Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: human trajectories

by J.M.P. — The Economist

A GROUP of self-described anarchists, libertarians and Ron Paul supporters fleeing the crumbling world economic system have founded Galt’s Gulch, a community in Chile inspired by Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”—and with an economy based entirely on Bitcoin. Or that’s the goal, anyway.

“Our farm workers and suppliers still want to get paid in pesos,” Ken Johnson, the project’s founder and managing partner, explains. “But Bitcoin as the John Galt coin? Why shouldn’t it be?”

If the world economic system “goes sideways,” as Mr Johnson puts it, residents will retreat to their self-sufficient gated community, where they will enjoy a shooting range, equestrian facilities, and spa and fitness center. The 6,874-hectare site (pictured) also includes a 100-hectare farm, although it is not clear who will pick the lettuce when the world ends.

Read more

By — Computerworld

Computerworld - Approximately 18 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant. But that may change someday sooner than you think — thanks to 3D printing.

Advances in the 3D printing of human tissue have moved fast enough that San Diego-based bio-printing company Organovo now expects to unveil the world’s first printed organ — a human liver — next year.Liver tissue

Like other forms of 3D printing, bio-printing lays down layer after layer of material — in this case, live cells — to form a solid physical entity — in this case, human tissue. The major stumbling block in creating tissue continues to be manufacturing the vascular system needed to provide it with life-sustaining oxygen and nutrients.

Read more

Visionary; Philosopher; Author of bestselling novel ‘The Transhumanist Wager’

For a few billion people around the world, Christmas is the most important and relished holiday of the year. It’s the day with the most gift-giving, the most family get-togethers, the most religious activities, and the most colorful fairy tales that children and adults almost universally embrace with sacred fervor. For many nations, no other day comes close to being as special. For this reason, it seems almost unimaginable that another day — especially an unknown one looming on the horizon — will soon unseat Christmas as the most important day in the world. Nonetheless, for humanity, the course is set. The birth of an artificial intelligence equal or greater than that of human intelligence is coming. It’s called AI Day. And once it arrives, it will rapidly usher in a new age.

For decades, the concept of a man-made intelligence matching or surpassing our own — technically called AGI (artificial general intelligence) or Strong AI — has been steeped in science fiction. Upon hearing the term AI, many people immediately think of the sentient computer HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece film 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, what most people fail to grasp is that once AI becomes self-aware and joins with the internet, it could grow its intelligence thousands of times in just mere days, perhaps hours. Frankly, it could quickly surpass all measurements of intelligence that humans are even capable of monitoring and recognizing.

“I think that Ray Kurzweil’s estimate that we will achieve human-level Artificial General Intelligence by around 2029 is a reasonable guesstimate,” says Dr. Ben Goertzel.

Read more

By — Slate

Tricia Helfer, center, as humanoid Cylon model Number Six in Battlestar Galactica.

Ten years ago this month, a reimagined version of the ’70s science fiction series Battlestar Galactica began as a three-hour miniseries on the Sci-Fi Channel. (This was before the “Syfy” nonsense.) The critically acclaimed show ended up running for four seasons. Many articles and books have already been written about the enduring relevance of Battlestar Galactica’s religious and political themes—at least one of which, the dilemmas associated with a secretive national security state, is just as timely today as it was during the Bush administration.

But another key element of the show—the long-term societal risks associated with the development of intelligent machines—is even more relevant today than it was in 2003.

Read More

By: Eray Ozkural - h+

Computing-efficency

During writing a paper for the 100 Year Starship Symposium, I wished to convince the starship designers that they should acknowledge the dynamics of high-technology economy, which may be crucial for interstellar missions. Thus motivated, I have made a new calculation regarding infinity point, also known as the singularity. According to this most recent revision of the theory of infinity point, it turns out that we should expect Infinity Point by 2035 in the worst case. Here is how and why.

Read more

Mary (Missy) Cummings is Associate Professor at Duke University and Director of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Humans and Automation Laboratory.

In just the past two years, it seems as if drones are everywhere in the news. This technology has been around for more than 60 years, but has only recently captured both national and international attention. This is primarily because of the increasing use in the military, but also because of concerns that such technology will be turned on a country’s own citizens.

The average person thinks of a drone as a flying spy camera, loitering overhead waiting to spot a target and then possibly launching a weapon when that target is labeled as a threat. To be sure, this is indeed one mission of drones, typically of organizations like the CIA.

However, this is by far the least common mission. The vast majority of military drone missions today are data and image collection. Their ability to provide “situational awareness” to decision makers on the ground is unparalleled in military operations since drones can essentially conduct perch and stare missions nearly endlessly.

In post-apocalyptic North America, the Capitol composed of the elite and the rich, controls 12 Districts of Panem. Every year, two representatives from each district are chosen, one boy and one girl, to compete for food supply, thrown in the arena created by the Capitol to fight. Only can be the winner. They called it – Hunger GamesThe Future Predictive Scenario – The Hunger Games.

Based on Suzanne Collins’ trilogy novel, “The Hunger Games” has created immense popularity among movie and novel enthusiasts. But for some, it has drawn fears and futuristic theories. They fear that Hunger Games can be our future predictive scenario. Who wouldn’t blink at an idea like this?

World hunger, in its basic definition, is the want and scarcity of food aggregated to the world level. Evidently, a disparity between human and food resources can cause unparalleled precondition – hunger revolution. Now, with a place ravaged by war, greed, statuses, and human right abuses, ask yourselves, “Are you the next Katniss and Peeta? Or are you part of the Capitol using food hoarding and killing as form of entertainment?”

Read more

Reuven Cohen,

It’s that time of the year again. You know, that time of year when technologists, pundits and bloggers get into the festive spirit and share technology predictions for the coming year. Being partially curious and possibly not wanting to be left out of the fun, I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring with my own set of prognoses. In terms of timeframe, whether it’s 2014 or 2050 is another story. Alas, this is a story about intersecting trends, asking the simple yet infinitely complex question of where is technology taking us?

The famous computer scientist Alan Kay can best sum up my opinion on technology predictions in his famous 1971 quote; “Don’t worry about what anybody else is going to do… The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn’t violate too many of Newton’s Laws!”

Read more

by Jeremiah Budin

Bitcoin is a somewhat mysterious, fairly confusing type of digital currency that, until recently, you could use to buy large amount of drugs on the internet. But now you can use Bitcoin for something (arguably) even better than drugs: New York City real estate. A tipster recently sent along a listing for a $2,580/month one-bedroom sublet in 99 John Deco Lofts, accepting Bitcoin, which hit the market last month. And today, online apartment search marketplace RentHop announced in a press release that it will be accepting Bitcoin from people advertising NYC apartments on its site.

Read more