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Archive for the ‘economics’ category: Page 189

Feb 12, 2016

Transhumanist Party leader Zoltan Istvan supports basic income

Posted by in categories: economics, geopolitics, transhumanism

Interview with Zoltan Istvan, US presidential candidate and leader of the Transhumanist Party. He supports basic income as part of his campaign platform.

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Feb 10, 2016

Singapore Makes Plans to 3D Print Public Housing

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, economics, habitats

In a world of economic scarcity, public housing has become essential for sheltering our species’ most vulnerable populations. Interestingly, the island city-state of Sinagpore having a unique approach to public housing, with 80% of the resident population living in government buildings and, more than that, the small nation implemented some housing practices that the United States has sometimes been too afraid to tackle when it comes to public housing: socioeconomically integrated public developments. Now, Singapore is moving beyond these important strategies to novel methods of construction, namely 3D printing.

sinagpore's public housing

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Feb 10, 2016

Davos 2016 — A World Without Work?

Posted by in categories: business, economics, health

A World Without Work. Just Play and Have Fun.


Christopher Pissarides defends a universal basic inome at Davos 2016.

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Feb 8, 2016

Emergent Chip Vastly Accelerates Deep Neural Networks

Posted by in categories: computing, economics, neuroscience, robotics/AI

Stanford University PhD candidate, Song Han, who works under advisor and networking pioneer, Dr. Bill Dally, responded in a most soft-spoken and thoughtful way to the question of whether the coupled software and hardware architecture he developed might change the world.

In fact, instead of answering the question directly, he pointed to the range of applications, both in the present and future, that will be driven by near real-time inference for complex deep neural networks—all a roundabout way of showing not just why what he is working toward is revolutionary, but why the missing pieces he is filling in have kept neural network-fed services at a relative constant.

There is one large barrier to that future Han considers imminent—one pushed by an existing range of neural network-driven applications powering all aspects of the consumer economy and, over time, the enterprise. And it’s less broadly technical than it is efficiency-driven. After all, considering the mode of service delivery of these applications, often lightweight, power-aware devices, how much computation can be effectively packed into the memory of such devices—and at what cost to battery life or overall power? Devices aside, these same concerns, at a grander level of scale, are even more pertinent at the datacenter where some bulk of the inference is handled.

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Feb 3, 2016

Will Robots Make Humans Unnecessary?

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

Good article. Robots taking over the world? No. All human workers replaced by a robot? No Will humans need enhancements to keep up with technology or do certain positions/ careers? Yes.


As robotics and artificial intelligence continue to accelerate in their development, there will be a dwindling number of jobs that machines won’t handle better than humans. How should we prepare for an economy that no longer needs us?

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Feb 1, 2016

Cancer rates still higher in Appalachia, but gap is narrowing

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, health

Very messed up.


WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) — Residents of Appalachia continue to have higher rates of cancer regardless of race and location.

Appalachia is a region of the Eastern United States defined by the presence of the Appalachian Mountains. It stretches from Mississippi to New York and includes 420 counties in 13 states and roughly 25 million people.

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Feb 1, 2016

Young Aussies thinking twice about car ownership: city futurist

Posted by in categories: economics, employment, finance, habitats, robotics/AI, transportation

2 trends that is happening now especially with millennials: car ownership is no longer the desire; and home ownership is out of reach. And, this will impact at a minimum 4 industries — financial, real estate, auto, and insurance industries? Something that many in industry will need to get very creative in addressing to entice the future larger market consumers.


Young people no longer rush to buy their first car, meaning future cities need to think quickly about public transport and the emerging “share economy”, one of Australia’s leading urban futurists says.

Fewer people will “own a car”, “shared” driverless cars will be common and the “Uber” idea of sharing a ride will extend beyond an alternative to taxis, to ‘sharing’ homes, jobs, electric cars, hotel rooms and bikes by 2050.

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Jan 31, 2016

Why the golden age of growth is behind us

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, economics, quantum physics, robotics/AI

Hmmm; we’re definitely not at the end of the golden age of innovation. In fact, once Quantum technology has evolved to the point where it is available to the broader public; we will see a new explosion of new innovation occur as a result.


This is the first of two excerpts from “The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War,” published this month by Princeton University Press. The second will explain the implications of all this for the next quarter century.

Can future innovations match the great inventions of the past? Will artificial intelligence, robots, 3D printing and other offspring of the digital revolution do for economic growth what the second industrial revolution did between 1920 and 1970? The techno-optimist school of economics says yes. I disagree.

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Jan 29, 2016

European Parliament discusses Bitcoin and virtual currencies for the first time

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, economics

The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament spent an hour and a half discussing bitcoin and virtual currencies on Monday, although more questions were asked than answered.

#cryptocurrency #Bitcoin #blockchain

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Jan 28, 2016

World Economic Forum Report: Existing Workforce Must Prepare, Re-Skill & Up-Skill for Impending Fourth Industrial Revolution

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, business, computing, economics, employment, engineering, habitats, quantum physics, robotics/AI, space

Finally, folks are getting the real picture around re-tooling and retraining folks for new jobs in an oncoming AI future. In my posts; I have highlighted the need for governments and businesses to retrain people as well as ensure that their is some level of funding established to assist displaced workers, and especially as we see the maturity of Quantum in the AI space this will definitely be a must.


Untitled“If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it… then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.” – Aristotle.

Humans have such a love/hate relationship with technology that it’s almost comical. All of our own creation, once we’ve perfected amazing innovations, we often turn on them–when convenient. As the PC became common and marketed toward the masses in the 80s, a new world of automation, both good and bad, was predicted. As mad scientists tucked away in secret, underground labs began creating evil robots in a slew of sci-fi movies that we consumed greedily, along with becoming affectionate toward machines like C-3P0 and R2-D2 just birthed in what would be a continuing pop subculture with a momentum of its own, our imaginations ran wild. Fearmongers cited that automation would make many jobs obsolete; robots would begin doing what was left as an economic apocalypse ensued for the human race.

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