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Category: ethics – Page 18

How AI is reshaping demand for IT skills and talent

AI is quickly becoming an essential part of daily work. It’s already being used to help improve operational processes, strengthen customer service, measure employee experience, and bolster cybersecurity efforts, among other applications. And with AI deepening its presence in daily life, as more people turn to AI bot services, such as ChatGPT, to answer questions and get help with tasks, its presence in the workplace will only accelerate.

Much of the discussion around AI in the workplace has been about the jobs it could replace. It’s also sparked conversations around ethics, compliance, and governance issues, with many companies taking a cautious approach to adopting AI technologies and IT leaders debating the best path forward.

While the full promise of AI is still uncertain, it’s early impact on the workplace can’t be ignored. It’s clear that AI will make its mark on every industry in the coming years, and it’s already creating a shift in demand for skills employers are looking for. AI has also sparked renewed interest in long-held IT skills, while creating entirely new roles and skills companies will need to adopt to successfully embrace AI.

Scientists have created synthetic human embryos. Now we must consider the ethical and moral quandaries

Researchers have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, according to media reports. Remarkably, these embryos have reportedly been created from embryonic stem cells, meaning they do not require sperm and ova.

This , widely described as a breakthrough that could help scientists learn more about human development and genetic disorders, was revealed this week in Boston at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

The research, announced by Professor Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But Żernicka-Goetz told the meeting these human-like embryos had been made by reprogramming .

How to bring back the dead

Here’s my new article for Aporia Magazine. A lot of wild ideas in it. Give it a read:

Regardless of the ethics and whether the science can even one day be worked out for Quantum Archaeology, the philosophical dilemma it presents to Pascal’s Wager is glaring. If humans really could eradicate the essence of death as we know it—including even the ability to ever permanently die—Pascal’s Wager becomes unworkable. Frankly, so does my Transhumanist Wager. After all, why should I dedicate my life and energy to living indefinitely through science when, by the next century, technology could bring me back exactly as I was—or even as an improved version of myself?

Outside of philosophical discourse, billions of dollars are pouring into the anti-aging and technology fields—much of it from Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area where I live. Everyone from entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerburg to nonprofits like XPRIZE to giants like Google is spending money on ways to try to end all diseases and overcome death. Bank of America recently reported that they expect the extreme longevity field to be worth over $600 billion dollars by 2025.

Technology research spending for computers, microprocessors, and information technology is even bigger: $4.3 trillion dollars is estimated to have been spent worldwide in 2019. This amount includes research into quantum computing, which is hoped to eventually make computers hundreds—maybe thousands—of times faster over the next 50 years.

Despite the advancements of the 21st Century, the science to overcome biological death is not even close to being ready, if ever. Over 100,000 people still die a day, and in some countries like America, life expectancy has actually started going slightly backward. However, like other black swans of innovation in history—such as the internet, combustion engine, and penicillin—we shouldn’t rule out that new inventions may make humans live dramatically longer and maybe even as long as they like. As our species reaches for the heavens with its growing scientific armory, Pascal’s Wager is going to be challenged. It just might need an upgrade.

Continue reading “How to bring back the dead” | >

Ben Goertzel — Approaches Towards a General Theory of General AI

The General Theory of General Intelligence: A Pragmatic Patternist Perspective — paper by Ben Goertzel: https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.15100 Abstract: “A multi-decade exploration into the theoretical foundations of artificial and natural general intelligence, which has been expressed in a series of books and papers and used to guide a series of practical and research-prototype software systems, is reviewed at a moderate level of detail. The review covers underlying philosophies (patternist philosophy of mind, foundational phenomenological and logical ontology), formalizations of the concept of intelligence, and a proposed high level architecture for AGI systems partly driven by these formalizations and philosophies. The implementation of specific cognitive processes such as logical reasoning, program learning, clustering and attention allocation in the context and language of this high level architecture is considered, as is the importance of a common (e.g. typed metagraph based) knowledge representation for enabling “cognitive synergy” between the various processes. The specifics of human-like cognitive architecture are presented as manifestations of these general principles, and key aspects of machine consciousness and machine ethics are also treated in this context. Lessons for practical implementation of advanced AGI in frameworks such as OpenCog Hyperon are briefly considered.“
Talk held at AGI17 — http://agi-conference.org/2017/#AGI17 #AGI #ArtificialIntelligence #Understanding #MachineUnderstanding #CommonSence #ArtificialGeneralIntelligence #PhilMind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenceMany thanks for tuning in!

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Moral Wisdom in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Cybernetics Pioneer Norbert Wiener’s Prophetic Admonition About Technology and Ethics

“Intelligence supposes goodwill,” Simone de Beauvoir wrote in the middle of the twentieth century. In the decades since, as we have entered a new era of technology risen from our minds yet not always consonant with our values, this question of goodwill has faded dangerously from the set of considerations around artificial intelligence and the alarming cult of increasingly advanced algorithms, shiny with technical triumph but dull with moral insensibility.

In De Beauvoir’s day, long before the birth of the Internet and the golden age of algorithms, the visionary mathematician, philosopher, and cybernetics pioneer Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894–March 18, 1964) addressed these questions with astounding prescience in his 1954 book The Human Use of Human Beings, the ideas in which influenced the digital pioneers who shaped our present technological reality and have recently been rediscovered by a new generation of thinkers eager to reinstate the neglected moral dimension into the conversation about artificial intelligence and the future of technology.

A decade after The Human Use of Human Beings, Wiener expanded upon these ideas in a series of lectures at Yale and a philosophy seminar at Royaumont Abbey near Paris, which he reworked into the short, prophetic book God & Golem, Inc. (public library). Published by MIT Press in the final year of his life, it won him the posthumous National Book Award in the newly established category of Science, Philosophy, and Religion the following year.

U.S. Senate leader schedules classified AI briefings

Possibly a move to freeze and stall the tec, like the bio ethics clowns who were able to freeze bio tec. But, China wouldnt sign on to any freeze, thankfully. And the tec has already spread across 3rd world countries.

WASHINGTON, June 6 (Reuters) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday he has scheduled three briefings for senators on artificial intelligence, including the first classified briefing on the topic.

In a letter to colleagues on Tuesday, the Democratic leader said senators need to deepen their understanding of artificial intelligence.

“AI is already changing our world, and experts have repeatedly told us that it will have a profound impact on everything from our national security to our classrooms to our workforce, including potentially significant job displacement,” Schumer said.

Throw Forward Thursday: CRISPR

The 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Dr. Jennifer Doudna and Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier for their work on the gene editing technique known as CRISPR-Cas9. This gives us the ability to change the DNA of any living thing, from plants and animals to humans.

The applications are enormous, from improving farming to curing diseases. A decade or so from now, CRISPR will no doubt be taught in High Schools, and be a basic building block of medicine and agriculture. It is going to change everything.

There are ethical and moral concerns, of course, and we will need regulations to ensure this powerful technology is not abused. But we should focus on the remarkable opportunities CRISPR has opened up for us.

The science of super longevity | Dr. Morgan Levine

I quoted and responded to this remark:

“…we probably will not solve death and this actually shouldn’t be our goal.” Well nice as she seems thank goods Dr Levine does not run the scientific community involved in rejuvenation.

The first bridge looks like it’s going to be plasma dilution and this may come to the general population in just a few short years. People who have taken this treatment report things like their arthritis and back pain vanishing.

After that epigentic programming to treat things that kill you in old age. And so on, bridge after bridge. if you have issues with the future, some problem with people living as long as they like, then by all means you have to freedom to grow old and die. That sounds mean but then I think it’s it’s mean to inform me I have to die because you think we have to because of “progress”. But this idea that living for centuries or longer is some horrible moral crime just holds no water.

Science can’t stop aging, but it may be able to slow our epigenetic clocks.

Continue reading “The science of super longevity | Dr. Morgan Levine” | >

Generative AI Is Stoking Medical Malpractice Concerns For Medical Doctors In These Unexpected Ways, Says AI Ethics And AI Law

In today’s column, I will be examining how the latest in generative AI is stoking medical malpractice concerns for medical doctors, doing so in perhaps unexpected or surprising ways. We all pretty much realize that medical doctors need to know about medicine, and it turns out that they also need to know about or at least be sufficiently aware of the intertwining of AI and the law during their illustrious medical careers.

Here’s why.

Is generative AI a blessing or a curse when it comes to medical doctors and the role of medical malpractice lawsuits.