A look at how emerging concepts in science & technology could disrupt our most our understandings of identity, consciousness, and free will. This is the 5th episode of the Existential Crisis series which looks at concepts like Transhumanism, Life Extension, the Simulation Hypothesis, the Doomsday Argument, and the Anthropic Principle.
Visit our sponsor, Brilliant: https://brilliant.org/IsaacArthur/ We continue our discussion of the Boltzmann Brain — a hypothetical randomly assembled mind rather than an evolved one — by looking at the Anthropic Principle and the Fine-Tuned Universe Theory, alternative ways of viewing the probability of our existence than the classic Copernican Principle. Make sure to catch Part 1 of the discussion at Up an Atom:
The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: https://skl.sh/isaacarthur01211 Machines may help bring about a Post-Scarcity Utopia, assuming they don’t take over instead, and we dream of a future that is a Post-Scarcity Utopia, but its dark reflection is the Post-Discontent society, one where through deception or brainwashing people do not even known how they are being deprived or oppressed.
A team of engineers at the University of Arizona has an ambitious concept for a motorless sailplane that may soar above the Martian surface. They want to go higher.
For the first time, the immersive AR experience surpasses the physical by offering the contextuality that consumers need. They can see the end outcome of the purchase decision before even making the decision — the experience of seeing the couch in the context of their space is transformed — giving them more confidence in their decision.
AR and its effects on consumer psychology
AR is not taking a share of the digital pie as we know it today, but instead increasing the overall size of the pie. There are 100 million consumers shopping with AR online and in stores today. This powerful technology fundamentally changes consumer psychology in three distinct ways: changing the ecommerce model from a push to a pull experience, giving consumers new confidence in their purchases; driving conversion by giving consumers visual context before buying; and giving consumers a new way of experiencing in-person shopping.
The pharma giant plans to integrate the hub into Bayer’s global cyber unit. Local center to be one of the largest internal cyber units the multinational conglomerate operates.
Bayer’s North American headquarters in Whippany, New York. Credit: Bayer.
Every week we will update you about the Robotic news in Japan.
Living Human Skin for Robots. From action heroes to villainous assassins, biohybrid robots made of both living and artificial materials have been at the center of many sci-fi fantasies, inspiring today’s robotic innovations. It’s still a long way until human-like robots walk among us in our daily lives, but scientists from Japan are bringing us one step closer by crafting living human skin on robots. The method developed not only gave a robotic finger skin-like texture, but also water-repellent and self-healing functions. “The finger looks slightly ‘sweaty’ straight out of the culture medium,” says first author Shoji Takeuchi, a professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan. “Since the finger is driven by an electric motor, it is also interesting to hear the clicking sounds of the motor in harmony with a finger that looks just like a real one.“ Looking “real” like a human is one of the top priorities for humanoid robots that are often tasked to interact with humans in healthcare and service industries. A human-like appearance can improve communication efficiency and evoke likability. While current silicone skin made for robots can mimic human appearance, it falls short when it comes to delicate textures like wrinkles and lacks skin-specific functions.
Closing out our list of 10 best machine learning software is Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (CNTK), which is Microsoft’s AI solution that trains the machine with its deep learning algorithms. It can handle data from Python, C++, and much more.
CNTK is an open-source toolkit for commercial-grade distributed deep learning, and it allows users to easily combine popular model types like feed-forward DNNs, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and recurrent neural networks (RNNs/LSTms).
NORTHRUP GRUMMAN’S CYGNUS cargo spacecraft conducted a successful reboost of the International Space Station on Saturday, June 25, 2022.
“This Cygnus mission is the first to feature this enhanced capability as a standard service for NASA.”
Cygnus had been docked to the ISS since February and now has departed, leaving on June 28.
Back in 2018, the ninth Cygnus resupply mission conducted a test of the reboost capability by conducting a short 50-second burn of its main engine, raising the Station’s altitude by 90 meters (295 feet).
