Lifeboat Foundation

At the moment, it is easy and comforting to imagine that the machines will mostly be complementary to human workers, whose common sense and human touch will still be necessary. But over the next half-century, AI will get better faster than humans can learn new skills. While we are probably still a very long way away from an AI with humanlike general intelligence, we are much closer to a world where particular machines can perform specific tasks as well as humans and at far less cost—precisely the kind of change that reshaped nations 150 years ago. Long before we find ourselves dealing with malevolent AIs or genetically engineered superhumans, and perhaps just 10 to 20 years from now, we will have to deal with the threat technology poses to our social order—and to our politics.

Automation is dramatically reshaping the workforce, but we’ve barely begun to grapple with how it will reshape society.

Why wearable? Many industrial and academic studies are currently addressed to design and to optimize the technologies related to portable and wireless.

Wirelessly powered, biomimetic spybots…

A new contest seeks flight systems inspired by Mother Nature and powered by directed-energy beams.

Continue reading “Pentagon Seeks Laser-Powered Bat Drones. Really” »

Titles are chosen by editors and not journalists or experts. I fought my editor over the above title. Yes, I address the teaser—and I explain a solid altcoin investment model. But, that comes after the break. The first part of this article should be titled “Why would anyone quote cost or value in Bitcoin?”. The subjects are highly related, so bear with me…

Today, a reader asked this question:

Some financial sites discuss value in Bitcoin terms, rather
than dollars or Euros. Why would I calculate the value of a
new car, my rent or an investment in this way? It’s hard to
understand how much money I need!

Answer: Your right! It’s difficult to estimate the value of a car or your rent in terms of Bitcoin. You are paid in dollars or Euros—and your landlord quotes rent in the same currency.

Continue reading “Revenue Neutral model reduces altcoin investment risk” »

This would be a nice way to get rid of having to use salt on the roads.

Never shovel your driveway again! ❄️ (via CNBC Technology)

It is wartime. You and your fellow refugees are hiding from enemy soldiers, when a baby begins to cry. You cover her mouth to block the sound. If you remove your hand, her crying will draw the attention of the soldiers, who will kill everyone. If you smother the child, you’ll save yourself and the others.

If you were in that situation, which was dramatized in the final episode of the ’70s and ’80s TV series “M.A.S.H.,” what would you do?

The results of a new UCLA study suggest that scientists could make a good guess based on how the brain responds when people watch someone else experience pain. The study found that those responses predict whether people will be inclined to avoid causing harm to others when facing moral dilemmas.

Continue reading “Mirror neuron activity predicts people’s decision-making in moral dilemmas, study finds” »

Internet of Things trends for 2018. Our expert Ahmed Banaf reviews how this tech trend will evolve this year: dat analytics, fog computing and blockchain.

The development of ultra-intense lasers delivering the same power as the entire U.S. power grid has enabled the study of cosmic phenomena such as supernovae and black holes in earthbound laboratories. Now, a new method developed by computational astrophysicists at the University of Chicago allows scientists to analyze a key characteristic of these events: their powerful and complex magnetic fields.

In the field of high-energy density physics, or HEDP, scientists study a wide range of astrophysical objects—stars, supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies and galaxy clusters—with laboratory experiments as small as a penny and lasting only a few billionths of a second. By focusing powerful lasers on a carefully designed target, researchers can produce plasmas that reproduce conditions observed by astronomers in our sun and distant galaxies.

Planning these complex and expensive experiments requires large-scale, high-fidelity computer simulation beforehand. Since 2012, the Flash Center for Computational Science of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at UChicago has provided the leading open computer code, called FLASH, for these HEDP simulations, enabling researchers to fine-tune experiments and develop analysis methods before execution at sites such as the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the OMEGA Laser Facility in Rochester, N.Y.

Continue reading “Computational astrophysics team uncloaks magnetic fields of cosmic events” »