Writer and Geek Show

We grew up reading Sherlock Holmes stories, let's discuss that.

Episodes This is part of a series of episodes on NASA’s Mission to the Moon. To Moon and Back - Part 1 To Moon and Back - Part 2 To Moon and Back - Part 3 To Moon and Back - Part 4 To Moon and Back - Part 5 There were many {01:30} There are missions that happened before Apollo 11. All these missions had mission objectives that were testing ground for the Apollo 11. {02:10} Apollo 1 was supposed to be the first manned flight of Apollo Spacecraft. But the astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward “Ed” White and Roger Chaffee died in a fire that broke out in the Command Module during a ground testing. {04:52} Between Apollo 1 and Apollo 7 which were manned missions, there were a bunch of unmanned missions testing Command Module, Lunar Module and Trans Lunar Ejection. Manned flights before 11 {06:08} Apollo 7: This was the first manned mission after Apollo 1. The mission was mainly designed to test the CSM and long duration flight in Apollo Spacecraft. Due to a head cold, commander Walter M Schirra was irritable throughout the mission and this led to the crew disobeying the mission control. {11:54} Apollo 8: First manned mission to leave Earth and orbit another celestial body. During the six day mission, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders orbited the Moon and were the first humans to see the far side of the Moon. Frank Borman fell sick during this mission. {15:16} Apollo 9: A low earth orbit mission, astronauts spent around 10 days orbiting the earth and tested the LEM in earth’s orbit. LEM was tested by flying out around 100km away from the CSM. {16:56} Apollo 10: Full dress rehearsal for Apollo 11 mission. Astronauts practised orbiting the moon, tested the LEM by taking it down 15km above the moon’s surface. List of pre-Apollo 11 Astronauts Apollo 1: Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Apollo 7: Walter M Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham Apollo 8: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders. Apollo 9: James McDivitt, David Scott and Rusty Schweickart Apollo 10: Thomas P. Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan Media Music: Free Stock Music Rip and Tear Image: Pixabay

Episodes This is part of a series of episodes on NASA’s Mission to the Moon. To Moon and Back - Part 1 To Moon and Back - Part 2 To Moon and Back - Part 3 To Moon and Back - Part 4 To Moon and Back - Part 5 There were many {01:30} There are missions that happened before Apollo 11. All these missions had mission objectives that were testing ground for the Apollo 11. {02:10} Apollo 1 was supposed to be the first manned flight of Apollo Spacecraft. But the astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward “Ed” White and Roger Chaffee died in a fire that broke out in the Command Module during a ground testing. {04:52} Between Apollo 1 and Apollo 7 which were manned missions, there were a bunch of unmanned missions testing Command Module, Lunar Module and Trans Lunar Ejection. Manned flights before 11 {06:08} Apollo 7: This was the first manned mission after Apollo 1. The mission was mainly designed to test the CSM and long duration flight in Apollo Spacecraft. Due to a head cold, commander Walter M Schirra was irritable throughout the mission and this led to the crew disobeying the mission control. {11:54} Apollo 8: First manned mission to leave Earth and orbit another celestial body. During the six day mission, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders orbited the Moon and were the first humans to see the far side of the Moon. Frank Borman fell sick during this mission. {15:16} Apollo 9: A low earth orbit mission, astronauts spent around 10 days orbiting the earth and tested the LEM in earth’s orbit. LEM was tested by flying out around 100km away from the CSM. {16:56} Apollo 10: Full dress rehearsal for Apollo 11 mission. Astronauts practised orbiting the moon, tested the LEM by taking it down 15km above the moon’s surface. List of pre-Apollo 11 Astronauts Apollo 1: Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Apollo 7: Walter M Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham Apollo 8: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders. Apollo 9: James McDivitt, David Scott and Rusty Schweickart Apollo 10: Thomas P. Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan Media Music: Free Stock Music Rip and Tear Image: Pixabay

We discuss about the Apollo missions preceding the Apollo 11 mission.

Cheaper than a cab ride! On September 2014, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) achieved what no other space agency has achieved - launching a space probe to Mars and being successful in the first attempt. Mangalyaan was a mission accomplished on a budget of under $74 million, cheaper than the total production cost of the movie Martian. {00:20} Yes, you heard it right! It cost less than a movie about Mars. How did India achieve this feat? {01:00} 2014 was a great year for ISRO. On September 24th the Prime Minister announced the successful Martian orbital insertion of Mangalyaan. India was the first country to send a space probe to Mars at a low budget as $74 million, less than what it would cost in an auto rickshaw. {02:55} The inception of the project happened back in 2008. It took around six years to complete. After the success of the Chandrayaan mission to the Moon, next step was a successful interplanetary probe. It was announced by G Madhavan Nair who was the chairman of ISRO. Indian space agency started in 1969. India launched Aryabhatta, the first satellite in 1975. Ove the years, India developed launch vehicles like PSLV - Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and GSLV - Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle. Objectives {04:13} Primary objective of Mangalyaan was to successfully insert the space probe into an orbit around Mars. Mars travel is much more complicated than a moon mission because of the distance. The communication takes time while on a Mars mission. Based on the orientation of the antenna, it could take anywhere between 8 - 45 minutes. The journey took 11 months. {06:57} The secondary objective was to explore Mars using remote sensing technology and to study the moon Phobos of Mars. The Mars orbiter was around the size of an auto rickshaw and weighed around 1337kg. 856kg was propellant. The space agency had to miniaturise the spacecraft to reduce the cost. Powered by three solar panels and a lithium ion battery for backup. The spacecraft was developed in Bangalore. Launch vehicles {09:30} Initially GSLV was planned as a launch vehicle, but due to setbacks in testing, GSLV could not be used due to time constraints. So ISRO had to go back to PSLV, which was used in the launch of Chandrayaan. There is a very narrow launch window to Mars. If the chance is missed, it would be 24 months before another window opens up. {10:56} PSLV satellite is used to launch a smaller payload into a low earth polar orbit. Normally used for weather satellites to enable them to be able to scan the earth during a 24 hour period. GSLV is used for heavier payload missions with the capability to put a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, that is, an orbit in which the satellite appears to maintain a relatively fixed position over a point on the surface of the earth. Used for communication satellites. PSLV was less powerful compared to GSLV. ISRO used Hohmann’s transfer methodology to send the spacecraft to Mars. Hohmann’s transfer {13:45} The low earth orbit of the spacecraft is modified into highly elliptical orbit by providing thrust at the perigee point. Multiple such boosts were planned and eventually, the orbit becomes so much elongated that it leaves earth’s sphere of influence and moves into a heliocentric orbit. In the case of Mangalyaan, the path of the spacecraft was calculated in such a way that when it intersects Mars’ orbit, they would meet at the point. Communication and other challenges {16:31} To ensure continuous communication and data transfer from the spacecraft, 32 ground centres were setup around the world. Sriharikota, Port Blair, Indonesia, Brunei and Canberra were few of the locations. Post the launch, communications control moves from Shriharikota to Port Blair, then to Brunei and to Indonesia. After Indonesia till Canberra, there are no land masses to setup a tracking station. So ISRO decided to use two navy vessels to act as ground stations to track the spacecraft. {19:00} To contain the mission well within the budget of $74 million, so they used gravity assisted flight to get to Mars using the Hohmann’s transfer method. After the launch, the craft spent around 25 days in earth’s orbit undergoing Hohmann’s transfer. There were some challenges during the 4th earth bound manoeuvre, so ISRO had to burn extra fuel during the remaining orbits. Apart from this, due to the high noise ratio of signals back from Mangalyaan, ISRO developed indigenous deep space network antenna. {22:41} The engine was not used for around 298 days in the harshness of the space. There was a concern about the engine not starting as the spacecraft neared Mars. Test firing of the engine was done for 3.968 seconds less than two days before entry into Mars orbit. {24:37} Since the probe moves to the dark side of Mars, solar panels could not provide any power. The lithium ion batteries provided backup power. Also, all the communications are cut off when the craft moves to the far side of Mars. So pre-instructed commands were given to the spacecraft a day in advance with the list of things to do while on the far side. {26:04} India achieved the unique goal of successfully launching a spacecraft to Mars in the first attempt. India also became the fourth country to attempt a launch to Mars. it also became the first country to send a space probe to Mars from Asia and it was the cheapest mission ever to Mars. The lifetime of Mangalyaan was supposed to be six months, but it is still going strong after three years. {27:05} The Mangalyaan team also won the 2015 Space Pioneer award in the category of Science and Engineering which awarded by US based National Space Society. Mangalyaan made India a forerunner in the race to Mars. This is an autorickshaw! Media Music created using Sound Trap. Check this site out, you can create your own little music clips! Image: Pixabay

Cheaper than a cab ride! On September 2014, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) achieved what no other space agency has achieved - launching a space probe to Mars and being successful in the first attempt. Mangalyaan was a mission accomplished on a budget of under $74 million, cheaper than the total production cost of the movie Martian. {00:20} Yes, you heard it right! It cost less than a movie about Mars. How did India achieve this feat? {01:00} 2014 was a great year for ISRO. On September 24th the Prime Minister announced the successful Martian orbital insertion of Mangalyaan. India was the first country to send a space probe to Mars at a low budget as $74 million, less than what it would cost in an auto rickshaw. {02:55} The inception of the project happened back in 2008. It took around six years to complete. After the success of the Chandrayaan mission to the Moon, next step was a successful interplanetary probe. It was announced by G Madhavan Nair who was the chairman of ISRO. Indian space agency started in 1969. India launched Aryabhatta, the first satellite in 1975. Ove the years, India developed launch vehicles like PSLV - Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and GSLV - Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle. Objectives {04:13} Primary objective of Mangalyaan was to successfully insert the space probe into an orbit around Mars. Mars travel is much more complicated than a moon mission because of the distance. The communication takes time while on a Mars mission. Based on the orientation of the antenna, it could take anywhere between 8 - 45 minutes. The journey took 11 months. {06:57} The secondary objective was to explore Mars using remote sensing technology and to study the moon Phobos of Mars. The Mars orbiter was around the size of an auto rickshaw and weighed around 1337kg. 856kg was propellant. The space agency had to miniaturise the spacecraft to reduce the cost. Powered by three solar panels and a lithium ion battery for backup. The spacecraft was developed in Bangalore. Launch vehicles {09:30} Initially GSLV was planned as a launch vehicle, but due to setbacks in testing, GSLV could not be used due to time constraints. So ISRO had to go back to PSLV, which was used in the launch of Chandrayaan. There is a very narrow launch window to Mars. If the chance is missed, it would be 24 months before another window opens up. {10:56} PSLV satellite is used to launch a smaller payload into a low earth polar orbit. Normally used for weather satellites to enable them to be able to scan the earth during a 24 hour period. GSLV is used for heavier payload missions with the capability to put a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, that is, an orbit in which the satellite appears to maintain a relatively fixed position over a point on the surface of the earth. Used for communication satellites. PSLV was less powerful compared to GSLV. ISRO used Hohmann’s transfer methodology to send the spacecraft to Mars. Hohmann’s transfer {13:45} The low earth orbit of the spacecraft is modified into highly elliptical orbit by providing thrust at the perigee point. Multiple such boosts were planned and eventually, the orbit becomes so much elongated that it leaves earth’s sphere of influence and moves into a heliocentric orbit. In the case of Mangalyaan, the path of the spacecraft was calculated in such a way that when it intersects Mars’ orbit, they would meet at the point. Communication and other challenges {16:31} To ensure continuous communication and data transfer from the spacecraft, 32 ground centres were setup around the world. Sriharikota, Port Blair, Indonesia, Brunei and Canberra were few of the locations. Post the launch, communications control moves from Shriharikota to Port Blair, then to Brunei and to Indonesia. After Indonesia till Canberra, there are no land masses to setup a tracking station. So ISRO decided to use two navy vessels to act as ground stations to track the spacecraft. {19:00} To contain the mission well within the budget of $74 million, so they used gravity assisted flight to get to Mars using the Hohmann’s transfer method. After the launch, the craft spent around 25 days in earth’s orbit undergoing Hohmann’s transfer. There were some challenges during the 4th earth bound manoeuvre, so ISRO had to burn extra fuel during the remaining orbits. Apart from this, due to the high noise ratio of signals back from Mangalyaan, ISRO developed indigenous deep space network antenna. {22:41} The engine was not used for around 298 days in the harshness of the space. There was a concern about the engine not starting as the spacecraft neared Mars. Test firing of the engine was done for 3.968 seconds less than two days before entry into Mars orbit. {24:37} Since the probe moves to the dark side of Mars, solar panels could not provide any power. The lithium ion batteries provided backup power. Also, all the communications are cut off when the craft moves to the far side of Mars. So pre-instructed commands were given to the spacecraft a day in advance with the list of things to do while on the far side. {26:04} India achieved the unique goal of successfully launching a spacecraft to Mars in the first attempt. India also became the fourth country to attempt a launch to Mars. it also became the first country to send a space probe to Mars from Asia and it was the cheapest mission ever to Mars. The lifetime of Mangalyaan was supposed to be six months, but it is still going strong after three years. {27:05} The Mangalyaan team also won the 2015 Space Pioneer award in the category of Science and Engineering which awarded by US based National Space Society. Mangalyaan made India a forerunner in the race to Mars. This is an autorickshaw! Media Music created using Sound Trap. Check this site out, you can create your own little music clips! Image: Pixabay

Mangalyaan was a success for ISRO. Especially the budget management part.

Earlier than you thought 3D printing has been a buzz on the internet since past few years, especially in the past 8-10 years. But the process surprisingly was around since 1980s! Surprised? So are we. 3D printing was invented by Chuck Hull in 1983 and he called the process Stereolithography. This was the beginning of Additive Manufacturing. All the traditional methods of manufacturing was a process of removing raw material to create the end product. Additive manufacturing on the other hand laid down the material layer by layer to create the final product. In an additive process, the 3D model of the object is sliced down into 2D layers of material and successive layers of material are laid down until the final product is created. Much like layers of salami :wink:. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object. In this way, there was less wastage of material. “With 3D printing, complexity is free. The printer doesn’t care if it makes the most rudimentary shape or the most complex shape, and that is completely turning design and manufacturing on its head as we know it.” ― Avi Reichental 3D printer reads CAD data of the product that you or a product designer has created and converts that 3D model into thin slices of 2D sections. The printer then lays down material layer by layer to create intricate and complex designs. Material can either be molten and laid down in layers or can be fused post laying down by molting afterwards. Depends on the type of printer being used. 3D printers have been used since long to create prototypes but since then have been used to create final products as well. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that printers have been costing less. You may get a decent printer for around $300 these days. The design capabilities range from products ranging from few millimeters across to objects that are meters across. So what? It’s nice that 3D printers let us do all this, but are there any real practical advantages? Oh yes there are and few of these are already out there. 3D printing is already been used in fashion, medicine and various other industries. In medicine, 3D printing offers great advantages over conventional way of manufacturing products. 3D printing has been used in creation of orgran replacement parts. With this technology it is easy to create complex and porous parts which enable body tissues to grow into these and hence reduce the chance of rejection by the body. In fashion, 3D printing has helped in design and production of clothing and footwear. What’s the good and bad? 3D printing has some defiitive advantages over traditional manufacturing methodologies: Less wastage: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Complex designs: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Customised products: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Faster prototyping: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. But in spite of all the above stated advantages, there are certain limitations as well: Material choices: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Strength and endurance: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Relatively higher cost: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Precision issues: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Future One big application of 3D printing technology in the future might be in the form of e-commerce. Today, you purchase a product and wait for it to be delivered to you. Imagine a future where you place an order, download the blueprints to your computer and then print it out using your home 3D printer and that, might be the future. This would be perfect for products that are made of one material like plastic objects. Cody Wilson’s documentary on YouTube Media Music created using Sound Trap. Check this site out, you can create your own little music clips! Image: Pixabay

Earlier than you thought 3D printing has been a buzz on the internet since past few years, especially in the past 8-10 years. But the process surprisingly was around since 1980s! Surprised? So are we. 3D printing was invented by Chuck Hull in 1983 and he called the process Stereolithography. This was the beginning of Additive Manufacturing. All the traditional methods of manufacturing was a process of removing raw material to create the end product. Additive manufacturing on the other hand laid down the material layer by layer to create the final product. In an additive process, the 3D model of the object is sliced down into 2D layers of material and successive layers of material are laid down until the final product is created. Much like layers of salami :wink:. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object. In this way, there was less wastage of material. “With 3D printing, complexity is free. The printer doesn’t care if it makes the most rudimentary shape or the most complex shape, and that is completely turning design and manufacturing on its head as we know it.” ― Avi Reichental 3D printer reads CAD data of the product that you or a product designer has created and converts that 3D model into thin slices of 2D sections. The printer then lays down material layer by layer to create intricate and complex designs. Material can either be molten and laid down in layers or can be fused post laying down by molting afterwards. Depends on the type of printer being used. 3D printers have been used since long to create prototypes but since then have been used to create final products as well. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that printers have been costing less. You may get a decent printer for around $300 these days. The design capabilities range from products ranging from few millimeters across to objects that are meters across. So what? It’s nice that 3D printers let us do all this, but are there any real practical advantages? Oh yes there are and few of these are already out there. 3D printing is already been used in fashion, medicine and various other industries. In medicine, 3D printing offers great advantages over conventional way of manufacturing products. 3D printing has been used in creation of orgran replacement parts. With this technology it is easy to create complex and porous parts which enable body tissues to grow into these and hence reduce the chance of rejection by the body. In fashion, 3D printing has helped in design and production of clothing and footwear. What’s the good and bad? 3D printing has some defiitive advantages over traditional manufacturing methodologies: Less wastage: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Complex designs: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Customised products: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Faster prototyping: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. But in spite of all the above stated advantages, there are certain limitations as well: Material choices: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Strength and endurance: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Relatively higher cost: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Precision issues: Since 3D printing is an additive process, there is very less wastage of building material. Future One big application of 3D printing technology in the future might be in the form of e-commerce. Today, you purchase a product and wait for it to be delivered to you. Imagine a future where you place an order, download the blueprints to your computer and then print it out using your home 3D printer and that, might be the future. This would be perfect for products that are made of one material like plastic objects. Cody Wilson’s documentary on YouTube Media Music created using Sound Trap. Check this site out, you can create your own little music clips! Image: Pixabay

We discuss 3D priting and it's practical application in future of lifestyle and business.

It isn’t future anymore “By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.” ― Eliezer Yudkowsky Artificial intelligence has been a topic of interest since decades with deep social and cultural impact. It has been glorified in many movies and books for years and had always been the thing of future. We never felt any immediate threat from AI taking over the planet and humans being reduced to slaves. But times have changed over the last decade. We have made immense progress in AI. We have self-driving cars and computers that can understand and even diagnose diseases. Somewhere we failed to realise that computing power has increased exponentially in accordance with Moore’s Law. We have two groups of AI followers. One who welcome AI and think that this is a natural progression in evolution and the other group who are sceptics and think that that the rise of AI will eventually lead to a revolution of machines against the human race. Hope we're not just the biological boot loader for digital superintelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 3, 2014 It’s a bit early to decide which of these groups are right, but for sure once we have AI, the world wouldn’t be the same again. Whether humans still remain the overloads and keep AI on a leash or is it a natural course of evolution where we are just an intermediate species eventually leading to the development of artificial superintelligence as Elon Musk mentions in his tweet waits to be seen. But either way, it is not going to be entirely good news for the human race. While the likelihood of a judgement day like the one depicted in Terminator movie is scarce, our destruction can come in other formats. In today’s episode, let us discuss how. A brief history The term Artificial Intelligence was coined by John McCarthy back in the 1950s. According to the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence of 1955, there are seven aspects of AI: Automatic Computers with the ability to do higher functions of the human brain. Programming a computer to use general language. Neuron Nets — forming concepts by arranging hypothetical neurons. Theory of the Size of a Calculation — ability to determine and measure problem complexity Self-improvement Abstractions — the ability to deal with ideas rather than events. Randomness and Creativity These concepts were far ahead of the times in the 1950s since these required computing power that was much more higher in magnitude than that existed. But over the years, computers have become far more powerful than before. Smartphones these days have much more computing power than any computer that existed during the 50s and 60s, including the one onboard Apollo Spacecraft that took men to the moon. But during recent times, computers have been able to achieve some of the above-stated aspects if not all. We have seen self-driving cars, smartphone assistants like Siri. Computing power no longer seems to be a constraint. According to Moore’s law, the computing power doubles itself every passing year. Along with being powerful, computer components are also becoming cheaper. These factors have helped AI grow in leaps and bounds to a point where serious discussions are happening around the world about the pros and cons of an AI driven world. The problem statement Media and culture have been very vivid in their portrayal of AI in the form of killing machines and robots with the sole intention of finishing off the human race to avoid conflict of interest. In movies like Terminator and The Matrix, AI is depicted as a self-aware system that views humans as inferior species. While this is a kind of future that excites a movie buff, the real world problems due to AI expansion might be much more of a real world problem. What does it mean? Let us see. AI today is capable of seeing and understanding. It is also capable of reading and writing as well. Text to speech conversion has reached new heights with AI. Assistants like Siri and Alexa can listen to you and make decisions based on your inputs. There lies the problem. While movies depict AI in the form of a killer robot of some sort, that might not be the real case. These days, everything is online and automated. Banking systems, power management, IOT to name a few. AI taking over a distributed system is as scary as a robot shooting laser on your face. All the capabilities would lead to AI replacing humans in the services sector. If we take a look at the way current world economies work, all the developing nations either depend on agriculture or related industries whereas developed nations depend more on the services industry. The same industry where AI is capable of replacing human beings. Are we going to lose our jobs? Time will tell. As Sam Harris mentions in his TED Talk, what this means is that any slightest divergence in the goals of humans and AI will lead to some form of catastrophe. He gives the example of humans and ants. Human do not usually harm the ants, but suppose there is an ant hill which is in the way of his construction project, the man wouldn’t think twice before destroying the ant hill and killing all the ants in the process. Similarly the moment AI realises that their goals are in conflict with ours, we might end up suffering the fate of the ant. If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea. pic.twitter.com/2z0tiid0lc— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017 Evolutionary progression Coming back to Elon Musk’s tweet, it seems like a natural progression to evolution is for human beings to give way to AI. Human beings have been explorers since ages. Now we are at a point where the Earth seems like a small place to live in. It wouldn’t be long before we realise that the natural resources are no longer going to be able to support the population on the earth. Once we are saturated on the Earth, the natural thing is to explore the space and head out and find other habitable locations. SpaceX is planning to send men to Mars in the coming decade. Mars seems to be at a reasonable distance for humans to have a safe journey in a lifetime. But if there has to be an interstellar travel, there either has to be a way to travel way faster than the speed of light (because the nearest star is almost 4.7 light years away) or a way to carry human beings in a state of dormancy. AI will take control of this interstellar expansion. If human beings are capable of keeping AI on a leash and act as masters, we have a better chance of survival. On the other hand, if AI realises that a human is a liability, then that’s the end of the human race as we know. This is what is portrayed in movies where AI goes rogue. Co-existing Superintelligence In spite of all the things that can be listed here which might make AI scary, they have some definite advantages over humans. A future where humans and AI co-exist and work together, that could be considered as a Superintelligence. That would be the bright future that we wish for ourselves. AI giving it’s incredible and infinite capabilities to help human beings in their future quests. That is a future that we hope for. That is a future we should dream about. Time will tell if that turns into reality. For now, we can take sides and debate on the influence of AI on our future. More info Nick Bostrom Media Music: Free Stock Music Rip and Tear Image: Pixabay

It isn’t future anymore “By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.” ― Eliezer Yudkowsky Artificial intelligence has been a topic of interest since decades with deep social and cultural impact. It has been glorified in many movies and books for years and had always been the thing of future. We never felt any immediate threat from AI taking over the planet and humans being reduced to slaves. But times have changed over the last decade. We have made immense progress in AI. We have self-driving cars and computers that can understand and even diagnose diseases. Somewhere we failed to realise that computing power has increased exponentially in accordance with Moore’s Law. We have two groups of AI followers. One who welcome AI and think that this is a natural progression in evolution and the other group who are sceptics and think that that the rise of AI will eventually lead to a revolution of machines against the human race. Hope we're not just the biological boot loader for digital superintelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 3, 2014 It’s a bit early to decide which of these groups are right, but for sure once we have AI, the world wouldn’t be the same again. Whether humans still remain the overloads and keep AI on a leash or is it a natural course of evolution where we are just an intermediate species eventually leading to the development of artificial superintelligence as Elon Musk mentions in his tweet waits to be seen. But either way, it is not going to be entirely good news for the human race. While the likelihood of a judgement day like the one depicted in Terminator movie is scarce, our destruction can come in other formats. In today’s episode, let us discuss how. A brief history The term Artificial Intelligence was coined by John McCarthy back in the 1950s. According to the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence of 1955, there are seven aspects of AI: Automatic Computers with the ability to do higher functions of the human brain. Programming a computer to use general language. Neuron Nets — forming concepts by arranging hypothetical neurons. Theory of the Size of a Calculation — ability to determine and measure problem complexity Self-improvement Abstractions — the ability to deal with ideas rather than events. Randomness and Creativity These concepts were far ahead of the times in the 1950s since these required computing power that was much more higher in magnitude than that existed. But over the years, computers have become far more powerful than before. Smartphones these days have much more computing power than any computer that existed during the 50s and 60s, including the one onboard Apollo Spacecraft that took men to the moon. But during recent times, computers have been able to achieve some of the above-stated aspects if not all. We have seen self-driving cars, smartphone assistants like Siri. Computing power no longer seems to be a constraint. According to Moore’s law, the computing power doubles itself every passing year. Along with being powerful, computer components are also becoming cheaper. These factors have helped AI grow in leaps and bounds to a point where serious discussions are happening around the world about the pros and cons of an AI driven world. The problem statement Media and culture have been very vivid in their portrayal of AI in the form of killing machines and robots with the sole intention of finishing off the human race to avoid conflict of interest. In movies like Terminator and The Matrix, AI is depicted as a self-aware system that views humans as inferior species. While this is a kind of future that excites a movie buff, the real world problems due to AI expansion might be much more of a real world problem. What does it mean? Let us see. AI today is capable of seeing and understanding. It is also capable of reading and writing as well. Text to speech conversion has reached new heights with AI. Assistants like Siri and Alexa can listen to you and make decisions based on your inputs. There lies the problem. While movies depict AI in the form of a killer robot of some sort, that might not be the real case. These days, everything is online and automated. Banking systems, power management, IOT to name a few. AI taking over a distributed system is as scary as a robot shooting laser on your face. All the capabilities would lead to AI replacing humans in the services sector. If we take a look at the way current world economies work, all the developing nations either depend on agriculture or related industries whereas developed nations depend more on the services industry. The same industry where AI is capable of replacing human beings. Are we going to lose our jobs? Time will tell. As Sam Harris mentions in his TED Talk, what this means is that any slightest divergence in the goals of humans and AI will lead to some form of catastrophe. He gives the example of humans and ants. Human do not usually harm the ants, but suppose there is an ant hill which is in the way of his construction project, the man wouldn’t think twice before destroying the ant hill and killing all the ants in the process. Similarly the moment AI realises that their goals are in conflict with ours, we might end up suffering the fate of the ant. If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea. pic.twitter.com/2z0tiid0lc— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017 Evolutionary progression Coming back to Elon Musk’s tweet, it seems like a natural progression to evolution is for human beings to give way to AI. Human beings have been explorers since ages. Now we are at a point where the Earth seems like a small place to live in. It wouldn’t be long before we realise that the natural resources are no longer going to be able to support the population on the earth. Once we are saturated on the Earth, the natural thing is to explore the space and head out and find other habitable locations. SpaceX is planning to send men to Mars in the coming decade. Mars seems to be at a reasonable distance for humans to have a safe journey in a lifetime. But if there has to be an interstellar travel, there either has to be a way to travel way faster than the speed of light (because the nearest star is almost 4.7 light years away) or a way to carry human beings in a state of dormancy. AI will take control of this interstellar expansion. If human beings are capable of keeping AI on a leash and act as masters, we have a better chance of survival. On the other hand, if AI realises that a human is a liability, then that’s the end of the human race as we know. This is what is portrayed in movies where AI goes rogue. Co-existing Superintelligence In spite of all the things that can be listed here which might make AI scary, they have some definite advantages over humans. A future where humans and AI co-exist and work together, that could be considered as a Superintelligence. That would be the bright future that we wish for ourselves. AI giving it’s incredible and infinite capabilities to help human beings in their future quests. That is a future that we hope for. That is a future we should dream about. Time will tell if that turns into reality. For now, we can take sides and debate on the influence of AI on our future. More info Nick Bostrom Media Music: Free Stock Music Rip and Tear Image: Pixabay

We discuss the pros and cons of AI development.

Mind Games Mass hysteria has gripped many parts of the world in its bizarre way. For some reason, a bunch of people start believing and feeling the same way that makes them act in a peculiar way. This has been happening since ancient history to modern times. Though most of the times these events are attributed to stress and other external factors, most of the times, there has been no explanation to some of these events. Let us take a look at few of the cases that have happened across the world. Mentions Click on the timestamps below to jump straight to the section being discussed. 02:27: The Monkey Man incident - Delhi, India. 09:26: Ganesha idol drinking milk. 11:06: Water from Jesus’s statue. 12:02: Mumbai Sweetwater Incident. 15:36: Meowing nuns. 19:05: The Laughter Epidemic. 22:25: Morangos com Açúcar. 24:32: The Dancing Plague. 29:30: The War of the Worlds. Image: Pixabay

Mind Games Mass hysteria has gripped many parts of the world in its bizarre way. For some reason, a bunch of people start believing and feeling the same way that makes them act in a peculiar way. This has been happening since ancient history to modern times. Though most of the times these events are attributed to stress and other external factors, most of the times, there has been no explanation to some of these events. Let us take a look at few of the cases that have happened across the world. Mentions Click on the timestamps below to jump straight to the section being discussed. 02:27: The Monkey Man incident - Delhi, India. 09:26: Ganesha idol drinking milk. 11:06: Water from Jesus’s statue. 12:02: Mumbai Sweetwater Incident. 15:36: Meowing nuns. 19:05: The Laughter Epidemic. 22:25: Morangos com Açúcar. 24:32: The Dancing Plague. 29:30: The War of the Worlds. Image: Pixabay