Lifeboat Foundation

Many people in tech point out that artificial narrow intelligence, or A.N.I., has grown ever safer and more reliable—certainly safer and more reliable than we are. (Self-driving cars and trucks might save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.) For them, the question is whether the risks of creating an omnicompetent Jeeves would exceed the combined risks of the myriad nightmares—pandemics, asteroid strikes, global nuclear war, etc.—that an A.G.I. could sweep aside for us.

Thinking about artificial intelligence can help clarify what makes us human—for better and for worse.

The Fermi Paradox poses an age-old question: With light and radio waves skipping across the galaxy, why has there never been any convincing evidence of other life in the universe—or at least another sufficiently advanced civilization that uses radio? After all, evidence of intelligent life requires only that some species modulates a beacon (intentionally or unintentionally) in a fashion that is unlikely to be caused by natural phenomena.

The Fermi Paradox has always fascinated me, perhaps because SETI spokesperson, Carl Sagan was my astronomy professor at Cornell and—coincidentally—Sagan and Stephen Spielberg dedicated a SETI radio telescope at Oak Ridge Observatory around the time that I moved from Ithaca to New England. It’s a 5 minute drive from my new home. In effect, two public personalities followed me to Massachusetts.

What is SETI?

In November of 1984, SETI was chartered as a non-profit corporation with a single goal. In seeking to answer to the question “Are we alone?” it fuels the Drake equation by persuading radio telescopes to devote time to the search for extraterrestrial life and establishing an organized and systematic approach to partitioning, prioritizing, gathering and mining signal data.

Continue reading “Where are the aliens? Solutions to Fermi Paradox” »

The concern for the future of humanity is becoming more imperative as exponential technology brings us to the brink of the most fragile time in human history. Existential risk is a matter that is necessary to contemplate proactively rather than in a reactionary state, especially if intentions are to ensure continuance into the far future; a sort of insurance for humanity. However, what is mankind really trying to do? It is commonly advised to begin with the end in mind, however, there doesn’t seem to be a legitimate end goal besides a desperate cling to survival. Living without a purpose is simply existing, which seems to be the current state of our species. What are we existing for?

If we are referring to the whole of mankind rather than the specific individual, it can be commonly agreed upon that we simply have no concrete conclusion for why we are even here; or why anything should exist at all. This is in part due to the fact that we don’t even seem to have a complete understanding of what the universe actually is; why things behave the way they do. The fact that this is unknown would, by definition, imply that the relevance of everything that we do is also currently unknown. Thus, the logical progression would begin with acquiring the information necessary to discover what this nature is that existence seems to abide by. Then we can assemble the right question pertaining to the reason behind this phenomenon that we refer to as the “universe.”

By starting with this end question in mind, we can identify to the best of our current knowledge, the information that would be necessary to know before answering it. Regardless if it seems possible or not, we must consider it necessary for the time being. This would likely result in a series of questions, pushing the boundaries of our scientific and philosophical capabilities. This process would certainly be subject to change as new breakthroughs advance our understanding of the universe. However, the fact of the matter remains; it would be the most efficient direction relative to our maximum capability.

Chinese scientists urge the authorities to monitor and prevent potential radioactive leakage.

A spinning black hole could provide enough energy to power civilization for trillions of years — and create the biggest bomb known to the universe. Using the rotation of a black hole to supercharge electromagnetic waves could create massive amounts of energy or equally massive amounts of destruction. Kurzgesagt explains what it would take to harness a black hole and the potential risks of the process.

Speculating about the geological record of a technologically advanced civilization may help in the search for alien societies and poses an important question about our own future on earth.

This asteroid flyby was so close it was about halfway between the Earth and Moon. How’d we miss THAT? #SCINow

An asteroid approximately the size of a football field flew close by Earth only a day after it was first spotted this weekend. This near miss is a perfect example of an argument I’ve been making for some time: These are the asteroids we should worry about, not the so-called potentially hazardous rocks being tracked by NASA and periodically hyped by panicked headlines.

NASA scientists first observed the asteroid, now called 2018 GE3, on April 14, according to a database. It ventured as close as halfway the distance between Earth and the Moon, and was estimated to be between 47 meter and 100 meters in diameter (~150 and 330 feet). This is smaller than the asteroids governed by the NASA goal, which is to track 90 percent of near-Earth objects larger than 150 meters (~460 feet) in diameter. Nevertheless, it still could have caused a lot of damage if it had hit Earth.

Continue reading “Weekend Asteroid Flyby Confirms We’re Worrying About the Wrong Space Rocks” »

Maybe one of those times where you shouldn’t have consulted a numerologist?

Silly fringe theories about Planet X—an imagined planet typically named Nibiru that is on course to hit or pass by Earth with disastrous consequences—are the kind of thing normally relegated to vanity press-published books or those tabloids you browse in the supermarket checkout aisle. On Wednesday, they made it into Fox News, with the added caveat that maybe some other Biblical catastrophe could surprise us instead.

The Planet X theory first emerged in 1995 and is usually evidenced by tortured interpretations of religious texts, with vague suppositions that NASA either hasn’t detected this ominous celestial body or is actively covering up its existence to prevent widespread panic. In an article filed to Fox’s website on Wednesday, this time the prophesied doomsday comes courtesy of an article in British rag the Daily Express citing numerologist David Meade’s interpretation of the Bible’s Revelation 12:1–2:

Continue reading “Either Planet X Will Kill Us All on April 23rd or the Rapture Can Happen Any Time, Take Your Pick” »

NASA wants to go to Mars. SpaceX wants to go to Mars. Michio Kaku wants humanity to go to Mars so we can avoid extinction. The rest of us just want to see our species actually set foot on Mars. But first, the moon.

Think of the moon as a launchpad for the Red Planet. As LiveScience found out, Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner is going to take advantage of our satellite as a blast-off point for the next frontier. Starliner (the name is about as sci-fi as you can get) is what happens when Boeing, which probably makes everyone think airplanes not spaceships, joins forces with NASA to develop a reusable space capsule that will be able to fly up to seven astronauts to the ISS. It will also be the world’s first commercial space vehicle.

Starliner is even autonomous. Meaning crews will spend less time on training and take off sooner. It only needs one astronaut to fly it, or more like assist it in flight, using tablets and touch screens.

Continue reading “Humans are going to infinity and beyond (or at least the moon) with Boeing’s Starliner” »