Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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But while science fiction provides military planners with a tantalizing glimpse of future weaponry, from exoskeletons to mind-machine interfaces, the genre is always about more than flashy new gadgets. It’s about anticipating the unforeseen ways in which these technologies could affect humans and society – and this extra context is often overlooked by the officials deciding which technologies to invest in for future conflicts.

Imagined worlds

Like my colleague David Seed, who has studied how fiction impacts on real-life threat assumptions about nuclear terrorism, I’m interested in how science fiction informs our sense of the future. This has given me the opportunity to work with members of the armed forces, using science fiction to query assumptions and generate novel visions of the future.

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I’ve been suggesting for a long time to drop these Ai’s into open world games.

EDIT: Also see paper and results compilation video!

Today, we published “Open-Ended Learning Leads to Generally Capable Agents,” a preprint detailing our first steps to train an agent capable of playing many different games without needing human interaction data. … The result is an agent with the ability to succeed at a wide spectrum of tasks — from simple object-finding problems to complex games like hide and seek and capture the flag, which were not encountered during training. We find the agent exhibits general, heuristic behaviours such as experimentation, behaviours that are widely applicable to many tasks rather than specialised to an individual task.

Continue reading “DeepMind: Generally capable agents emerge from open-ended play” | >

What i would suggest is landing Atlas robots in waves on the Moon, the first wave builds a solar panel farm for power, the second repairs the first wave, the third joins the first two to begin building large scale runways, the fourth joins the first three to begin building permanent structures.

The Moon is close enough for teleoperations, and in the 2030s, when we actually do Mars, the AI could repeat the whole thing there.

Before they explore Mars, the robots explore Martian-like caves on Earth first.

Continue reading “Robots are making progress on space exploration, along with billionaires” | >

Although effective uncertainty estimation can be a key consideration in the development of safe and fair artificial intelligence systems, most of today’s large-scale deep learning applications are lacking in this regard.

To accelerate research in this field, a team from DeepMind has proposed epistemic neural networks (ENNs) as an interface for uncertainty modelling in deep learning, and the KL divergence from a target distribution as a precise metric to evaluate ENNs. In the paper Epistemic Neural Networks, the team also introduces a computational testbed based on inference in a neural network Gaussian process, and validates that the proposed ENNs can improve performance in terms of statistical quality and computational cost.

The researchers say all existing approaches to uncertainty modelling in deep learning can be expressed as ENNs, presenting a new perspective on the potential of neural networks as computational tools for approximate posterior inference.

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A first-of-its-kind 3D-printed concrete bridge has been unveiled in Venice, Italy. The bridge is a demonstration of a new 3D printing method resulting in a structure requiring no mortar or steel reinforcement.

The bridge was developed as part of a collaboration between ETH Zurich and Zaha Hadid Architects’ Computation and Design Group. The unreinforced structure was created by 3D-printing concrete blocks using a novel type of concrete ink produced by a company called Holcim.

“This precise method of 3D concrete printing allows us to combine the principles of traditional vaulted construction with digital concrete fabrication to use material only where it is structurally necessary without producing waste,” explains Philippe Block, a researcher from ETH Zurich.

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Elon Musk recently hinted at a very welcome and simple update for Tesla’s vehicles, especially those which have already replaced their 12-volt batteries in the past. According to the CEO, Tesla would be looking into the idea of equipping older vehicles with a 12-volt lithium-ion battery, similar to the Model S Plaid.

Musk’s update came as a response to Tesla owner Rich Teer, who inquired if it was possible to have the company’s older vehicles be equipped with the company’s newer 12-volt lithium-ion battery. This was a good point considering that the conventional 12-volt lead-acid battery used in vehicles like the Model 3 and Model Y tend to get discharged, in some cases, multiple times per year.

In his response, Musk stated that Tesla would try to roll out such an initiative, especially as it would be beneficial for the company’s cars. A 12-volt lithium-ion battery would last far longer than a conventional lead-acid battery, after all, and according to Musk, Tesla’s goal is to reduce service in its vehicles anyway. “Unlike other makers of cars, our goal is *not* to profit from service. Best service is not needing service in the first place,” Musk noted.

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The science and technology of growing young — sergey young, founder, longevity vision fund.

Sergey Young (https://sergeyyoung.com/) is a longevity investor, visionary, and author, with a mission to help one billion people extend their healthy lifespans by making longevity affordable and accessible for everyone. As part of this mission, he is the Founder of the Longevity Vision Fund (LVF — https://lvf.vc/), a $100 Million venture capital fund that invests in technologies with the potential to disrupt life sciences and healthcare to help people live longer and healthier lives.

Sergey’s investment experience, spanning over 20 years, includes managing a $2 Billion private equity fund and co-founding Peak State Ventures, a New York-based private equity fund focusing on new technologies in Real Estate, Digital Healthcare, and the Future of Work. Sergey is also Longevity Venture Partner at BOLD Capital Partners, a $250 Million fund focusing on exponential technologies co-founded by Peter Diamandis.

Continue reading “Sergey Young — Founder, Longevity Vision Fund — Longevity Venture Partner, BOLD Capital Partners” | >

JEFF Bezos has offered NASA $2 billion in exchange for a contract to allow astronauts to land on the moon.

The Amazon founder made his offer to administrator Bill Nelson in an open letter on Monday, a week after his own historic rocket launch.

Billionaire Bezos wrote: Blue Origin is committed to building a future where millions of people live and work in space to benefit the Earth.

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