Lifeboat Foundation

Artificial intelligence approached the summit of hype at this year’s World Economic Forum.

AI was on the lips of seemingly every corporate chief and policy maker attending this year’s conference in Davos, Switzerland. On Wednesday, the term “artificial intelligence” appeared in more than 20 headlines and stories Bloomberg ran about the gathering.

British Prime Minister Theresa May announced a new government-funded center to advise on ethical use of AI and French President Emmanuel Macron launched a 10 billion euro innovation fund aimed at new technologies like AI.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Nears the Summit of Hype in Davos” »

New technology, investment, and policy are helping to boost smaller companies like Rocket Lab into the stratosphere. Their founders share some advice.

Oxfam said its figures, which some observers have criticized, showed economic rewards were “increasingly concentrated” at the top. The charity cited tax evasion, the erosion of worker’s rights, cost-cutting and businesses’ influence on policy decisions as reasons for the widening inequality gap.

Just 42 people own the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 percent worldwide, a new study by global charity Oxfam claimed.

By now, every interested news-junkie is aware that Bitcoin plummeted from $15,000 to $13,000 (USD exchange rate) on January 11, 2018. This morning, every news outlet and armchair analyst attributes the drop to the Korean government signaling that it will ban Bitcoin trading among its citizens.

With Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un butting heads over nuclear missile tests and the upcoming Winter Olympics, you would think that South Korea has other priorities than banning Bitcoin.

As with all news—except accidents—the Korean plans were known by a few insiders (in this case, government bureaucrats), and so the influence on value was bigger than the drop that occurred after the news story. In the days before this “event”, it was probably responsible for a drop of about $4500 in exchange value.

Listen up Wild Ducks! We have heard this before. On Sept 11, China announced the exact same thing. I wrote about it in the most popular article of my 7 years as Blogger: Bad News is Good News for Bitcoin Investors.

Continue reading “Say it again, Bitcoin Investors: ‘Bad News is Good News’” »

Space nations, UFOs, and Mars colonies are on the wish list.

The SRF Summer Scholars Program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to conduct biomedical research to combat diseases of aging, such as cancer, atherosclerosis, and Parkinson’s Disease. Under the guidance of a scientific mentor, each Summer Scholar is responsible for his or her own research project in such areas as genetic engineering and stem cell research. The Summer Scholars Program emphasizes development of both laboratory and communication skills to develop well-rounded future scientists, healthcare professionals, and policy makers.

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more prevalent in the domains of security and employment, what are the policy implications? What effects might AI have on cybersecurity, criminal and civil justice, and labor market patterns?

Canada is testing a basic income to discover what impact the policy has on unemployed people and those on low incomes.

The province of Ontario is planning to give 4,000 citizens thousands of dollars a month and assess how it affects their health, wellbeing, earnings and productivity.

It is among a number of regions and countries across the globe that are now piloting the scheme, which sees residents given a certain amount of money each month regardless of whether or not they are in work.

Continue reading “Canada begins paying basic income to citizens” »

““Access to science is going to be a first-world privilege,” Geltner says. “That’s the opposite of what science is supposed to be about.””

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