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From the Roomba to “The Terminator” and everything else in between, artificial intelligence is part of our modern world. Is it something to be embraced or should we be concerned about our growing reliance on AI?

Everyone and their brother and sister binge-watched the HBO television series, “Westworld” last year. And the year before that it was the British show “Humans.” While these fantasy worlds, in which robots gain consciousness, have captured our imaginations, we aren’t quite there yet in our own world. It is true that movies, books, and television shows have long visualized the arrival of artificial intelligence, but most of us are content with watching cats ride robot vacuum cleaners on YouTube.

But should we be concerned about the further development of artificial intelligence? Some are paying close attention. A new project spearheaded by Elon Musk, the Tesla creator and Sam Altman, founder of the startup incubator Y combinator, is laying the groundwork for thinking about artificial intelligence in a more thoughtful way.

OpenAI Taking a Closer Look at Artificial Intelligence

Founded in late 2015, OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company with the mission to “build safe AI, and ensure AI’s benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible.” It’s a research company without the constraints of shareholders with a goal of making sure that the artificial intelligence that we create doesn’t drive the human race to extinction. So, not only are the rest of us fascinated by (or concerned with) robots taking over the world, but so are the very people who are designing the robots we are utilizing in our work and play.

And lest you think OpenAI is some kind of vanity project of very two wealthy and paranoid techies, there has already been more than one billion dollars pledged to the project from Peter Theil of Paypal, Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn, and from Amazon Web Services, among others.

The work of the OpenAI project is really only in its infancy. The first release from the project was a beta version of the OpenAI Gym toolkit back in April 2016. The OpenAI Gym is a bundled software release that was built to help move the work of the project along and in keeping true to the openness of the project, it was released publicly. The latest release is called Universe and is another tool designed to help developers create a better framework for understanding artificial intelligence.

Intrigued? While you are waiting for season two of “Westworld,” head on over to the OpenAI Blog to read more about the ideas behind and the latest news about this compelling project.

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If you’ve ever wondered just what kind of carbon footprint you’re putting down as you go about your everyday business, here’s a free gadget that can help you figure it out. ECOBOT is a tiny Adobe Air application that installs on your computer (Windows, Mac, and Linux), and analyzes the amount of power, fuel, and paper – yes, paper – you use daily. Once you’re in the know, you’ll be able to figure out where you need to cut back.

This tiny app can’t be beat when it comes to tracking fuel consumption. If you install it on a laptop and input information on the various wireless networks you use regularly (home, work, coffee shop), ECOBOT will automatically calculate the distance when you switch from one network to another. The app prompts you to enter the method of travel and adds that distance to your trip history so it can report back on how much fuel you’re using. Suddenly, that weekly drive across town to that little bistro with WiFi might not look so appealing. If you don’t have a laptop, you can still enter your car travel data manually.

ECOBOT also automatically figures out how much power your computer is using, and spits out data whenever you need it. If you provide additional information about other power sources you use regularly like video games systems, TVs, fans, and vacuum cleaners, you’ll get an even more accurate picture of your power consumption.

Even though we’re trending toward a paperless society, we still use a lot of the paper in our daily lives. ECOBOT automatically keeps an eye on how much your printing from your computer, and tracks other paper products if you like. Just log in all the newspapers, magazines and other paper-based products you buy for a clearer picture of just how much of the stuff you’re using.

ECOBOT won’t make suggestions on where or how to cut back on fuel, power, or paper consumption, but it does go a long way toward helping you gauge what effect your attempts to keep their usage under control are having. Sometimes “going green” feels like a moving target – it’s hard to monitor the effects of small changes. ECOBOT is a neat way to see how our choices make a difference.

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