Google is working on a kill switch to prevent an AI uprising

Humans don’t like the idea of not being at the top of the food chain; having something we’ve created taking power over us isn’t exactly ideal. It’s why folks like Tesla mastermind Elon Musk and noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking are so determined to warn us of the terrifying implications that could culminate in a Skynet situation where the robots and algorithms stop listening to us. Google is keen to keep this sort of thing from happening, as well, and has published a paper (PDF) detailing the work its Deep Mind team is doing to ensure there’s a kill switch in place to prevent a robocalypse situation.

Essentially, Deep Mind has developed a framework that’ll keep AI from learning how to prevent — or induce — human interruption of whatever it’s doing. The team responsible for toppling a word Go champion hypothesized a situation where a robot was working in a warehouse, sorting boxes or going outside to bring more boxes in.

The latter is considered more important, so the researchers would give the robot a bigger reward for doing so. But human intervention to prevent damage is needed because it rains pretty frequently here. That alters the task for the robot, making it want to stay out of the rain, and then adopting the human interruption as part of the task rather than being a one-off thing.

“Safe interruptibility can be useful to take control of a robot that is misbehaving and may lead to irreversible consequences, or to take it out of a delicate situation, or even to temporarily use it to achieve a task it did not learn to perform or would not necessarily receive rewards for this,” the researchers write.

Deep Mind isn’t sure that its interruption mechanisms could be applicable to all algorithms. Specifically? Those related to policy-search robotics (a part of machine learning), so it sounds like there’s still a ways to go before the kill switch can be implemented across the board. Sleep tight.

Via: Business Insider

Source: Intelligence.org (PDF)

Nest co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell steps down

The CEO of Google’s home automation company, Nest, is leaving. Tony Fadell made the announcement today in a blog post, saying he will remain as an advisor to Alphabet and CEO Larry Page. Marwan Fawaz, a former exec with Adelphia, Charter and Motorola Mobility and chairman of CableLabs, will step in as the new CEO.

Fadell is most well known for leading the engineering team that developed the iPod, before he left Apple to co-found Nest with Matt Rogers in 2010, which focused on home devices like its connected thermostat. Google bought the company in 2014 for $3.2 billion before Nest itself acquired Dropcam a few months later.

Despite releasing a few updated products since then and Fadell taking control of Google Glass, Nest hasn’t lived up to everyone’s expectations, with delays and outages. In an interview with The Information, Fadell claimed some members of the team at Dropcam were “not as good as we’d hoped.” Former Dropcam CEO Greg Duffy responded by saying that was simple scapegoating, and challenged Fadell to release Nest’s financials to show how the company is doing.

There wasn’t much in the way of a response from Google, but the company did just unveil a new Google Home device — without any Nest branding. As far as what’s next for Fadell other than the advisory role, he’s already working on a smart go-kart for kids.

The incoming CEO Marwan Fawaz was hired by Google in 2012 to run Motorola’s cable box business, which it sold to Arris a year and a half later. In an interview with the New York Times, Fadell called Nest a “healthy” business with over 1,100 employees, and in a statement, Alphabet CEO Larry Page Fawaz will help “bring Nest products to even more homes.”

Statement from Larry Page/Alphabet:

Under Tony’s leadership, Nest has catapulted the connected home into the mainstream, secured leadership positions for each of its products, and grown its revenue in excess of 50% year over year since they began shipping products. He’s a true visionary and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role as advisor to Alphabet. I’m delighted that Marwan will be the new Nest CEO and am confident in his ability to deepen Nest’s partnerships, expand within enterprise channels, and bring Nest products to even more homes.

Statement from Tony Fadell:

Last year, I began discussions with members of my team about my next endeavor. After six years of working on Nest, leading it through 4.5 years of double-digit growth and consistently high marks from customers, I leave Nest in the hands of a strong and experienced leadership team, with Marwan at the helm and a well-defined, two-year product roadmap in place. I’m looking forward to my new role as an advisor to Alphabet and Larry, which will give me more time and flexibility to pursue new opportunities to create and disrupt other industries – and to support others who want to do the same – just as we’ve done at Nest.

1/2: What a ride! Proud of what we’ve built @nest! Great team, business, products, awesome roadmap & momentum https://t.co/BAgi3hSi3e

— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) June 3, 2016

1/2: What a ride! Proud of what we’ve built @nest! Great team, business, products, awesome roadmap & momentum https://t.co/BAgi3hSi3e

— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) June 3, 2016

To my partner, mentor, and friend Tony, thank you for everything. https://t.co/32mOm2Enot

— Matt Rogers (@nestmatt) June 3, 2016

Source: Nest Blog

Nest Co-Founder Tony Fadell Leaving the Company

Tony Fadell, widely known as the “father” of the iPod and the creator of the Nest Learning Thermostat, today announced he is leaving Nest and Nest parent company Alphabet.

Fadell, Nest’s founder, has been with Google since it acquired Nest for $3.2 billion in 2014 and has worked on projects like Google Glass in addition to continuing to run Nest Labs.

In a blog post, Fadell says he has decided the time is right to “leave the Nest,” a decision that was originally made late last year. Fadell will not be present for day to day activities at Nest, but he plans to remain involved with the company as an advisor to Alphabet and Larry Page.

While there is never a perfect time to transition, we’ve grown Nest to much more than a thermostat company. We’ve created a hardware + software + services ecosystem, which is still in the early growth stage and will continue to evolve to move further into the mainstream over the coming years. The future of Nest is equally as bright given the strong and experienced leadership team in place, as well as the two-year product roadmap we’ve developed together to ensure the right future direction. […]

I will miss this company and my Nest family (although I’ll be around to provide advice and guidance and help the team with the transition), but I am excited about what’s coming next, both for Nest and for me.

Fadell says his new role as advisor will provide him with “time and flexibility” to pursue new opportunities and “create and disrupt other industries.” He’s leaving Nest with a two-year roadmap in place and Marwan Fawaz, a former Motorola executive, will be joining Nest as CEO.

According to Bloomberg, Fadell’s departure follows some recent issues at Nest, including a long length of time between product releases and software issues with the Nest Protect smoke detector that led to a recall.

In recent months, Nest employees complained publicly about Fadell’s management, while claiming the business had missed sales targets, botched upgrades and delayed future products

Tony Fadell, in addition to being known for his work at Nest Labs, is credited as one of the original creators of the iPod, heading up the project as senior vice president of the iPod division from 2006 to 2008. Fadell started at Apple in 2001 and helped to produce early versions of Apple’s iconic music player.

Tags: Nest, Google, Tony Fadell
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Google pulls Chrome extension used to target Jewish people

Following a detailed investigation by Mic, Google has pulled a Chrome extension that was used by racists to identify and track Jewish people online. The plugin, called “Coincidence Detector,” added a series of triple parentheses around the surnames of Jewish writers and celebrities. For instance, visiting the page of Mic writer Cooper Fleishman, you’d see his surname presented as (((Fleishman))) — turning the symbol into the digital equivalent of the gold star badge used to identify Jews in Nazi Germany. Until Google banned it for violating its policy on hate speech, the plugin had just under 2,500 users and had a list of 8,768 names that were considered worthy of tracking.

The plugin was created by altrightmedia, with no one person yet coming forward to claim authorship of the program. As Mic explains, it is sarcastically named Coincidence Detector in the service of a conspiracy theory that suggests that all Jews are engaged in a bid to undermine society. As Mic explains, the parentheses were popularized by right-wing website the Right Stuff, which suggested that all Jewish names have an echo. When used, it can provide a signal to far-right groups to target named Jewish people with insults and threats of violence. Motherboard reports that the symbol is already being reclaimed by Jewish writers online, who have added parentheses to their Twitter names. Now that the plugin has been withdrawn, other white supremacists will have to get working on fresh code — which takes ages when you’re typing with just your knuckles.

Source: Mic

Google’s self-driving cars now know when to honk

Google’s self-driving cars are not only getting smarter by the day, but they’re also getting a little bit more polite. According to the project’s latest monthly report, the self-driving car team has recently been teaching the car’s AI when and how to honk the horn and give the human drivers on the road a helpful heads up.

In order to train its honking algorithm, the team tested a variety of honk-worthy situations, like a car backing out of a blind driveway or a car headed the wrong way down a one-way street. At first, the car would play a little honk sound inside the vehicle so engineers could record whether there was a legitimate need for a honk and provide teaching feedback. Once they felt the AI was ready, they let it blare its horn to the world.

“Our goal is to teach our cars to honk like a patient, seasoned driver,” the team wrote in the report. “As we become more experienced honkers, we hope our cars will also be able to predict how other drivers respond to a beep in different situations.”

In related, noise-making news: Google also says they’ve essentially sound-designed the self-driving prototype’s “hum” so pedestrians and cyclists around the car can hear it coming. The sound even increases or decreases in pitch as the car speeds up or slows down. To create the basic sound, the team has tried adapting everything from Orca sounds to ambient art sculptures, but they apparently haven’t landed on a distinct “voice” for the vehicle yet. Anything to avoid the silent Prius effect.