Lifeboat Foundation

But even though money is necessary, it’s not sufficient to provide human beings a sense of satisfaction, Obama cautioned. As more and more tasks and services become automated with the rise of artificial intelligence, “that’s going to make the job of giving everybody work that is meaningful tougher, and we’re going to have to be more imaginative, and the pace of change is going to require us to do more fundamental re-imagining of our social and political arrangements, to protect the economic security and the dignity that comes with a job.”

The former president says “we’re going to have to consider new ways of thinking” as technology threatens current labor markets.

We may also process your information for legitimate reasons associated with your use or ownership of an Aston Martin car, for reasons concerning information or network security, to defend or pursue legal rights or to meet regulatory requirements. Any information processed for contacts based in the EU will not be transferred outside the EU.

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“DATA SLAVERY.” Jennifer Lyn Morone, an American artist, thinks this is the state in which most people now live. To get free online services, she laments, they hand over intimate information to technology firms. “Personal data are much more valuable than you think,” she says. To highlight this sorry state of affairs, Ms Morone has resorted to what she calls “extreme capitalism”: she registered herself as a company in Delaware in an effort to exploit her personal data for financial gain. She created dossiers containing different subsets of data, which she displayed in a London gallery in 2016 and offered for sale, starting at £100 ($135). The entire collection, including her health data and social-security number, can be had for £7,000.

Only a few buyers have taken her up on this offer and she finds “the whole thing really absurd”. Yet if the job of the artist is to anticipate the Zeitgeist, Ms Morone was dead on: this year the world has discovered that something is rotten in the data economy. Since it emerged in March that Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, had acquired data on 87m Facebook users in underhand ways, voices calling for a rethink of the handling of online personal data have only grown louder. Even Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, recently called for a price to be put on personal data, asking researchers to come up with solutions.

Though the disease was eradicated decades ago, national security experts fear that stocks of the virus in labs could be released as a bioweapon.

The nuclear power sector is seeing a resurgence in innovation, supported by new policies and emerging technologies. The general public and various governments are starting to grasp the value of nuclear power as an alternative, sustainable energy source. Unlike renewables, such as wind and solar power, nuclear energy is not dependent on weather conditions for power generation, having a capacity factor of over 90 percent. Nuclear power is also more eco-friendly than natural gas and coal and its “carbon-free” attributes are seen as critical in the fight against climate change.

For decades, advancements in the nuclear power sector have been incremental and focused largely on making systems “walk away safe.” Today, the industry is pushing the boundaries and exploring applications for nuclear power in ways that have never before been considered.

BWXT is at the forefront of this nuclear renaissance. This 6,000-employee company operates on the model of letting capital drive strategy. BWXT is constantly evaluating new ways to ensure workers, funding, and policies are utilized in the most effective way possible. The company also analyzes the needs of numerous other industries to determine how nuclear power could provide innovative solutions.

Continue reading “The Nuclear Reactor Renaissance: Space Exploration and National Security” »

WASHINGTON — Hey, did my congressman really say that? Is that really President Trump on that video, or am I being duped?

New technology on the internet lets anyone make videos of real people appearing to say things they’ve never said. Republicans and Democrats predict this high-tech way of putting words in someone’s mouth will become the latest weapon in disinformation wars against the United States and other Western democracies.

We’re not talking about lip-syncing videos. This technology uses facial mapping and artificial intelligence to produce videos that appear so genuine it’s hard to spot the phonies. Lawmakers and intelligence officials worry that the bogus videos — called deepfakes — could be used to threaten national security or interfere in elections.

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French scientist Herve This, the co-creator of molecular gastronomy, wants the world to cook with chemical compounds, a process that he believes can help improve global food security.

I’m excited to share my interview with Jakub Dymek on #transhumanism in the new edition of The Aspen Institute (Eastern Europe) quarterly Aspen Review magazine.

Let’s think about this: what happens when sometime in the future the whole generation of Chinese kids have higher IQs than their American peers, because they’re technologically hardwired for that? Will this be a national security issue? This is a global security issue—says Zoltan Istvan in an interview with Jakub Dymek.

JAKUB DYMEK: You are a transhumanist—member of a movement endorsing technologically augmented advancement of human species and using technology to extend our capabilities. What does transhumanist thinking bring into the world of policy debate in the US and worldwide and how politically influential it is?

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Space is the next frontier for war.

• President Donald Trump’s proposed “Space Force” could help fuel the $1 trillion intergalactic economy, Morgan Stanley says.
• The bank is tracking 100 private companies poised to profit from interstellar industries.

If President Donald Trump successfully organizes his so-called Space Force, it could speed up investment in what Morgan Stanley sees as the next trillion-dollar economy.

In a note to clients Friday, the bank doubled down on its intergalactic thesis from last October, saying the Space Force “could address critical vulnerabilities in national security, raising investor awareness in the formation of what we see as the next trillion-dollar economy.”

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