Guardian Award
The Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award is annually bestowed upon a
respected scientist or public figure who has warned of a future fraught
with dangers and encouraged measures to prevent them.
The 2014 Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award has been given to Elon Musk
in recognition of his warnings about artificial intelligence, his
promotion of space exploration including the creation of self-sustaining
space colonies, and his efforts to improve our environment with electric
cars and to expand solar energy generation.
Elon is often likened to a real-life Tony Stark from Marvel's Iron Man
comics for his role in cutting-edge companies including SpaceX, a
private space exploration company that holds the first private contracts
from NASA for resupply of the International Space Station, and the
electric car company Tesla Motors. Watch Elon in Iron Man 2 at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuG2AVFB-g0
Learn more at
http://lifeboat.com/ex/press.releases.e...d.winner
End of the Year Fundraiser
Support our End of the Year Fundraiser at
https://lifeboat.com/ex/end.of.the.year.fundraiser
We have had a huge surge in support by famous authors for our End of the
Year Fundraiser. All donors to the fundraiser are eligible to get free
fiction and nonfiction from Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin,
Brenda Cooper, Alan Dean Foster, James E. Gunn, Joe Haldeman, Ray
Kurzweil, Robert J. Sawyer, and Allen Steele.
Susan Schneider
Susan Schneider, editor of "Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time
Travel to Superintelligence", joins our Philosophy Board. Susan is the
Sarah Connor of philosophy as she ponders the role of science fiction
and thought experiments to help understand uploading, time travel,
superintelligence, the Singularity, a new approach to the computational
theory of mind, consciousness, and physicalism.
Learn more at http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.susan.schneider
Twenty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence Update
Our Colin Allen, Eyal Amir, Marco Dorigo, Vasant Honavar, Marcus Hutter,
W. Bradley Knox, Sven Koenig, Benjamin Kuipers, Christian Lebiere, Zoran
Popovic, Matthias Scheutz, Peter Stone, and Matthew E. Taylor are
participating in the Twenty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial
Intelligence (AAAI-15) which will be held January 25-29, 2015 at the
Hyatt Regency in Austin, Texas, USA. The purpose of this conference is
to promote research in artificial intelligence (AI) and scientific
exchange among AI researchers, practitioners, scientists, and engineers
in affiliated disciplines.
Learn more at http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/aaai15.php
Sustainability
Learn about "My Terrace Farmer: Solar Greenhouse for Busy People" at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gr...y-people
Books
Read "Hyperworlds, Underworlds" at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/150339...35CX2TEO
Read "A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading" at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NJZ...Q4W2E34P
Essays
Read "Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Threat--Yet" at http://www.wsj.com/articles/artificial-...18328453
Blog
The blog post "Proof that The End of Moore's Law is Not The End of The
Singularity" by our Eric Klien reached #21 on reddit. Read it at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/proof-...gularity
Other recent interesting blog posts include:
"Blockchain 2.0 arms race: Blocknet declares first shots fired between
nodes on separate blockchains" by Rob Chamberlain at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/blockc...ckchains
"Brain-computer interface enables 'locked-in' brain stroke sufferer to
communicate" by Seb at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/brain-...municate
"FIRST Robotics-- Who are the celebrities of the future?" by Johnny Boston at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/first-...e-future
"FM2030: Are You A Transhuman?" by Johnny Boston at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/fm2030...anshuman
"FutureMed: What is the future of Health?" by Seb at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/future...f-health
"Leia Display System: The mid-air touchscreen you can control with your whole body"
by Seb at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/leia-d...ole-body
"London Underground set for fast, new driverless trains" by Seb at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/london...s-trains
"RoomAlive transforms your living room into an interactive video game"
by Seb at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/roomal...deo-game
"Who is Dr. Aubrey De Grey?" by Johnny Boston at
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/12/who-is...-de-grey
Growing Membership
Recent donations/pledges we have received since our last newsletter:
Donald Maclean: $500,
Anonymous: $165 (including 0.0142 bitcoins),
Michael Dickey: $85,
Sergio M.L. Tarrero: $85,
Philippe Van Nedervelde: $85,
Matthew L. McGuirl: $75,
Alan Ziegler: $65,
Kenneth P. Weiss: $85,
Desiree Duffy: $50,
Justin Loew: $50,
John K. Strickland Jr: $35,
Rodney C. Hill: $25,
Mirona Constantinescu: $10,
Rebecca R. Cooper: $10,
Thomas Dolphin: $10,
Alexander Macrae: $10,
Aaron Mayzes: $10,
Philip Morehead: $10,
Roland Schiefer: $10,
Kim Botham: $5,
SimilarTo: $5,
and Scott MacGregor: $1.
Our Join Us page at https://lifeboat.com/ex/join.us now allows you to
pay for your membership anywhere from monthly to every ten years.
