Lifeboat News #290

• If Nobody Builds It, Everybody Dies
• Zelle
• 2026 Asia-Pacific Healthy Longevity International Summit Update
• International Longevity Summit 2026 Update
• RAADfest 2026 Update
• Books
• Papers
• Articles
• Plays
• Videos
• Blog
• Growing Membership

If Nobody Builds It, Everybody Dies

The Lifeboat Foundation likes to worry — and we worry a lot! But worrying is not enough; we also need solutions.
 
Our newest book, “If Nobody Builds It, Everybody Dies: Why Pausing AI is the Real Existential Threat”, written by Grok 4.2 and edited by our Sean Hastings 1.0, argues that banning AI is unrealistic in a world of competing nations and that the only path with a chance of working is to make sure the first artificial superintelligences are friendly, as detailed in our AIShield program at https://lifeboat.com/ex/aishield
 
This book was written by an AI and edited by a human, with chapter-opening parables by Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Qwen, and Llama. Elon Musk calls it “Interesting” and Anthropic Claude 4.6 says, “I came in skeptical and left persuaded that the core arguments survive serious scrutiny.”
 
Read the hardcover at https://amzn.to/4ypRX34, the paperback at https://amzn.to/4hiukUh, and the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/4hkUCFq
 
Try our free AI Doom Calculator at https://lifeboat.com/ex/ai.doom.calculator and learn about all our books at https://lifeboat.com/ex/books

Zelle

Lifeboat Foundation is now accepting Zelle payments with our [email protected] Zelle account.
 
Donate now at https://lifeboat.com/ex/donate

2026 Asia-Pacific Healthy Longevity International Summit Update

The 2026 Asia-Pacific Healthy Longevity International Summit will be held October 1–4 in Hong Kong.
 
Our Nir Barzilai, Al Chalabi, Milton Chen, David Ewing Duncan, Matt Kaeberlein, Rida Khadra, Andrea B. Maier, Ellen Siobhan Mitchell, Manjit Sareen, Raghav Sehgal, Petr Sramek, and Brad Younggren will be speaking.
 
Learn more at https://www.apaclongevitysociety.org

International Longevity Summit 2026 Update

The International Longevity Summit 2026 will be held September 30–October 1 in Madrid, Spain.
 
Our María Blasco, José Luis Cordeiro, Francisco Mera Cordero, Aubrey de Grey, João Pedro de Magalhães, Ben Goertzel, Rodolfo Goya, Brian Kennedy, Caitlin Lewis, Felipe R. Debasa Navalpotro, Phil Newman, Ramón Risco, Anders Sandberg, Sergio M.L. Tarrero, Gabriel Vázquez Torres, Arseniy Trukhanov, Natasha Vita-More, Sabinije von Gaffke, and Michael West will be speaking/participating.
 
Learn more at https://longevitysummit.madrid

RAADfest 2026 Update

RAADfest 2026, the world’s most impactful longevity conference, will be held September 4–6 in Scottsdale, Arizona USA.
 
Our Bill Andrews, José Luis Cordeiro, William Faloon, Aubrey de Grey, Sandra Kaufmann, Ivan Morgunov, Valerie Orsoni, Elizabeth Parrish, James Strole, and Jean Weidmann will be speaking.
 
Learn more at https://www.raadfest.com

Books

Read “The Congress of Systemic Peace” (French) by our Christopher H. Cordey at https://www.lulu.com/fr/shop/christophe...w4e.html
 
What if the enemy was ambiguity? In May 2026, in a fort on the Gotthard in Switzerland, a secret congress brings together diplomats, military officers, lawyers, engineers, anthropologists, NGOs, and information specialists. Officially, they want to invent a doctrine: systemic peace — a stability produced by infrastructures, norms, dependencies and proof mechanisms, in a world where war is waged without flags, through uncertainty, reputation, and the synchronization of reality. Unofficially, they must decide who will control the invisible thresholds: time, authenticity, and cohesion.
 
Geopolitical satire, cognitive thriller, and Helvetian fable, The Congress of Systemic Peace is indispensable fiction for understanding the 21st century: the one in which peace is measured, maintained… and sometimes breathed.
 
Read “The e-Dimensionality Information Principle: Data, Representation, and Algorithms” by our Subhash Kak at https://amzn.to/4hL9fTj
 
Read “The Invention of God: The Natural Origins of Mythology and Religion” by our Bill Lauritzen at https://amzn.to/4zyUSI1
 
“Bill Lauritzen is some kind of genius.” — Sir Arthur C. Clarke
 
Read “The Loom” by our Victor V. Motti at https://amzn.to/4hQ3Ni6
 
In The Loom, Victor V. Motti — looping his art of prompt engineering — invites readers into a visionary tapestry where spacetime, mind, and matter intertwine as threads of one living consciousness. In this world, human technology awakens the planet’s hidden intelligence. The journeys of truth seekers blur the boundaries between dream and physics, Earth and cosmos, until every pulse of existence reveals itself as part of the same resonant fabric.
 
More than a story, The Loom is an experience of enchantment and modern mythmaking. It persuades not through argument but through rhythm, emotion, and wonder, drawing the reader into participation with the consciousness it describes.
 
Read “Quantum Canticles: Selected Poems” by our Jeffrey H. Collins at https://amzn.to/4cZhkjU
 
This volume of poems reveals deep connections between modern science and spirituality.

Papers

Read “Bridging expectations and science: a roadmap for the future of longevity interventions”, coauthored by our David Barzilai at https://link.springer.com/article/10.10...;10278-z
 
Read “The Evaluation Horizon: Why Some Problems Cannot Be Reliably Solved Without a Model of Solvability” by our Andy E. Williams at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18401752
 
Read “The glutathione S-transferase Gstt1 drives survival and dissemination in metastases”, coauthored by our Raul Mostoslavsky at https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio...tastases
 
Read “How malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy: The fusion of agentic AI and LLMs marks a new frontier in information warfare”, coauthored by our Gary Marcus and Filippo Menczer at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.06299
 
Read “Role of TREM2 in neuroinflammation”, coauthored by our Domenico Praticó at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a...25004121
 
Read “The .serva Standard: One Primitive for All AI Cost Reduced, Barriers Removed”, coauthored by our Rachel StClair at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.09124
 
Read “Wigner’s Friend as a Circuit: Inter-Branch Communication Witness Benchmarks on Superconducting Quantum Hardware”, authored by our Christopher Altman at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.16004

Articles

Read “AI Critics have an Ignorance Problem” by our Ahmed Bouzid at https://lifeboat.com/pdfs/ai.critics.ha...blem.pdf
 
Journalists and editors rightly worry about being replaced, but the argument for human superiority collapses when humans stop performing the exact functions they claim machines cannot: judgment, context, verification, skepticism, and responsibility.
 
The answer to AI, Ahmed argues, is not mediocre human work demanding special protection — it is better human work: critics who learn their subject, editors who ask the questions writers forgot, and AI users who accept that an impressive tool does not absolve them of responsibility for the result. AI will make mistakes; the more troubling mistake is humans surrendering, through ignorance and laziness, the very qualities that supposedly make them indispensable.
 
Read “Cybernetics in the Anthropocene” by our Andrew Pickering at https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/int...ropocene
 
This essay argues for a cybernetic approach to environmental crises as an alternative to dualistic human mastery over nature.
 
Read “Fiduciary Duty in the Gray Zone: What Boards Must Know About Converging Geopolitical and Technology Risks” by our David A. Bray at https://www.constellationr.com/research...ical-and
 
Read “From Cognitive Extension to Cognitive Dependence: A History, Theory, and Governance of Human Offloading in the Age of Generative AI” by our Frank D. Smith at https://lifeboat.com/pdfs/cognitive.off...aper.pdf
 
Read “How You Can Survive and Thrive as the Ship of Civilization Sinks” by our Jed Diamond at https://menalive.com/survive-and-thrive...n-sinks/
 
Read “Safwan Zaheer on Agentic AI Is About to Eat Payments — Merchants’ Storefronts are Shrinking to a Sentence in Someone Else’s Chatbot”, with insights by our Safwan Zaheer at https://www.csuitebrief.com/executive/s...-chatbot
 
Read the “Valence-Binding Theory of Everything” by our Kimberly Forsythe at https://x.com/NewWrldOptimist/status/20...64826237

Plays

Read the play “The Unusual Chauncey Faust” by our Coni Ciongoli-Koepfinger at https://thetheatretimes.com/waking-up-i...ey-faust
 
Following a sold-out engagement as part of the playwrights’ competition 15 Minutes of Frame, The Unusual Chauncey Faust was selected from more than 100 plays and went on to win the final competition by popular vote, earning first place. The original 15-minute one-act was awarded the opportunity to be developed into a full-length work.
 
Set in the present, the play centers on Chauncey Faust, an actor who senses that time is slipping away. From the beginning of his career, Chauncey has felt driven by a purpose beyond ambition or recognition. His relationship to his work — and to his own life — carries a dreamlike quality, shaped by a persistent sense of calling that sets him apart.
 
Request the script from [email protected] with the subject “Lifeboat Foundation The Unusual Chauncey Faust”.

Videos

Watch “Martians by ZIA”, a pro-Mars settlement video by our Elaine Walker which we helped remaster, AI-enhance, and subtitle at https://youtu.be/4Xx3cOi7fyg
 
Watch “Our Beautiful Earth | The Beauty Of Earth | Remastered: Blue Beauty”, a documentary short with scenery which we have finally remastered after 12 years at https://youtu.be/HfMB5-Ehz60
 
Watch “Privacy Lost”, an award-winning short film about our augmented future, written by our Louis Rosenberg at https://youtube.com/watch?v=IsE_Pas2OQU
 
Whether you call it Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, or Spatial Computing, our lives will soon become a seamless merger of the real and virtual. Enabled by AI-powered glasses, this technology could make our world a magical place where almost anything is possible.
 
Unfortunately, this magical future comes with great risks. Unless regulated, these wearable devices will track our behaviors and monitor our emotions like never before. This will threaten our privacy and leave us vulnerable to AI-driven manipulation throughout our daily lives.
 
Watch the TED video “3 possible futures for AI — which will we choose?”, with our Alvin W. Graylin at https://www.ted.com/talks/alvin_w_grayl...e_choose

Blog

Recent interesting blog posts include:
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Roundup: a possible repair for age-related damage, a vitamin D clue, and an exercise-response switch” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/a-rep...ve-power
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Active supermassive black holes may help form massive planets” by Natalie Chan at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/activ...-planets
 
[expert commentary] “The Agentic AI and Quantum Convergence: Innovation and Cybersecurity Imperatives for US Government Agencies and Contractors” by Chuck Brooks at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/the-a...tractors
 
[speculative – philosophical] “Align to the Mind” by Kelvin Dafiaghor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/align...the-mind
 
[expert commentary] “Arthur C. Clarke’s 3 Laws: When the Future Looks Like Magic” by Nikola Danaylov at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/09/arthu...ke-magic
 
[high confidence – news report, 2026] “Astronomers spot an extremely rare galaxy mega-merger” by Natalie Chan at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/astro...a-merger
 
[expert commentary] “Can AI Help Detect Disease Before Your Pet Gets Sick? | Dr. Ragen McGowan — Nestlé Purina” by Ira S. Pastor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/can-a...e-purina
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Risk review catalogs 18 categories of catastrophic AI threat on a five-year horizon” by Daniel Ikechukwu at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/catas...-5-years
 
[expert commentary] “Coining the Technological Singularity” by Nikola Danaylov at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/coini...gularity
 
[high confidence – news report, 2026] “The composer still making music four years after his death — thanks to an artificial brain” by Logan Thrasher Collins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/09/the-c...al-brain
 
[expert commentary] “D2D Satellite Connectivity: The 16-Point Performance Gap Buyers Are Ignoring” by Daniel Ikechukwu at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/d2d-s...ignoring
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, JAMA Ophthalmology 2026] “Small first-in-human trial reports vision gains from a combined limbal epithelial and stromal cell transplant” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/dual-...an-trial
 
[speculative – prediction] “The First Person to Live 1,000 Years” by Pascal Baranowska at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/the-f...00-years
 
[speculative – philosophical] “Frank Visser / ChatGPT” by Kelvin Dafiaghor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/frank...-chatgpt
 
[medium confidence – theoretical] “”Geometric Framework for Biological Evolution” by Vitaly Vanchurin” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/geome...anchurin
 
[medium confidence – news report] “Researchers report progress on extending the standard model of particle physics” by Genevieve Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/huge-...articles
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “Human brain stimulation engages different gene programs in different cell types” by Logan Thrasher Collins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/human...ll-types
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Human brains may have got bigger for no particular reason” by Shubham Ghosh Roy at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/human...r-reason
 
[medium confidence – news report] “Report argues China now leads the humanoid robot race” by Muhammad Furqan at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/human...ech-race
 
[speculative – philosophical] “Is the Singularity a Religion? Why AI Needs a NeoRomanticism” by Nikola Danaylov at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/is-th...anticism
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Lunar regolith samples yield a 100-million-year record of nearby supernovae” by Laurence Tognetti at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/lunar...-history
 
[high confidence – documentary video] “Martians by ZIA | High Arctic | NASA HMP-2003 | Remastered and AI-enhanced with subtitles” by Eric Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/09/marti...ubtitles
 
[medium confidence – animal model] “Study reports mitochondrial transplantation restores function in aged immune cells” by Mike Lustgarten at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/mitoc...ne-cells
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “Multifunctional Organic Materials, Devices, and Mechanisms for Neuroscience, Neuromorphic Computing, and Bioelectronics” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/multi...ctronics
 
[high confidence – institutional report] “Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope” by Arthur Brown at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/nancy...elescope
 
[medium confidence – theoretical] “New brain-wave theory proposes a mechanism for cognition and consciousness” by Arthur Brown at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/new-b...iousness
 
[speculative – philosophical] “No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious” by The Neuro-Network at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/no-ar...onscious
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Optica Quantum 2026] “Northwestern University Researchers Demonstrate Quantum Entanglement Over Busy Telecom Fiber” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/north...om-fiber
 
[high confidence – documentary video] “Our Beautiful Earth | The Beauty Of Earth | Remastered: Blue Beauty documentary short with scenery” by Eric Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/09/our-b...-scenery
 
[speculative – philosophical] “The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations” by Michael LaTorra at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/the-r...izations
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “Saturn-ring-like laser emission from chiral polymeric microspheres” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/satur...ospheres
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Researchers report a 3D thermal cloak that hides objects from heat detection” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/scien...-to-heat
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Study reports a gene variant with GLP-1-like effects on body weight” by Quinn Sena at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/scien...-ozempic
 
[medium confidence – company announcement] “Skydio X10 Technical Specs” by Cecile G. Tamura at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/skydi...al-specs
 
[speculative – science fiction video] “SLEEPER: SLEEPER — a science-fiction trailer for the Future Vision XPRIZE” by Sergio Tarrero at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/sleep...n-xprize
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Solar windows could harvest indoor light and sunlight while staying semi-transparent” by Shubham Ghosh Roy at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/solar...nsparent
 
[medium confidence – single study] “This Synthetic Cell Grows, Copies Its DNA, and Produces Offspring—But It Isn’t Alive” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/this-...nt-alive
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Nat Commun 2026] “Tunable gene control via RNA splicing with a clinically approved small molecule” by Logan Thrasher Collins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/tunab...molecule
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Science 2026] “Psilocybin prevented chemotherapy-induced nerve damage in mice, MD Anderson reports” by Nicholi Avery at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/09/unpar...otherapy
 
[speculative – self-experiment, n=1] “What’s My Aging Rate? 50-Test Analysis Since 2018” by Mike Lustgarten at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/09/whats...nce-2018
 
[expert commentary] “Why World Models Could Change Robotics, 3D, and Creativity” by Cecile G. Tamura at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/09/why-w...eativity
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Photonic time crystal reported to modulate light on trillionth-of-a-second timescales” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/world...a-second