Ethical Algorithms

Nano drones that an infantryman can pull out of his pocket; helicopters piloted by robots who extract wounded soldiers from the battlefield; micro satellites on demand; large spy balloons in the upper reaches of the stratosphere; virtual training with a helmet from your office; algorithms that resolve pilots’ ethical dilemmas (so they won’t have to deal with those pesky war crimes tribunals); and farming out code to a network of high school kids.

Ref: Nano Drones, Ethical Algorithms: Inside Israel’s Secret Plan for Its Future Air Force

WikiLeaked Data Can Predict Insurgent Attacks

And yet the military has spent millions developing predictive tools. They don’t work very well. Darpa’s Integrated Crisis Early Warning System actually predicts few crises. Its predecessors, which date back to the 1980s, were arguably even more inaccurate. But those seek to predict big, sweeping geopolitical events. Researchers have had better luck estimating expected fatalities from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But predicting violent events with news reports as data?

Ref: WikiLeaked Data Can Predict Insurgent Attacks – Robert Beckhusen

Google Now

Google Now gets you just the right information at just the right time.

It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, when the next train will arrive as you’re standing on the platform, or your favorite team’s score while they’re playing. And the best part? All of this happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them.

 

ADM8

Ongaging finance in its most recent and complex developments, RYBN has undertaken the construction of its own trading bot, designed to invest and speculate on the financial markets. Using an online broker service to directly access the markets, this autonomous program can trigger orders as well as buy and sell stocks. Its decisions are taken with the help of an internal algorithmic intelligence system and can be influenced by a wide range of external, arbitrary parameters. The whole decision system allows the program to foresee the next moves in the markets while it tries to identify and anticipate the relevant and effective patterns within the financial chaotic oscillations. Along with its computations and performance, the robot’s activity is monitored, recorded, and visualized within dynamic mapping. A panopticon of information unfolds that is formally similar to the control rooms of the stock exchanges’ back offices.

The whole program is designed and distributed in open-source format, in contrast to the black box of the algorithmic and high-frequency trading.

Ref: ADM8, RYBN