Can a nuclear diamond battery change things as we know it, including what to do with nuclear waste?
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For most people, the idea of brain augmentation remains in the realms of science fiction. However, for scientists across the globe, it is fast becoming reality—with the possibility of humans with “super-intelligence” edging ever closer.
In laboratory experiments on rats, researchers have already been able to transfer memories from one brain to another. Future projects include the development of telepathic communication and the creation of “cyborgs,” where humans have advanced abilities thanks to technological interventions.
Scientists Mikhail Lebedev, Ioan Opris and Manuel Casanova have now published a comprehensive collection of research into brain augmentation, and their efforts have won a major European science research prize—the Frontiers Spotlight Award. This $100,000 prize is for the winners to set up a conference that highlights emerging research in their field.
Improving intelligence has preoccupied society since French psychologist Alfred Binet devised the first IQ test. Since then, the notion that intelligence can be calibrated has opened new avenues into figuring out how it can also be increased.
Psychological scientists have been on the front lines of modifying intelligence. So much intelligence is genetically determined, it is, to a large extent, hereditary. But there are still some areas in which it can be malleable.
Intelligence is generally divided into two categories: fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Fluid intelligence is the ability to reason in an abstract way and solve problems. Someone who can come up with dozens of new uses for, say, a toothbrush would demonstrate superior fluid intelligence. And this is exactly the kind of intelligence that tends to diminish as we grow older. The acquisition of intellectual skills, or the ability to read and comprehend, is known as crystallized intelligence, and this form tends to improve as we age.
When P M Murugesan decided to discontinue his education to join his father’s farming business, he had many ideas in mind. In particular, he wanted to work with the banana plant, being well aware that though farmers end up burning tonnes of banana waste, there’s a utility to each part of the crop.
In 2008, he started thinking of ways to make products out of banana waste. He found the idea of making ropes interesting.
“The idea struck me when I saw banana threads being used to thread flowers for garlands. I used the machine that turns coconut husk into a rope as the base and modified it to work well for processing banana fibre,” says the innovator.
The early 1900s was an amazing time for Western science, as Albert Einstein was developing his theories of relativity and psychology was born, as Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis took over the scientific mainstream. Karl Popper observed these developments firsthand and came to draw a distinction between what he referred to as science and pseudoscience, which might best be summarized as science disconfirms, while pseudoscience confirms. While the way we describe these disciplines has changed in the intervening years, Popper’s ideas speak to the heart of how we arrive at knowledge.
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Pseudo-science theories are a little like puppies. They’re fun, fluffy things to talk about, and most of the time they’re harmless. Sometimes, however, they get big, mean, aggressive, and have to be put down.
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Anders Sandberg is “not technically a philosopher,” he tells IEEE Spectrum, although it is his job to think deeply about technological utopias and dystopias, the future of AI, and the possible consequences of human enhancement via genetic tweaks or implanted devices. In fact, he has a PhD in computational neuroscience. So who better to consult regarding the ethics of neurotech and brain enhancement?
Sandberg works as a senior research fellow at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute (which is helmed by Nick Bostrom, a leading AI scholar and author of the book Superintelligence that explores the AI threat). In a wide-ranging phone interview with Spectrum, Sandberg discussed today’s state-of-the-art neurotech, whether it will ever see widespread adoption, and how it could reshape society.
Because intelligence is such a strong genetic trait, rapidly advancing genetics research could result in the ability to create a class of super-intelligent humans one-thousand times higher in IQ than today’s most brilliant thinkers.
The question is no longer whether AI will change the workplace; it’s how companies can successfully use it in ways that enable – not replace – the human workforce. AI will help to make humans faster, more efficient, and more productive.
It’s true that AI will threaten some unskilled jobs through automation, but it will also potentially create different kinds of jobs that require new skill sets that will be developed through training.
AI can be used in manufacturing to make processes more efficient while also keeping human workers out of harm’s way. Opportunities to leverage AI and machine learning in manufacturing include product development, logistics optimization, predictive maintenance, and robotics.
Physicists at the University of Bonn have experimentally proven that an important theorem of statistical physics applies to so-called “Bose-Einstein condensates.” Their results now make it possible to measure certain properties of the quantum “superparticles” and deduce system characteristics that would otherwise be difficult to observe. The study has now been published in Physical Review Letters.
Suppose in front of you there is a container filled with an unknown liquid. Your goal is to find out by how much the particles in it (atoms or molecules) move back and forth randomly due to their thermal energy. However, you do not have a microscope with which you could visualize these position fluctuations known as “Brownian motion”.
It turns out you do not need that at all: You can also simply tie an object to a string and pull it through the liquid. The more force you have to apply, the more viscous your liquid. And the more viscous it is, the lesser the particles in the liquid change their position on average. The viscosity at a given temperature can therefore be used to predict the extent of the fluctuations.
