Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2019 o.o

Acclaimed Harvard professor and entrepreneur Dr. David Sinclair believes that we will see human life expectancy increase to at least 100 years within this century. A world in which humans live significantly longer will have a major impact on economies, policies, healthcare, education, ethics, and more. Sinclair joined Bridgewater Portfolio Strategist Atul Lele to discuss the science and societal, political, systemic and ethical implications of humans living significantly longer lives.

Recorded: Aug 30 2021

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What is the most pressing issue in AI ethics at the moment? Here is what our group of experts had to say.

This blog summarizes a recent Zoom call with scholars, professionals and clergy on AI ethics and human dignity.

Human Factors, Ethical Artificial Intelligence, And Healthy Aging — Dr. Arathi Sethumadhavan, PhD, Head of User Research, AI, Ethics & Society, Microsoft Cloud+AI.

Dr. Arathi Sethumadhavan, Ph.D. is Head of User Research for AI, Ethics & Society, at Microsoft’s Cloud+AI organization, where she works at the intersection of user research, ethics, and product experience.

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We’ve been chatting with the winners of VentureBeat’s Women in AI awards. Here are the conversations, covering ethics, regulation, and more.

What transpires in comedies and cartoons when a character has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is not far off from people’s perceptions of the real world, finds a new study from the University of Waterloo.

Intended to illustrate the characters’ decision-making dilemma with comedic results, the moral character and motives of the supernatural beings are obvious. And people have similar expectations when it comes to individuals they see as good or bad.

The researchers explored expectations about how good and evil individuals respond to requests. The researchers were interested in understanding why movies and folktales often depict the devil and demons as eager to grant accidental requests, whereas angels are not depicted this way.

The late 21st century belongs to Superhumans. Technological progress in the field of medicine through gene editing tools like CRISPR is going to revolutionize what it means to be human. The age of Superhumans is portrayed in many science fiction movies, but for the first time in our species history, radically altering our genome is going to be possible through the methods and tools of science.

The gene-editing tool CRISPR, short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, could help us to reprogram life. It gives scientists more power and precision than they have ever had to alter human DNA.

Continue reading “The Era of Genetically Modified Superhumans” »

A thought-provoking new article poses some hugely important scientific questions: Could brain cells initiated and grown in a lab become sentient? What would that look like, and how could scientists test for it? And would a sentient, lab-grown brain “organoid” have some kind of rights? Buckle up for a quick and dirty history of the ethics of sentience. We associate the term with computing and artificial intelligence, but the question of who (or what) is or isn’t “sentient” and deserving of rights and moral consideration goes back to the very beginning of the human experience. The debate colors everything from ethical consumption of meat to many episodes of Black Mirror.

Well, we don’t want that… or do we?

My story centers on the concept of a genetically modified virus (named) which infects the brain and gives people enhanced empathy. The narrative takes place in a fictional middle eastern city called Fakhoury and explores bioethical themes. Love acts as a central motif which ties the story together. Note that this piece will be available online for a limited time, after which you will need to pay for the magazine. I encourage you to check out my story!

Read Philosophy Ethics Short Stories with your friends, family, book club, and students. Each story comes with suggested discussion questions.