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Archive for the ‘economics’ category: Page 18

Sep 2, 2023

Polaris on course to develop hypersonic spaceplane Aurora

Posted by in categories: economics, space travel

Last week, it successfully completed a flight of Mira-Light, a scaled-down version of its fourth demonstrator flight Mira, scheduled for its inaugural flight by year-end.

Sep 1, 2023

New Saudi giga project features a 7-mile artificial canal

Posted by in categories: economics, energy

Called MARAFY, the project will house 130,000 residents in the northern region of Jeddah.

A new development project financed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia features a 6.8 mile (11 km) long and 328 feet (100 m) wide artificial canal, a press release from the real estate developer ROSHN said.

Continue reading “New Saudi giga project features a 7-mile artificial canal” »

Aug 30, 2023

New fuel cell architecture uses nanowires to deliver durability

Posted by in categories: economics, life extension, nanotechnology

A promising, more durable fuel cell design could help transform heavy-duty trucking and other clean fuel cell applications. Consisting of nanowires that are less susceptible to corrosion than other designs, the innovative electrode—the heart of a polymer electrolyte-membrane fuel cell—could usher in a new era for fuel cells, which use hydrogen as emission-free power for vehicles.

“In real-world terms, this means that we can have a more durable fuel cell that will provide high fuel economy over a longer lifetime,” said Jacob Spendelow, a scientist with the Los Alamos National Laboratory team that described its results in the journal Advanced Materials. “This work demonstrates that we can get rid of conventional carbon-based catalyst supports, eliminating the degradation problems associated with carbon corrosion, while still achieving high fuel cell performance.”

The improved durability makes this fuel cell a promising candidate for use in heavy-duty trucking applications, which require fuel cell lifetimes of more than 25,000 hours.

Aug 29, 2023

Bitcoin trades at five-year low, but value remains strong

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, economics

Trading activity in August has fallen by over 94 percent compared to March this year.

Far from its all-time high values, cryptocurrency Bitcoin is failing to attract interest from traders, as per a recent report of trading volumes at crypto exchanges, CNBC

The interest in Bitcoin surged during the COVID-19 pandemic as the world economy came to a grinding halt. As investors looked to park their funds in rising assets, Bitcoin became a top favorite, and its valuation soared to all-time highs of over $68,000.

Aug 27, 2023

What if Generative AI turned out to be a Dud?

Posted by in categories: economics, robotics/AI

Some possible economic and geopolitical implications.

Aug 27, 2023

Human Immortality | Life Extension | Advancements in Science

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, education, life extension, science

Human Immortality — If you thought Human Immortality was just a concept in science fiction, this episode reveals how it will become science fact. For some scientists featured in this program, achieving Immortality is not a question of ‘If’. The real question is ‘When?’.

Human Immortality (2022)
Director: Emma Watts.
Writers: Kyle McCabe, Christopher Webb Young.
Stars: Samantha Brady, Aubrey DeGrey, Leonard Guarente.
Genre: Documentary.
Country: United States.
Language: English.
Release Date: August 31, 2022 (United States)

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Aug 25, 2023

Toward AGI — What is Missing?

Posted by in categories: economics, physics, robotics/AI, singularity

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is a term for Artificial Intelligence systems that meet or exceed human performance on the broad range of tasks that humans are capable of performing. There are benefits and downsides to AGI. On the upside, AGIs can do most of the labor that consume a vast amount of humanity’s time and energy. AGI can herald a utopia where no one has wants that cannot be fulfilled. AGI can also result in an unbalanced situation where one (or a few) companies dominate the economy, exacerbating the existing dichotomy between the top 1% and the rest of humankind. Beyond that, the argument goes, a super-intelligent AGI could find it beneficial to enslave humans for its own purposes, or exterminate humans so as to not compete for resources. One hypothetical scenario is that an AGI that is smarter than humans can simply design a better AGI, which can, in turn, design an even better AGI, leading to something called hard take-off and the singularity.

I do not know of any theory that claims that AGI or the singularity is impossible. However, I am generally skeptical of arguments that Large Language Models such the GPT series (GPT-2, GPT-3, GPT-4, GPT-X) are on the pathway to AGI. This article will attempt to explain why I believe that to be the case, and what I think is missing should humanity (or members of the human race) so choose to try to achieve AGI. I will also try to convey a sense for why it is easy to talk about the so-called “recipe for AGI” in the abstract but why physics itself will prevent any sudden and unexpected leap from where we are now to AGI or super-AGI.

To achieve AGI it seems likely we will need one or more of the following:

Aug 25, 2023

Pacific islands warn US over Chinese threat and urge Biden to increase aid

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cybercrime/malcode, economics, military

Countering China and bolstering national security dominated the conversation in a Hilton hotel on Guam, 15 hours before and oceans away from the Milwaukee arena hosting the first Republican primary debate.

Nine members of the GOP-led House committee on natural resources convened in the US-governed Pacific island territory for a rare field hearing – during the summer recess – on countering China’s influence in the region.

At a time when Democrats and Republicans view China as an economic and global security threat, island nations who offer the US military proximity to China in exchange for aid emphasized they are especially vulnerable to Chinese cyber-attacks and economic exploitation as they struggle to recover from the pandemic.

Aug 24, 2023

Research team enhances hydrogen evolution catalyst through stepwise deposition

Posted by in categories: economics, energy, transportation

In order to enhance the accessibility of hydrogen-powered vehicles and establish hydrogen as a viable energy source, it’s imperative to reduce the cost of hydrogen production, thereby achieving economic feasibility. To achieve this goal, maximizing the efficiency of electrolysis-hydrogen evolution, the process responsible for producing hydrogen from water, is crucial.

Recently, a team of researchers comprising Professor In Su Lee, Research Professor Soumen Dutta, and Byeong Su Gu from the Department of Chemistry at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) achieved a significant improvement in production efficiency of hydrogen, a green energy source, through the development of a platinum nanocatalyst. They accomplished this feat by depositing two different metals in a stepwise manner.

The findings of their research were published in Angewandte Chemie.

Aug 24, 2023

Google’s Search AI Says Slavery Was Good, Actually

Posted by in categories: economics, education, robotics/AI

Lots of experts on AI say it can only be as good as the data it’s trained on — basically, it’s garbage in and garbage out.

So with that old computer science adage in mind, what the heck is happening with Google’s AI-driven Search Generative Experience (SGE)? Not only has it been caught spitting out completely false information, but in another blow to the platform, people have now discovered it’s been generating results that are downright evil.

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