Posted in aging, biotech/medical, business, cryonics, cryptocurrencies, economics, finance, geopolitics, governance, government, health, transhumanism | Leave a Comment on Johannon Ben-Zion, U.S. Transhumanist Party presidential candidate 2020 — Futurist New Deal — ideaXme — Ira Pastor
The competition between the United States and China on artificial intelligence is heating up recently. In the coming AI Race, can India with an abundance of engineering talent really catch up with the US and China?
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, and The Internet of Things (IoT) are one of the rapidly advancing technological developments. The rate of progress in the field of these is amazingly rapid. From SIRI to self-driving cars, artificial intelligence is changing our daily life in many ways.
India is on course to become the third-largest economy in the world (by GDP) within the next few years according to MIT Technology Review. Indian government released a report on artificial intelligence in 2018 that calls for the country to boost investment and focus on deploying the technology in manufacturing, health care, agriculture, education, and public utilities. Currently, around 400 new companies in India have put resources into work including artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Are humans born with “intelligence” genes, or is human intelligence determined by environmental factors, such as economic status or easy access to education?
When a team of researchers set out to answer this question, they discovered that more than 500 genes were associated with intelligence. The results, published in Nature Genetics, indicate that intelligence is much more complex than previously thought.
Intelligence, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is the ability to learn new information and apply it to different situations. Despite this simple definition, many elements of intelligence are difficult to nail down.
IBM HR Director Diane Gherson says that over the next three years, 120 million workers will need retraining as artificial intelligence continues to take jobs.
Artificial intelligence is obviously ready to get started. Over the next three years, about 120 million workers from the 12 largest economies in the world may need to undergo retraining due to advances in artificial intelligence and intelligent automation, according to a study published on Friday by the IBM Institute of Business Value. However, less than half of the CEOs surveyed by IBM said they had the resources needed to bridge the skills gap caused by these new technologies.
Concerns about how AI successes will affect work are not new. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said last month that AI could make many jobs “pointless”. In one report earlier this year, it was discovered that robots could replace people with a quarter of US jobs by 2030.
This aptly named startup is eyeing extraterrestrial outsourcing.
Made in Space has plans to produce ZBLAN wire on the International Space Station and have it shipped back to Earth for humans to use, reports Wired.
Both Made in Space CEO Andrew Rush and NASA (currently the company’s primary investor and customer) hope this could be the start of the “low-Earth orbit economy,” per Wired.
The essence of the issue is property rights, which now extend to rights over individuals’ personal data. Traditionally, property rights referred to control of tangible assets, such as gold or oil, or control of intangible assets like patents and copyrights. In the digital era, technology can create huge amounts of intangible assets from individuals’ data without their knowledge. How the data is used could bring not only great benefits but also, potentially, great harm. This raises a crucial question: who has the right to control over these new assets?
Recognising and protecting property rights to each individual’s data or all individuals’ data is vital to determining the fate of the new economy.
When talking about the economics of Tesla’s future fleet of robotaxis at the Tesla Autonomy Event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk emphasized that the vehicles need to be durable in order for the economics to work:
“The cars currently built are all designed for a million miles of operation. The drive unit is design, tested, and validated for 1 million miles of operation.”
But the CEO admitted that the battery packs are not built to last 1 million miles.
Posted in aging, bioengineering, biotech/medical, cryonics, DNA, economics, futurism, genetics, health, life extension | Leave a Comment on James Strole — Director of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension / Producer of RAADfest — ideaXme Show — Ira Pastor
Owning one full bitcoin is becoming a recognized attainment goal. And thereby hangs a tale.
Is it just a numbers game? Isn’t the unit a bit arbitrary and meaningless?…
The logistics and the math are compelling. I recognized the importance of reaching this personal milestone more than 8 years ago. But I was a nobody. No one cared. Then, in April 2019, we started to see articles in legitimate venues about this concept—and articulated in exactly this way. I borrowed the title of this post from this article in Medium.
Who Says So?
In the Before Time, the drum beat came from me, Charlie Shrem and Andreas Antonopoulos. In the Middle Age, Tim Draper, Craig Wright and the Winklevoss twins contributed to the siren call. But in the Modern Era (the past few days), it has become a mainstream mantra. Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, added his voice to the idea that owning one full Bitcoin is not just an exercise in numerology.
“For better or worse, I do think owning one whole Bitcoin will increasingly become a big deal. Only 21M will ever be produced. Some people already own much more than one.”
—Brian Armstrong, Aug 25 2019
“If you own 1 BTC, you are mathematically guaranteed to be top 3/1000 richest in the world, in BTC terms. (21m / 7B).”
—Changpeng Zhao, Aug 25 2019
“If you own 0.28 BTC and HODL, you can be certain no more than 1% of the current world’s population can EVER own more BTC than you. A modest investment of $1,830 today can ensure you are a 1%er in a future Bitcoin world.”
—Steve Lee, Aug 25
In a March editorial, Xapo CEO, Wences Casares advised investment fund managers: “Most portfolios should allocate up to 1% to Bitcoin”. He also said:
“If Bitcoin succeeds, 1 Bitcoin may be worth more than $1 million in 7 to 10 years.”
— Wences Casares, CEO of Xapo; PayPal Board of Directors
Despite getting religion early on, I have mixed feelings about this. The investor mindset— HODL, flipping and converting to Fiat—is the biggest threat to adoption, ubiquity, fluidity and utility. Currently, 98% of all transactions are driven by people buying or selling bitcoin, rather than using bitcoin to buy lettuce, a new SUV or a family vacation. That’s the problem. Bitcoin will fail to gain mainstream appeal and adoption until the fraction of transactions driven by purchase & sale, salary, debt payment, real-estate and buying groceries dwarfs the fraction driven by traders or conversion into and from Fiat.
Yet, it is impossible to resist the lure of a deflationary commodity during the early adoption era. The supply cap and adoption math clearly points to a rising unit value. What is the point in having the capacity and foresight to recognize a new technology or a radically transformative paradigm if you cannot treat it as an investment asset, while waiting for adoption?
I don’t know how we will push through the chicken-and-egg problem of volatility–utility–adoption–ubiquity. But I am confident that Bitcoin will ultimately reign supreme—not just as a payment instrument—but as a store of value and a leading international currency.
For now, this opinion is still in the minority. Otherwise a commodity with only 18 million units in circulation would have a far higher value than the current exchange rate. It is from this certainty and disparity that opportunity arises.
For those that don’t quite get Bitcoin, owning one full bitcoin seems like an arbitrary goal to achieve. After all, it is a useless token that can be imitated by other—better—cryptos. To these folks, Bitcoin is a fad, a fools gold, or an outright scam.
What they don’t get is the legitimate, organic, two-sided network that buttresses bitcoin and no other currency. A new-age intrinsic value that surpasses the utility & scarcity of gold, but with benefits that outstrip gold and fiat. The inherent value and the pillars that support value are unlikely to be eroded or transferred, even during periods of technical crisis, hacking or regulatory hysteria.
If something better than Bitcoin comes along, two things will happen to ensure supremacy:
So, should you buy into the hype? Should you accumulate one full bitcoin while you still can? At the risk of obnoxious immodesty, here is one more quote. Add it to the list at the top of this article. Then, decide for yourself!
“The handwriting is on the wall. Popular adoption is a work in progress. But it is, nevertheless, fait accompli. This handwriting is indelible.”
—Phil Raymond, Lifeboat.com
Related:
Philip Raymond co-chairs CRYPSA, hosts the Bitcoin Event and is keynote speaker at Cryptocurrency Conferences. He is a top writer at Quora.
Purdue University will support public and private research partnerships at the nation’s first digitally operated nuclear reactor, the school said in a Tuesday press release. Scientists and engineers will look to answer the question of how reliable and resilient an all-digital nuclear reactor, named Purdue University Reactor Number One (PUR-1), can be.
“As the United States and the world continue to implement digital technology, that introduces both strengths and vulnerabilities that need to be explored and understood because our economy relies on the resiliency of these systems,” Clive Townsend, supervisor for the reactor, said in a statement.
Before PUR-1 was converted to digital technology, all US reactors worked using analog technology like vacuum tubes and hand-soldered wires, Townsend said in the release. Purdue’s facility will be the US’ first cyber-nuclear testbed for researchers and corporate partners. It’s licensed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which ensures safe use of radioactive materials.
