Imagine: What happens when you’re in 2027 on the job competing with other AI; and there is so much information exposed to you that you’re unable to scan & capture all of it onto your various devices and personal robot. And, the non-intrusive nanobot for brain enhancement is still years away. Do you finally take a few hundred dollars & get the latest chip implant requiring a tricky surgery for your brain or wait for the nanobot? These are questions that folks will have to assess for themselves; and this could actually streamline/ condition society into a singularity culture. https://lnkd.in/bTVAjhb
A mom pushes a stroller down the sidewalk while Skyping. A family of four sits at the dinner table plugged into their cell phones with the TV blaring in the background. You get through two pages in a book before picking up your laptop and scrolling through a bottomless stream of new content.
Information technology has created a hyper-connected, over-stimulated, distracted and alienated world. We’ve been living long enough with internet-connected computers and other mobile devices to have begun to take it for granted.
But already the next wave is coming, and it promises to be even more immersive.
Epilepsy, a disorder in which nerve cell activity in the brain is disturbed, causing seizures, is the fourth most common neurological problem, following only migraine, stroke and Alzheimer’s. There is no cure for epilepsy, but there are a variety of treatment options. The disease is estimated to affect 2.2 million people in the U.S., with 150,000 people developing the condition each year.
Personalized medicine Scientists at AES discussed how new technologies, such as gene editing using CRISPR-Cas9, and next-generation sequencing, are empowering them to take a new crack at the human genome and find new ways to diagnose and treat epilepsy.
“Recent advances in DNA sequencing and genomic technologies has facilitated a flood of discoveries in identifying genetic causes of epilepsy. Where we’ve been most successful is in the epileptic encephalopathies (EE),” lead author of one of the studies presented, Candace Myers, a senior at the University of Washington, said in a press conference.
Gerd predicts that machines will have the same power of a human brain by 2025.
By the year 2025, machines will have the same power as the human brain and in 2051 they will have the power of the entire global population. Does is sound far-fetched? It is certainly a grand claim, but who better to make these kinds of observations than Gerd Leonhard, Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author and CEO of The Futures Agency.
This was one of the many observations Mr Leonhard spoke to The Malta Independent about ahead of his Keynote Address for The Economist at their ‘The World in 2016 Gala Dinner’ tonight at the Hilton, St Julian’s; where every year they invite experts and innovators from all over the world to share their ‘predictions’ for the coming year.
Mr Gerd Leonhard is a futurist, which means that his main role is to observe and deduce plausible scenarios for the future of an industry, an organization or even a country. He does not call his observations ‘predictions’, but ‘foresight’ which, according to Mr Leonhard, everyone can do but while everyone tends to look at “95% today, while [he looks] at 95% tomorrow.”
Max Tegmark about his and others’ attempts to formulate a mathematical theory of consciousness. I find this very interesting, though I try to not think about it too much… I wrote some words about this here http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2014/05/consciousness-and-physics-from-scratch.html
We may be able to keep our gut in check after all. That’s the tantalizing finding from a new study published today that reveals a way that mice—and potentially humans—can control the makeup and behavior of their gut microbiome. Such a prospect upends the popular notion that the complex ecosystem of germs residing in our guts essentially acts as our puppet master, altering brain biochemistry even as it tends to our immune system, wards off infection and helps us break down our supersized burger and fries.
In a series of elaborate experiments researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital discovered that mouse poop is chock full of tiny, noncoding RNAs called microRNAs from their gastrointestinal (GI) tracts and that these biomolecules appear to shape and regulate the microbiome. “We’ve known about how microbes can influence your health for a few years now and in a way we’ve always suspected it’s a two-way process, but never really pinned it down that well,” says Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, not involved with the new study. “This [new work] explains quite nicely the two-way interaction between microbes and us, and it shows the relationship going the other way—which is fascinating,” says Spector, author of The Diet Myth: Why the Secret to Health and Weight Loss Is Already in Your Gut.
What’s more, human feces share 17 types of microRNAs with the mice, which may portend similar mechanisms in humans, the researchers found. It could also potentially open new treatment approaches involving microRNA transplantations. “Obviously that raises the immediate question: ‘Where do the microRNAs come from and why are they there?,’” says senior author Howard Weiner, a neurologist at both Harvard and Brigham. The work was published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.
Bioengineers and cognitive scientists have developed the first portable, 64-channel wearable brain activity monitoring system that’s comparable to state-of-the-art equipment found in research laboratories.
In the early days of the space race of the 1960s, NASA used satellites to map the geography of the moon. A better understanding of its geology, however, came when men actually walked on the moon, culminating with Astronaut and Geologist Harrison Schmitt exploring the moon’s surface during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
Image credit: Scientific American
In the modern era, Dr. Gregory Hickock is one neuroscientist who believes the field of neuroscience is pursuing comparable advances. While scientists have historically developed a geographic map of the brain’s functional systems, Hickock says computational neuroanatomy is digging deeper into the geology of the brain to help provide an understanding of how the different regions interact computationally to give rise to complex behaviors.
“Computational neuroanatomy is kind of working towards that level of description from the brain map perspective. The typical function maps you see in textbooks are cartoon-like. We’re trying to take those mountain areas and, instead of relating them to labels for functions like language, we’re trying to map them on — and relate them to — stuff that the computational neuroscientists are doing.”
Hickok pointed to a number of advances that have already been made through computational neuroanatomy: mapping visual systems to determine how the visual cortex can code information and perform computations, as well as mapping neurally realistic approximations of circuits that actually mimic motor control, among others. In addition, researchers are building spiking network models, which simulate individual neurons. Scientists use thousands of these neurons in simulations to operate robots in a manner comparable to how the brain might perform the job.
That research is driving more innovation in artificial intelligence, says Gregory. For example, brain-inspired models are being used to develop better AI systems for stores of information or retrieval of information, as well as in automated speech recognition systems. In addition, this sort of work can be used to develop better cochlear implants or other sorts of neural-prostheses, which are just starting to be explored.
“In terms of neural-prostheses that can take advantage of this stuff, if you look at patterns and activity in neurons or regions in cortex, you can decode information from those patterns of activity, (such as) motor plans or acoustic representation,” Hickok said. “So it’s possible now to implant an electrode array in the motor cortex of an individual who is locked in, so to speak, and they can control a robotic arm.”
More specifically, Hickok is interested in applying computational neuroanatomy to speech and language functions. In some cases where patients have lost the ability to produce fluid speech, he states that the cause is the disconnection of still-intact brain areas that are no longer “talking to each other”. Once we understand how these circuits are organized and what they’re doing computationally, Gregory believes we might one day be able to insert electrode arrays and reconnect those brain areas as a form of rehabilitation.
As he looks at the future applications in artificial intelligence, Hickok says he expects continued development in neural-prostheses, such as cochlear implants, artificial retinas, and artificial motor control circuits. The fact that scientists are still trying to simulate how the brain does its computations is one hurdle; the “squishy” nature of brain matter seems to operate differently than the precision developed in digital computers.
Though multiple global brain projects are underway and progress is being made (Wired’s Katie Palmer gives a succinct overview), Gregory emphasizes that we’re still nowhere close to actually re-creating the human mind. “Presumably, this is what evolution has done over millions of years to configure systems that allow us to do lots of different things and that is going to (sic) take a really long time to figure out,” he said. “The number of neurons involved, 80 billion in the current estimate, trillions of connections, lots and lots of moving parts, different strategies for coding different kinds of computations… it’s just ridiculously complex and I don’t see that as something that’s easily going to give up its secrets within the next couple of generations.”
Meet the scientific prophets who claim we are on the verge of creating a new type of human — a human v2.0. At a certain moment in the future computer intelligence will equal the power of the human brain. Some believe this will revolutionise humanity — we would be able to download our minds to computers extending our lives indefinitely. Others fear this will lead to oblivion by giving rise to destructive ultra intelligent machines. One thing they all agree on is that the coming of this moment — and whatever it brings — is inevitable.
Truly a potential bummer for Car-T as a result of the risk in creating immune defiancy disease such as CRS.
A win and loss for marijuana, a big advance in Alzheimer’s disease, and the next big thing are among some of the market-moving things I expect to see happen this year.
As you know, DEF CON 24’s theme is “Rise of the Machines”. To help you get up to speed on some of the ideas that inspired the theme, and get you thinking about the looming conflict between human and machine intelligences, we’re going to post some books, movies, and other media you might want to check out in advance of the con.
This is the first book post — there will …be more. If you have others you think would be worth looking over before the con, share in the comments!
