New hydrogen-additive fuel technology could slash emissions by up to 80 per cent and save you fuel

A killer robot from the 2014 remake of Robocop. The open letter read: ‘lethal autonomous weapons will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend.’ Photograph: Allstar/Studio Canal/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Open letter signed by Tesla chief and Google’s Mustafa Suleyman urges UN to block use of lethal autonomous weapons to prevent third age of war

Some of the world’s leading robotics and artificial intelligence pioneers are calling on the United Nations to ban the development and use of killer robots.
Tesla’s Elon Musk and Google’s Mustafa Suleyman are leading a group of 116 specialists from across 26 countries who are calling for the ban on autonomous weapons.
The UN recently voted to begin formal discussions on such weapons which include drones, tanks and automated machine guns. Ahead of this, the group of founders of AI and robotics companies have sent an open letter to the UN calling for it to prevent the arms race that is currently under way for killer robots.
In their letter, the founders warn the review conference of the convention on conventional weapons that this arms race threatens to usher in the “third revolution in warfare” after gunpowder and nuclear arms.
The founders wrote: “Once developed, lethal autonomous weapons will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend. These can be weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways.
“We do not have long to act. Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close.”

Experts have previously warned that AI technology has reached a point where the deployment of autonomous weapons is feasible within years, rather than decades. While AI can be used to make the battlefield a safer place for military personnel, experts fear that offensive weapons that operate on their own would lower the threshold of going to battle and result in greater loss of human life.
The letter, launching at the opening of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Melbourne on Monday, has the backing of high-profile figures in the robotics field and strongly stresses the need for urgent action, after the UN was forced to delay a meeting that was due to start Monday to review the issue.

The founders call for “morally wrong” lethal autonomous weapons systems to be added to the list of weapons banned under the UN’s convention on certain conventional weapons (CCW) brought into force in 1983, which includes chemical and intentionally blinding laser weapons.
Toby Walsh, Scientia professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said: “Nearly every technology can be used for good and bad, and artificial intelligence is no different. It can help tackle many of the pressing problems facing society today: inequality and poverty, the challenges posed by climate change and the ongoing global financial crisis.
“However, the same technology can also be used in autonomous weapons to industrialise war. We need to make decisions today choosing which of these futures we want.”
Musk, one of the signatories of the open letter, has repeatedly warned for the need for pro-active regulation of AI, calling it humanity’s biggest existential threat, but while AI’s destructive potential is considered by some to be vast it is also thought be distant.
Ryan Gariepy, the founder of Clearpath Robotics said: “Unlike other potential manifestations of AI which still remain in the realm of science fiction, autonomous weapons systems are on the cusp of development right now and have a very real potential to cause significant harm to innocent people along with global instability.”
This is not the first time the IJCAI, one of the world’s leading AI conferences, has been used as a platform to discuss lethal autonomous weapons systems. Two years ago the conference was used to launch an open letter signed by thousands of AI and robotics researchers including Musk and Stephen Hawking similarly calling for a ban, which helped push the UN into formal talks on the technologies.
The UK government opposed such a ban on lethal autonomous weapons in 2015, with the Foreign Office stating that “international humanitarian law already provides sufficient regulation for this area”. It said that the UK was not developing lethal autonomous weapons and that all weapons employed by UK armed forces would be “under human oversight and control”.

Science fiction or science fact?

While the suggestion of killer robots conjures images from science fiction such as the Terminator’s T-800 or Robocop’s ED-209, lethal autonomous weapons are already in use. Samsung’s SGR-A1 sentry gun, which is reportedly technically capable of firing autonomously but is disputed whether it is deployed as such, is in use along the South Korean border of the 2.5m-wide Korean Demilitarized Zone.
The fixed-place sentry gun, developed on behalf of the South Korean government, was the first of its kind with an autonomous system capable of performing surveillance, voice-recognition, tracking and firing with mounted machine gun or grenade launcher. But it is not the only autonomous weapon system in development, with prototypes available for land, air and sea combat.
The UK’s Taranis drone, in development by BAE Systems, is intended to be capable of carrying air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance intercontinentally and incorporating full autonomy. The unmanned combat aerial vehicle, about the size of a BAE Hawk, the plane used by the Red Arrows, had its first test flight in 2013 and is expected to be operational some time after 2030 as part of the Royal Air Force’s Future Offensive Air System, destined to replace the human-piloted Tornado GR4 warplanes.
Russia, the US and other countries are currently developing robotic tanks that can either be remote controlled or operate autonomously. These projects range from autonomous versions of the Russian Uran-9 unmanned combat ground vehicle, to conventional tanks retrofitted with autonomous systems.
The US’s autonomous warship, the Sea Hunter built by Vigor Industrial, was launched in 2016 and, while still in development, is intended to have offensive capabilities including anti-submarine ordnance. Under the surface, Boeing’s autonomous submarine systems built on the Echo Voyager platform are also being considered for long-range deep-sea military use.

‘Warning, this may cause motion sickness or seizures’

[Warning, this may cause motion sickness or seizures] This is a test run of our electric sled that would transport cars at 125 mph (200 km/h) through the tunnels, automatically switching from one tunnel to the next. Would mean Westwood to LAX in 5 mins.

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on May 12, 2017 at 5:48am PDT

This video shows the first in what Musk proposes to be a citywide network of underground tunnels through which cars, secured to electric sleds, would travel at speeds of up to 125 mph. Sounds fun, right? Watch that video again and tell me how ready you are to be the first to have your face peeled off in one of Musk’s tunnels. The first concept video he released a few weeks ago was a doozy, too.

“FULL LENGTH OF FIRST TUNNEL WILL RUN FROM LAX TO CULVER CITY, SANTA MONICA, WESTWOOD, AND SHERMAN OAKS.”

 More importantly, in another Instagram post, Musk revealed the first route for The Boring Company. “Full length of first tunnel will run from LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood, and Sherman Oaks,” he wrote. “Future tunnels will cover all of greater LA.” Musk promises trips between Westwood and LAX, a trip that can take up to 30 to 45 minutes to normal LA traffic, would be a speedy five minutes via his tunnel.
This video shows off the very front of Musk’s tunnel-boring machine, known as the cutterhead. Musk has said he’s working on tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) than can simultaneously dig up and reinforce tunnels, which could go a long way toward reducing costs and solving a big engineering challenge. “Planning to jack this up to a factor of ten or more,” Musk writes in the caption. Not quite sure what that means, but it sounds pretty badass. Jack away, Mr. Musk

Entry hole, staging area and starting tunnel for Boring Machine 1 (aka Godot) now complete

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on May 12, 2017 at 5:25am PDT

First tunnel for The Boring Company begins ... Full length of first tunnel will run from LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood and Sherman Oaks. Future tunnels will cover all of greater LA.

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on May 12, 2017 at 5:31am PDT

Boring machine segments have been lowered into the starter tunnel. Going through final assembly. Will be a few hundred feet long when complete.

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on May 12, 2017 at 5:39am PDT

The remaining image and videos show off the entry to Musk’s starter tunnel, the inside of the tunnel, and The Boring Company’s first TBM, aka Godot. (Yes, he named it after a play about existential doubt and procrastination. Lest we forget, this is the same guy who tried — and failed — to have the first four models of his electric cars spell S-E-X-Y.)

Musk says the TBM will end up being 100 feet long after its final assembly is complete. Once that happens, Godot will be pitted in a race against Gary, Musk’s pet snail who lives in a pineapple. You know, like Spongebob? I can’t believe I just had to type those words, but here we are.

The race between Gary, our pet snail who lives in a pineapple, and Godot, our tunnel boring machine, begins soon!

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on May 12, 2017 at 5:43am PDT

Siri and its rivals will be almost indistinguishable from the friends and family you talk to via your phone, and if you've seen the movie Her then you know how that might turn out. It may sound scary but it should be hugely useful.
The whole concept of the phone might go away as we use small microphones and earpieces to communicate with the cloud instead, though there's still likely to be a screen of some kind, even if it is an optional, foldable one - otherwise how else are you going to battle through the Star Wars Episode XVIII spin-off game?

The new Adidas Futurecraft shoe is displayed in New York City, New York, U.S. April 6, 2017. SCI-VERSE/Abraham Junior

Adidas launched a new sneaker on Friday with a 3D-printed sole that it plans to mass-produce next year, part of a broader push by the German sportswear firm to react faster to changing fashions and create more customized products.

Adidas already lets people customize the color and pattern of shoes ordered online but new 3D printing methods will make small production runs, limited edition shoes and even soles designed to fit an individual's weight and gait economical.


The new version is better suited for mass production – Adidas plans on selling 5,000 pairs this upcoming fall, which will scale up to more than 100,000 pairs by the end of 2018. While the company hasn’t announced the price, expect the first run to still be priced as a limited edition shoe. The first 3D runners retailed for $333, but sold secondhand for many times that.


Rivals Nike, Under Armour and New Balance have also been experimenting with 3D printing but have so far only used the technique to make prototypes, soles tailored for sponsored athletes and a handful of high-priced novelty shoes.
That's because traditional 3D printers are slower, more expensive and often create an inferior product than the injection moulds for plastic that are currently used to produce hundreds of millions of shoes each year, mostly in Asia.


The Silicon Valley company that created the method, Carbon, say it’s faster and more adaptable than traditional additive printing, and can make mass-production 3D printing a reality. Carbon is financed by funds set up by Google and General Electric, and say its methods allow for companies to go from design to product faster than ever. They also claim the final materials are more robust and flexible than traditional injection moulded plastics.