Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: ethics – Page 42

AI/Humans, our brave now world, happening now.

Are we facing a golden digital age or will robots soon run the world? We need to establish ethical standards in dealing with artificial intelligence — and to answer the question: What still makes us as human beings unique?

Mankind is still decades away from self-learning machines that are as intelligent as humans. But already today, chatbots, robots, digital assistants and other artificially intelligent entities exist that can emulate certain human abilities. Scientists and AI experts agree that we are in a race against time: we need to establish ethical guidelines before technology catches up with us. While AI Professor Jürgen Schmidhuber predicts artificial intelligence will be able to control robotic factories in space, the Swedish-American physicist Max Tegmark warns against a totalitarian AI surveillance state, and the philosopher Thomas Metzinger predicts a deadly AI arms race. But Metzinger also believes that Europe in particular can play a pioneering role on the threshold of this new era: creating a binding international code of ethics.

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According to this CTV News article, survivors and families of an MK Ultra brainwashing program run by Dr. Ewen Cameron at McGill University in Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s have banded together to bring the horrors of this program more fully into the public eye.

They are planning a class action lawsuit against the provincial and federal government, an initiative which lawyer Alan Stein feels optimistic about:

“I believe we can claim moral damages as a result of the experiments when Dr. Cameron used these people as guinea pigs.”—lawyer Alan Stein

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There are decisions being made right now that could have an effect on global populations for generations to come. As part of this project, we commissioned an artist to investigate some of the themes raised in the podcasts. This work of fiction imagines a future where gene editing has become mainstream and discusses the moral, ethical and political divides that this might create.

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I recently interviewed Professor David J. Gunkel, an expert in robot ethics at Northern Illinois University about the future of AI and the transhumanist movement. If this is your thing please do subscribe to the channel — lots more coming up smile

I interview Professor David J. Gunkel (@David_Gunkel), an expert in AI and robot ethnics at Northern Illinois University and author of ‘The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots, and Ethics’. We discuss whether robots should have rights, if human and artificial intelligence are likely to merge and whether the transhumanist movement could become a serious political force. Hope you enjoy!

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The majority have focused on outlining high-level principles that should guide those building these systems. W hether by chance or by design, the principles they have coalesced around closely resemble those at the heart of medical ethics. But writing in Nature Machine Intelligence, Brent Mittelstadt from the University of Oxford points out that AI development is a very different beast to medicine, and a simple copy and paste won’t work.

The four core principles of medical ethics are respect for autonomy (patients should have control over how they are treated), beneficence (doctors should act in the best interest of patients), non-maleficence (doctors should avoid causing harm) and justice (healthcare resources should be distributed fairly).

The more than 80 AI ethics reports published are far from homogeneous, but similar themes of respect, autonomy, fairness, and prevention of harm run through most. And these seem like reasonable principles to apply to the development of AI. The problem, says Mittelstadt, is that while principles are an effective tool in the context of a discipline like medicine, they simply don’t make sense for AI.

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Gene editing of human embryos — yes or not?

If there is a discernible duty here it is surely to create the best possible child. That is what it is to act for the best, all things considered. This we have moral reasons to do; but they are not necessarily overriding reasons.

Steven Hawking initially predicted that we might have about 7.6 billion years to go before the Earth gives up on us; he recently revised his position in relation to the Earth’s continuing habitability as opposed to its physical survival: “We must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity,” he said recently. “I don’t think we will survive another thousand years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.”

We will at some point have to escape both beyond our fragile planet and our fragile nature. One way to enhance our capacity to do both these things is by improving on human nature where we can do so in ways that are “safe enough”. What we all have an inescapable moral duty to do is to continue with scientific investigation of gene editing techniques to the point at which we can make a rational choice. We must not stop now.

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Congratulations to Osinakachi Gabriel for his launch of the first publication the TAFFD’s “Magazine of the Future” — Also thanks for the Bioquark (page 37) and Regenerage (page 72) profiles — https://issuu.com/taffds/docs/taffd_s_magazine_2019 #Futurism #Longevity #Transhumanism #Biotechnology #Health #Wellness #Regeneration #LifeExtension #Aging #Immortality #IraPastor #Bioquark #Regenerage #Ideaxme #Singularity #Consciousness #AI #JasonSilva #ArtificiaIIntelligence #SENS

In this first issue by Trandisciplinary Agora For Future Discussions, we approach reality from a transdisciplinary perspective in order to find unity and greater understanding of the world as we enter a new paradigm in technological advancements that will lead us to transcending our own biology while enhancing our mental and physical limitations. We explore all topics that relate to transhumanism, cybernetic singularity, energy, consciousness, international policy, electromagnetic forces, language, AI, digitalization, ethics, philosophy, biotechnology, futurism and more.

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Sometimes, being human involves tragedy: unexpected accidents can alter a person’s future, permanently changing how they need to approach their daily lives. Those with traumatic brain injuries suffer long-term mental and physical challenges, such as trouble with their working memory span, which can play a significant role in their education and longevity. However, if used properly, transhuman aids such as prosthetic limbs can provide solutions to human challenges.

Transhumanism, in a nutshell, is the idea that people can use technology to overcome biological limitations. Just as how we use rational means to improve our life experiences and the world around us, we can use such means to improve ourselves as organisms. It is simply a concept, not a tangible characterization of some futuristic cyborg.

There is reasonable fear that using such technologies would be tampering with nature. This is true. However, whether something is good or bad cannot be decided simply by asking whether or not it is natural. Plenty of natural things are horrible, such as diseases and parasites, where our moral interest is to intervene and improve these conditions. The question to ask is not whether the technology is natural, but rather, what are the various possible consequences that would arise from it, both desirable and undesirable, and the likelihood of each. People who are concerned that our species will stray too far away from what it means to be a ‘natural human’ forget how far we have already evolved as a species.

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Starfleet Begins

Steven L. Kwast is a retired Air Force general and former commander of the Air Education and Training Command at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with a degree in astronautical engineering, he holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is a past president of the Air Force’s Air University in Montgomery, Alabama, and a former fighter pilot with extensive combat and command experience. He is the author of the study, “Fast Space: Leveraging Ultra Low-Cost Space Access for 21st Century Challenges.”

Beginning in 2010, and coinciding with the opening of Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship on Capitol Hill, the College has hosted an annual Constitution Day Celebration in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.

The program—which features speeches, debates, and roundtable discussions—explores the continuing relevance of the Founders’ Constitution for American politics today.

Hillsdale College is an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings” resulting from civil and religious liberty and “believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” It pursues the stated object of the founders: “to furnish all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary, scientific, [and] theological education” outstanding among American colleges “and to combine with this such moral and social instruction as will best develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils.” As a nonsectarian Christian institution, Hillsdale College maintains “by precept and example” the immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith.

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