Lifeboat Foundation

The “outside the universe” question gets tricky right off the bat, because first you have to define the universe. One common answer is called the observable universe, and it’s defined by the speed of light. Since we can only see things when the light they emit or reflect reaches us, we can never see farther than the farthest distance light can travel in the time the universe has existed. That means the observable universe keeps getting bigger, but it is finite – the amount is sometimes referred to as the Hubble Volume, after the telescope that has given us our most distant views of the universe. We’ll never be able to see beyond that boundary, so for all intents and purposes, it’s the only universe we’ll ever interact with.

The fledgling “flying car” industry just received a major boost as Google cofounder Larry Page officially launched his new startup out of stealth.

Founded in 2015, Kitty Hawk has been known to exist for some time already, but we’ve hitherto had no real idea about what it was all about — beyond it having something to do with flying cars. But earlier this morning, company CEO Sebastian Thrun, who once headed up Google’s self-driving car efforts and later went on to found online learning platform Udacity, tweeted out a link to the company’s website and Twitter page. Kitty Hawk’s website now offers some clue as to what we can expect.

Continue reading “Larry Page’s Kitty Hawk announces ultralight aircraft you don’t need a license to fly” »

Researchers have built a primitive microprocessor out of a two-dimensional material similar to graphene, the flexible conductive wonder material that some believe will revolutionize the design and manufacture of batteries, sensors and chips.

With only 115 transistors, their processor isn’t going to top any benchmark rankings, but it’s “a first step towards the development of microprocessors based on 2D semiconductors,” the researchers at Vienna University of Technology said in a paper published in the journal Nature this month.

Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma warned on Monday that society could see decades of pain thanks to disruption caused by the internet and new technologies to different areas of the economy.

In a speech at a China Entrepreneur Club event, the billionaire urged governments to bring in education reform and outlined how humans need to work with machines.

“In the coming 30 years, the world’s pain will be much more than happiness, because there are many more problems that we have come across,” Ma said in Chinese, speaking about potential job disruptions caused by technology.

Continue reading “Billionaire Jack Ma says CEOs could be robots in 30 years, warns of decades of ‘pain’ from A.I., internet impact” »

Read my story on #robots: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/i-talked-to-four-humanoid…doornails1

Artificial intelligence algorithms are being taught to generate art, human voices, and even fiction stories all on their own—why not give them a shot at building new ways to treat disease?

Atomwise, a San Francisco-based startup and Y Combinator alum, has built a system it calls AtomNet (pdf), which attempts to generate potential drugs for diseases like Ebola and multiple sclerosis. The company has invited academic and non-profit researchers from around the country to detail which diseases they’re trying to generate treatments for, so AtomNet can take a shot. The academic labs will receive 72 different drugs that the neural network has found to have the highest probability of interacting with the disease, based on the molecular data it’s seen.

Atomwise’s system only generates potential drugs—the compounds created by the neural network aren’t guaranteed to be safe, and need to go through the same drug trials and safety checks as anything else on the market. The company believes that the speed at which it can generate trial-ready drugs based on previous safe molecular interactions is what sets it apart.

Continue reading “Artificial intelligence could build new drugs faster than any human team” »

The UK’s first 24 hours without using coal as part of its energy mix has been hailed “a watershed” moment.

For the first time since the industrial revolution, the country fulfilled all of its energy needs without using coal for a full day. It is bound to happen more frequently, the National Grid said.

Around half of energy came from natural gas and about a quarter came from nuclear plants, according to Grid Watch. Wind, biomass and imported energy made up the difference.

Continue reading “Britain powered 24 hours without coal for first time in 135 years in ‘watershed moment’” »

I remember posting that video in here a few months ago. Some lab in California was testing their AI’s to drive cars in the game. I wish they’d let them goof around in Multiplayer it would be interesting to mess with one. How would it re act if it got attacked, if a random person hopped in a car and started playing with the radio or other weird stuff.

By Tina Amini 2017/04/21 17:23:46 UTC

My new Vice Motherboard article on interviewing four humanoid robots: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/i-talked-to-four-humanoid-robots #transhumanism

“Human relationships can be hard to define.”

Over the last 18 months, I’ve found myself in the strange habit of hanging out and interviewing English-speaking humanoid robots. I was able to chat with four machines, each which possessed some level of artificial intelligence. Even though none of them could fully carry on normal conversations, they all had something to say. And sometimes, what they say and how they say it, is a piercing glimpse into the future of humanity.

Continue reading “I Talked to Four Humanoid Robots and They’re Mostly Dumb as Doornails” »