Lifeboat Foundation

A small group of economists from Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. has published a Policy Forum piece in the journal Science suggesting that consumers need to be protected from collusive price setting by AI systems. They also outline some possible ways to solve the problem.

For most countries, price collusion is illegal. It is where two or more makers or sellers of goods get together and agree to charge higher than market prices for the goods or services they are selling. Such practices are illegal because consumers wind up paying higher prices than they would if prices were market based. In their paper the economists reveal that many large corporations have taken to using computer systems with an AI component to set their prices. Using computers to set prices is not new, of course, some companies sell hundreds of thousands of products. Using computers to help set prices saves a lot of time and money. But until now, such systems have been constrained by the laws in which the companies operate—such laws can be baked in. But now, the authors contend, things have begun to change. AI systems have found, through learned experience, that uncommunicated collusion can lead to higher profits.

To those who saw it in its very first theatrical run, the opening crawl at the very top of the original 1977 “Star Wars” film automatically dispelled any notions about cosmic civilizations and a linear march of time. We all got the reference to a “galaxy far, far away” at the outset, but “a long time ago” was all at once brilliant and mind-blowing.

Inherent in that notion is the idea that civilizations outside our own solar system have been living and dying since time immemorial. And the civilizations depicted in this bit of space cinema also appear to have become masters of their own galactic quadrants, if not their whole galaxy.

Yet here on parochial Earth, we are wedded to the linear march of time in a way that is not likely to change until the very far future. Here, we are guided by our own history of technological advancement in a way that extraterrestrial civilizations may find antiquated. They may already be inured to the fact that they are mere technological babes in the woods when compared to much more advanced civilizations they, themselves, may have encountered.

Scientists have developed a new type of banana that could help the many children in Uganda who have a pro-vitamin A deficiency.

The so-called “golden bananas”, named for their appearance, were developed by a team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, led by Professor James Dale. The findings have been published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal.

Continue reading “These Golden Bananas Could Save The Lives Of Many Children In Uganda” »

The Tasmania government has declared that it has become the first Australian state, and one of just a handful of jurisdictions worldwide, to be powered entirely by renewable electricity.

In a statement released on Friday, Tasmanian energy minister Guy Barnett said that state had effectively become entirely self-sufficient for supplies of renewable electricity, supplied by the state’s wind and hydroelectricity projects.

“We have reached 100 per cent thanks to our commitment to realising Tasmania’s renewable energy potential through our nation-leading energy policies and making Tasmania attractive for industry investment, which in turn is creating jobs across the State, particularly in our regions,” Barnett said.

On January 16th, 2001, the Columbia space shuttle launched for the 27th and last time on a mission to perform various experiments, including investigating the effects of microgravity on the human body.

For first time ever, Hubble observations reveal a massive galaxy actually in the latter stages of being stripped of its dark matter, say researchers.

From LED-equipped visors to transparent masks, these inventions aim to thwart facial recognition cameras.

As humans, we all enjoy a code of universal human rights. In the future, the question will pop up sooner or later: do AI deserve the same rights we enjoy? In this video, we will explore this question and examine what the future world will look like if AI do have rights.

While routine for many illnesses, experts say two- or three-dose vaccines are unprecedented in a pandemic when 60 to 70 percent of the population must be immunized to stop the virus’s spread.