Valleys and Troughs

MIT to rework robot apocalypse from the ground up.

We can't stress enough how frustrated we are that the future is taking so long to get here. So we tend to applaud the efforts of pretty much anyone working to realize the visions we were promised in our youth, which have largely existed only fictionally to date. And yet we are not without scruple; we understand that certain pursuits are almost destined to bring about our own destruction. Turns out MIT, which heads the Mind Machine Project, has no such reservations:

After 50 years and countless dead ends, incremental progress, and modest breakthroughs, artificial intelligence researchers are asking for a do-over. The $5 million Mind Machine Project (MMP), a patchwork team of two dozen academics, students and researchers, intends to go back to the discipline's beginnings, rebuilding the field from the ground up. With 20/20 hindsight, a few generations worth of experience, and better, faster technology, this time researchers in AI -- an ambiguous field to begin with -- plan to get things right.

They plan to get things right. Awesome. Sounds bulletproof to us. We can't manufacture a printer that consistently just works and these clowns are giving themselves five years to build a robot that can read children's books. What could possibly go wrong? At least President Obama, for one, is prepared to do what is necessary. Man, we love that guy.

TROUGH

via popsci

Obama will save us from the machines.

Introducing his "Educate to Innovate" science-based campaign - yes, science, of all the malarkey - President Obama displays a bit of levity (and perhaps also foresight) in his tongue-in-cheek pledge to keep an eye on the rise of the machines. "We live in a world of unprecedented perils, but also unparalleled potential," the president notes. If that coupled with the quote above doesn't sound like the too-often ignored words of warning that predate armageddon-type-scenarios where weird Japanese vacuum robots start strangling people in their sleep and we all have to live in bombed-out medieval castles murdering each other over the grisly contents of unmarked cans of food, we certainly don't know what does. The video below contains his speech in full, should you care to watch it - and say what you will about Obama, the man can run a room.

VALLEY

via gizmodo

NFL, Obama team up... for the children.

We here are unabashed sports fans, and we are also unabashed admirers - though admiration, when we think about it, is nowhere near strong enough a word - of Barack Obama. This video, brought to our attention by a dear friend, combines the two in a way that somehow elevates both. Note the effortless grace with which Obama (we didn't expect to see him, either) shovels the ball, illegal forward pass notwithstanding, and also check out the look of unadulterated joy on Troy Polamalu's face. Barack Obama could do this all day long.

VALLEY