Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: economics – Page 8

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have brought about many stunning tools in the past decade, including the Nobel-Prize-winning AlphaFold model for protein-structure prediction [1]. However, this success comes with an ever-increasing economic and environmental cost: Processing the vast amounts of data for training such models on machine-learning tasks requires staggering amounts of energy [2]. As their name suggests, ANNs are computational algorithms that take inspiration from their biological counterparts. Despite some similarity between real and artificial neural networks, biological ones operate with an energy budget many orders of magnitude lower than ANNs. Their secret? Information is relayed among neurons via short electrical pulses, so-called spikes. The fact that information processing occurs through sparse patterns of electrical pulses leads to remarkable energy efficiency.

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In a significant step toward creating a sustainable and circular economy, Rice University researchers have published a study in the journal Carbon demonstrating that carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers can be fully recycled without any loss in their structure or properties. This discovery positions CNT fibers as a sustainable alternative to traditional materials like metals, polymers and the much larger carbon fibers, which are notoriously difficult to recycle.

“Recycling has long been a challenge in the materials industry—metals recycling is often inefficient and energy-intensive, polymers tend to lose their properties after reprocessing and carbon fibers cannot be recycled at all, only downcycled by chopping them up into short pieces,” said corresponding author Matteo Pasquali, director of Rice’s Carbon Hub and the A.J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science and NanoEngineering and Chemistry.

“As CNT fibers are being scaled up, we asked whether and how these new materials could be recycled in the future so as to proactively avoid waste management problems that emerged as other engineered materials reached large-scale use. We expected that recycling would be difficult and would lead to significant loss of properties. Surprisingly, we found that fibers far exceed the recyclability potential of existing engineered materials, offering a solution to a major environmental issue.”

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The past year, 2024, witnessed an array of groundbreaking technological advancements that fundamentally reshaped industries and influenced the global economy. Technology trends like the development of Industry LLMs, Sustainable Computing, and the Augmented Workforce drove innovation, fostered efficiency, and accelerated the pace of Digital Transformation across sectors such as Healthcare, Finance, and Manufacturing. These developments set the stage for even more disruptive Technology Trends in 2025.

This year is set to bring transformative changes to the business landscape, driven by emerging trends that require enterprises to adopt the right technologies, reskill their workforce, and prioritize sustainability. By embracing these Technology Trends, businesses can shape their objectives, remain competitive, and build resilience. However, Success in this rapidly evolving landscape depends not just on adopting these technologies but also on strategically leveraging them to drive innovation and growth.

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How long would you like to live, and could science and technology make it possible?

Longevity science aims to extend our healthy years through advancements in CRISPR, cellular reprogramming, and drug development. While private companies and philanthropists invest heavily in these innovations, should the government be responsible for funding these efforts? Those who say yes to government funding say that longevity research could revolutionize public health, keep aging populations productive in the workforce, and reduce the economic burden of age-related illnesses. Those opposed to public funding of longevity science say that true life extension beyond a decade might be unachievable, and it will take years before results are measurable.


They argue that when and if these advances become available, they may only be for a smaller, affluent population. They also argue that long-known behavior choices like good nutrition and sleep should be adopted by all now, instead of chasing uncertain longevity advancements.

With this context, we debate the question: Could Longevity Science Extend Your Health Span By Decades? Should the Government Fund It?

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Exploring the most important questions we face as we age.

Dr. Debra Whitman, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President and Chief Public Policy Officer, at AARP (https://www.aarp.org/) where she leads policy development, analysis and research, as well as global thought leadership supporting and advancing the interests of individuals age 50-plus and their families. She oversees AARP’s Public Policy Institute, AARP Research, Office of Policy Development and Integration, Thought Leadership, and AARP International.

Dr. Whitman is an authority on aging issues with extensive experience in national policy making, domestic and international research, and the political process. An economist, she is a strategic thinker whose career has been dedicated to solving problems affecting economic and health security, and other issues related to population aging.

As staff director for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, Dr. Whitman worked across the aisle to increase retirement security, lower the cost of health care, protect vulnerable seniors, safeguard consumers, make the pharmaceutical industry more transparent, and improve our nation’s long term care system.

Before that, Dr. Whitman worked for the Congressional Research Service as a specialist in the economics of aging. She provided members of Congress and their staff with research and advice, and authored analytical reports on the economic impacts of current policies affecting older Americans, as well as the distributional and intergenerational effects of legislative proposals.

Continue reading “Dr. Debra Whitman, Ph.D. — Chief Public Policy Officer, AARP — Author, The Second Fifty” | >

That’s the word from a new set of predictions for the decade ahead issued by Accenture, which highlights how our future is being shaped by AI-powered autonomy. By 2030, agents — not people — will be the “primary users of most enterprises’ internal digital systems,” the study’s co-authors state. By 2032, “interacting with agents surpasses apps in average consumer time spent on smart devices.”

Also: In a machine-led economy, relational intelligence is key to success

This heralds a moment of transition, what the report’s primary author, Accenture CTO Karthik Narain, calls the Binary Big Bang. “When foundation models cracked the natural language barrier,” writes Narain, “they kickstarted a shift in our technology systems: how we design them, use them, and how they operate.”

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It is pleasure for us to bring the ECFG conference to the island of Ireland from mainland Europe, we believe the conference will be a great scientific and social success.

We believe that Ireland is an ideal location which is accessible with low fare economic flights both from Europe and America and more than 20,000 hotel bed capacity for potential participants.

There will be a rich repertoire of research highlights from early, mid and advanced career researchers in the field of fungal genetics and biology. Our venue, the Convention Centre Dublin, is in a perfect location in the heart of Dublin city.

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In a new study published in PLOS Computational Biology, an international research team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Cardiff University, and Google has reexamined Robert Axelrod’s groundbreaking work.

By simulating more than 195 strategies in thousands of tournaments, the study revealed that success in the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma depends heavily on adaptation to diverse environments. Strategies that excelled in Axelrod’s controlled scenarios often failed when faced with a wider variety of opponents. Winning strategies are not only nice and reciprocal but also clever, slightly envious, and adaptable to the surrounding conditions.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma, a classic game in , presents players with the choice to cooperate or defect. Mutual cooperation results in moderate rewards for both players, while unilateral defection yields a high reward for the defector and a significant loss for the cooperator. If both players defect, they receive less than they would through . This tension between individual and collective benefit has made the game a model for decision-making in economics, politics, and biology.

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This is according to AI ethicists from the University of Cambridge, who say we are at the dawn of a “lucrative yet troubling new marketplace for digital signals of intent”, from buying movie tickets to voting for candidates. They call this the Intention Economy.

Researchers from Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) argue that the explosion in generative AI, and our increasing familiarity with chatbots, opens a new frontier of “persuasive technologies” – one hinted at in recent corporate announcements by tech giants.

“Anthropomorphic” AI agents, from chatbot assistants to digital tutors and girlfriends, will have access to vast quantities of intimate psychological and behavioural data, often gleaned via informal, conversational spoken dialogue.

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