Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: robotics/AI – Page 2,547

IBM predicts superhero vision, nano-sized health devices in next five years

I like this article as it highlights some of the major discoveries made in 2016 that will launch many areas forward in 2017.

IBM is taking steps to make the world a better place.

The company has unveiled its annual ‘Five in Five’ list today, which lays out some of the most important and groundbreaking scientific innovations that, in the next five years, could have the potential to drastically alter the way people work, live and interact.

This year’s overarching theme is “making the invisible visible,” with IBM highlighting artificial intelligence (AI), hyperimaging, macroscopes, chip technology, and smart sensors as technologies that could have a big impact on life as we know it.

The Lifeboat Foundation and LEAF join Forces

I figured they would post it themselves but I got too excited and decided to spread it around.

The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit organization devoted to encouraging the promotion and advancement of science while helping develop strategies to survive existential risks and the possible abuse of technology. They are interested in biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics and AI and fostering the safe and responsible use of these powerful new technologies. The Life Preserver program is aligned with our mission to promote and develop rejuvenation biotechnology capable of combating age-related diseases.

We believe that a bright future awaits mankind and support the ethical and safe use of new medical technologies being developed today, thus we consider the goals of the Lifeboat Foundation to be compatible with ours and are pleased to move forward with them in official collaboration. As part of our commitment to the ethical progress of medical science LEAF promotes scientific research and learning via our crowdfunding website Lifespan.io and our educational hub at the LEAF website. A number of LEAF board members are already on the Scientific Advisory board for the Lifeboat Foundation and we look forward to working closely with them in the coming year.

With the first rejuvenation biotechnologies now arriving, such as Unity Biotechnology senolytic therapies that directly address one of the causes of aging entering human clinical trials soon, it is a very exciting time for medical science.

IBM predicts five innovations for the next five years

IBM has unveiled its annual “5 in 5” – a list of ground-breaking innovations that will change the way people work, live, and interact during the next five years.

In 1609, Galileo invented the telescope and saw our cosmos in an entirely new way. He proved the theory that the Earth and other planets in our Solar System revolve around the Sun, which until then was impossible to observe. IBM Research continues this work through the pursuit of new scientific instruments – whether physical devices or advanced software tools – designed to make what’s invisible in our world visible, from the macroscopic level down to the nanoscale.

“The scientific community has a wonderful tradition of creating instruments to help us see the world in entirely new ways. For example, the microscope helped us see objects too small for the naked eye, and the thermometer helped us understand the temperature of the Earth and human body,” said Dario Gil, vice president of science & solutions at IBM Research. “With advances in artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, we aim to invent a new generation of scientific instruments that will make the complex invisible systems in our world today visible over the next five years.”

Synthego bags $41M to grow CRISPR synthetic RNA kit biz

Nice.

Synthetic RNA kit business Synthego has raised $41 million to step up its efforts to make CRISPR gene editing easier and more accurate. The West Coast startup relied heavily on tech VCs for the cash, but also gained validation from having CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna invest in its business.

Redwood City, CA-based Synthego exited stealth in August, four years after it was set up by two former SpaceX computer engineers. In those early years, which were bankrolled by an $8.3 million investment in 2013, Synthego established an automated manufacturing process for guide RNA products that it thinks sets it apart from larger competitors in terms of cost, turnaround time and editing efficiency.

Sythengo has persuaded some big names it is on to something. 8VC, an infrastructure-focused VC that also invested in uBiome, led the round with support from fellow new backers AME Cloud Ventures, Elements Capital, OS Fund, Alexandria Equities and ZhenFund. Existing investors including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Menlo Ventures also contributed to the Series B round.

Japanese company replaces office workers with artificial intelligence

A future in which human workers are replaced by machines is about to become a reality at an insurance firm in Japan, where more than 30 employees are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence system that can calculate payouts to policyholders.

Insurance firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is making 34 employees redundant and replacing them with IBM’s Watson Explorer AI.

The Transhumanist Paradox [33c3]

“I’m a political theory researcher at Sciences Po, and this talk draws on modern political theories of liberalism, the latest transhumanist literature, and ancient Greek theories of the good life.”

The Transhumanist Paradox.

Deciding between technological utopias in a liberal state.

How does a pluralist society – a society built to accommodate our irreconcilable differences – make a choice about the technological future of mankind? How can a liberal state dedicated to upholding individual liberty interfere in technological progress, and why should it?

Do we really want to leave our technological futures in the hands of the major AI researchers – Google, Facebook, and the US Defense Department?

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