Lifeboat Foundation

Star physicist Stephen Hawking has reiterated his concerns that the rise of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems could spell the end for humanity.

Speaking at the launch of the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Intelligence on 19 October, he did, however, acknowledge that AI equally has the potential to be one of the best things that could happen to us.

So are we on the cusp of creating super-intelligent machines that could put humanity at existential risk?

Continue reading “Is Stephen Hawking right: Could the rise of artificial intelligence mark humanity’s final chapter?” »

Artificial intelligence has the power to eradicate poverty and disease or hasten the end of human civilisation as we know it – according to a speech delivered by Professor Stephen Hawking this evening.

I really love this topic – questioning what’s out there for humanity besides a singularity that may or may not happen or a discovery of the source powering an uber sophisticated kind of video game a.k.a. the *simulated* and likely *holographic universe*… Yes, evolution gets me all excited.

What follows now are possible futures for all of us, based on circulating theories on (continuing) evolution.

These futures show either a grinding halt to evolution, a continuing mutation and selection here on earth, some new form of evolution driven by technology, and (in a way related to technology, as well) a differentiation introduced by mimicking and adapting to a life on speculative space colonies.

Continue reading “Enhancing Humanity — What’s The Next Phase Of Human Evolution?” »

Through the past few decades of summer blockbuster movies and Silicon Valley products, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly familiar and sexy, and imbued with a perversely dystopian allure.

What’s talked about less, and has also been dwarfed in attention and resources, is human intelligence (HI).

In its varied forms — from the mysterious brains of octopuses and the swarm-minds of ants to Go-playing deep learning machines and driverless-car autopilots — intelligence is the most powerful and precious resource in existence. Our own minds are the most familiar examples of a phenomenon characterized by a great deal of diversity.

Continue reading “The combination of human and artificial intelligence will define humanity’s future” »

RED PILL!!!!

The hypothesis that we might all be living in a computer simulation has gotten so popular among Silicon Valley’s tech elites that two billionaires are now apparently pouring money into breaking us out of the simulation.

That’s according to a new profile in the New Yorker about Y Combinator’s Sam Altman. The story delves into Altman’s life and successes at the helm of the famous boot-camp and investment fund for tech startups, and doesn’t shy away from the quirkier aspects of Altman’s character.

Continue reading “Two billionaires want to help break humanity out of a giant computer simulation” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=A1YxNYiyALg

Tech billionaire Elon Musk is convinced that we must colonise Mars with a million people if the humanity is to survive long-term. To that effect in 2008, he almost went broke funding SpaceX – his then-new aerospace company – to keep developing next-generation rockets.

And on Tuesday, at a challenging moment in the 14-year-old company’s history, Musk plans to unveil his grand vision: to turn Mars into a “backup drive” and save humanity.

Continue reading “Elon Musk just unveiled a critical piece of his plan to save humanity” »

It may seem like dancing, but these charming automatons actually show off a sophisticated ability to navigate in closer quarters than has previously been achieved (even by bigger bots).

A write-up from Popular Science on the bioethics conference I was a part of recently and the corresponding 2-min highlight video. It was truly a fascinating event, inspired by Deus Ex! http://www.popsci.com/augmented-reality-or-augmented-humanity And here’s the video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4p7uld_human-by-design-conference-recap_tech

With the release of the new video game, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Human By Design holds a conference to discuss the future of human augmentation.