Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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“If one blockchain were to become dominant, then the others may well fade away.” #singularityuniversity

Bitcoin, the first practical implementation of blockchain technology, was the buying opportunity of all time. The price of bitcoin has risen faster than any other asset in history, including tulips at the height of the tulip bubble.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies, also known as “digital assets,” have been making headlines due to the unprecedented returns early adopters are making from their investments in these digital assets.

Continue reading “Building the Blockchain to End All Blockchains” | >

With artificial intelligence technology advancing rapidly, the world must consider how the law should apply to synthetic beings. Experts from the fields of AI, ethics, and government weigh in on the best path forward as we enter the age of self-aware robots.

Artificially intelligent (AI) robots and automated systems are already transforming society in a host of ways. Cars are creeping closer to Level 5 autonomy, factories are cutting costs by replacing human workers with robots, and AIs are even outperforming people in a number of traditionally white-collar professions.

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Artificial intelligence has historically over-promised and under-delivered. That routine leads to spurts of what those in the field call “hype”—outsized excitement about the potential of a core technology—followed after a few years and several million (or billion) dollars by crashing disappointment. In the end, we still don’t have the flying cars or realistic robot dogs we were promised.

But DeepMind’s AlphaGo, a star pupil in a time we’ll likely look back on as a golden age of AI research, has made a habit of blowing away experts’ notions of what’s possible. When DeepMind announced that the AI system could play Go on a professional level, masters of the game said it was too complex for any machine. They were wrong.

Now AlphaGo Zero, the AI’s latest iteration, is being set to tasks outside of the 19×19 Go board, according to DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis.

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Defeating age-related diseases may create challenges for society, but is that worse than not doing anything?

In these six years, I’ve spent as a rejuvenation advocate, I’ve had to deal with the traditional objections raised against the idea of longer lifespans. These objections touch a variety of different topics, but they aren’t terribly many: we’re talking about maybe a dozen of them, and these days, I hardly ever hear an objection I haven’t discussed before.

However few or many, and deserving of specific answers, these objections may be, they can all be reduced down to a single, general form: “Rejuvenation biotechnologies would cause [insert problem here], so it’s best not to go there.” And just like there are specific answers for each specific objection, there are general answers for their general form—Aubrey de Grey’s famous “two more general answers”.

These two general answers question the validity of two implicit assumptions contained in all objections, general or specific.

Continue reading “Rejuvenation May Bring Challenges to Society but are they Worse than Age-related Diseases?” | >

Clearly, the robot that previously made headlines because she said she’ll destroy humankind has since embraced “being human” to a certain extent.

Robot Citizenship

The decision to grant a robot citizenship adds to the growing debate of whether or not robots should be given rights similar to human beings. Earlier this year, the European Parliament proposed granting AI agents “personhood” status, giving them particular rights and responsibilities. While robot rights are in question, one expert suggests it should be possible for humans to torture robots.

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