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Retro Biosciences’ mysterious backer has finally been revealed!


In 2021 the longevity industry received one of its largest investments to date, with a $180m investment being made into the pharmaceutical start known as Retro Biosciences, or Retro Bio for short. Not only was this investment cause for celebration within the field of regenerative medicine, but it also came with a tantalising mystery, as the backer, or indeed backer, did not make themselves publicly known. It was assumed that due to the secrecy involved, it was likely that this investment had come from a small number of individuals, potentially just a single backer. This mystery backer, combined with the notable capital investment, led to much media attention at the time, and has since garnered a significant amount of interest in Retro Bio from both the general public and future potential financial backers. That was until last week, when the mystery backer finally decided that now was the right time to reveal their identity to the general public.

In an interview with MIT Technology review, American entrepreneur Sam Altman revealed that he was the sole backer for the pharmaceutical start-up, who single handily provided the entire $180m investment. Sam Altman, who primarily made his fortune in the tech industry (specifically through social media companies such as Loopt) has become somewhat of an angel investor for a slew of world changing, innovative companies which are involved in everything from artificial intelligence to nuclear energy. It is hoped that this significant single investment marks the beginning of a longevity tech boom, similar to what was seen during the dot-com boom (but hopefully without the disastrous ending).

The financial industry’s response to artificial intelligence has been all over the place. Now, Bank of America is weighing in very much on the side of the bots.

In a note to clients viewed by CNBC and other outlets, BofA equity strategist Haim Israel boasted that AI was one of its top trends to watch — and invest in — for the year, and used all kinds of hypey language to convince its clients.

“We are at a defining moment — like the internet in the ’90s — where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is moving towards mass adoption,” the client note reads, “with large language models like ChatGPT finally enabling us to fully capitalize on the data revolution.”

The Neuroscience of Creativity, Perception, and Confirmation Bias.
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To ensure your survival, your brain evolved to avoid one thing: uncertainty. As neuroscientist Beau Lotto points out, if your ancestors wondered for too long whether that noise was a predator or not, you wouldn’t be here right now. Our brains are geared to make fast assumptions, and questioning them in many cases quite literally equates to death. No wonder we’re so hardwired for confirmation bias. No wonder we’d rather stick to the status quo than risk the uncertainty of a better political model, a fairer financial system, or a healthier relationship pattern. But here’s the catch: as our brains evolved toward certainty, we simultaneously evolved away from creativity—that’s no coincidence; creativity starts with a question, with uncertainty, not with a cut and dried answer. To be creative, we have to unlearn millions of years of evolution. Creativity asks us to do that which is hardest: to question our assumptions, to doubt what we believe to be true. That is the only way to see differently. And if you think creativity is a chaotic and wild force, think again, says Beau Lotto. It just looks that way from the outside. The brain cannot make great leaps, it can only move linearly through mental possibilities. When a creative person forges a connection between two things that are, to your mind, so far apart, that’s a case of high-level logic. They have moved through steps that are invisible to you, perhaps because they are more open-minded and well-practiced in questioning their assumptions. Creativity, it seems, is another (highly sophisticated) form of logic. Beau Lotto is the author of Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently.

BEAU LOTTO:

Beau Lotto is a professor of neuroscience, previously at University College London and now at the University of London, and a Visiting Scholar at New York University.

His work focuses on the biological, computational and psychological mechanisms of perception. He has conducted and presented research on human and bumblebee perception and behavior for more than 25 years, and his interest in education, business and the arts has led him into entrepreneurship and engaging the public with science.

In 2001, Beau founded the Lab of Misfits, a neuro-design studio that was resident for two years at London’s Science Museum and most recently at Viacom in New York. The lab’s experimental studio approach aims to deepen our understanding of human nature, advance personal and social well-being through research that places the public at the centre of the process of discovery, and create unique programmes of engagement that span the boundaries between people, disciplines and institutions. Originally from Seattle, with degrees from UC Berkeley and Edinburgh Medical School, he now lives in Oxford and New York.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unarguably the most exciting field in robotics. And humanoid robots, robots resembling the human body in shape, are one of the most popular forms of AI. However, a lot of work, finances, and research are put into making these humanoid robots.

The field is already crowded with a number of companies with interesting projects, such as Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot and Tesla’s much-hyped Optimus prototype designed to be “general purpose.”

This week, an AI Robotics startup, Figure, has unveiled Figure 1, the world’s first commercially viable general-purpose humanoid robot. The company says this humanoid will have the ability to think, learn, and interact with its environment.

‘Losing jobs to ChatGPT will never happen. The human mind is the most flexible instrument — so what you should do is, use ChatGPT as the base and then show your creativity!’ says Infosys Founder NR Narayana Murthy on whether ChatGPT is likely to take away coders’ jobs. Speaking to the press on the sidelines of the Nasscom Technology and Leadership Forum, Narayan Murthy said, “In 1977–78 there was a thing called program generators. Everybody said the youngsters will lose all jobs, it didn’t happen… The human mind is the most flexible instrument. It can adapt very well. And all that happened was people start solving bigger and bigger problems, which these program generators could not handle.” Murthy said that ChatGPT is good and one should welcome it…

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Alan Thompson, AI Consultant and Former Chairman of Mensa International, examines the latest trends in artificial intelligence, as well as its applications to finance, professional services, and military. He discusses the possibility that AI could become sentient and even dangerous with David Lin, Anchor and Producer at Kitco News.

Alan Thompson’s website: https://lifearchitect.ai/about-alan/

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0:00 — Intro.
1:57 — Overview of AI
8:07 — Chat GPT
11:51 — Human similarities.
15:53 — Microsoft and Google.
19:55 — AI replacing workers.
21:54 — Applications of AI
24:26 — Technological singularity.
26:05 — Dangers of AI
28:52 — Transhumanism.

#technology #ai #chatgpt.

Kitco NEWS is a global news network based in Montreal, with bureaus in New York, Hong Kong, New Mexico, London and Vancouver. Since 2009, our journalists have helped investors make informed decisions through in-depth reporting, daily market updates, and interviews with key industry figures. We aim to accurately and impartially cover the economy, stock markets, commodities, cryptocurrencies, mining and metals.

Founder of Intellisystem Technologies. Scientific researcher and professor at eCampus University. NASA Genelab AWG AI/ML member.

Quantum computing is a new approach founded on quantum mechanics principles to perform calculations. Unlike classical computers, which store information in bits (either 0 or 1), quantum computers use quantum bits or “qubits” that can exist in multiple states simultaneously. This physics property allows quantum computers to perform specific calculations much faster than classical computers.

The potential applications of quantum computing are vast and include fields such as cryptography, finance and drug discovery. It promises to transform multiple industries and tackle challenges that classical computers cannot solve.

“This past week, we completed a difficult organizational overhaul focused on improving future execution, using as much feedback as we could gather from the entire company,” Musk wrote. “Those who remain are highly regarded by those around them.”

The short memo, titled “Performance Awards,” is Musk’s first communication to Twitter employees since he laid off hundreds more of them, including several senior loyalists and nearly all of the product team without warning over the weekend. (Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer first tweeted about the memo.)

After several rounds of cuts and demanding that employees be “extremely hardcore,” Musk hasn’t yet shared details about how he will make up for the stock awards that went away when he took Twitter private. In previous internal comments, he has alluded to the system he set up at SpaceX to let employees regularly sell the company’s stock to interested investors. Given Twitter’s distressed financial situation relative to SpaceX, it’s unclear what the appetite for its stock will be in the short term.