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Are artificial intelligence (AI) and superintelligent machines the best or worst thing that could ever happen to humankind? This has been a question in existence since the 1940s when computer scientist Alan Turing wondered and began to believe that there would be a time when machines could have an unlimited impact on humanity through a process that mimicked evolution.

Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) A Threat To Humans?

When Oxford University Professor Nick Bostroms New York Times best-seller, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies was first published in 2014, it struck a nerve at the heart of this debate with its focus on all the things that could go wrong. However, in my recent conversation with Bostrom, he also acknowledged theres an enormous upside to artificial intelligence technology.

You can see the full video of our conversation here:

Since the writing of Bostrom's book in 2014, progress has been very rapid in artificial intelligence and machine and deep learning. Artificial intelligence is in the public discourse, and most governments have some sort of strategy or road map to address AI. In his book, he talked about AI being a little bit like children playing with a bomb that could go off at any time.

Bostrom explained, "There's a mismatch between our level of maturity in terms of our wisdom, our ability to cooperate as a species on the one hand and on the other hand our instrumental ability to use technology to make big changes in the world. It seems like we've grown stronger faster than we've grown wiser."

There are all kinds of exciting AI tools and applications that are beginning to affect the economy in many ways. These shouldnt be overshadowed by the overhype on the hypothetical future point where you get AIs with the same general learning and planning abilities that humans have as well as superintelligent machines.These are two different contexts that require attention.

Today, the more imminent threat isn't from a superintelligence, but the usefulyet potentially dangerousapplications AI is used for presently.

How is AI dangerous?

If we focus on whats possible today with AI, here are some of the potential negative impacts of artificial intelligence that we should consider and plan for:

Change the jobs humans do/job automation: AI will change the workplace and the jobs that humans do. Some jobs will be lost to AI technology, so humans will need to embrace the change and find new activities that will provide them the social and mental benefits their job provided.

Political, legal, and social ramifications: As Bostrom advises, rather than avoid pursuing AI innovation, "Our focus should be on putting ourselves in the best possible position so that when all the pieces fall into place, we've done our homework. We've developed scalable AI control methods, we've thought hard about the ethics and the governments, etc. And then proceed further and then hopefully have an extremely good outcome from that." If our governments and business institutions don't spend time now formulating rules, regulations, and responsibilities, there could be significant negative ramifications as AI continues to mature.

AI-enabled terrorism: Artificial intelligence will change the way conflicts are fought from autonomous drones, robotic swarms, and remote and nanorobot attacks. In addition to being concerned with a nuclear arms race, we'll need to monitor the global autonomous weapons race.

Social manipulation and AI bias: So far, AI is still at risk for being biased by the humans that build it. If there is bias in the data sets the AI is trained from, that bias will affect AI action. In the wrong hands, AI can be used, as it was in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for social manipulation and to amplify misinformation.

AI surveillance: AIs face recognition capabilities give us conveniences such as being able to unlock phones and gain access to a building without keys, but it also launched what many civil liberties groups believe is alarming surveillance of the public. In China and other countries, the police and government are invading public privacy by using face recognition technology. Bostrom explains that AI's ability to monitor the global information systems from surveillance data, cameras, and mining social network communication has great potential for good and for bad.

Deepfakes: AI technology makes it very easy to create "fake" videos of real people. These can be used without an individual's permission to spread fake news, create porn in a person's likeness who actually isn't acting in it, and more to not only damage an individual's reputation but livelihood. The technology is getting so good the possibility for people to be duped by it is high.

As Nick Bostrom explained, The biggest threat is the longer-term problem introducing something radical thats super intelligent and failing to align it with human values and intentions. This is a big technical problem. Wed succeed at solving the capability problem before we succeed at solving the safety and alignment problem.

Today, Nick describes himself as a frightful optimist that is very excited about what AI can do if we get it right. He said, The near-term effects are just overwhelmingly positive. The longer-term effect is more of an open question and is very hard to predict. If we do our homework and the more we get our act together as a world and a species in whatever time we have available, the better we are prepared for this, the better the odds for a favorable outcome. In that case, it could be extremely favorable.

For more on AI and other technology trends, see Bernard Marrs new book Tech Trends in Practice: The 25 Technologies That Are Driving The 4Th Industrial Revolution, which is available to pre-order now.

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Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) A Threat To Humans? - Forbes

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With the coronavirus growing more deadly in China, artificial intelligence researchers are applying machine-learning techniques to social media, web, and other data for subtle signs that the disease may be spreading elsewhere.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used to identify disease outbreaks as well as forecast their nature of spread. Canadian startup BlueDot used AI and machine learning to detect the coronavirus outbreak even before the Chinese authorities. Its AI algorithm analyzed multiple sources such as news reports, social media platforms and government documents to predict the outbreak, Wired reported.

Autonomous sterilization robots are helping hospitals to contain the infections in quarantined wards by easily moving into a quarantined zone to sterilize virus without human intervention. Chinese medical robot developer TMiRob deployed 10 disinfection robots across major hospitals in Wuhan to contain the spread of COVID-19, reported Vox.

The first reports of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from Wuhan, China were made Dec. 31, 2019, and it quickly spread to become a global emergency. The number of deaths due to COVID-19 in China has already exceeded the SARS outbreak in 2003. More than 31,000 people have now contracted the disease in China, and 630 people have died, according to figures released by authorities.

John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Harvard Medical School and an expert on mining social media information for health trends, is part of an international team using machine learning to comb through social media posts, news reports, data from official public health channels, and information supplied by doctors for warning signs the virus is taking hold in countries outside of China.

The program is looking for social media posts that mention specific symptoms, like respiratory problems and fever, from a geographic area where doctors have reported potential cases. Natural language processing is used to parse the text posted on social media, for example, to distinguish between someone discussing the news and someone complaining about how they feel.

A company called BlueDot used a similar approachminus the social media sourcesto spot the coronavirus in late December before Chinese authorities acknowledged the emergency.

We are moving to surveillance efforts in the US, Brownstein says. It is critical to determine where the virus may surface if the authorities are to allocate resources and block its spread effectively. Were trying to understand whats happening in the population at large, he says.

AI developer Infervision launched a coronavirus artificial intelligence solution in China this past month that is tailored for front-line use to help clinicians detect and monitor the disease more effectively. The outbreak has put significant pressure on imaging departments, which are now reading over a thousand cases a day. Patients and clinicians typically have to wait a few hours to get the CT results, but Infervision AI is improving the CT diagnosis speed for each case. The surging number of patients needing diagnosis and the strict laboratory requirements for the use of the rRT-PCR detection kit, to confirm the 2019-nCoV diagnosis, pose big challenges to regional and rural hospitals. Infervisions tools are helping sites with limited medical resources to immediately screen out suspected Coronavirus-infected patients for further diagnosis and treatment.

Drones are gaining popularity as the fastest and safest means to transport supplies during disease outbreaks. Singapores AI startup Network has launched the first urban air transportation channel to deliver medical supplies between Xinchang County Peoples Hospital and the countys disease control center, both located in Zhejiang, one of the most severe coronavirus hit provinces.

Near Seattle, for instance, a robot helped doctors treat an American man diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. The robot, which carried a stethoscope, helped the patient communicate with medical staff while limiting their own exposure to the illness.

Meanwhile, Chinese hospitals are now shipping in robots from the Danish company UVD Robots that can disinfect patient rooms, according to a statement. UVD Robots says that its roving robotic pods work by emitting ultraviolet light throughout an area, killing viruses and bacteria, including the coronavirus. (The robots are remotely controlled by a device operated by a health worker.)

Self-driving vehicles are even delivering supplies to medical workers in Wuhan. As CNN noted, the Chinese e-commerce company JD.com has been moving packages short distances to a hospital.

Flying robots, also known as drones, are also in the mix. Shenzhen MicroMultiCopter said in a statement earlier this month that it is deploying drones to patrol public places, spray disinfectant, and conduct thermal imaging. Chinese officials have used drones to track whether people are traveling outside without wearing face masks or violating other quarantine rules. More on this surveillance trend in a second.

Infervisions Coronavirus AI solution has been in use at the center of the epidemic outbreak at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan (Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science & Technology), along with sites in other cities such as the Third Peoples Hospital of Shenzhen in Shenzhen City. Infervisions Coronavirus AI solution is accelerating pneumonia diagnosis and epidemic monitoring efforts.

The outbreak has put significant pressure on imaging departments, which are now reading over a thousand cases a day. Patients and clinicians typically have to wait a few hours to get the CT results, but Infervision AI is improving the CT diagnosis speed for each case, and each minute saved is critical to decreasing the chance of cross-contamination at the hospital. The surging number of patients needing diagnosis and the strict laboratory requirements for the use of the rRT-PCR detection kit, to confirm the 2019-nCoV diagnosis, pose big challenges to regional and rural hospitals. Infervisions tools are helping sites with limited medical resources to immediately screen out suspected Coronavirus-infected patients for further diagnosis and treatment.

While physicians are working day and night, Infervision AI is helping manage the process efficiently; assisting with pneumonia marking, abnormal and severe case analysis, patient triage, medical resources coordination, prior case comparisons and treatment assessments.

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Artificial intelligence to sterilized robots are helping authorities to deal with coronavirus - indica News

Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - March 2, 2020) - Maple Gold Mines Ltd.(TSXV: MGM) (OTCQB: MGMLF) (FSE: M3G)("Maple Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has received a Notice of Assessment from Revenu Quebec ("RQ") for $399,966 in tax refunds pertaining to qualified 2018 exploration expenditures. The Company has received the first installment of $325,644 from RQ, and expects to receive the balance in the coming weeks.

Maple Gold is also planning to complete additional Artificial Intelligence ("AI") work to update and expand on a previous AI study that was completed at the Douay Project back in 2008. Maple Gold has made significant progress with its in-house modelling efforts over the course of the last 18 months, delivering a new 3D model that incorporates significantly more data than would have been available a decade ago along with updated geological and structural interpretations.

The 2008 study was completed by Diagnos Inc., and covered an area of about 50km, extending about 7km to the NW beyond what is now known as the Resource Area, but without covering the 531 and Main Zones. The dataset used included 67,836 samples from 505 drill-holes, as well as geophysical, lithological, geochemical and alteration data, with a total of 21 variables considered. Maple Gold imported one of the resulting prospectivity maps into the Company's GIS compilation in order to compare the higher-potential areas defined in this work with those outlined with traditional data layering in GIS. The results of this exercise were fairly compelling, with the historical AI work supporting the potential for additional zones of mineralisation within and beyond what is now the Nika Zone and even stronger indications from the predictive modeling for higher grade gold mineralisation beyond the current conceptual pits, most notably to the NW of the NW Zone, and also outlining a large essentially undrilled target south of the Porphyry Zone (see hatched area in Figure 1 below).

Maple Gold's VP, Exploration, Fred Speidel, commented: "We view these numerical approaches to target definition as another valuable layer of information that, if adequately supported by key underlying datasets and input from geologists, has the potential to further optimize drill targeting. The previous study did not cover the 531 or Main zones or their extensions, so we are keen to update and expand this work there and incorporate another tool into our targeting efforts."

This updated AI exercise will allow us to apply more powerful algorithms than previously, to expand the area of coverage to include 531 and Main zones that are of particular interest to us given recent drilling and geophysical results there, and also to include some additional concepts recently developed by the current team. Furthermore, the South Porphyry target, which overlaps with the 531 SW Target defined earlier, only has two drill holes on its northern edge, where significant syenite was intersected with several (narrow) gold intercepts. We plan to complete an IP survey over this area in order to determine the possible distribution of sulfides, prior to initial drill testing.

Figure 1:2008 PM5 AI prospectivity map, with 2019 RPA conceptual pits, historical and planned 2020 drill collars superimposed, Note three large AI targets, with Porphyry South in particular having very little drilling.

Story continues

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3077/52993_f9a088f664993ad2_001full.jpg

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical data contained in this press release was reviewed and prepared under the supervision of Fred Speidel, M. Sc, P. Geo., Vice-President Exploration, of Maple Gold. Mr. Speidel is a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Speidel has verified the data related to the exploration information disclosed in this news release through his direct participation in the work. Click the following link to review the Company's QA-QC standards and protocols: http://maplegoldmines.com/index.php/en/projects/qa-qc-qp-statement.

About Maple Gold

Maple Gold is an advanced gold exploration and development company focused on defining a district-scale gold project in one of the world's premier mining jurisdictions. The Company's ~355 km Douay Gold Project is located along the Casa Berardi Deformation Zone (55 km of strike) within the prolific Abitibi Greenstone Belt in northern Quebec, Canada. The Project benefits from excellent infrastructure and has an established gold resource that remains open in multiple directions. For more information please visit http://www.maplegoldmines.com.

ON BEHALF OF MAPLE GOLD MINES LTD.

"Matthew Hornor"B. Matthew Hornor, President & CEO

For Further Information Please Contact:

Mr. Joness LangVP, Corporate DevelopmentCell: 778.686.6836Email: jlang@maplegoldmines.com

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS PRESS RELEASE.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively referred to as "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation in Canada, including statements about the prospective mineral potential of the Porphyry Zone, the potential for significant mineralisation from other drilling in the referenced drill program and the completion of the drill program. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, uncertainties and management's best estimate of future events. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations and projections. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding timing and completion of the private placement. When used herein, words such as "anticipate", "will", "intend" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are based on certain estimates, expectations, analysis and opinions that management believed reasonable at the time they were made or in certain cases, on third party expert opinions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, and uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual events, results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future events, results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of such risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, refer to Maple Gold Mines Ltd.'s filings with Canadian securities regulators available on http://www.sedar.com or the Company's website at http://www.maplegoldmines.com. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/52993

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Maple Gold Receives $400,000 in Tax Refunds and Plans Additional Artificial Intelligence Study to Enhance Predictive Modelling at Douay - Yahoo...

FOR better or for worse time will tell, but the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already beginning to transform society. Now, the Pope has teamed up with tech giants to ensure its ethical development is prioritised.

What has the Pope said?Pope Francis has raised concerns about the speed of the spread of AI, noting its development is one of the most important changes affecting todays world and is at the very heart of the epochal change we are experiencing.

Who is he working with?Microsoft and IBM at the moment. Leaders from both firms have met with senior Vatican officials and agreed to collaborate on human-centred ways of designing AI.

And respect is key?At a conference in Rome, Microsoft president, Brad Smith, and IMB Executive Vice President, John Kelly, issued a joint document with the Pontiff calling for the regulation of intrusive technologies, such as facial recognition, saying AI should respect dignity, privacy and human rights and operate transparently.

Their comments cameas a woman in London - who allegedly assaulted an emergency services worker - became the first person in the UK to be arrested using facial recognition technology.

There are concerns over this?The Scotland Yard van-mounted cameras have begun being trialled in London, ahead of a city-wide roll-out. They record faces and send an alert to an officers phone if someone look like a suspect on a wanted list. However, human rights groups have been protesting this, saying the cameras could lead to innocent members of the public being stopped, searched and even arrested.

So regulation is the main aim?The joint document makes a specific reference to any potential abuse of facial recognition, saying: New forms of regulation must be encouraged to promote transparency and compliance with ethical principles, especially for advanced technologies that have a higher risk of impacting human rights, such as facial recognition.

Algorithms?Pope Francis also called for the ethical development of algorithms - known as algor-ethics, pointing out that they allow a select few to know everything about us, while we know nothing about them, saying that this dulls critical thought.

This edges into Dark AI territory?Dark AI - where malevolent applications of AI could include anything from algorithms that manipulate trade to tech giants using it to manipulate the economy to their own benefit - is seemingly what the new approach is aiming to halt.

Will other firms sign up to the document?It is not immediately clear how the principles of the document will be put into place or who else will come on board, but examples were given of what they are working toward. These include IBM wanting a doctor to be in the loop when its AI technology makes healthcare recommendations.

Ultimately, there is hope?The Pope offered light at the end of the tunnel. He said that although algorithms can mean knowledge and wealth accumulate in a few hands with grave risks for democratic societies, these dangers must not detract from the immense potential that new technologies offer.

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Issue of the day: The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence - HeraldScotland