Menu

Blog

Page 10123

Apr 2, 2017

Artificial Intelligence And Income Inequality

Posted by in categories: finance, robotics/AI

In fact, when speaking with many AI experts across academia and industry, the consensus was unanimous: the development of AI cannot benefit only the few.


Income inequality is a well recognized problem. The gap between the rich and poor has grown over the last few decades, but it became increasingly pronounced after the 2008 financial crisis. While economists debate the extent to which technology plays a role in global inequality, most agree that tech advances have exacerbated the problem.

In an interview with the MIT Tech Review, economist Erik Brynjolfsson said, “My reading of the data is that technology is the main driver of the recent increases in inequality. It’s the biggest factor.”

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence And Income Inequality” »

Apr 2, 2017

Customized babies are closer than you think

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, genetics, health, policy

The race is on to edit genes and prevent disease. But this technology is ripe for abuse.

Economic inequity already exists in the reproductive industry. IVF, for example, is not covered by insurance in most states (Massachusetts excepted), setting up a situation in which only infertile people with well-padded pockets can afford the treatment. And of course the well-off have easier access to good health care via quality private insurance — or their own bank accounts. Steve Jobs, for example, spent $100,000 in 2011 to sequence his genome and that of his pancreatic tumor — a bill not many could hope to afford.

“The beautiful thing about this [gene-editing] work is it offers an opportunity to intervene around the moment of birth,” says Katy Kozhimannil, an associate professor in the Division of Health Policy at University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. “That said, as we pay attention to the opportunity of that moment, it’s important to bear in mind the value of liberty and justice for all.”

Continue reading “Customized babies are closer than you think” »

Apr 2, 2017

A comprehensive new article on #transhumanism and my work by Prof. Steve Fuller is out in Issues, one of the major magazines of the National Academy of Sciences

Posted by in categories: geopolitics, life extension, transhumanism

It’s now out in print. It’s great to see my past presidential campaign for the Transhumanist Party getting this type of formal recognition. The Transhumanist Bill of Rights, the Transhumanist Wager concept, Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson considering me as a running mate, Immortality Bus, and my #libertarianism are all mentioned. http://www.academia.edu/32185481/Does_this_pro-science_party_deserve_our_votes

Read more

Apr 1, 2017

How the original ‘Ghost in the Shell’ changed sci-fi and the way we think about the future

Posted by in categories: futurism, neuroscience

Was this story the inspiration for the Neural Lace Idea?


The influence of the groundbreaking 1995 anime movie “Ghost in the Shell” can be seen in everything from “The Matrix” to “Ex Machina.”

Read more

Apr 1, 2017

This Scientist Made An AI That Invents Recipes And The Results Are Hilarious

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI

Would you like to try some Beef Soup With Swamp Peef and Cheese?

BuzzFeed Staff

Read more

Apr 1, 2017

10 High-Tech Ways Billionaires Plan to Survive Doomsday

Posted by in category: existential risks

Stay safe when society is unraveling above you.

Read more

Apr 1, 2017

Can Futurists Predict the Year of the Singularity?

Posted by in categories: Ray Kurzweil, robotics/AI, singularity

The end of the world as we know it is near. And that’s a good thing, according to many of the futurists who are predicting the imminent arrival of what’s been called the technological singularity.

The technological singularity is the idea that technological progress, particularly in artificial intelligence, will reach a tipping point to where machines are exponentially smarter than humans. It has been a hot topic of late.

Well-known futurist and Google engineer Ray Kurzweil (co-founder and chancellor of Singularity University) reiterated his bold prediction at Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival this month that machines will match human intelligence by 2029 (and has said previously the Singularity itself will occur by 2045). That’s two years before SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s prediction of 2047, made at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) earlier this year.

Continue reading “Can Futurists Predict the Year of the Singularity?” »

Apr 1, 2017

Intel CEO admits to industry-wide conspiracy to slow CPU advances, kill frequency boosts

Posted by in category: computing

Taped remarks, smuggled from an investor meeting with Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich, just rewrote decades of computer history. Everything you think you know is wrong. The real story? It’s inside.

Read more

Apr 1, 2017

Killing Science and Culture Doesn’t Make the Nation Stronger

Posted by in categories: government, physics, science

Scientists throughout the country across a wide spectrum of fields, from biochemists to physicists, are bemoaning the potentially devastating impact on science and technology in the United States of President Trump’s proposed budget request to Congress.


Massive funding cuts in the president’s proposed budget could be more devastating than any threat posed by illegal immigrants.

Read more

Apr 1, 2017

Adobe’s experimental app copies one photo’s style to another

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Photo retouching and style matching (not to be confused with Prisma -like Instagram filters) is challenging work that requires a trained eye and hours of labor. At least, it was, until AI took that job, too. Researchers from Adobe and Cornell University have showed off an experimental app called “Deep Photo Style transfer” that can transform your image from drab to dramatic using someone else’s photo.

As shown above, using it is pretty simple — you just select a photo you want to change and one with the style you’re trying to emulate. The AI does the rest, applying the color, lighting and contrast of the example photo to the original. It can transform a lake photo snapped in the most boring light possible (above) into one that looks like it was taken at the golden hour on another planet. In another example it transforms a daylight city shot into a much more interesting nighttime scene.

The researchers built on the “Neural Style Transfer” work done by European researchers. They refined it so that the style transfer only happens to colors and doesn’t distort objects in the picture, like previous deep learning systems. In other words, it can pick out which part of the image is sky and which part is ground, so that the sky doesn’t “spill over” into the rest of the image, the team says.

Continue reading “Adobe’s experimental app copies one photo’s style to another” »