Lifeboat Foundation

Artificial intelligence (AI) could be the most transformative technology in the history of mankind—and we may not even see much of this sweeping change coming. That’s because we often overestimate what technologies can do in five years, and underestimate what they will be able to do in 20.

As I’ve traveled the world talking about this subject, I’m constantly asked, “what will the future hold for humans and AI?” This is an essential question for this moment in history. Some believe that we’re in the midst of an “AI bubble” that will eventually pop, or at least cool off. Those with more drastic and dystopian views believe everything from the notion that AI giants will “hijack our minds” and form a utopian new race of “human cyborgs”, to the arrival of an AI-driven apocalypse. Each of these projections may be born out of genuine curiosity or understandable fear, but they are usually speculative or exaggerated. They miss the complete picture.

Speculation varies wildly because AI appears complex and opaque and it is no wonder that the general view about AI has turned cautious—and even negative. To be sure, aspects of AI development deserve our scrutiny and caution, but it is important to balance these concerns with exposure to the full picture of this crucially important technology’s potential. AI, like most technologies, is inherently neither good nor evil. And I believe that, like most technologies, AI will eventually produce more positive than negative impacts in our society.

Cognitive biases have been studied for decades by academics in the fields of cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioural economics.

View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here.

The human brain is capable of incredible things, but it’s also extremely flawed at times.

Continue reading “Visualising every single cognitive bias” »

A company formed by Harvard genetics professor George Church, known for his pioneering work in genome sequencing and gene splicing, hopes to genetically resurrect woolly mammoths.

The story illuminates the way that many scientific discoveries become life-changing innovations: with decades of dead ends, rejections and battles over potential profits, but also generosity, curiosity and dogged persistence against scepticism and doubt. “It’s a long series of steps,” says Paul Krieg, a developmental biologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who made his own contribution in the mid-1980s, “and you never know what’s going to be useful”.

Hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the coronavirus pandemic brought a breakthrough.

A new study has found that a material(nickel oxide, a quantum material) can mimic the sea slug’s most essential intelligence features. The discovery is a step toward building hardware that could help make AI more efficient and reliable.

For artificial intelligence to get any smarter, it needs first to be as intelligent as one of the simplest creatures in the animal kingdom: the sea slug.

A new study has found that a material can mimic the sea slug’s most essential intelligence features. The discovery is a step toward building hardware that could help make AI more efficient and reliable for technology ranging from self-driving cars and surgical robots to social media algorithms.

Continue reading “Taking lessons from a sea slug, study points to better hardware for artificial intelligence” »

“No bunker in Greenland is going to save you.”

Roland Emmerich’s ‘Moonfall’ will bring the Moon crashing down to Earth early next year. But could that actually happen in real life? And if so, could we survive?

O,.o.

Like Hitting a Bullseye With Your Eyes Closed Two statisticians put into perspective the chances of asteroid Bennu striking Earth in the next 300 years. Even Harry Stamper would probably like these odds. Recently NASA updated its forecast of the chances that the asteroid Bennu, one of the two most hazardous known objects in our solar system, will hit Earth in the next 300 years. New calculations put the odds at 1 in 1,750 a figure slightly higher than previously thought.

Pandemic lockdown forces a new perspective on designs for futuristic AI-based computing devices.

Isaac Newton’s groundbreaking scientific productivity while isolated from the spread of bubonic plague is legendary. University of California San Diego physicists can now claim a stake in the annals of pandemic-driven science.

A team of UC San Diego researchers and colleagues at Purdue University have now simulated the foundation of new types of artificial intelligence computing devices that mimic brain functions, an achievement that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. By combining new supercomputing materials with specialized oxides, the researchers successfully demonstrated the backbone of networks of circuits and devices that mirror the connectivity of neurons and synapses in biologically based neural networks.

The findings of a new study by the University of Liverpool provides further evidence of an approximately 200 million-year long cycle in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Researchers performed thermal and microwave (a technique which is unique to the University of Liverpool) paleomagnetic analysis on rock samples from ancient lava flows in Eastern Scotland to measure the strength of the geomagnetic field during key time periods with almost no pre-existing, reliable data. The study also analysed the reliability of all of the measurements from samples from 200 to 500 million years ago, collected over the last ~80 years.

They found that between 332 and 416 million years ago, the strength of the geomagnetic field preserved in these rocks was less than quarter of what it is today, and similar to a previously identified period of low magnetic field strength that started around 120 million years ago. The researchers have coined this period “the Mid-Palaeozoic Dipole low (MPDL).”