Lifeboat Foundation

“Bankers will become dinosaurs.” #AI article from The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/bridgewat…management #Transhumanism

The company is already highly data-driven, with meetings recorded and staff asked to grade each other throughout the day using a ratings system called “dots”. The Systematized Intelligence Lab has built a tool that incorporates these ratings into “Baseball Cards” that show employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Another app, dubbed The Contract, gets staff to set goals they want to achieve and then tracks how effectively they follow through.

These tools are early applications of PriOS, the over-arching management software that Dalio wants to make three-quarters of all management decisions within five years. The kinds of decisions PriOS could make include finding the right staff for particular job openings and ranking opposing perspectives from multiple team members when there’s a disagreement about how to proceed.

Continue reading “World’s largest hedge fund to replace managers with artificial intelligence” »

In Brief

• An expert on the intersection of science and philosophy posits that our current transition to “postbiological” life could have already been undertaken by extraterrestrial species.
• She warns that these alien lifeforms could by artificially intelligent, in which case they could pose a tremendous threat to life on Earth.

Susan Schneider is a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET). She is also an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, and her expertise includes the philosophy of cognitive science, particularly with regards to the plausibility of computational theories of mind and theoretical issues in artificial intelligence (AI).

In short, Schneider has a keen understanding of the intersection between science and philosophy. As such, she also has a unique perspective on AI, offering a fresh (but quite alarming) view on how artificial intelligence could forever alter humanity’s existence. In an article published by the IEET, she shares that perspective, talking about potential flaws in the way we view AI and suggesting a possible connection between AI and extraterrestrial life.

Continue reading “The Goals of Extraterrestrial AI May ‘Conflict With Those of Biological Life’” »

Nice.

Scientists have enlisted the exotic properties of graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of carbon, to function like the film of an incredibly sensitive camera system in visually mapping tiny electric fields in a liquid. Researchers hope the new method will allow more extensive and precise imaging of the electrical signaling networks in our hearts and brains.

The ability to visually depict the strength and motion of very faint electrical fields could also aid in the development of so-called lab-on-a-chip devices that use very small quantities of fluids on a microchip-like platform to diagnose disease or aid in drug development, for example, or that automate a range of other biological and chemical analyses. The setup could potentially be adapted for sensing or trapping specific chemicals, too, and for studies of light-based electronics (a field known as optoelectronics).

Continue reading “Electrical signaling in heart and nerve cells using graphene” »

UM NOVO RELATÓRIO da Casa Branca alerta que milhões de postos de trabalho podem ser automatizado e deixar de existir nos próximos anos.

O relatório, publicado esta semana pelo Conselho de Assessores Econômicos do presidente, se junta a um crescente corpo de trabalho prevendo enormes perdas de empregos devido à automação e inteligência artificial.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has the potential to boost productivity but increase wealth inequality and wipe out millions of jobs, a research report by the White House claimed on Tuesday. With an increasing number of industries set to be affected by automation technology in the coming years, jobs could be displaced — a fear that has been voiced by academics and business leaders. Auto companies are developing driverless cars, and factories are seeing an increased use of robotics.

Because AI is not a single technology, but rather a collection of technologies that are applied to specific tasks, the effects of AI will be felt unevenly through the economy. Some tasks will be more easily automated than others, and some jobs will be affected more than others — both negatively and positively.

Researchers around the world have given varying estimates about the size of potential job losses. One recent estimate by Forrester suggests 6 percent of jobs in the next five years could be wiped out thanks to AI. The White House report cites a 2013 study from Oxford University suggesting that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk because of AI. The report suggests that lower-skilled and less-educated workers could feel the heat the most. Overall, the White House report advocates a three-pronged approach to preparing for a future remade by AI that includes investing in AI for its benefits, training Americans for the jobs of the future and helping workers make the transition to new positions.

Continue reading “AI could boost productivity but increase wealth inequality, White House says” »

A column on #transhumanism I did for Flaunt:

Are you ready for the future? A Transhumanist future in which everyone around you—friends, family, and neighbors—has dipped into the cybernetic punch bowl? This is a future of contact lenses that see in the dark, endoskeleton artificial limbs that lift a half-ton, and brain chip implants that read your thoughts and instantly communicate them to others. Sound crazy? Indeed, it does. Nevertheless, it’s coming soon. Very soon. In fact, much of the technology already exists. It’s being sold commercially at your local superstore or being tested in laboratories right now around the world.

We’ve all heard about driverless test cars on the roads and how doctors in France are replacing people’s hearts with permanent robotic ones, but did you know there’s already a multi-billion dollar market for brainwave-reading headsets? Using electroencephalography (EEG) sensors that pick up and monitor brain activity, NeuroSky’s MindWave can attach to Google Glass and allow you to take a picture and post it to Facebook and Twitter just by thinking about it. Other headsets allow you to play video games on your iPhone with only your thoughts as well. In fact, a few months ago, the first mind-to-mind communication took place. A researcher in India projected a thought to a colleague in France, and using their headsets, they understood each other. Telepathy went from science fiction to reality, just like that.

Continue reading “Flaunt Magazine” »

Even in the best case, automation leaves the first generation of workers it displaces in a lurch because they usually don’t have the skills to do new and more complex tasks, Mr. Acemoglu found in a paper published in May.

Robert Stilwell, 35, of Evansville, Ind., is one of them. He did not graduate from high school and worked in factories building parts for tools and cars, wrapping them up and loading them onto trucks. After he was laid off, he got a job as a convenience store cashier, which pays a lot less.

“I used to have a really good job, and I liked the people I worked with — until it got overtaken by a machine, and then I was let go,” he said.

Continue reading “The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China. It’s Automation” »

Smile Vector is a Twitter bot that can make any celebrity smile. It scrapes the web for pictures of faces, and then it morphs their expressions using a deep-learning-powered neural network. Its results aren’t perfect, but they’re created completely automatically, and it’s just a small hint of what’s to come as artificial intelligence opens a new world of image, audio, and video fakery. Imagine a version of Photoshop that can edit an image as easily as you can edit a Word document — will we ever trust our own eyes again?

Even the robots are getting involved in science smile

It looks like the folks at CellAge are using robots to help them with their research and you can get one of these awesome “Marty” robots too when you support their project at Lifespan.io.

Continue reading “CellAge Campaign: Marty the Robot Reward” »