Lifeboat Foundation

North Korea ‘low on our list of concerns’ says Tesla boss following Vladimir Putin’s statement that whoever leads in AI will rule world.

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A new study published by scientists at the Salk Institute recently shows how that changes in the nucleolus of progeria cells and normally aged cells share some characteristics that may allow them to be used as a biomarker for biological age[1].

What is Progeria?

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria is a rare genetic disease that causes people to suffer from aging-like symptoms on an accelerated timescale compared to regular aging. Whilst it shares similarities with regular aging it is not accelerated aging per se, but the outcome is much the same.

Seoul is poised to give green light to install four more batteries of controversial Thaad system amid tensions with Pyongyang.

When Kristopher Boesen of Bakersfield regained consciousness after losing control of his car while driving in wet conditions, he was paralyzed from the neck down. The prognosis was grim: he was told that he might never regain control of his limbs again.

But he has. At least some of them. He has movement in his upper body and can use his arms and hands. He can feed himself, text friends and family and even hug them. To him, this means that he has his life back. How did this miracle come about?

Kris was offered the opportunity to participate in a human clinical trial at the University of Southern California and Asterias Biotherapeutics. He is one of five previously paralyzed patients who experienced increased mobility after the trial.

Continue reading “First paralyzed human regains his upper body movement after being treated with stem cells” »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLgJZ-yNBBE&feature=share

Kurzweil is one of the world’s leading minds on artificial intelligence, technology and futurism. He is the author of five national best-selling books, including “The Singularity is Near” and “How to Create a Mind.”

Raymond “Ray” Kurzweil is an American author, computer scientist, inventor and futurist. Aside from futurology, he is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.

Continue reading “Ray Kurzweil — A Revolutionary Future” »

How is Artificial Intelligence actually thinking? Even their creators often don’t really fully understand. But if AI becomes more and more important you should at least have an idea of how algorithms get to results. And they think totally different to how human beings do, says Sara M. Watson, tech critic and writer at the Digital Asia Hub, Hong Kong. How can literature and journalism help to find a new perspective on AI?

“The biggest problem AI has is that even the engineers can’t really explain certain outcomes or certain decisions that go through an artificially intelligent system.”

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence and Smart Journalism” »

Article out by Ron Bailey at Reason Magazine that discusses #transhumanism and #libertarianism:

Kai Weiss, a researcher at the Austrian Economics Center and Hayek Institute in Vienna, Austria, swiftly denounced the piece. “Transhumanism should be rejected by libertarians as an abomination of human evolution,” he wrote.

Clearly there is some disagreement.

Continue reading “Transhumanism and Libertarianism Are Entirely Compatible” »

Announcement of CRISPR technology, which allows precise editing of the human genome, has been heralded as the future of individualized medicine, and a decried as a slippery slope to engineering individual human qualities. Of course, humans already know how to manipulate animal genomes through selective breeding, but there has been no appetite to try on humans what is the norm for dogs. That’s a good thing, says Dawkins. The results could well be dangerous. Does technology as a whole represent a threat to human welfare if it continues to evolve at its current rate? Not so fast, warns Dawkins. Comparing biological evolution to technological progress is an analogy at best. His newest book is Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist.

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Continue reading “The Dangers of CRISPR, Designer Babies, and Artificial Genetic Mutation” »