Encryption is something we all rely on regularly to keep our information safe online, but many of us have experienced it since childhood, and in fact probably used it in school. If you ever wrote out a message in code that nobody could read without they knew the decipher rules, you messed around with encryption!
That same secret message technique has now been put to a much more worrying use. Google has created multiple AI and they’ve learned how to not only create their own encryption, but are now communicating using messages nobody else can read.
This Google Brain project is an experiment in deep learning techniques and involved the use of three neural networks (Alice, Bob, and Eve) created using artificial neurons. These neural nets work like a much simplified version of our brains, and they are slowly and steadily becoming more intelligent.
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What I Learned
Posted in biotech/medical, food, geopolitics, internet, transhumanism
My new story for Vice Motherboard on lessons learned running for President as a transhumanist. It’s also my endorsement of a ranked voting system:
Campaigning in Times Square.
With such overwhelming odds against my candidacy and tiny political party from the start, I chose to bypass the battle to get on state ballots and instead focus using media to move the transhumanism movement ahead. After all, only very rarely have third parties in America affected the outcome of the elections anyway. Like it or not, you are stuck with an elephant or a donkey-headed leader.
The good news, though, is the internet is making a run for the presidency a good way to get attention for a cause like transhumanism. It may only take five minutes to file a candidacy form with the FEC to run for US president, but the legitimacy in many people’s minds is real. Some candidates out there are using this for real good for the country, like the Nutrition Party and its candidate Rod Silva, which is trying to improve the way America eats. Or the Marijuana Party, which wants to legalize pot and end the asinine War on Drugs.
Mercedes-Benz is trying to cut down on hearing damage caused by the deafening crunch of a car crash, and it’s doing so by blasting pink noise through the stereo when you’re about to hit something, to trigger a fascinating physical response.
Mercedes-Benz has done a lot to push automotive safety forward over its long history. In 1978, the S-class offered the first (or one of the first, depending on who you ask) 4-wheel ABS systems on a production car. In 1987, along with BMW and Toyota, Mercedes put the first traction control systems into production cars.
More recently, in 2003, the company introduced its Pre-Safe system, a series of measures that kick in when the vehicle detects what it decides is an inevitable crash. Seat belts quickly tension to an optimum point, windows and sunroofs close, the seats puff up to stabilize the bodies in them, and in some cases they even move slightly toward the center of the car before impact.
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Inside America’s Next Spyplane
Posted in military
Entering Godmode
Posted in futurism
“If we were to draw energy from a typical AA battery based on this design, it would last for a billion years.” — Sungsik Lee, PhD, in the journal Science.
Schematic cross-section of an Indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor [inset: schematic illustrations of atomic structures for less compensated (left) and more compensated (right) IGZO films, respectively] (credit: Sungsik Lee and Arokia Nathan/Science)
The transistors can be produced at low temperatures and can be printed on almost any material, such as glass, plastic, polyester fabrics, and paper.
Similar to a computer in sleep mode, the new transistor harnesses a tiny “leakage” of electrical current, known as “near-off-state current.” This leak at the point of contact between the metal and semiconducting components of a transistor, the “Schottky barrier,” is normally an undesirable characteristic of all transistors.
