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Category: policy – Page 60

The EU releases guidelines to encourage ethical AI development

The European Commission recommends using an assessment list when developing or deploying AI, but the guidelines aren’t meant to be — or interfere with — policy or regulation. Instead, they offer a loose framework. This summer, the Commission will work with stakeholders to identify areas where additional guidance might be necessary and figure out how to best implement and verify its recommendations. In early 2020, the expert group will incorporate feedback from the pilot phase. As we develop the potential to build things like autonomous weapons and fake news-generating algorithms, it’s likely more governments will take a stand on the ethical concerns AI brings to the table.

The EU wants AI that’s fair and accountable, respects human autonomy and prevents harm.

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Japan to back int’l efforts to regulate AI-equipped ‘killer robots’

Japan is hoping to play a lead role in crafting international rules on what has been called lethal autonomous weapons systems or LAWS.

Japan is planning to give its backing to international efforts to regulate the development of lethal weapons controlled by artificial intelligence at a UN conference in Geneva late this month, government sources said Saturday.

It would mark a departure from Japan’s current policy. The government was already opposed to the development of so-called killer robots that could kill without human involvement. But it had called for careful discussions when it comes to rules so as to make sure that commercial development of AI would not be hampered.

With the policy shift, Japan is hoping to play a leading role in crafting international rules on what have been called lethal autonomous weapons systems, or LAWS, the sources said.

Aging Analytics Agency Photo 2

And Vetek Association present their list of the top 60 Longevity Influencers in Israel, whose efforts in science, technology, industry and policy are driving the growth of the Israeli Longevity Landscape.

Link to the Report: https://www.aginganalytics.com/longevity-in-israel

Aaron Ciechanover Anat Ben-Zvi, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist Boaz Misholi Dov Chernichovsky — דב צ’רניחובסקי Ehud Cohen Eyal banin Idan Segev Ilia Stambler Israel Issi Doron Itamar Harel Itamar Raz Jonathan Mandelbaum Michael Neeman Mooly Eden Nir Barzilai MD Rafi Eitan Raphael Gorodetsky Ruth Arnon Uri Alon Valery Krizhanovsky Yael Sorek-benvenisti Yechezkel Barenholz Yosef Gruenbaum.

Presents its list of the top 30 Longevity Influencers in Singapore

Presents its list of the top 30 Longevity Influencers in Singapore, whose efforts in science, technology, industry and policy are driving the growth of the Singaporean Longevity Landscape.

Link to the Report: https://www.aginganalytics.com/longevity-in-singapore

Dr Finian Tan Brian Kennedy #DannySoon #GaryKhoo #BussarawanTeerawichitchainan #ChongHockSia #JaniceChia #JeffreyLu #CarlFirth #KanwaljitSoin #ChristianiJeyakumarHenry #ColinStewart #HweePinkTan Kenneth Noonan MD #LimChweeTeck #LokSheeMei #MelisTay #NeoKahYean #NgHuckHui #PaoloRampichini #PaulSi #PennyWan #JudithSwain #VishalDoshi #WallaceToores #WilfBlackburn #YuCai #LimXinhong WanJin Hong Birgit Lane.

What our civilization needs is a billion-year plan

Circa 2012

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Artist’s concept of a Kardashev Type 2 civilization (credit: Chris Cold)

Lt Col Garretson — one of the USAF’s most farsighted and original thinkers — has been at the forefront of USAF strategy on the long-term future in projects such as Blue Horizons (on KurzweilAI — see video), Energy Horizons, Space Solar Power, the AF Futures Game, the USAF Strategic Environmental Assessment, and the USAF RPA Flight Plan. Now in this exclusive to KurzweilAI, he pushes the boundary of long-term thinking about humanity’s survival out to the edge … and beyond. — Ed.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force or the U.S. government.

It isn’t enough just to plan for two or 20, or even the fabled Chinese 100 year periods. We need to be thinking and planning on the order of billions of years. Our civilization needs inter-generational plans and goals that span as far out as we can forecast significant events.

Continue reading “What our civilization needs is a billion-year plan” | >

China’s Greater Bay Area still has hurdles to clear if it wants to be a tech challenger to Silicon Valley

However, a shortage of hi-tech research capacity in the region is turning into a hindrance, according to analysts, with most of China’s top-notch science and engineering schools located in the northern and eastern provinces. Although Hong Kong has several universities in the world’s top 100, only a few of them have a science and technology focus.

China’s ‘Greater Bay Area’ plan aims to erase barriers between cities in the region in terms of policy, financing, logistics and talent.

Investors bet billions on health-care start-ups with paltry publication records

I remember the #DotCom crash all too well.

The publication record of health-care start-up companies doesn’t seem to matter to investors, according to an analysis of nearly 50 biomedical ‘unicorns’ — venture-capital-backed companies valued at more than US$1 billion. The analysis, led by health-policy researcher John Ioannidis at Stanford University in California, finds no correlation between a company’s market valuation and its publication record — defined as the number of peer-reviewed papers authored directly by a firm. That’s a cause for concern, the authors say.

Firms can achieve fêted ‘unicorn’ valuations without publishing much peer-reviewed science. Health-care start-ups can reach billion-dollar valuations without publishing in peer-reviewed journals, but skipping that step can catch them out.

World’s 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%, says Oxfam

Oxfam’s director of campaigns and policy, Matthew Spencer, said: The massive fall in the number of people living in extreme poverty is one of the greatest achievements of the past quarter of a century but rising inequality is jeopardising further progress.

It said the widening gap was hindering the fight against poverty, adding that a wealth tax on the 1% would raise an estimated $418bn (£325bn) a year – enough to educate every child not in school and provide healthcare that would prevent 3 million deaths.

Why it is dangerous to build ever larger big bang machines

CERN has revealed plans for a gigantic successor of the giant atom smasher LHC, the biggest machine ever built. Particle physicists will never stop to ask for ever larger big bang machines. But where are the limits for the ordinary society concerning costs and existential risks?

CERN boffins are already conducting a mega experiment at the LHC, a 27km circular particle collider, at the cost of several billion Euros to study conditions of matter as it existed fractions of a second after the big bang and to find the smallest particle possible – but the question is how could they ever know? Now, they pretend to be a little bit upset because they could not find any particles beyond the standard model, which means something they would not expect. To achieve that, particle physicists would like to build an even larger “Future Circular Collider” (FCC) near Geneva, where CERN enjoys extraterritorial status, with a ring of 100km – for about 24 billion Euros.

Experts point out that this research could be as limitless as the universe itself. The UK’s former Chief Scientific Advisor, Prof Sir David King told BBC: “We have to draw a line somewhere otherwise we end up with a collider that is so large that it goes around the equator. And if it doesn’t end there perhaps there will be a request for one that goes to the Moon and back.”

“There

Continue reading “Why it is dangerous to build ever larger big bang machines” | >

The Lunar Industrial Facility and Orbital Shipyards; How to Get There

A Lunar Industrial Facility (LIF). Yes, a Lunar Industrial Facility. Science fiction you might say. Impossible you retort. Too expensive even if it could be done might be your rejoinder. We don’t have the technology, could be another rhetorical dismissal. These are all responses those who do not live and breath this every day may have, but these are reactionary responses that do not reflect where we are in the closing years of the second decade of the twenty first century. In this missive, which is a companion to a space policy paper released Monday August 1, 2017, is written to show that indeed a lunar industrial facility is possible, we do have the technology, and no it will not be too expensive. Furthermore, it enables something that though it would seem to be science fiction, isn’t, which is a shipyard in lunar orbit for the construction of humanities first truly interplanetary space vehicles, as well as providing the materials for very large Earth orbiting space platforms for science and commerce.

Why do we need interplanetary vehicles? We have over 9.1 billion reasons, for that is the number of humans who will be on the Earth in 2050, only 33 years from now. The greatest fear is that with only a single planet’s resources, we cannot provide for this number in any reasonable manner. This underpins most of the rhetoric today regarding resource conservation and how to confront other global problems. This is a self defeating philosophy. Rather than rationing poverty, it should be our common goal to help create a world where all of our fellow planetary citizens can live in a society that continues to progress, materially as well as morally. Our science knows beyond any shadow of a doubt now that resources many orders of magnitude greater than what are available from the Earth, exist in the solar system around us.

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