Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Although this article is over 5 days old plus talks about the risks identified by TechInsurance company; it does highlight the potential new wave of lawsuits in the years to come that we could see flood the law offices and courts around AI. Also, it will be interested to see over the next 5 years how laws, reg. compliance, etc. will evolve with the deployment of AI.

Technology insurance provider reminds IT businesses that technical glitches and customer behavior are significant sources of risk.

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EPFL scientists propose a new way of understanding of how the brain processes unconscious information into our consciousness. According to the model, consciousness arises only in time intervals of up to 400 milliseconds, with gaps of unconsciousness in between.

The driver ahead suddenly stops, and you find yourself stomping on your breaks before you even realize what is going on. We would call this a reflex, but the underlying reality is much more complex, forming a debate that goes back centuries: Is consciousness a constant, uninterrupted stream or a series of discrete bits — like the 24 frames-per-second of a movie reel? Scientists from EPFL and the universities of Ulm and Zurich, now put forward a new model of how the brain processes unconscious information, suggesting that consciousness arises only in intervals up to 400 milliseconds, with no consciousness in between. The work is published in PLOS Biology.

Continuous or discrete?

Consciousness seems to work as continuous stream: one image or sound or smell or touch smoothly follows the other, providing us with a continuous image of the world around us. As far as we are concerned, it seems that sensory information is continuously translated into conscious perception: we see objects move smoothly, we hear sounds continuously, and we smell and feel without interruption. However, another school of thought argues that our brain collects sensory information only at discrete time-points, like a camera taking snapshots. Even though there is a growing body of evidence against “continuous” consciousness, it also looks like that the “discrete” theory of snapshots is too simple to be true.

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The human brain was initially used for basic survival tasks, such as staying safe and hunting and gathering. Yet, 200,000 years later, the same human brain is able to learn abstract concepts, like momentum, energy and gravity, which have only been formally defined in the last few centuries.

New research from Carnegie Mellon University has now uncovered how the brain is able to acquire brand new types of ideas. Published in Psychological Science, scientists Robert Mason and Marcel Just used neural-decoding techniques developed at CMU to identify specific physics concepts that advanced students recalled when prompted. The brain activation patterns while thinking about the physics concepts indicated that all of the students’ brains used the ancient brain systems the same way, and the patterns revealed how the new knowledge was formed — by repurposing existing neural systems.

The findings could be used to improve science instruction.

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Research scientists at INM have combined the benefits of organic and inorganic electronic materials in a new type of hybrid inks. This allows electronic circuits to be applied to paper directly from a pen, for example.

The electronics of the future will be printed. Flexible circuits can be produced inexpensively on foil or paper using printing processes and permit futuristic designs with curved diodes or input elements. This requires printable electronic materials that can be printed and retain a high level of conductivity during usage in spite of their curved surfaces. Some tried and tested materials include organic, conductive polymers and nanoparticles made of conductive oxides (TCOs). Research scientists at INM – Leibniz-Institute for New Materials have now combined the benefits of organic and inorganic electronic materials in a new type of hybrid inks. This allows electronic circuits to be applied to paper directly from a pen, for example.

hybrid inks permit printed, flexible electronics without sintering

New hybrid inks permit printed, flexible electronics without sintering. (Image: INM)

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Airforce is looking for a few good men and women for their MQ-9 program.

WASHINGTON (AFNS) —
The Air Force released basing criteria April 12 that will be used to select candidate bases for a potential new MQ-9 Reaper wing with units at up to two locations.

The Air Force is pursuing additional locations to help diversify assignment opportunities for personnel within the MQ-9 enterprise, provide increased opportunities for leadership from within the community, and provide flexibility to enhance integration with other organizations and capabilities.

The desire for additional locations for an MQ-9 wing was identified during surveys of officers and enlisted Airmen in the MQ-9 and MQ-1 Predator enterprise as part of Air Combat Command’s Culture and Process Improvement Program.

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Scientists from ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia have enabled the longer distance (250 Kilos) of secured data transmission occur via Quantum. Nice; and should be a wake up call to the US as well on advancing their efforts more.

A group of scientists from ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia has developed a novel approach to the construction of quantum communication systems for secure data exchange. The experimental device based on the results of the research is capable of transmitting single-photon quantum signals across distances of 250 kilometers or more, which is on par with other cutting edge analogues. The research paper was published in the Optics Express journal.

Information security is becoming more and more of a critical issue not only for large companies, banks and defense enterprises, but even for small businesses and individual users. However, the data encryption algorithms we currently use for protecting our data are imperfect — in the long-term, their logic can be cracked. Regardless of how complex and intricate the algorithm is, getting round it is just the matter of time.

Contrary to algorithm-based encryption, systems that protect information by making use of the fundamental laws of quantum physics, can make data transmission completely immune to hacker attacks in the future. Information in a quantum channel is carried by single photons that change irreversibly once an eavesdropper attempts to intercept them. Therefore, the legitimate users will instantly know about any kind of intervention.

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