Lifeboat Foundation

http://botnik.org/content/harry-potter.html

From babysitting children to beating the world champion at Go, robots are slowly but surely developing more and more advanced capabilities.

And many scientists, including Professor Stephen Hawking, suggest it may only be a matter of time before machines gain consciousness.

Continue reading “Artificially intelligent robots could soon gain consciousness” »

Artificial intelligence is seeping into every nook and cranny of modern life. AI might tag your friends in photos on Facebook or choose what you see on Instagram, but materials scientists and NASA researchers are also beginning to use the technology for scientific discovery and space exploration.

But there’s a core problem with this technology, whether it’s being used in social media or for the Mars rover: The programmers that built it don’t know why AI makes one decision over another.

Modern artificial intelligence is still new. Big tech companies have only ramped up investment and research in the last five years, after a decades-old theory was shown to finally work in 2012. Inspired by the human brain, an artificial neural network relied on layers of thousands to millions of tiny connections between “neurons” or little clusters of mathematic computation, like the connections of neurons in the brain. But that software architecture came with a trade-off: Since the changes throughout those millions of connections were so complex and minute, researchers aren’t able to exactly determine what is happening. They just get an output that works.

Continue reading “AI is now so complex its creators can’t trust why it makes decisions” »

A former Facebook executive has spoken out against the social network he helped to create, saying it is ‘ripping society apart’.

The comments were made by Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth.

Continue reading “Former Facebook executive says the site is ‘ripping apart society’” »

I’m interviewed in the documentary (which I appear in but haven’t seen yet). Naturally, I support creating super people with science & technology (a main goal of #transhumanism), just not using unethical or exclusionary methods to do so. http://www.wavelength-entertainment.com/genius-factory/ #GeniusFactory

Have we just been buzzed by ET?

Green Bank telescope in West Virginia will listen for radio signals from ‘Oumuamua, an object from another solar system.

According to a French physiologist, humans have reached the peak of our height, lifespan and physical fitness.

I suspect that from our vantage point (a narrow snapshot of human evolution), we lack sufficient data to arrive this sweeping conclusion. Nevertheless, mainstream media is taking this research seriously.

http://www.newsweek.com/humans-reached-peak-height-lifespan-fitness-741816

With machine learning algorithms evolving at an incredibly fast pace, concerns are mounting whether artificial intelligence (AI) is the logical continuation of human history or its demise. RT talked to three experts in the field about the benefits and dangers of AI.

Three AI experts engaged in a debate on RT about the benefits and dangers of rapidly-developing technology and AI.

In an experiment with science fiction implications, neurologists say they taught monkeys to play a game by stimulating their brains with electrodes.