist Ray Kurzweil "all share a vision of autonomous artificial intelligence that will begin evolving and adding capabilities at a rate that we mere humans can't keep up with," said Dan Miller, founder and lead analyst with Opus Research.

It is a nightmare scenario, and probably will have truth to it in the 2030 time frame," he told the media.

Today, however, what Hawking considers primitive AI supports all sorts of benign human activities, Miller added, such as the next-word prediction feature that Hawking now enjoys, as well as machine translation, intent recognition based on semantic understanding, and recommendation engines that improve search and shopping experiences.

A Matter of Framing'

In the near term, "a small group of deep-pocketed technology providers" are in the process of commercializing such capabilities via personal virtual assistants such as Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Nuance's NINA and "the unnamed assistant that responds to 'OK Google,'" he noted.

"Concerns that some form of artificially intelligent being or 'race' will subjugate mankind or simply grow bored with us are something that we don't have to worry about for a couple of decades," Miller said.

"In the meantime, we 'carbon-based life forms' can benefit -- as Hawking, Musk and Kurzweil already do -- from the primitive versions of AI by focusing on intelligent assistance of human activity," he added. "It's a matter of framing."

Continuing

Hawking seems most fearful of classes of machines capable of spontaneous or self-guided evolution, and "I believe that there are some good reasons for his concern," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

Computers are already far better at many kinds of sustained, high-volume analysis than humans ever will be, King explains.

"If systems arose that could improve themselves how and when they pleased, it doesn't take much imagination to envision a dystopian future straight out of The Terminator," he said.

"Add to this the continuing dysfunction within the IT industry and global politics -- where many folks seem to believe that rules exist merely to be broken and simple pleas for polite behavior are subjected to storms of melodramatic bombast," King added. "In so poisonous an environment, it seems increasingly difficult for people to find common ground."

Lack of Controls

Several organizations already have begun formulating defenses for what Hawking is anticipating, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group.

"There are a number of folks who are very concerned that we're moving aggressively toward AI and there aren't a lot of controls.

AI could be incredibly dangerous," Enderle added. "It's not hard to imagine a scenario where someone might give an order without realizing that the path to that outcome.

LG seems to be buoyed by the success of its G3 flagship smartphone this year and has rewarded its customers with an early Android 5.0 Lollipop update. LG was one of the slowest Android OEMs to release software updates in the past, but it looks like the company is finally getting serious about releasing Android updates in the quickest possible time. After its G3 flagship smartphone, it is now the turn of G Pad 8.3 Google Play Edition tablet to receive the Android Lollipop update. The G3 is one of the first non-Nexus smartphones getting updated to Android Lollipop, and the G Pad 8.3 GPE is now the first non-Nexus tablet device to be updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop.

It is also the first Google Play Edition device to have received the Android 5.0 OTA update. There are a number of other GPE devices as well but it doesn’t seem like those are ready to receive the update just yet. HTC was supposed to update the One M8 GPE and One M7 GPE models to Lollipop last week but had to delay the rollout due to some bugs in the firmware. Many users have already received the update on their device, and more are expected to receive it over the next few days. If you’re impatient you can also get the update right now by downloading the Android 5.0 update ZIP file from XDA developers website. Once you download it to your computer, transfer it to the internal memory of your G Pad 8.3 GPE and flash it via custom recovery.

The Android 5.0 update brings several new changes like the updated Material Design user-interface, new notification UI & priorities with popup notifications, redesigned recent apps layout with easier task switching, battery life improvements courtesy of Project Volta, improved performance and switch to the Android Runtime (ART) as default, smart lock feature with trusted devices that lets you unlock your phone using devices such as Android Wear smart watches, and improved Bluetooth connectivity.

While the G Pad 8.3 GPE is getting updated to Android 5.0 now, we’re curious about the fate of the regular G Pad 8.3 model as LG hasn’t yet spoken about its plans on upgrading any of its devices except the LG G3 to Android 5.0. But since the GPE variant has been updated, there is still some hope that the regular model will also be updated to Android 5.0 at some point. When it announced the Lollipop update for the G3, LG did mention that they are considering some other devices for the Lollipop update and will share further details at a later stage. With the G3 Lollipop update expected to roll out across most regions by the end of the year, we might expect more information on LG’s Lollipop update plans by early next year.

Five-year-old Branson Riley Carlisle died this week after he was bitten by a brown recluse spider. 

The Carlisle family is reportedly devastated after what seemed to be a freak accident. However, it has brought national attention to the dangers of these spiders. 

The accident was something the family "would have never expected," said the hospital report.

Beware of Spider

The spider was found in the young boy's room after he was complaining about the bite. Once the Carlisles discovered the spider, they immediately rushed their child to the area hospital, The Examiner reported. 

Although the family brought the young boy to the hospital right away, he died only hours after hw was bitten by the spider. 

Information released about the boy's death showed that his condition worsened after being admitted to the hospital. 

The Carlisle family noticed an increased amount of spiders in their home recently. In fact, the family has been having exterminators come to the house once a month to keep the arachnids under control. Experts say the cold winter weather brought the brown recluse into their home. 

Though deaths from spider bites are considered to be a rare occurrence, with less than 10 American deaths attributed to spider bites each year, it is a reality that many people overlook. 

A brown recluse has an extremely powerful bite. The spider generally stays away from people, but it has the ability to attack even when it's unprovoked. If the bite is not treated quickly enough, it can kill. 

The spider can be found anywhere in the United States. It often hides in dark spaces or underneath furniture. People rarely see the creature.

SOURCE: Opposing View News