Monthly Archives: March 2017

In case you missed it, Elon Musk is rather concerned about the fate of humanity, given the extreme advancements being made in artificial intelligence (AI). Ultimately, he fears that ourAI will, one day, overtake us. When this happens, he claims that humans will likely become second class citizens (or slaves, or something even worse).

Now, reports have surfaced which assert that he is backing a brain-computer interface venture that was founded to allow humans to keep up with the advancements made in machines. The interface is intended to work by augmenting that which makes us human: our brains.

The find comes fromThe Wall Street Journal.According to them, the company which is called Neuralink is still in the earliest stages of development. To that end, it has no public presence at all.

What we do know is that its ultimate goal is to create a device (or possibly a series of devices) that can be implanted in the human brain. These will serve a multitude of purposes the final end being to help humans merge with our software and keep pace with artificial intelligences so we dont get left in the dust.

Initially, these enhancements will likely assist in smaller ways, such as helping us improve our memories by creating additional, removable storage components.

Notably, this is not the first that we have heard of Musk working on such a device. Previously, he mentioned a device called the neural lace. He explained how he imagined it would work at the 2016 Code Conference, which you can see below:

Unsurprisingly, Musk isnt the only one worried about AI. In a video posted byBig Think, Michael Vassar, thechief science officer of MetaMed Research,stated that AI will likely kill us all (literally): If greater-than-human artificial general intelligence is invented without due caution, it is all but certain that the human species will be extinct in very short order. Essentially, he is warning that an unchecked AI could eradicate humanity in the future.

Similarly, Stephen Hawking famously stated that AI is one of the biggest threats to humanity: The development of artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldnt compete, and would be superseded.

To that end, Musk isnt the only person working to ensure that humanity can keep up with AI.Braintree founder Bryan Johnson is investing $100 millionto make a neuroprosthesis to unlock the power of the human brain and, ultimately, make our neural code programmable.

Johnson outlinesthe purpose of his work, stating that its all about co-evolution:

Our connection with our new creations of intelligence is limited by screens, keyboards, gestural interfaces, and voice commands constrained input/output modalities. We have very little access to our own brains, limiting our ability to co-evolve with silicon-based machines in powerful ways.

He is working to change this and ensure that we have a seamless interface with our technologies (and our AI).

Johnson is clear that his company, Kernel, will begin by researching the brain and figuring out exactlyhow it works. This research, Johnson states, is the first step in helping humans achieve permanent equality with machines.

Of course, such technologies will do a lot more than justallow humans to interface with machines. Neuroprostheses could alsorepairour cognitive abilities which will allow us to combat neurological diseases such as Alzheimers, ALS, Parkinsons, and other conditions that destroy our brainsand our lives.

This is just the beginning.

Such advancements could allow us to merge with machines, yes, but they can also allow us to literally program our neural code, which would allow us to transform ourselves in ways that we cant even imagine. In short, we couldprogram ourselves into the people that we want to be. As Johnson states, Our biology and genetics have become increasingly programmable; our neural code is next in line.

It sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is based on remarkable scientific work.

In short, the devices under development work by replicating the way that our brain cells communicate with one another.The tech envisioned is based on 15 years of academic research that was funded by the NIH and DARPA. So get ready. Human superintelligence is only a matter of time.

Disclosure: Bryan Johnson is an investor in Futurism; he does not hold a seat on our editorial board or have any editorial review privileges.

View original post here:
Elon Musk Just Launched A Company To Merge Your Brain With A Computer - Futurism

In BriefIn a recent interview, an analyst at Morgan Stanley discussedthe future impact of Tesla's Autopilot system on the auto industry.He predicts the company will affect everything from the technologyand economics of vehicles to the safety of driving in general. The Road to aDriverless Future

A car that could drive itself used to be solely the stuff of science fiction. Now, its become a reality thanks to companies like Tesla.

Elon Musks companyis continuously improvingits autonomous driving system,Autopilot, which it describes as an increasingly capable suite of safety and convenience features that make personal transportation safer and more enjoyable.

Since September 2014, when it was first added to every Tesla vehicle, Autopilots hardware and software have been inching closer and closer to Level 5 autonomy,a level that requires zero interaction from a human driver. The systems features, whichnow include Autosteer, Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, Auto Lane Change, Autopark, and Summon (that one lets you call your Tesla car via a mobile app), are products of Teslas Autopilot software learning from the behavior of human drivers.

The company rolled out enhanced Autopilot features earlier this year, and thehighly anticipated 8.1 software update for its hardware 2 platform is expected to arrived this week. Clearly, Teslas Autopilot is increasingly becoming a more advanced, more capable, and safer alternative to human drivers. So what does that mean for the rest of the auto industry?

In a recent interview onCNBCs Power Lunch,Adam Jonas, the resident Tesla analyst from Morgan Stanley, explained just how much of an impact the autonomous cars of Tesla will have in the near future. One point he made was thatTeslas autonomous cars will lead to a faster rate of technological obsolescence for the other vehicles available today.

Our work on used car value is focused on the technological obsolescence of the 250 million cars on US roads today $2 trillion worth of cars. Teslas cars can get better because they can learn, Jonas said. They put in that equipment so that the vehicle five years from now is much more superhuman and much better than the one that is just learning and watching right now. Our used car thesis is that in a five-year period, we are running scenarios of used car value being off by as much as 50 percent.

Tesla is also changing the economics of electric cars, or, as Jonas put it, the economics of electrification. He explained that, while the electric car market in the United States still has plenty of room for expansion, ridesharing will be a game changer for the tech.

We think the electric cars for private use really are for human driving pleasure for wealthier individuals. Thats why its so important that in the shared model where youre not driving 10,000 miles a year, but 50,000 or 100,000 miles in a fleet operation, then the economics of electrification you can get that payback period under three years, Jonas said. Thats the game changer shared.

Vehicle safety is also a factor, as car accidents in the U.S. surged to 40,000 in 2016. It seems like the only thing progressing faster than the pace of machine learning is the pace human unlearning, Jonas said. Were getting dumber faster than the cars are getting smarter. Teslas quickly advancing self-driving car tech could be the perfect way to stop that trend from leading toany more deaths on the road.

Read more here:
Expert Says Tesla Will Make All Other Cars Obsolete - Futurism

Today, delegates from most of the United Nations member states are gathering in New York to negotiate a nuclear weapons ban.More than 2,500 scientists from 70 countries have signed an open letter in support of the nuclear disarmament negotiations. If successful, their words could urge the UN to stigmatize nuclear weapons like biological and chemical weapons, with the ultimate goal being to create a world free of these weapons of mass destruction.

Neuroscience professor and Nobel Laureate, Edvard Moser, believes nuclear weapons represent one of the biggest threats to our civilization:

Other notable scientists in support of the ban are not lacking. The list includes 28 Nobel Laureatessuch as Peter Ware Higgsand Leon N. Cooper;former U.S. Secretary of Defense, William J. Perry; and CERN physicists, such as Jack Steinberger. The letter will be deliveredin the UN General Assembly Hall to Her Excellency Ms. Elayne Whyte Gmez from Costa Rica, who will preside over the negotiations.

The letter, presented by the Future of Life Institute, acknowledges that scientists may have beenthe ones who invented nuclear weapons, but that it is up to the people living today to dictate how this technology should be usedor rather, should never be used. For example, nuclear-induced winter could trigger a global mini ice age, which could lead toa complete collapse of the global food system and kill most of the people on Earth.

And thats just one potential outcome.

Ultimately, such a resultwould occur even if the nuclear war involved only a small fraction of the roughly 14,000 nuclear weapons that todays nuclear powers control.

In total, nine countries (that we know of) possess nuclear weapons: The U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, China, Israel, India, North Korea, and Pakistan. The first five are the only countries allowed to have these weapons, according to the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, an agreement that nations signed saying they would not release nuclear weapons, or in any way help othersacquire or build them. Furthermore, thecountries promised, to move toward a gradual reduction of their arsenals of nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal of complete nuclear disarmament.

The latter four nations (Israel, India, North Korea, and Pakistan) havent yet signed the treaty.

Unfortunately, the United States and a number of other nations that actually have nuclear weapons boycotted the talks, saying that the time was not right and that a ban would be ineffective.Ambassador Nikki R. Haley, from the United States, told reporters outside the General Assembly that the ideals are currently just a utopian dream: There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons, but we have to be realistic. Is there anyone who thinks that North Korea would ban nuclear weapons?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the state supported nuclear talks, in general, We are ready to discuss the possible further gradual reduction of nuclear capabilities. However, he said that Russia was not in support of talks of this severity or gravity. We are ready to discuss this issue proceeding from the growing urgency of making this process multilateral, he noted, adding the criticism that the discussion was too far-reaching: Efforts to coerce nuclear powers to abandon nuclear weapons have intensified significantly recently. It is absolutely clear that the time has not yet come for that,

That said, the talksare supported by 120 nations.

In 1939,just after World War II broke out, physicist Albert Einstein and his colleague Leo Szilard described a bomb of unprecedented power that could be made using nuclear fission. The two men urged the U.S. government to race to build this so-called atomic bomb before Germany could.

Six years later, President Harry S. Truman would order atomic bombs to be dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just five years after that, 54 percent of the original population had died from the two explosions. Those who survived had to deal with mental and physical trauma including burns, disfiguration, severe scar formations, blood abnormalities, sterility, leukemia, birth defects in children, cataracts, and cancer.

Einstein would later regret his involvementin the creation of the bomb, saying: had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would have never lifted a finger.

But it was too late for Einstein. And our nuclear history didnt end with him. Today, as political tensions rise, the scientists who have signed in support of the ban believe a nuclear war is more likely than one may expect:

There is a steady stream of accidents and false alarms that could trigger all-out war, and relying on never-ending luck is not a sustainable strategy. Many nuclear powers have larger nuclear arsenals than needed for deterrence, yet prioritize making them more lethal over reducing them and the risk that they get used.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry even noted, the probability of a nuclear calamity is higher today, I believe, that it was during the cold war.

It is evident that the scientific community, as a whole, feels strongly about the issue at hand, and believes the issue deserves a certain level of urgency. Negotiations are sure to be heated, but, as Norwegian neuroscience professor May-Britt Moser, a 2014 Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine, says,In a world with increased aggression and decreasing diplomacy the availability nuclear weapons is more dangerous than ever. Politicians are urged to ban nuclear weapons. The world today and future generations depend on that decision.

See the rest here:
The UN Is Currently Meeting To Negotiate A Complete, Global Ban on Nuclear Weapons - Futurism

Space technologies will one day take us to asteroids, Mars and back to the moon, and the impact of these missions will be felt back on Earth, says George Whitesides, Chief Executive Officer at Virgin Galactic and co-chair of the Global Future Council on Space Technologies. In this interview, he explains how the latest developments in space technologies will help bring about revolutions in wifi access, travel and beyond.

We are at an exciting moment. What we see are several converging trends that will change how we approach space technologies, at a rate of innovation that we havent seen in a long time.Click to View Full Infographic

The power of miniaturization, for example, is having a huge impact on satellites. Its becoming easier to put more capabilities into smaller packages. Constellations of small satellites are allowing for both new capabilities as well as existing capabilities at much lower costs.

The exploration of space is also becoming global. More nations are now within reach of space than ever before, while the influx of entrepreneurial capital is driving innovation and new technologies in the private sector.

What excites me most about space technologies is that its an opportunity for us to put the best of humanity forward into the future. It enables international cooperation, courage, boldness and entrepreneurship. We are doing things for the benefit for the planet.

We live on the spaceship Earth. Space technologies help us understand our mothership. The climate, peace and security, energy issues: these are all things space technologies can play a key role in.

How Will Your Global Future Council Be Contributing to the Conversation?

We have a very impressive group of people from around the globe and a diversity of professions.

We will certainly want to look at how we make space exploration sustainable, for business, government and science. We need to ensure the long-term sustainability of the space environment. Its particularly important now with so many new actors coming into the field.

We will also be looking at how we should react to trends such as space property rights and space debris.

The issue of sustainability in space is really crucial. When we talk about sustainability in space, there are a variety of issues.

There is no nationally owned sector of space. Its all shared, so the responsibility is global. This is the same thing here on Earth, when you look at international waters. The pollution in our waters is an international problem. In space, we have a growing amount of debris that comes from old satellites, launch vehicle stages, collisions and so on. It is very hard to clean up areas of space that have been filled with debris.

Radio frequency is another shared resource which is actually being handled rather well right now, but it will continue to be something we need to pay attention to.

A lot of people are looking at launch vehicles and reusability. Right now we dont use space launch vehicles very efficiently. Imagine if we threw away an airplane after every flight. Thats how space flight works today. These are amazing, precision engineered vehicles and we essentially throw them away after one use. The prospect of getting better reusable vehicles could reduce costs substantially and have a dramatic impact on increasing space access.

Small vehicles are also showing enormous potential. Those are being tailored to smaller satellites. This all leads to what we call disaggregation, or the idea that you can accomplish certain goals in space technologies in multiple small units rather than in a single large one. GPS is a good example of this.

Multiple small satellites also reduce the chance of failure. By simple numbers, if one satellite goes down, the system is not significantly affected as a whole.

Many companies are seeking to provide global communications and broadband via space, and this approach to constellations of small satellites is going to help make that possible.

The perspective of space is truly important to the future of our planet. Before we can act on any particular policy, it is helpful to shift our worldview to a planetary perspective. Its a crucial element in solving the challenges facing us.

Youll see vehicles taking people into space, but also on high-speed journeys around the planet. We might be making our first human journeys to Mars, to an asteroid and possibly a return to the moon.

Back here on Earth we will see benefits ranging from a better understanding of the climate to ubiquitous broadband. Global access to broadband would bring billions into the global economy, spurring development.

Space science will continue to make great advances. Finding new planets around other stars, perhaps showing signs of organic material, and also identifying other resources in our solar system are very possible. Perhaps, by then, we may even have found signs of actual life outside our planet.

Read more here:
Where Will Space Tech Take Us by 2030? - Futurism - Futurism

During his campaign, now-President Donald Trump promised voters he would bring American jobs back from overseas. Now that he is in office, hisadministration has made job creation a central focus of its efforts.

But what if those jobs overseas cant come back to the United States because companies no longer need to hire humans to complete the tasks? How is the Trump administration gearing up to tackle the rise of automation?

Based on recent statements by Trumps TreasurySecretary, Steven Mnuchin, they arent planning to address it all. In a conversation with Axios co-founder Mike Allen, Mnuchin said that increased automation is not even on our radar screen as the problem is 50 to 100 more years away. He continued, saying, Im not worried at all. In fact, Im optimistic.

The administrations claims run counter to the mounting evidence that artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are a much more imminent threat to American workers.

Some reports predict that todays technology could automate 51 percent of economic activity. Such a shift has the potential to causeunprecedented levels of unemployment, puttingmillions of people out of work. Its not just blue-collar jobsthat are at risk, either. Another report expects that850,000 public sector jobs could be taken over by automation in the United Kingdom by 2030, a trend likely to carry over into the U.S.

According to Mark Muro of the MIT Technology Review,jobs that went overseas arent going to be coming back to the U.S. Trump can propose policies to make it more beneficial for companies to bring their operations back to the country, but theres nothing to stop them from replacing American workers with machines should the financial implications of doing so continue to become more attractive.

As Muro said, No one should be under the illusion that millions of manufacturing jobs are coming back to America.

See the rest here:
Trump's Treasury Secretary Says Increased Automation Is "Not Even ... - Futurism

In Brief The XB-1 will be the first independently-developed supersonic jet, and the fastest civil airplane ever made. $33 Million Baby Boom

Right now, the fastest nonstop flight from Los Angeles to Sydney is 15 hours. The Boom Supersonics XB-1 aims to make it in a little over6 hours and its coming soon. Also called the baby boom, the XB-1 will be worlds fastest and highest-flying jet. Once its in the air, same-day returns on around 500 routes worldwide will be a reality.

Boom just received $33 million in Series A funding from a group which includes The Spaceship Company of Virgin Galactic. This brings its grand total in raised funds to $41 million, enough to finish and test the jet. With a building cost of $329 million, Boom will be recouping some of the costs with expensive tickets: about $6,600 for oneof its 45 seats.

With the possibility of flying from San Francisco to Tokyo in only 5hours or New York to London in only 3 hours and 15 minutes as soon as 2020,it seems likely those 45 seats will go fast.

According to its parent, Boom, the XB-1 will be the first independently-developed supersonic jet, and the fastest civil airplane ever made. At 1,451 miles per hour, it will travel 10 percent faster than the Concorde did. It will also fly higher, at around 60,000 feet. This will give passengers a smoother, quieter ride. Every passenger also gets their way on the Baby Boom, because its two single-seat rows makeseach seat both window and aisle.

All the additions are nice, but frankly, they had us at same-day returns and 6 hours instead of 15.

Read more:
The World's Fastest Jet Will Fly You From LA To Sydney in 6 Hours - Futurism