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Category: futurism – Page 506

A Brief But Spectacular take on the future of CRISPR

Jennifer Doudna:

Nobel Laureate Biochemist: Early in my work on CRISPR, I had a dream one night about a colleague of mine asking me to explain CRISPR to a friend of his. And the friend turned out to be Hitler. And it was Hitler with a pig face and a horrifying look that made me imagine some of the worst aspects of what genome editing could bring about if it were used irresponsibly.

And I woke up from that dream thinking that it was so critical that we as scientists think together about how we use our technologies responsibly.

DeepMind’s CEO said there’s a chance that AI could become self-aware in the future

The CEO of Alphabet-owned AI research lab, DeepMind Technologies, spoke about the potential of artificial intelligence in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which aired on Sunday.

DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told CBS that he thinks that AI might one day become self-aware.

“Philosophers haven’t really settled on a definition of consciousness yet but if we mean self-awareness, and these kinds of things … I think there’s a possibility that AI one day could be,” he said.

How much of the Universe can humanity reach?

Beyond our own Milky Way galaxy, there are physical limits on our access to the Universe. In this new video from PBS Space Time, we explore the absolute limit of our future view of the Universe, and of the Universe’s ability to influence us.

We humans have always been explorers. The great civilisations that have arisen across the world are owed to our restless ancestors. These days, there’s not much of Earth left to explore. But if we look up, there’s a whole Universe out there waiting for us. Future generations may one day explore the cosmos and could even settle entire other galaxies.

However, there is a fundamental limit to how much of the Universe we can expand into. So, just how big could humanity get? Matt O’Dowd, astrophysicist and host of PBS Space Time, looks at the obstacles that our descendants could face in the very distant future.

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