This archive file was compiled from audio and video documentation of a gathering of medical professionals, inventors & entrepreneurs, held at Singularity University in California, February 2013. The selected material gives a portrait of a time in which the field of health found itself at a crossroads between the mature medical institutions which had slowly evolved over hundreds of years, and a need to develop and integrate new, more flexible and scalable forms of care. About Future Med: http://futuremed2020.com/ About Singularity University: http://singularityu.org/ GPA on Facebook: on.fb.me/18NiF8z GPA on Twitter: twitter.com/GPA2030
Category: lifeboat – Page 8
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!
Artificial Intelligence
Elon recently described his investments in AI research as “keeping an eye on what’s going on” rather than aiming for a viable return on capital. He said, “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful.”
Considering that oversight of AI development by governmental and nongovernmental agencies is about zero, it is helpful for Elon to bring attention to this matter. For example, thanks to warnings like his, Google now has an AI Ethics Board. (This matters since Google is putting a lot of resources into creating smarter and smarter AIs.)
Self-Sustaining Space Colonies
There are many existential risks that could be survived if we had self-sustaining colonies outside of the Earth. Elon said, “What matters is being able to establish a self-sustaining civilization on Mars, and I don’t see anything being done but SpaceX. I don’t see anyone else even trying.” He also said, “Sooner or later, we must expand life beyond this green and blue ball — or go extinct.”
Elon is CEO and CTO of SpaceX. Historic achievements by SpaceX, among others, include the first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit in September 2008; the first privately funded company to successfully launch (Falcon 9), orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon) in December 2010; and the first private company to send a spacecraft (Dragon) to the International Space Station in May 2012. The launch of SES-8 in December 2013 was the first SpaceX delivery into geosynchronous orbit.
Sustainable Energy
Elon is CEO, Chairman, and Product Architect of Tesla Motors. Tesla first gained widespread attention following their production of the Tesla Roadster, the first fully electric sports car. The company’s second vehicle is the Model S, a fully electric luxury sedan, and its next two vehicles are the Models X and 3 respectively.
Tesla also markets electric powertrain components, including lithium-ion battery packs to automakers including Daimler and Toyota. Elon has said that he envisions Tesla as an independent automaker, aimed at eventually offering electric cars at prices affordable to the average consumer.
Elon is Chairman of SolarCity, the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States. Continuing its strong growth, the United States installed 1,354 megawatts of solar photovoltaics in Q3 2014, up 41 percent over the same period last year. Only 440 megawatts had been installed in all of 2009 to show how fast this market is growing.
FM2030: Are You A Transhuman?
Posted in lifeboat, science, transhumanism
This archive file was compiled from audio of a discussion futurist FM 2030 held at the University of California, February 6th, 1994. In this discussion 2030 laid out an overview of his ‘transhuman’ philosophy and held a back and forth with other people present in the discussion. Discussion and debate included items such as the value of researching ‘indefinite lifespan’ technologies directly as opposed to (or in addition to) more traditional approaches, such as researching cures for specific diseases.
The excerpts in this archive file present a sort of thesis of FM 2030’s transhuman ideas.
About FM 2030: FM 2030 was at various points in his life, an Iranian Olympic basketball player, a diplomat, a university teacher, and a corporate consultant. He developed his views on transhumanism in the 1960s and evolved them over the next thirty-something years. He was placed in cryonic suspension July 8th, 2000. For more information about FM 2030, view the GPA Archive File: ‘Introduction to FM 2030′ or visit some of the following links:
Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM-2030
Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies:
ieet.org/index.php/tpwiki/Transhuman
The New York Times:
nytimes.com/2000/07/11/us/futurist-known-as-fm-2030-is-dead-at-69.html
GPA on Facebook: on.fb.me/18NiF8z
GPA on Twitter: twitter.com/GPA203
This archive file was compiled from an interview conducted on the campus of Singularity University, February 2013. The interview took place at a time where new artificial intelligence systems, such as IBM’s Jeopardy winning “Watson,” were re-awakening the popular imagination in terms of artificial intelligence becoming a visible part of day to day life. The privacy issues regarding the ‘big-data’ that allowed many AI systems to function was also becoming a significant source of controversy. In this piece, Marty Kohn, MD, chief medical scientist on the IBM Watson Medical Team, gives insight into his personal thoughts and feelings regarding how society might both accept and reject the artificial intelligence advances of the coming years.
About the Speaker:
IBM:
researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=us-marty.kohn
FutureMed:
futuremed2020.com/marty-kohn/
The audio in this archive file was compiled from a 1984 meeting of futurists, transhumanists, and progressives. The main topic of the meeting was the most appropriate ways to engage or advance these philosophies within government. For example, one significant point of discussion centered around whether running for office was an effective way to drive change.
In the course of the discussion, the primary viewpoint FM-2030 espoused was that some aspects of government — especially the concept of leadership — would become obsolete or be replaced by other aspects of society (see Part 1). However, he also expressed what he believed the core of a ‘true’ democracy might look like. This archive file is assembled from excerpts of that section of the discussion.
The audio in this archive file was compiled from a 1984 meeting of futurists, transhumanists & progressives. The main topic of the meeting was the most appropriate ways to engage or advance these philosophies within government. For example, one significant point of discussion centered around whether running for office was an effective way to drive change.
The excerpts in this archive file collect many of futurist FM 2030’s thoughts over the course of the discussion.
About FM 2030: FM 2030 was at various points in his life, an Iranian Olympic basketball player, a diplomat, a university teacher, and a corporate consultant. He developed his views on transhumanism in the 1960s and evolved them over the next thirty-something years. He was placed in cryonic suspension July 8th, 2000.
This archive file was compiled from an interview conducted at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, 2013. In the discussion, Amit Singhal, a key figure in the evolution of Google’s search engine, broadly outlined the significant hurdles that stood in the way of achieving one of his long-held dreams — creating a true ‘conversational’ search engine. He also sketched out a vision of how the initial versions of such a system would, and also importantly, would not attempt to assist the individuals that it interacted with.
Though the vision was by design more limited and focused than a system capable of passing the famous Turing test, it nonetheless raised stimulating questions about the future relationships of humans and their ‘artificial’ assistants.
More about Amit Singhal:
Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit_Singhal
Google Search:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search
Who is Amit Singhal (at Google)?
Posted in futurism, lifeboat, science, transhumanism
This archive file was compiled from an interview conducted at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, 2013.
As late as the 1980s and the 1990s, the common person seeking stored knowledge would likely be faced with using an 18th century technology — the library index card catalogue — in order to find something on the topic he or she was looking for. Fifteen years later, most people would be able to search, at any time and any place, a collection of information that dwarfed that of any library. And unlike the experience with a library card catalogue, this new technology rarely left the user empty-handed.
Information retrieval had been a core technology of humanity since written language — but as an actual area of research it was so niche that before the 1950s, nobody had bothered to give the field a name. From a superficial perspective, the pioneering work in the area during the 1940s and 50s seemed to suggest it would be monumentally important to the future — but only behind the scenes. Information retrieval was to be the secret tool of the nation at war, or of the elite scientist compiling massive amounts of data. Increasingly however, a visionary group of thinkers dreamed of combining information retrieval and the ‘thinking machine’ to create something which would be far more revolutionary for society.
In the case of Google’s Amit Singhal, it was a childhood encounter with a visionary work that gave him his initial fascination with the dream of the thinking machine — a fascination that would result in his evolution to be one of the individuals who began to transform the dream into a reality. The work that he encountered was not that of a scientific pioneer such as Alan Turing or Marvin Minsky — it was a visionary work of pop culture.
More about Amit Singhal:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit_Singhal
Google Search:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search
Question: A Counterpoint to the Technological Singularity?
Douglas Hofstadter, a professor of cognitive science at Indiana University, indicated about The Singularity is Near Book (ISBN: 978–0143037880),
“ … A very bizarre mixture of ideas that are solid and good with ideas that are crazy. It’s as if you took a lot of very good food and some dog excrement and blended it all up so that you can’t possibly figure out what’s good or bad …”
AND FOR INSTANCE:
“… Technology is the savior for everything. That’s the point of this course. Technology is accelerating, everything is going to be good, technology is your friend … I think that’s a load of crap …” By Dr. Jonathan White
Back to the White Swan hardcore:
That discourse can be entertained at a forthcoming Renaissance, not now. Going against this idea will be outrageously counterproductive to ascertain the non-annihilation of Earth’s locals.
People who destroy, eternally beforehand, outrageous Black Swans, engaging into super-natural and preter-natural preparations for known and unknown Outliers, thus observing — in all practicality — the successful and prevailing White Swan and Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary problem-solving methodology, include:
(1.-) Sir Martin Rees PhD (cosmologist and astrophysicist), Astronomer Royal, Cambridge University Professor and former Royal Society President.
(2.-) Dr. Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. Formerly: Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
(3.-) Prof. Nick Bostrom Ph.D. is a Swedish philosopher at St. Cross College, University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, the reversal test, and consequentialism. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics (2000). He is the founding director of both The Future of Humanity Institute and the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology as part of the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University.
(4.-) The US National Intelligence Council (NIC) [.…] The National Intelligence Council supports the Director of National Intelligence in his role as head of the Intelligence Community (IC) and is the IC’s center for long-term strategic analysis [.…] Since its establishment in 1979, the NIC has served as a bridge between the intelligence and policy communities, a source of deep substantive expertise on intelligence issues, and a facilitator of Intelligence Community collaboration and outreach [.…] The NIC’s National Intelligence Officers — drawn from government, academia, and the private sector—are the Intelligence Community’s senior experts on a range of regional and functional issues.
(5.-) U.S. Homeland Security’s FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).
(6.-) The CIA or any other U.S. Government agencies.
(7.-) Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International).
(8.-) GBN (Global Business Network).
(9.-) Royal Dutch Shell.
(10.-) British Doomsday Preppers.
(11.-) Canadian Doomsday Preppers.
(12.-) Australian Doomsday Preppers
(13.-) American Doomsday Preppers.
(14.-) Disruptional Singularity Book (ASIN: B00KQOEYLG).
(15.-) Scientific Prophets of Doom at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bUe2-7jjtY
White Swans are always getting prepared for Unknown and Known Outliers, and MOST FLUIDLY changing the theater of operation by permanently updating and upgrading the designated preparations.
Authored By Copyright Mr. Andres Agostini
White Swan Book Author
www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini
www.amazon.com/author/Agostini
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own White Swan Serendipity Versus Pseudoserendipity, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
Posted in complex systems, computing, economics, education, engineering, lifeboat, science, scientific freedom
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own White Swan Serendipity Versus Pseudoserendipity, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
SERENDIPITY VERSUS PSEUDOSERENDIPITY!
Serendipity.— Serendipity means a “fortuitous happenstance” and/or “pleasant surprise” and/or “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. And also entails unexpected positive and beneficial accident(s) [….] And the art of finding something unintended [….] the common experience of observing unexpected, anomalous and strategic data and events, which are transformed into the instance and context to develop a new theory or to complement an existing theory [….] And the faculty of making fortunate Technological Breakthroughs and Scientific Discoveries And Innovation Developments by accident, as a result of corporate manager’s perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles and tangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and © forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits and planes [….] Unexpected Accidental Beneficial Discoveries in Science, Technology, Strategy, Business and Management …”
Pseudoserendipity.— Pseudoserendipity means PURPOSEFULLY CREATING the constant preconditions and conditions to seize “fortuitous happenstance” and/or “pleasant surprise” and/or “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. And also entails unexpected positive and beneficial accident(s) [….] the art of finding something unintended [….] the common experience of observing unexpected, anomalous and strategic data and events, which are transformed into the instance and context to develop a new theory or to complement an existing theory [….] And the faculty of making fortunate Technological Breakthroughs and Scientific Discoveries And Innovation Developments by accident, as a result of corporate manager’s perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles and tangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and © forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits and planes [….] Somewhat Expected Accidental Beneficial Discoveries in Science, Technology, Strategy, Business and Management …”