Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: law – Page 58

Quantum computers will revolutionize information technology, ushering in an era where certain types of calculations will be performed with almost unimaginable speed. Practical applications will include healthcare disciplines such as molecular biology and drug discovery; big data mining; financial services such as portfolio analysis and fraud detection; and artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The federal government is helping to create an environment in which quantum computing innovation and experimentation can flourish. The National Quantum Initiative Act puts $1.2 billion into the quantum research budgets of the Energy Department, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NASA and the National Science Foundation. The law also outlines a 10-year plan to accelerate the development of quantum information science and technology applications.

Meanwhile, The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy is working to ensure that economic growth opportunities and opportunities for improving the world are baked into quantum policies and systems.

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TRENDING: kathy griffin tried to cut in line for COVID test, turns out she had diarrhea after mexico trip

“And if even the smallest transgression of confinement restrictions ends up being a misdemeanor, how will officials handle tens of millions of them?”

Norris pointed out that if police are expected to enforce the curfews, they too could become stricken with coronavirus.

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Another important question is the extent to which continued increases in computational capacity are economically viable. The Stanford Index reports a 300,000-fold increase in capacity since 2012. But in the same month that the Report was issued, Jerome Pesenti, Facebook’s AI head, warned that “The rate of progress is not sustainable…If you look at top experiments, each year the cost is going up 10-fold. Right now, an experiment might be in seven figures but it’s not going to go to nine or 10 figures, it’s not possible, nobody can afford that.”

AI has feasted on low-hanging fruit, like search engines and board games. Now comes the hard part — distinguishing causal relationships from coincidences, making high-level decisions in the face of unfamiliar ambiguity, and matching the wisdom and commonsense that humans acquire by living in the real world. These are the capabilities that are needed in complex applications such as driverless vehicles, health care, accounting, law, and engineering.

Despite the hype, AI has had very little measurable effect on the economy. Yes, people spend a lot of time on social media and playing ultra-realistic video games. But does that boost or diminish productivity? Technology in general and AI in particular are supposed to be creating a new New Economy, where algorithms and robots do all our work for us, increasing productivity by unheard-of amounts. The reality has been the opposite. For decades, U.S. productivity grew by about 3% a year. Then, after 1970, it slowed to 1.5% a year, then 1%, now about 0.5%. Perhaps we are spending too much time on our smartphones.

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WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin will acquire the satellite technology assets of Vector by default after a bankruptcy court received no qualified bids by a deadline last week.

In a Feb. 24 filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, lawyers overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings for Vector said that they received no qualifying bids for the company’s GalacticSky software-defined spacecraft technology by a Feb. 21 deadline.

As a result, Lockheed Martin, which provided debtor-in-possession financing when Vector filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, will obtain the assets with a “stalking horse” bid of $4.25 million, according to the terms of a Jan. 24 filing. That deal will be finalized at a Feb. 28 court hearing.

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A Cambridge-based biotech company that is creating a colony of “human” mice is locked in a Tom and Jerry-style fight with a US pharmaceutical giant.

Kymab, which is backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and counts fund manager Neil Woodford among its investors, is seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court in a row over patents. It follows a ruling by the Court of Appeal earlier this year that Kymab infringed a patent belonging to US company Regeneron. A previous judgment ruled that Regeneron’s patent was insufficient.

The legal tussle relates to Kymab’s “Kymouse” work, in which it manipulates the genome of mice. Kymab removes the genes that make antibodies in mice and replaces them with human antibody genes. This means that.

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Progress must not be held back by the fearful and ignorant. Progress will be made with or without permission. New and useful technology will emerge to help humanity despite those that cannot understand how they might benefit. This is happening and will continue to happen as it has behind closed doors and in secret but it can be different. It can be well regulated, it can be well informed, and results can be more readily available for the purpose of doing great things by voting YES to Human Cloning for Therapeutic Reasons and showing support for Science.

We, the undersigned, urge the United Nations to establish a timetable for a declaration on human cloning for therapeutic reasons. As you are aware, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 59/280, containing the UN Declaration on Human Cloning, on 8 March 2005, by a recorded vote of 84 to 34, with 37 abstentions. The Declaration culminated an effort that had commenced in 2001 with a proposal by France and Germany for a convention against reproductive cloning of human beings. For three-and-a-half years a major confrontation took place at the United Nations between those states favouring a narrow ban limited to cloning for reproductive purposes, and those insisting on prohibiting all forms of human cloning, including for ‘therapeutic’ purposes.

Not only was the Declaration adopted by a vote, it was carried only by a plurality (84 states), not even a majority, of states members of the United Nations. Moreover, the text of the Declaration is ambiguous in terms of calling upon states both to adopt all necessary measures to protect adequately human life in the application of life sciences and to prohibit all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.

What started as a seemingly straightforward proposal soon ran into the cross-winds of the broader debate on the ethical and legal appropriateness of human embryonic stem cell research (including through the active participation of the Holy See), and there is no denying that the proposal of supporters of the comprehensive ban was based on the central idea that the destruction of a human embryo, even at its earliest stages of development and regardless of its purpose, amounted to ‘killing’ a human being.

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