Lifeboat Foundation

What do the Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush, about a thousand musical compositions and even a few recent food recipes all have in common?

They were invented by computers, but you won’t find a nonhuman credited with any of these creations on U.S. patents. One patent attorney would like to see that changed.

Ryan Abbott is petitioning to address what he sees as more than a quirk in current laws but a fundamental flaw in policy that could have wide-ranging implications in areas of patent jurisprudence, economics and beyond if his proposals are adopted.

Continue reading “When the Mother of Invention Is a Machine, Who Gets Credit?” »

In Brief The time for machines to take over most of humanity’s work is rapidly approaching. The world is woefully unprepared to deal with the implications that automation will have over the coming decades. Universal basic income is just beginning to be discussed, and automation has the potential to displace much of the world’s workforce. Many decisions have to be made, and quickly, if we hope to keep pace with innovation.

On December 2nd, 1942, a team of scientists led by Enrico Fermi came back from lunch and watched as humanity created the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction inside a pile of bricks and wood underneath a football field at the University of Chicago. Known to history as Chicago Pile-1, it was celebrated in silence with a single bottle of Chianti, for those who were there understood exactly what it meant for humankind, without any need for words.

Now, something new has occurred that, again, quietly changed the world forever. Like a whispered word in a foreign language, it was quiet in that you may have heard it, but its full meaning may not have been comprehended. However, it’s vital we understand this new language, and what it’s increasingly telling us, for the ramifications are set to alter everything we take for granted about the way our globalized economy functions, and the ways in which we as humans exist within it.

Continue reading “How Automation is Going to Redefine What it Means to Work” »

If you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in energy, you should. We’ve seen this movie before. Spoiler alert: There’s massive economic opportunity ahead. How massive? Imagine standing in 1992, knowing that Google, Akamai, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, BuzzFeed and Uber lay ahead.

This time it’s the “enernet,” not the internet, that will transform our lives. The story is the same, though the players have changed.

Here’s the tee up. Across the country, incumbent network providers operate highly centralized networks in their respective cities. Then, scrappy local outfits start serving the market with innovative, distributed technology. These startups create competition, and a new network emerges atop the legacy network.

Continue reading “Energy is the new new internet” »

The high tech sector is often the backbone of a healthy economy, and this sector of the economy is growing rapidly in many parts of the world. While growth of the technology sector is likely to continue in the developed world, high tech growth is often especially rapid in the developing world. Here are some countries where high tech sector growth is taking place at a particularly rapid pace:

China: China is experiencing rapid economic growth in general, and this includes the country’s high tech sector. While the high tech sector of China has been growing for some time, it may grow at an even faster rate in the future. China’s economy is thought to be making a transition from an industrial to a post industrial nation. This transition often leads to growth in the high tech sector.

Since people in China are spending more on merchandise in general, more people in China are purchasing high tech gadgets. You can see this trend from the increase in internet usage that has been happening throughout China. It is estimated that there is a new internet user in China every 1.6 seconds. Currently, nearly 600 million people in China already use the internet. This is nearly double the population of the United States, and this figure is expected to continue rising rapidly!

Continue reading “Four Countries With A Rapidly Growing High Tech Sector” »

A new experiment conducted by the Finnish economic agency Kela gives 2,000 unemployed Finns a monthly income. One man shares how he expects it to go.

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk told CNBC on Friday that economies would most likely need a form of ‘universal basic income’ as more and more industries become automated.
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Continue reading “Elon Musk: Moving Toward Universal Basic Income Due To Automation” »

2017 is already shaping up to be a big year for the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI). The idea to build an unconditional income floor to cover the basic needs of each citizen has been gaining worldwide attention and traction. In just the first 10 days of 2017, Finland has already launched a trial, a nonprofit in India is preparing to launch their own, Scotland is seriously considering trials, and several South Korean presidential candidates are now calling for support for UBI.

But before we turn our focus to the latest happenings, I want to look back and highlight some of the best videos of 2016 that explained and advocated for Universal Basic Income.

If the economic and environmental impact studies clear the project, construction of the world’s first floating city could commence as soon as 2019.

Last year, Oxfam said the world’s 62 richest billionaires were as wealthy as half the world’s population. However, the number has dropped to eight in 2017 because new information shows that poverty in China and India is worse than previously thought, making the bottom 50% even worse off and widening the gap between rich and poor.

The world’s eight richest billionaires control the same wealth between them as the poorest half of the globe’s population, according to a charity warning of an ever-increasing and dangerous concentration of wealth.

In a report published to coincide with the start of the week-long World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam said it was “beyond grotesque” that a handful of rich men headed by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates are worth $426bn (£350bn), equivalent to the wealth of 3.6 billion people.

Continue reading “World’s eight richest people have same wealth as poorest 50%” »