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Dec 22, 2015

Pulsed laser light turns whole-brain activity on and off

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, electronics, genetics, neuroscience

Optogenetic laser light stimulation of the thalamus (credit: Jia Liu et al./eLife)

By flashing high-frequency (40 to 100 pulses per second) optogenetic lasers at the brain’s thalamus, scientists were able to wake up sleeping rats and cause widespread brain activity. In contrast, flashing the laser at 10 pulses per second suppressed the activity of the brain’s sensory cortex and caused rats to enter a seizure-like state of unconsciousness.

“We hope to use this knowledge to develop better treatments for brain injuries and other neurological disorders,” said Jin Hyung Lee, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurology, neurosurgery, and bioengineering at Stanford University, and a senior author of the study, published in the open-access journal eLIFE.

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Dec 18, 2015

The Coming New Global Mind

Posted by in categories: electronics, internet, neuroscience

Are we evolving into new species with hybrid thinking interlinked into the Global Mind? At what point will the Web may become self-aware? Or is it already? Once our neocortices are seamlessly connected to the Web, how will that feel like to step up one level above human consciousness to global consciousness?

In his book “The Global Brain” Howard Bloom argues that humans are a lot like neurons of the “global connectome”, and the coming Internet of Things (IoT) with trillions of sensors around the planet will become effectively the nervous system of Earth.

According to Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock, we have always been an integral part of this “Meta-Mind”, collective consciousness, global adaptive and self-regulating system while tapping into vast resources of information pooling and at the same time having a “shared hallucination”, we call reality.

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Nov 27, 2015

Researchers Working on Technology to Bring Dead Back to Life

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, nanotechnology, robotics/AI, transhumanism

Humai, a technology company based in Los Angeles, says that it is working on a project known as “Atom & Eve” that would let human consciousness be transferred to an artificial body after their death.

Artificial intelligence, the most important and major discovery of science will be one of the most helpful things in the whole project. The Humai have already started working on human rebirth using artificial intelligence.

The three technologies collectively used by the tech giant company are “Nanotechnology, bionics & artificial intelligence”. The company is expecting the whole system to be ready in 3 decades and, of course, this type of work requires this much time.

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Oct 17, 2015

Programming Hate Into AI Will Be Controversial, But Possibly Necessary

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, education, neuroscience, robotics/AI

In the last few years, the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has been thrust into the mainstream. No longer just the domain of sci-fi fans, nerds or Google engineers, I hear people discussing AI at parties, coffee shops and even at the dinner table: My five-year-old daughter brought it up the other night over taco lasagna. When I asked her if anything interesting had happened in school, she replied that her teacher discussed smart robots.

The exploration of intelligence — be it human or artificial — is ultimately the domain of epistemology, the study of knowledge. Since the first musings of creating AI back in antiquity, epistemology seems to have led the debate on how to do it. The question I hear most in this field from the public is: How can humans develop another intelligent consciousness if we can’t even understand our own?

It’s a prudent question. The human brain, despite being only about 3 pounds in weight, is the least understood organ in the body. And with a billion neurons — with 100 trillion connections — it’s safe to say it’s going to be a long time before we end up figuring out the brain.

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Oct 5, 2015

Why I’m running for president—and got a chip implanted in my hand

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, cyborgs, geopolitics, life extension, sex, transhumanism, virtual reality

My new and first article for The Daily Dot. It’s about transhumanism and the Immortality Bus tour:

Continue reading “Why I’m running for president—and got a chip implanted in my hand” »

Aug 29, 2015

David Hanson: We are close to building the first sentient robot

Posted by in categories: energy, materials, robotics/AI

Hanson would be unimpressed by my use of the word “it” to describe his robots, though. His latest creations, Han and Sophia, are “he” and “she” respectively. And Hanson believes that the latter model will become the “first sentient robot, the first one to achieve human-like consciousness.”

This is because Sophia is smaller in size – all of her mechanisms fit inside a smaller chassis. This is beneficial for two reasons: she costs less to make in terms of materials and it takes her less energy to make facial expressions and move around.

“Because of this, she can make more of a difference in the world,” Hanson explains. He adds:

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Jun 9, 2015

When Computers Insist They’re Alive

Posted by in category: neuroscience

My latest article for Vice Motherboard. It’s about consciousness and a so-called ‘Turing Test’ that superintelligence might one day use on humans:

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Mar 29, 2015

Intelligent robots must uphold human rights

Posted by in categories: human trajectories, law, robotics/AI, security

Hutan Ashrafiannature.comhttp://images.sequart.org/images/i-robot-510ea6801c50a.jpg

There is a strong possibility that in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligences (AIs), perhaps in the form of robots, will become capable of sentient thought. Whatever form it takes, this dawning of machine consciousness is likely to have a substantial impact on human society.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and physicist Stephen Hawking have in recent months warned of the dangers of intelligent robots becoming too powerful for humans to control. The ethical conundrum of intelligent machines and how they relate to humans has long been a theme of science fiction, and has been vividly portrayed in films such as 1982’s Blade Runner and this year’s Ex Machina.Read more

Mar 12, 2015

Quoted: Tech billionaires and human immortality

Posted by in category: life extension

By — siliconbeat

“When I am successful in realizing this mega-project, then I will finally have 10,000 years for numerous hobbies.”

Dmitry Itskov, founder of the 2045 Initiative, which aims to transfer our brains and human consciousness to robot avatars instead of bodies that weaken and die. Itskov is a billionaire who’s known as the godfather of the Russian Internet. He also apparently has plenty of hobbies.

Think tech isn’t working on big problems? Newsweek checks on the progress of the 2045 Initiative and other efforts — including in Silicon Valley — to cheat death. The efforts are funded by other deep-pocketed titans of tech: Peter Thiel of PayPal fame has given money to the Methuselah Foundation, which is working to find drugs that cure age-related damage to the body’s cells. Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s Ellison Medical Foundation distributes grants to those who are researching aging. As we’ve written, Google spinoff Calico‘s stated mission is to “harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan.” Google’s Larry Page has also backed Singularity University; co-founders Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis are big fans of immortality — or at least living till 700.

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Mar 12, 2015

Sci-Fi Sunday: Deep Space Is a Weird and Lonely Place for Humans and AI Alike

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space travel

By Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hubhttp://cdn.singularityhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/sci-fi-sunday-2-1000x400.jpg

The desolate reaches of deep space figure heavily in today’s sci-fi short film double feature. Space, as it turns out, is really big and empty. Until we get warp drive or discover a local wormhole—getting anywhere will be a long, lonely slog. The other thread tying the films together? They’re both by director Eli Sasich.

First up is HENRi. The film is like an episode of Life After People in space. What happens to a ship’s artificially intelligent computer after its crew dies? It gets melancholy, begins missing its human friends something terrible, and builds itself a robot body out of the ship’s rusty scrap and spare parts.

“My particular interest for this film was memory and its intrinsic relationship with consciousness,” Sasich writes in an article about the film’s making. “I also wanted a robot of my very own.”

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