Lifeboat Foundation

Unlike many of his peers in the artificial intelligence community, Andrew Ng isn’t convinced about the dangers of AI.

In a video posted to Twitter this week, Ng, a Stanford University professor and founder of several Silicon Valley AI startups, expressed doubt about the doomsday predictions of other executives and experts in the field.

Science Fiction author Robert J. Sawyer talks about Oppenheimer and about his Alternate History book: The Oppenheimer Alternative.

Where to find ‘The Oppenheimer Alternative” book?
Robert J. Sawyer’s website: https://sfwriter.com.

Continue reading “Oppenheimer — with Robert J. Sawyer” »

Italy’s Campi Flegrei is showing some troubling early warning signs, but scientists caution that its eruption is far from certain.

The sex of human and other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome. But the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene.

The good news is two branches of rodents have already lost their Y chromosome and have lived to tell the tale.

A recent paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows how the spiny rat has evolved a new male-determining gene.

A raft of industry experts have given their views on the likely impact of artificial intelligence on humanity in the future. The responses are unsurprisingly mixed.

The Guardian has released an interesting article regarding the potential socioeconomic and political impact of the ever-increasing rollout of artificial intelligence (AI) on society. By asking various experts in the field on the subject, the responses were, not surprisingly, a mixed bag of doom, gloom, and hope.

Continue reading “The rise of AI: ‘AI doomsday’ or the best thing since sliced bread?” »

Published 49 mins ago.

Geneticists have unearthed a major event in the ancient history of sturgeons and paddlefish that has significant implications for the way we understand evolution. They have pinpointed a previously hidden “whole genome duplication” (WGD) in the common ancestor of these species, which seemingly opened the door to genetic variations that may have conferred an advantage around the time of a major mass extinction some 200 million years ago.

The big-picture finding suggests that there may be many more overlooked, shared WGDs in other species before periods of extreme environmental upheaval throughout Earth’s tumultuous history.

The research, led by Professor Aoife McLysaght and Dr. Anthony Redmond from Trinity College Dublin’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, has just been published in Nature Communications.

As apocalyptic warnings go, today is right up there. Some of the world’s most influential tech geniuses and entrepreneurs say AI risks the extinction of humanity.

Having lobbed the ball firmly in the court of global leaders and lawmakers the question is: will they have any idea what to do about it?

It’s another high-profile warning about AI risk that will divide experts. Signatories include Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

A group of top AI researchers, engineers, and CEOs have issued a new warning about the existential threat they believe that AI poses to humanity.

The 22-word statement, trimmed short to make it as broadly acceptable as possible, reads as follows: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Continue reading “Top AI researchers and CEOs warn against ‘risk of extinction’ in 22-word statement” »