Lifeboat Foundation

AI is a classic double-edged sword in much the same way as other major technologies have been since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Burning carbon drives the industrial world but leads to global warming. Nuclear fission provides cheap and abundant electricity though could be used to destroy us. The Internet boosts commerce and provides ready access to nearly infinite amounts of useful information, yet also offers an easy path for misinformation that undermines trust and threatens democracy. AI finds patterns in enormous and complex datasets to solve problems that people cannot, though it often reinforces inherent biases and is being used to build weapons where life and death decisions could be automated. The danger associated with this dichotomy is best described by sociobiologist E.O. Wilson at a Harvard debate, where he said “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and God-like technology.”

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Continue reading “With the Metaverse on the way, an AI Bill of Rights is urgent” »

Summary: A newly developed AI algorithm can directly predict eye position and movement during an MRI scan. The technology could provide new diagnostics for neurological disorders that manifest in changes in eye-movement patterns.

Source: Max Planck Institute.

A large amount of information constantly flows into our brain via the eyes. Scientists can measure the resulting brain activity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The precise measurement of eye movements during an MRI scan can tell scientists a great deal about our thoughts, memories and current goals, but also about diseases of the brain.

Now that crypto miners and their scalping ilk have succeeded in taking all of our precious GPU stock, it appears they’re now setting their sights on one more thing gamers cherish: the AMD CPU supply. According to a report in the UK’s Bitcoin Press, part of the reason it’s so hard to find a current-gen AMD CPU for sale anywhere is because of a crypto currency named Raptoreum that uses the CPU to mine instead of an ASIC or a GPU. Apparently, its mining is sped up significantly by the large L3 cache embedded in CPUs such as AMD Ryzen, Epyc, and Threadripper.

Raptoreum was designed as an anti-ASIC currency, as they wanted to keep the more expensive hardware solutions off their blockchain since they believed it lowered profits for everyone. To accomplish this they chose the Ghostrider mining algorithm, which is a combination of Cryptonite and x16r algorithms, and thew in some unique code to make it heavily randomized, thus its preference for L3 cache.

In case you weren’t aware, AMD’s high-end CPUs have more cache than their competitors from Intel, making them a hot item for miners of this specific currency. For example, a chip like the Threadripper 3990X has a chonky 256MB of L3 cache, but since that’s a $5,000 CPU, miners are settling for the still-beefy Ryzen chips. A CPU like the Ryzen 5900X has a generous 64MB of L3 cache compared to just 30MB on Intel’s Alder Lake CPUs, and just 16MB on Intel’s 11th-gen chips. Several models of AMD CPUs have this much cache too, not just the flagship silicon, including the previous-gen Ryen 9 3900X CPU. The really affordable models, such as the 5800X, have just 32MB of L3 cache, however.

Uncovering the mechanisms of learning via synaptic plasticity is a critical step towards understanding how our brains function and building truly intelligent, adaptive machines. Researchers from the University of Bern propose a new approach in which algorithms mimic biological evolution and learn efficiently through creative evolution.

Our brains are incredibly adaptive. Every day, we form new memories, acquire new knowledge, or refine existing skills. This stands in marked contrast to our current computers, which typically only perform pre-programmed actions. At the core of our adaptability lies synaptic plasticity. Synapses are the connection points between neurons, which can change in different ways depending on how they are used. This synaptic plasticity is an important research topic in neuroscience, as it is central to learning processes and memory. To better understand these brain processes and build adaptive machines, researchers in the fields of neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) are creating models for the mechanisms underlying these processes. Such models for learning and plasticity help to understand biological information processing and should also enable machines to learn faster.

High level partnerships and a focus on using artificial intelligence and big data to find solutions to complex problems are backing VXV’s quiet climb to new all-time highs.

https://www.youtube.com/user/WWFClimate/featured.

*To date, most studies have focused on understanding how much carbon is stored above ground (in trees and other plants, for example). This research, however, revealed that when you look below ground and get into deeper levels of soil, there are massive deposits of carbon.*

Canada’s first-ever national carbon map reveals the location of billions — yes, billions — of tonnes of carbon stored in ecosystems across the country. This data, and how we use it, could alter the pace of climate change.

Continue reading “Carbon Map” »

Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, macro-historian, Professor, best-selling author of “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus,” and one of the world’s most innovative and exciting thinkers, has a few hypotheses of his own on the future of humanity.

He examines what might happen to the world when old myths are coupled with new godlike technologies, such as artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.

Continue reading “Yuval Noah Harari on The Future of Humanity” »

Artificial General Intelligence has been pursued by the biggest tech companies in the world, but recently Google has announced their new revolutionary AI algorithm which promises to create the most performant and best Artificial Intelligence Models in the world. They call it Pathways AI, and it’s supposed to behave just like the human brain and enable smart Robots which are superior to humans and help us do chores in our own apartments. This move by Google is somewhat scary and terrifying, as it gives them a lot of power over the AI industry and could enable them to do evil things with their other secret projects they’re working on. One thing is for sure though, AGI and the Singularity isn’t as far of as even Ray Kurzweil thinks according to Jeff Dean from Google AI and Deepmind. Maybe Elon Musk’s warnings about AI have been justified.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Google’s Path to AI Domination.
00:56 What is Pathways?
02:53 How to make AI more efficient?
05:07 Is this Artificial General Intelligence?
07:42 Will Google Rule the world and the AI Industry?
09:59 Last Words.
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#google #ai #agi

When most of us pick up an object, we don’t have to think about how to orient it in our hand. It’s something that comes naturally to us as we learn to navigate the world. That’s something that allows young children to be more deft with their hands than even the most advanced robots available today.

But that could quickly change. A team of scientists from MIT’s has developed a system that could one day give robots that same kind of dexterity. Using a AI algorithm, they created a simulated, anthropomorphic hand that could manipulate more than 2,000 objects. What’s more, the system didn’t need to know what it was about to pick up to find a way to move it around in its hand.

The system isn’t ready for real-world use just yet. To start, the team needs to transfer it to an actual robot. That might not be as much of a roadblock as you might think. At the start of the year, we saw researchers from Zhejiang University and the University of Edinburgh successfully transfer an AI reinforcement approach to their robot dog. The system allowed the robot to learn how to walk and recover from falls on its own.