Lifeboat Foundation

The growth of human and computer intelligence has triggered a barrage of dire predictions about the rise of super intelligence and the singularity. But some retain their skepticism, including Dr. Michael Shermer, a science historian and founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine.

The reason so many rational people put forward hypotheses that are more hype than high tech, Shermer says, is that being smart and educated doesn’t protect anyone from believing in “weird things.” In fact, sometimes smart and educated people are better at rationalizing beliefs that they hold for not-so-rational reasons. The smarter and more educated you are, the better able you are to find evidence to support what you want to be true, suggests Shermer.

“This explains why Nobel Prize winners speak about areas they know nothing about with great confidence and are sure that they’re right. Just because they have this great confidence of being able to do that (is) a reminder that they’re more like lawyers than scientists in trying to marshal a case for their client,” Shermer said. “(Lawyers) just put together the evidence, as much as you can, in support of your client and get rid of the negative evidence. In science you’re not allowed to do that, you’re supposed to look at all the evidence, including the counter evidence to your theory.”

Continue reading “Why Pessimistic Predictions For Future of AI May be More Hype than High Tech” »

Part 2

In part 1 of the journey, we saw the leading observations that needed explanation. Explanations that we want to do through the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. No technical and expert knowledge in these theories yet, only scratches of its implications. So let us continue.

THE RELATIVITY THEORY Deducing from the Hubble expansion, the galaxies were close in the distant past but certainly not in this current form as the telescopes now see them receding. In fact, if they were receding it also means they were expanding.

Therefore, when we reverse the receding galaxies into the far distant past they should end up at a point somewhere sometime with the smallest imaginable extension, if that extension is conceivable at all. Scientists call it the singularity, a mathematical deduction from the relativity theory. How did this immeasurable Universe made of clusters of galaxies we now see ever existed in that point called singularity?

Continue reading “The Big Bang: Arriving at the site of creation” »

I imagine that Alphabet has been already exploring the whole online bot technology with its cloud as well as other AI technology. However, one real opportunity in the online cloud services is the “personable” experiences for consumers and businesses. Granted big data & analytics in the cloud is proving to be exceptional for researchers and industry; however, how do we now make the leap to make things more of a personable experience as well as make it available/ attractive for individual consumers & small business especially we look at connected AI & singularity. Personally, I have not seen any viable and good answers at the moment to my question. Security & privacy still is a huge hurdle that must be addressed properly to ensure adoption by consumers from a personable experience perspective.

The market for cloud services is expected to skyrocket in the years ahead. With hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, industry leaders including Microsoft, IBM, and Alphabet are going all-in to capture their fair share of the cloud revenue pie. Alphabet has taken a different path than its tech brethren in the cloud market, but it appears that’s about to change.

Until recently, Alphabet seemed content to focus its cloud efforts on data hosting, or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Not a bad plan given that the amount of data amassed in today’s digital world is unparalleled and is expected to continue growing as consumers become more connected. But even at this early stage of the cloud, data hosting has become a commodity. The real opportunity lies in cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and data analytics solutions, which Alphabet is beginning to address.

Continue reading “Alphabet Inc Uses Its Head in AI” »

I see great potential for the TrueNorth chip as we migrate towards Quantum & Singularity. TrueNorth is an interim chip that assists researchers, engineers, etc. in their efforts to mimic the human brain’s nuero sensors and processing for robotics, BMI technology, etc.

The new IBM supercomputer chip mimics the human brain by using an architecture with 1 million neurons. Nevertheless, its true purpose remains in question for a project with massive public funding.

Nick Walker, an innovation scientist looking to stem cells for an HIV cure, has won the South African edition of the Singularity University Global Impact Competition (GIC), and with it the chance to attend a 10-week course at the prestigious innovation institution.

The scientist currently works at Next Biosciences, Africa’s leading stem cell laboratory and cryogenic biobank, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Walker completed his BSc, BSc (Hons, Cum Laude) and PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg. In his PhD work he focussed on the role of the extracellular matrix (ECM) on various aspects of myogenesis.

Continue reading “SA innovation scientist wins space at Singularity University, wants to cure HIV” »

Three years have passed since the publication of the volume of essays “The Singularity Hypotheses” — a publication that was marked at the time by a London Futurists discussion event. During these three years, public awareness of the concepts of an intelligence explosion has grown sharply — fuelled, in part, by statements from luminaries such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk.

In this event, Amnon Eden, lead editor of Singularity Hypotheses, returns to London Futurists to provide an update on the controversies about the Singularity. Topics to be covered will include:

• Luddites, Philistines, and Starry-Eyed: The War over Killer Robots.
• AI (Artificial Intelligence) vs. IA (Intelligence Augmentation)
• “Technological Singularity”: A Definition, Sufficient and Necessary Conditions.
• Perennial Fallacies, Debunked and Re-debunked.
• Learning from the media storm.

Continue reading “The Singularity Controversy: 3 years later (A London Futurists Event)” »

Like this article highlights; we will see a day soon when all techies will need some level of bio-science and/ or medical background especially as we move closer to Singularity which is what we have seen predicted by Ray Kurzweil and others. In the coming decade/s we will no longer see tech credentials relying strictly on math/ algorithms, code, etc, Techies will need some deeper knowledge around the natural sciences.

If you are majoring in biology right now, I say to you: that was a good call. The mounting evidence suggests that you placed your bet on the right degree. With emergent genetic recombination technologies improving at breakneck speed alongside a much deepened understanding of biological circuitry in simple, “home grown” metabolic systems, this field is shaping up to be a tinkerer’s paradise.

Many compare this stage of synthetic biology to the early days of microprocessing (the precursor to computers) when Silicon Valley was a place for young entrepreneurs to go if they needed a cheap place to begin their research or tech business. One such tech entrepreneur, the founder of O’Reilly media, Tim O’Reilly — who also coined the term “open source” — made this comparison in an interview with Wired magazine., O’Reilly further commented on synthetic biology saying, “It’s still in the fun stage.”

Continue reading “Introduction: Explaining the Future of Synthetic Biology with Computer Programming’s Past” »

Reshaping how you think about the future:

“The future is widely misunderstood. Our forebears expected it to be pretty much like their present, which had been pretty much like their past.” –Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near

We humans aren’t great predictors of the future. For most of history, our experience has been “local and linear.” Not much change occurred generation to generation: We used the same tools, ate the same meals, lived in the same general place.

Continue reading “How to Think Exponentially and Better Predict the Future” »

Very nice goal to have “all things connected” in Toyota’s and Microsoft’s case is “Singularity” lite meaning physical structures are connected; however, bio connection does not exist (only consumer profile information is available and integrated). This could be considered an interim state for Singularity.

The company called Toyota Connected has a goal of simplifying technology so it’s easier to use, perhaps even getting rid of distracting and complicated touch screens that now are in most cars and replacing them with heads-up or voice-activated technology, said Zack Hicks, the company’s CEO who also is Toyota Motor America’s chief information officer. Like other automakers, Toyota Connected will research connecting cars to each other and to homes, as well as telematics features that learn and anticipate a driver’s habits. The company, like other automakers, will explore transmitting a driver’s health data to a doctor or driving patterns to an insurance company so people are insured based on where they travel, Toyota said.