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Despite whatever scenarios that can be speculated on in our culture’s works of fiction regarding artificial intelligence, the intelligence that emerges from this field of research may very well be utterly alien to what we might expect. It could be beneficent, malevolent, calculatingly cold, or it could even see compassion as the pinnacle of logic. Two recent developments in the field of AI research illustrate two completely diametric paths that a future artificial mind could take.
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Seeing the need to balance the ethics of using animals as a food source and a burgeoning planetary population, researchers have been studying ways to grow animal tissue in the lab, to produce a food source that doesn’t rely on animals for production. This endeavor has seen major advances in recent years, and what might have seemed like science-fiction just a few years ago might very well be grocery store reality within a decade.
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Okay, that’s not exactly what happened, but Google-owned Boston Dynamics has released a new video of the latest incarnation of their Atlas robot, showcasing it’s capabilities for balance, navigating rough terrain, handling objects, and even getting back up after being knocked over. And all of this is accomplished while the robot is untethered.

Slimmed down to a 180-lb, 5’9" — quite svelte compared to it’s previous 6-foot form — the video shows the new Atlas model leaving the office to take a stroll through the snowy woods, using LiDAR and stereo cameras to "avoid obstacles, assess the terrain, help with navigation and manipulate objects".
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In a controversial move, Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) regulatory body has approved a research application for a London-based laboratory to carry out gene-editing experiments on human embryos. While the proposed experiments are aimed at researching fertility issues, critics of the issue say that this could open the door to creating designer babies.
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