What happens when two roboticists, one engineer and one holographic doctor are together on a panel?

Actor Robert Picardo, who played The Doctor in Star Trek Voyager. 

We found out Saturday, when when three of our professors were on the same panel at the holographic doctor from Star Trek Voyager, aka actor Robert Picardo. They discussed the future of healthcare robotics and AI. It was all that of "The Future of Medicine," an event hosted by the Clarke Center for Human Imagination, June 2 here on campus. Below is a Twitter thread with some of the event's highlights.

We are at "The Future of Medicine" event hosted by @imagineUCSD with @hiskov @LaurelRiek and @QI_UCSD director Ramesh Rao! @UCSDalumni @UCSanDiego

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

.@RobertPicardo the doctor from #StarTrek #Voyager: On our ship, two things were critical health care: #AI and the #Tricorer. This is what inspired the @Qualcomm #Tricorder #Xprize. #FutureofMedicine #smartsensors @UCSanDiego @UCSDalumni

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

#XPrize #Tricorder winner @BasilLeafTech: the tricorder in #StarTrek existed in 2160s, so we are already ahead of our time. #FutureofMedicine

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

The consumer testing was done @UCSanDiego for @Qualcomm #Tricorder #Xprize#FutureofMedicine@imagineUCSD @UCSDalumni

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

#AI has to earn the trust of patients and medical providers. It is the wave of the future: @BasilLeafTech at #FutureofMedicine event @UCSanDiego@UCSDHealth @UCSDalumni weekend

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

.@BasilLeafTech will conduct more clinical tests @UCSanDiego to improve #tricorder inspired device#FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

Putting something into space is pretty easy. Working with humans is hard, jokes @UCSDHealth #familymedicine chair & #StarTrek fan Gene Kallenberg talking about testing #tricoder Patients were eager to take part. #FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

Anything that can empower patients, providing more information, data, is helpful when they talk to a physician. I see this as tremendously beneficial in the future: @UCSDHealth Dr. Gene Kallenberg #FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

Building the cloud so that #tricorders can talk to medical record system: Dr. @eviirre neurosurgeon & adjunct @UCSDHealth with help with @QI_UCSD's Ramesh Rao and @ucsd_cse #FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

Next up: panel with @QI_UCSD director Ramesh Rao; Contextual #Robotics Institute director @hiskov; and @ucsd_cse professor @LaurelRiek, moderated by @RobertPicardo#FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

From left: computer science professors Henrik Christensen and Laurel Riek.
Christensen is the director of the Contextual Robotics Institute at UC San Diego. 

.@LaurelRiek: 20% of the world’s population has a disability, as people age, they experience changes in their abilities. Most of the burden of long term care fall onto family members. Our goal is to use robots to help to relieve burden of care. #FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

.@LaurelRiek: When she was very small she watched #StarTrekTheNextGeneration and saw Data. She decided she wanted to build robots. 10 years ago decided that she was truly interested in robotics and healthcare, where you can make a difference for billions of people

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

.@LaurelRiek: Robotic patient simulators: every clinician will train of patient simulator at some point. But they don’t have any expressions. We’re trying to design tech to create expressive faces. They can simulate pain, strokes, etc.#FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

Contextual #Robotics director @hiskov: There are all of these places where robotics can empower people to continue being autonomous. Robots will help people have a better quality of life. #FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend #ucsandiegorobotics @imagineUCSD

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

.@hiskov: We need to move away from this focus on screen devices. We need to have people have a more natural interaction with one another and with technology. #FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend #ucsandiegorobotics @imagineUCSD

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

Ramesh Rao, director of the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego, is also a professor
in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

.@QI_UCSD director Rao: #AI needs to be more than just a black box. We need to figure out how the system comes to a decision. #FutureofMedicine @UCSDalumni weekend

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

#StarTrek actor @RobertPicardo "If you’re a SciFi fan, you’re a science fan, you just may not know it."
He sits on executive board of @exploreplanets led by @BillNye#FutureOfMedicine @UCSanDiego @UCSDnews @imagineUCSD

— UCSD Engineering (@UCSDJacobs) June 3, 2018

Hey! Guess who moderated a panel discussion on Future Medicine at UCSD School of Medicine tonight? https://t.co/kKwOF1tuC5

— Robert Picardo (@RobertPicardo) June 3, 2018

Future of medicine and the tricoder challenge. Impressive ideas pic.twitter.com/h0kzpFIvs5

— Henrik I Christensen (@hiskov) June 3, 2018

From the #FutureOfMedicine event tonight. Excellent panel on #robotics in #medicine with @hiskov, @LaurelRiek, and @QI_UCSD director Ramesh Rao and moderated by @RobertPicardo. @imagineUCSD @UCSDJacobs @UCSanDiego @UCSDalumni pic.twitter.com/PXfTSrHYzP

— Caleb Christianson (@omicScale) June 3, 2018

A model of the original tricoder used in the Star Trek series. 

It's about empowering people; it's not about replacing people: The future of robotics

"It's about empowering people. It's not about replacing people."
That's the message that Henrik Christensen, director of the Contextual Robotics Institute at UC San Diego, has been trying to spread about robotics and automation.
He spoke to Per Sjöborg from Robohub in an extensive interview.

Some highlights and predictions from the video:

"Robots are going to be pervasive in our lives going forward." That means researchers will need to figure out how to make it easy for everyone to interact with robots. "I want people who have never used a computer to be able to use this technology."

"One day we'll have robotic beds that will make sure you get adequate sleep."

"By the time I retire, I will have a self-driving car."

"We might have food that has never been touched by humans [only by robots]."

"U Hack" and "Bog Love;" What happens when you train a neural network to write messages for Valentine's Day candy hearts

What happens when you train neural networks to write messages for candy hearts on Valentine's Day:

Here is Shane's original post:
 http://aiweirdness.com/ 
And here are links to the news coverage:
NPR
Popular Science
CNET
Bustle

For more on Shane's previous experiments on neural networks, read our story here:
When artificial intelligence is funny

Need a last-minute Halloween costume idea? This neural network has got you covered!

Need a last-minute costume idea for Halloween? How about a cyborg bat? Or a vampire shark? Or a magic sexy hamburger?
These are all costumes generated by a neural network trained by Jacobs School alumna Janelle Shane. Shane, who earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at UC San Diego in the lab of Professor Shaya Fainman, works with lasers by day. But her hobby is working with neural networks to create funny data sets.
For this project, she crowdsourced 4500 costume ideas from her blog readers and fed them to a neural network.
The network did not disappoint, generating costume suggestions such as vampire Big Bird, celery blue Frankenstein and strawberry shark.
Soon, Shane's readers were getting into the game and drawing the costumes the neural network suggested.
First up, strawberry shark:

And then: Bearley Quinn (courtesy of Twitter user @vonbees):

But Shane's readers weren't done. Soon they started making some of the costume suggestions a reality.
Twitter user Liz Walsh dressed up as the Dragon of Liberty:

Twitter user @HerbLovesTech and his wife dressed up as Professor Panda and Shark Princess:

And Shane? She took her inspiration from an entry in the costume data base. She will be Ruth Vader Ginsburg (that's a mash up of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Star Wars villain Darth Vader):

For more neural-network generated Halloween costumes, read Shane's blog post here. And read this news story by writer Rae Paoletta here and this Popular Mechanics story by writer Sophie Weiner.