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NGA 2017 SUMMER MEETING — Introducing the New Chair’s Initiative “Ahead of the Curve”

Breaking : Elon Musk’s ideas on SpaceX DeepMind Tesla and The Dangers of #AI #Robots #Armageddon caused by AI & ideas for NASA — National Aeronautics and Space Administration (starts at 42mins in video).


Closing Plenary Introducing the New Chair’s Initiative “Ahead of the Curve”

Speaker: Elon Musk
Governor Terry McAuliffe, Virginia, Chair.
Governor Brian Sandoval, Nevada, Vice Chair.

Keynote speaker: • elon musk, CEO of tesla and spacex

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This Supersonic-Speed Transit System Just Completed a Major Test

Hyperloop One this week announced that it completed the first full-scale test of its high-speed transportation system, a move the company hailed as the burgeoning technology’s “Kitty Hawk moment.”

The test vehicle only reached 70 miles per hour, a tenth of the company’s eventual target speed. But the firm felt assured enough to set another phase of testing for later this year, when they hope to reach 250 miles per hour. Eventually, the system could reach a top speed of 700 miles per hour, nearly the speed of sound.

The Hyperloop’s potential velocity has helped it captivate the public’s imagination ever since Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk popularized the concept in 2012. But the proposed system, a sort of high-speed train that uses aerodynamic pods propelled through a vacuum cylinder, is not just about speed, according to many of the people developing it since Musk open-sourced the idea. It’s about changing how we think about moving people and cargo, a $1.48 trillion industry in the United States alone.

Liberty Might Be Better Served by Doing Away with Privacy

My new article from Vice Motherboard on liberty and privacy. This is one of my most ambitious philosophical works yet: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjx5y5/liberty-mi…th-privacy #Libertarian


If tech is surveilling us constantly, we need the ability to use it to watch the watchers.

Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, transhumanist, author of The Transhumanist Wager, and a Libertarian candidate for California Governor.

The constant onslaught of new technology is making our lives more public and trackable than ever, which understandably scares a lot of people. Part of the dilemma is how we interpret the right to privacy using centuries-old ideals handed down to us by our forbearers. I think the 21st century idea of privacy—like so many other taken-for-granted concepts—may need a revamp.

When James Madison wrote the Fourth Amendment—which helped legally establish US privacy ideals and protection from unreasonable search and seizure—he surely wasn’t imagining Elon Musk’s neural lace, artificial intelligence, the internet, or virtual reality. Madison wanted to make sure government couldn’t antagonize its citizens and overstep its governmental authority, as monarchies and the Church had done for centuries in Europe.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company finishes first tunnel segment in LA

It may have a boring name, but it is getting exciting boring done. The aptly yet ironically named company has just reached an important milestone in fulfilling Elon Musk’s newest moonshot. The visionary and entrepreneur extraordinaire took to Twitter to almost nonchalantly revealed that boring machine Godot has just completed the first segment underneath LA, while still leaving plenty of room for mystery and suspense.

Musk is anything but boring, of course, as can be seen by his ambitions turned into successful companies. His latest endeavor, however, is probably one of the most debated. It came out of the blue and, given the tongue-in-cheek name, not everyone might have taken it seriously at first. And some of those that did though Musk had finally lost it. Of course, it had its fair share of fans who shared a dream of escaping traffic congestion.

Musk’s plan to solve the traffic problem wasn’t simply to bore tunnels that cars and all sorts of vehicles would simply fill up again. Instead, the tunnels would ferry these vehicles on sleds traveling at 200 km/h. Back in April, that was nothing more than a pretty rendered animation, but last month Musk showed off a demo of just how fast that sled really is.

Los Angeles mayor sounds open to Elon Musk’s tunneling plan

Elon Musk’s concept of solving traffic congestion by digging networks of tunnels may have a fan in Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Speaking about the city’s transit issues Sunday morning on ABC 7‘s “Eyewitness Newsmakers,” Garcetti mentioned the possibility of tunneling: “Like many other cities have, I’d love to see maybe even with the new tunneling technology that people like Elon Musk is looking at, whether we could have a quick and direct route from LAX to Union Station.”

There could be an #express train @unionstationla to @flyLAXairport –Here’s @MayorOfLA @ericgarcetti on #Newsmakers. #WATCH 11AM Sun @ABC7 pic.twitter.com/zJAFTge2VO — Adrienne Alpert (@abc7adrienne) June 17, 2017

Elon Musk Just Published His Plan to Colonize Mars

They say everything’s sweeter the second time around, and that seems to be the case for SpaceX’s plans to colonize Mars. Last year, Musk unveiled his plans to colonize the Red Planet and make it fit for human habitation. Now, that version of the plan has been published and made available for free— with a few notable updates.

In the paper, the focus is on affordability, as that is the primary factor in making life on Mars a reality. As Musk notes, “You cannot create a self-sustaining civilization if the ticket price is $10 billion per person.” In order for it to be viable, Musk asserts that the cost should be about $200,000—equivalent to the median price of a house in the United States. In the paper, Musk outlines the steps he considers essential to ensuring this relative affordability.

But this is just the beginning. Musk posted a tweet today hinting that this version one is already being reviewed…and version 2 is on its way.

Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species

Elon Musk’s paper on, available for free below.


This paper is a summary of Elon Musk’s presentation at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, September 26–30, 2016. In February 2017, SpaceX announced it will launch a crewed mission beyond the moon for two private customers in late 2018.

Used with permission from SpaceX.

By talking about the SpaceX Mars architecture, I want to make Mars seem possible—make it seem as though it is something that we can do in our lifetime. There really is a way that anyone could go if they wanted to.

Neural Implant Tech Raises the Specter of Brainjacking

Fun in fiction. Perhaps not so much in reality.


The human mind is already pretty open to manipulation—just ask anyone who works in advertising. But neural implant technology could potentially open up a direct digital link to our innermost thoughts that could be exploited by hackers.

In recent months, companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Kernel, and Facebook have unveiled plans to create devices that will provide a two-way interface between human brains and machines.

While these devices could undoubtedly bring many benefits, they would be networked to computers and therefore essentially part of the Internet of Things. That should immediately set off alarm bells for anyone paying attention to cybersecurity news.

Hyundai’s new electric bus has 180 miles of range and fully charges in an hour

After a lot of speculation, Korean automaker Hyundai finally pulled the wraps off of its first mass-produced electric bus this week. It’s called the Elec City. It has a range of 180 miles, thanks to a 256kWh battery pack, according to Hyundai. A report from the Yonhap news agency says the bus can also be fully charged in just over an hour. The company plans to launch the bus in 2018.

While that’s more than double what had been rumored for Hyundai, it’s still a far cry from the massive 660kWh capacity of the Catalyst E2, the newest bus from American manufacturer Proterra. The Catalyst E2 supposedly gets 350 miles of street driving on a single charge, and maybe more with some highway driving mixed in. Plus, Proterra’s new bus will hit the road in 2017.

It’s not clear if Hyundai would ever bring its bus to North America, but if it did, Proterra wouldn’t be the only competition. Chinese manufacturer BYD has sold buses in California. Canadian company GreenPower has a small foothold as well. Tesla CEO Elon Musk even flirted with the idea, though it appears that the project could be on hold while he works on tunneling under Los Angeles. Adoption rates could go up as electric buses get better and cheaper, too. Despite the fact that they’re about twice as expensive as their diesel counterparts in the early going, a recent study from Columbia University estimates that they could save cities money over the long haul.

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