Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 10680

I recently did a 50-min interview with Pratik Chougule on transhumanism:

#105 — What is Transhumanism? ** August 23, 2017 Guest // Zoltan Istvan ** Host // Pratik Chougule, JD

Look around and you’ll see humanity not just engaged with technology but integrated in ways that are unexpected, sophisticated, fascinating, and for many of us, fundamentally alarming. There’s a nostalgia for the simplicity of the pre-internet past… for the time that my teenage kids call “ye olden days.”

It’s pretty clear, however, that we aren’t stuffing tech back into the box anytime soon. And humanity is beset with all sorts of problems. Development of these technologies is accelerating and impacting human intelligence and physiology in ways that might transform what it means to be… human.

How do we wrap our heads around these ideas? How can we explore, plan, and lead responsibly? Join co-host Pratik Chougule and guest Zoltan Istvan as they discuss:

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Meet the “ems” — machines that emulate human brains and can think, feel and work just like the brains they’re copied from. Futurist and social scientist Robin Hanson describes a possible future when ems take over the global economy, running on superfast computers and copying themselves to multitask, leaving humans with only one choice: to retire, forever. Glimpse a strange future as Hanson describes what could happen if robots ruled the earth.

About the speaker.

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An international consortium of experts are campaigning for a ban on AI weapons. This comes at a conference in Australia where the latest advances in artificial intelligence and its uses are being explored…

Say the words killer robots and Hollywood franchise Terminator may come to mind. But while artificial intelligence experts say that sort of advancement in autonomous lethal weapons is decades off. Other systems are already being developed including Russia’s robot tank BAE Systems long-range autonomous missile bomber and Samsung sentry gun which can fire at will and is already deployed along South Korea’s Demilitarized Zone.

But at a leading artificial intelligence conference being held in Melbourne. Global AI founders have released an open letter calling for a ban on the development and deployment of autonomous lethal weapons.

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The old saying “use it or lose it” very much applies to reducing the impact that aging has on the mind and body. Of all the things we can do right now to help stay healthy as we grow older, exercise is probably the most useful.

Supplements have questionable results in humans, and none can really be described as geroprotective due to the lack of data. However, lifestyle and diet are very important in how we age, and caloric restriction has shown some interesting benefits in multiple species, including humans.

However, of all these things, exercise is probably the most important, and staying active can greatly influence our trajectory towards frailty in old age. Many people do not get the exercise they need as they age and, as a result, this can influence how well they age. Certainly, some level of age-related frailty may be a case of neglect and not exercising enough[1].

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That problem from the frontier of technology is why many tech leaders foresee the need for a new “edge computing” network—one that turns the logic of today’s cloud inside out. Today the $247 billion cloud computing industry funnels everything through massive centralized data centers operated by giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. That’s been a smart model for scaling up web search and social networks, as well as streaming media to billions of users. But it’s not so smart for latency-intolerant applications like autonomous cars or mobile mixed reality.

Cloud computing’s big, distant data centers can’t support VR and self-driving cars—but “edge computing” can.

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British neuroscientist (file pic) Adrian Owen made it his mission to find a way to communicate with patients in a so-called persistent vegetative state.

Since 1997, I had been using hospital brain scanners to test patients in vegetative states to see if they were in fact still conscious, though trapped in their bodies.

I was working as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital when I scanned my first ‘vegetative’ patient, Kate, while showing her photos of her family as she lay inside a brain-scanning machine.

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I’m excited to see Mark O’Connell’s book “To Be a Machine” (about # transhumanism ) get shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize, one the biggest science book prizes in the world. The final chapter of “To Be a Machine” is about my Immortality Bus journey and presidential campaign (a version of that chapter appeared in The New York Times Magazine after Mark rode with me on the bus). The book also has a wikipedia page now. Winner to be announced on September 19. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_a_Machine

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Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk teased his newest endeavor with a picture of a Model S inside a tunnel that he’s digging in Los Angeles.

Like so many of Musk’s projects, this isn’t just any ol’ tunnel. Musk’s startup, The Boring Company, is digging a tunnel that will be used to transport vehicles at high speeds to avoid traffic congestion. The idea is to lower vehicles via an elevator to a tunnel, where it’s then transported—not driven—in a “sled” along magnetic rails at high speeds.

The Boring Company, was inspired by traffic congestion Musk experienced in Los Angeles. The aim is to find a way cost-effectively dig networks of tunnels for vehicles and high-speed trains.

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