Lifeboat Foundation

America’s working class is falling further behind.

The rich-poor gap — the difference in annual income between households in the top 20 percent and those in the bottom 20 percent — ballooned by $29,200 to $189,600 between 2010 and 2015, based on Bloomberg calculations using U.S. Census Bureau data.

Computers and robots are taking over many types of tasks, shoving aside some workers while boosting the productivity of specialized employees, contributing to the gap.

Continue reading “America’s Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Replaced by Robots” »

MICROSOFT WILL BUILD computers even more sleek and beautiful than Apple’s. Robots will 3D-print cool shoes that are personalized just for you. (And you’ll get them in just a few short days.) Neural networks will take over medical diagnostics, and Snapchat will try to take over the entire world. The women and men in these pages are the technical, creative, idealistic visionaries who are bringing the future to your doorstep. You might not recognize their names—they’re too busy working to court the spotlight—but you’ll soon hear about them a lot. They represent the best of what’s next.

You might not recognize their names—they’re too busy working to court the spotlight—but you’ll soon hear about them a lot. They represent what’s next.

Stephen Hawking has warned China that the rise of powerful artificial intelligence could be “either the best or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity” as the country’s technology companies pour resources into competing with Western rivals in a race to dominate the field.

World-renowned physicist’s stark warning comes amid fierce global competition to develop artificial intelligence technology.

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 27 April, 2017, 3:48pm.

Continue reading “Stephen Hawking’s question to China: will AI help or destroy the human race?” »

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a double-armed, laser-guided robot that can basically 3D print a 50-foot-wide house in less than 14 hours with almost no human intervention. The Digital Construction Platform, described today in Science Robotics, consists of a large hydraulic arm mounted on a platform with motorized treads, plus a smaller electric-powered arm for finer movements. The MIT team programmed the solar-powered machine to spray out foam construction material, layer by layer, to form a 12-foot-high, igloo-like structure big enough to house a family. The researchers hope such robots could someday be sent to the moon, Mars or Antarctica to build “print-in-place” habitats from the materials at hand … or at manipulator.

Increasingly human-like automated weapons demand an honest accounting of our emotional responses to them.

The audience of venture capitalists, engineers and other tech-sector denizens chuckled as they watched a video clip of an engineer using a hockey stick to shove a box away from the Atlas robot that was trying to pick it up. Each time the humanoid robot lumbered forward, its objective moved out of reach. From my vantage point at the back of the room, the audience’s reaction to the situation began to sound uneasy, as if the engineer’s actions and their invention’s response had crossed some imaginary line.

Continue reading “How Should We Treat Our Military Robots?” »

Happy #Alien Day. Here’s my trilogy of alien stories for Vice. I’ll start by listing #2 first for those who only have time for one, but they do go in chronological order: 2) https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/why-havent-we-met…ed-into-ai & 1) https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-internet-will…wake-it-up & 3) (covered recently by the History Channel): https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-language-of-a…cipherable #transhumanism

While traveling in Western Samoa many years ago, I met a young Harvard University graduate student researching ants. He invited me on a hike into the jungles to assist with his search for the tiny insect. He told me his goal was to discover a new species of ant, in hopes it might be named after him one day.

Whenever I look up at the stars at night pondering the cosmos, I think of my ant collector friend, kneeling in the jungle with a magnifying glass, scouring the earth. I think of him, because I believe in aliens—and I’ve often wondered if aliens are doing the same to us.

Continue reading “Why Haven’t We Met Aliens Yet? Because They’ve Evolved into AI” »

Even our most imaginative expectations of AI are only primitive — but as neuroscience understands the brain more deeply, it will unlock the full potential of hybrid intelligence.

A robot just taught another robot how to read…

Project RAMA is an idea to turn asteroids into automated spacecraft. It sounds crazy, but it’s amazingly possible.