Lifeboat Foundation

Increasingly human-like automated weapons demand an honest accounting of our emotional responses to them.

The audience of venture capitalists, engineers and other tech-sector denizens chuckled as they watched a video clip of an engineer using a hockey stick to shove a box away from the Atlas robot that was trying to pick it up. Each time the humanoid robot lumbered forward, its objective moved out of reach. From my vantage point at the back of the room, the audience’s reaction to the situation began to sound uneasy, as if the engineer’s actions and their invention’s response had crossed some imaginary line.

Continue reading “How Should We Treat Our Military Robots?” »

Happy #Alien Day. Here’s my trilogy of alien stories for Vice. I’ll start by listing #2 first for those who only have time for one, but they do go in chronological order: 2) https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/why-havent-we-met…ed-into-ai & 1) https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-internet-will…wake-it-up & 3) (covered recently by the History Channel): https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-language-of-a…cipherable #transhumanism

While traveling in Western Samoa many years ago, I met a young Harvard University graduate student researching ants. He invited me on a hike into the jungles to assist with his search for the tiny insect. He told me his goal was to discover a new species of ant, in hopes it might be named after him one day.

Whenever I look up at the stars at night pondering the cosmos, I think of my ant collector friend, kneeling in the jungle with a magnifying glass, scouring the earth. I think of him, because I believe in aliens—and I’ve often wondered if aliens are doing the same to us.

Continue reading “Why Haven’t We Met Aliens Yet? Because They’ve Evolved into AI” »

Elena Milova was our official LEAF Ambassador at a special education program organized by the International Institute on Ageing of the United Nations, Malta (INIA). We are all really proud of the hard work she has been doing for aging research.

Here is her discussion with Dr. Marvin Formosa — director of the INIA. Enjoy!

Continue reading “How population aging first became a matter of international concern” »

This story out in other green-focused sites: http://greengopost.com/california-gov-candidate-develop-coas…-everyone/

Zoltan Istvan, a Libertarian candidate for governor of California, wants to provide a universal basic income for all state residents — and lease out public lands to generate the revenues. Could it work? Would Californians buy in?

2017 begins on Monday in Vancouver, Canada, and will explore the theme “The Future You.” If the future you is anything like the future us, you are likely curled up in a big cushy chair right now, devouring the contents of a book that flips your thinking. Below, some reading suggestions from the speaker program. Read, enjoy and stay tuned to the TED Blog for beat-by-beat coverage of the conference.

TED2017 begins on Monday in Vancouver, Canada, and will explore the theme “The Future You.” If the future you is anything like the future us, you are likely curled up in a big cushy chair right now, devouring the contents of a book that flips your thinking. Below, some reading suggestions from the speaker program. Read, enjoy and stay tuned to the TED Blog for beat-by-beat coverage of the conference.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil. The decisions that affect our lives are no longer made by humans — they’re made by algorithms. This might sound like a great way around bias and discrimination, but these things are often built right into our mathematical models. When it comes to college admissions, decisions on parole, applications to jobs and the affects of a bad credit score, O’Neil explores the unintended consequences of algorithms. (Read an excerpt.)

Continue reading “15 books to browse ahead of TED2017” »

N” After upending the taxi market with its ride-hailing service, Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] is now aiming for the skies with its flying taxis.

The company expects to deploy its flying taxis in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, and Dubai by 2020, Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden said at the Uber Elevate Summit in Dallas on Tuesday.

Uber’s flying taxis will be small, electric aircraft that take off and land vertically, or VTOLs, with zero emissions and quiet enough to operate in cities.

Continue reading “Uber looks to soar with flying taxis by 2020” »

Calling all UX Designers, Developers and tech Creatives to join us at this years NASA #SpaceApps Event: Virtually or in person to solve earth science & climate change challenges : https://2017.spaceappschallenge.org/

Space Apps 2017.

Some people fear rejuvenation therapies would be only for the privileged, and yet some others think they would be imposed on everyone. This article discusses the latter case.

Somebody once told me they fear that, if we created rejuvenation therapies, they might be forced on people who don’t want them, and in a way, we’d end up forcing people to live ‘forever’. Is this a good reason not to develop rejuvenation? No, of course not. I mean, imagine if we never came up with blood transfusions for fear that Jehovah’s witnesses might be forced to undergo them!

Besides, if rejuvenation therapies shouldn’t be invented because someone is afraid they’d be forced on people who want to grow old and die, let me ask: How about the people who do not want to grow old and die and yet would be forced to, because somebody else didn’t want rejuvenation therapies to be created? Dying despite the existence of rejuvenation therapies is certainly more easily attained than not dying despite the lack of rejuvenation therapies.

Rejuvenation is a set of medical interventions, and as such, a patient has the right to refuse all of them, if they want to. Indeed, the right to refuse or halt medical intervention already exists (see this WHO paper of 1994, page 11, article 3.2, which states this right for European Citizens, for example), so, if one really doesn’t want to undergo rejuvenation treatments, that is in their right already.

Continue reading “Rejuvenation would be forced on people” »

Back in November, we heard about Uber’s plans to add flying-car-like air taxis to its existing transport system. At the time, it wasn’t clear just what form those vehicles would take. This Tuesday, however, the company announced that it has selected Virginia-based Aurora Flight Sciences as a partner to develop an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for its Uber Elevate Network – and a functioning model of it has already been flown.

The concept combines technologies from several other projects that Aurora has been working on.

Continue reading “Here’s what Uber’s air taxis may look like” »