Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

human genetics, study of the inheritance of characteristics by children from parents. Inheritance in humans does not differ in any fundamental way from that in other organisms.

The study of human heredity occupies a central position in genetics. Much of this interest stems from a basic desire to know who humans are and why they are as they are. At a more practical level, an understanding of human heredity is of critical importance in the prediction, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases that have a genetic component. The quest to determine the genetic basis of human health has given rise to the field of medical genetics. In general, medicine has given focus and purpose to human genetics, so the terms medical genetics and human genetics are often considered synonymous.

A new era in cytogenetics, the field of investigation concerned with studies of the chromosomes, began in 1956 with the discovery by Jo Hin Tjio and Albert Levan that human somatic cells contain 23 pairs of chromosomes. Since that time the field has advanced with amazing rapidity and has demonstrated that human chromosome aberrations rank as major causes of fetal death and of tragic human diseases, many of which are accompanied by intellectual disability. Since the chromosomes can be delineated only during mitosis, it is necessary to examine material in which there are many dividing cells. This can usually be accomplished by culturing cells from the blood or skin, since only the bone marrow cells (not readily sampled except during serious bone marrow disease such as leukemia) have sufficient mitoses in the absence of artificial culture. After growth, the cells are fixed on slides and then stained with a variety of DNA-specific stains that permit the delineation and identification of the chromosomes. The Denver system of chromosome classification, established in 1959, identified the chromosomes by their length and the position of the centromeres. Since then the method has been improved by the use of special staining techniques that impart unique light and dark bands to each chromosome. These bands permit the identification of chromosomal regions that are duplicated, missing, or transposed to other chromosomes.

Micrographs showing the karyotypes (i.e., the physical appearance of the chromosome) of a male and a female have been produced. In a typical micrograph the 46 human chromosomes (the diploid number) are arranged in homologous pairs, each consisting of one maternally derived and one paternally derived member. The chromosomes are all numbered except for the X and the Y chromosomes, which are the sex chromosomes. In humans, as in all mammals, the normal female has two X chromosomes and the normal male has one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. The female is thus the homogametic sex, as all her gametes normally have one X chromosome. The male is heterogametic, as he produces two types of gametesone type containing an X chromosome and the other containing a Y chromosome. There is good evidence that the Y chromosome in humans, unlike that in Drosophila, is necessary (but not sufficient) for maleness.

A human individual arises through the union of two cells, an egg from the mother and a sperm from the father. Human egg cells are barely visible to the naked eye. They are shed, usually one at a time, from the ovary into the oviducts (fallopian tubes), through which they pass into the uterus. Fertilization, the penetration of an egg by a sperm, occurs in the oviducts. This is the main event of sexual reproduction and determines the genetic constitution of the new individual.

Human sex determination is a genetic process that depends basically on the presence of the Y chromosome in the fertilized egg. This chromosome stimulates a change in the undifferentiated gonad into that of the male (a testicle). The gonadal action of the Y chromosome is mediated by a gene located near the centromere; this gene codes for the production of a cell surface molecule called the H-Y antigen. Further development of the anatomic structures, both internal and external, that are associated with maleness is controlled by hormones produced by the testicle. The sex of an individual can be thought of in three different contexts: chromosomal sex, gonadal sex, and anatomic sex. Discrepancies between these, especially the latter two, result in the development of individuals with ambiguous sex, often called hermaphrodites. Homosexuality is unrelated to the above sex-determining factors. It is of interest that in the absence of a male gonad (testicle) the internal and external sex anatomy is always female, even in the absence of a female ovary. A female without ovaries will, of course, be infertile and will not experience any of the female developmental changes normally associated with puberty. Such a female will often have Turner syndrome.

If X-containing and Y-containing sperm are produced in equal numbers, then according to simple chance one would expect the sex ratio at conception (fertilization) to be half boys and half girls, or 1 : 1. Direct observation of sex ratios among newly fertilized human eggs is not yet feasible, and sex-ratio data are usually collected at the time of birth. In almost all human populations of newborns, there is a slight excess of males; about 106 boys are born for every100 girls. Throughout life, however, there is a slightly greater mortality of males; this slowly alters the sex ratio until, beyond the age of about 50 years, there is an excess of females. Studies indicate that male embryos suffer a relatively greater degree of prenatal mortality, so the sex ratio at conception might be expected to favour males even more than the 106 : 100 ratio observed at birth would suggest. Firm explanations for the apparent excess of male conceptions have not been established; it is possible that Y-containing sperm survive better within the female reproductive tract, or they may be a little more successful in reaching the egg in order to fertilize it. In any case, the sex differences are small, the statistical expectation for a boy (or girl) at any single birth still being close to one out of two.

During gestationthe period of nine months between fertilization and the birth of the infanta remarkable series of developmental changes occur. Through the process of mitosis, the total number of cells changes from 1 (the fertilized egg) to about 2 1011. In addition, these cells differentiate into hundreds of different types with specific functions (liver cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, etc.). A multitude of regulatory processes, both genetically and environmentally controlled, accomplish this differentiation. Elucidation of the exquisite timing of these processes remains one of the great challenges of human biology.

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Human genetics | Description, Chromosomes, & Inheritance

Overview

Genetic testing involves examining your DNA, the chemical database that carries instructions for your body's functions. Genetic testing can reveal changes (mutations) in your genes that may cause illness or disease.

Although genetic testing can provide important information for diagnosing, treating and preventing illness, there are limitations. For example, if you're a healthy person, a positive result from genetic testing doesn't always mean you will develop a disease. On the other hand, in some situations, a negative result doesn't guarantee that you won't have a certain disorder.

Talking to your doctor, a medical geneticist or a genetic counselor about what you will do with the results is an important step in the process of genetic testing.

When genetic testing doesn't lead to a diagnosis but a genetic cause is still suspected, some facilities offer genome sequencing a process for analyzing a sample of DNA taken from your blood.

Everyone has a unique genome, made up of the DNA in all of a person's genes. This complex testing can help identify genetic variants that may relate to your health. This testing is usually limited to just looking at the protein-encoding parts of DNA called the exome.

Genetic testing plays a vital role in determining the risk of developing certain diseases as well as screening and sometimes medical treatment. Different types of genetic testing are done for different reasons:

Generally genetic tests have little physical risk. Blood and cheek swab tests have almost no risk. However, prenatal testing such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling has a small risk of pregnancy loss (miscarriage).

Genetic testing can have emotional, social and financial risks as well. Discuss all risks and benefits of genetic testing with your doctor, a medical geneticist or a genetic counselor before you have a genetic test.

Before you have genetic testing, gather as much information as you can about your family's medical history. Then, talk with your doctor or a genetic counselor about your personal and family medical history to better understand your risk. Ask questions and discuss any concerns about genetic testing at that meeting. Also, talk about your options, depending on the test results.

If you're being tested for a genetic disorder that runs in families, you may want to consider discussing your decision to have genetic testing with your family. Having these conversations before testing can give you a sense of how your family might respond to your test results and how it may affect them.

Not all health insurance policies pay for genetic testing. So, before you have a genetic test, check with your insurance provider to see what will be covered.

In the United States, the federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) helps prevent health insurers or employers from discriminating against you based on test results. Under GINA, employment discrimination based on genetic risk also is illegal. However, this act does not cover life, long-term care or disability insurance. Most states offer additional protection.

Depending on the type of test, a sample of your blood, skin, amniotic fluid or other tissue will be collected and sent to a lab for analysis.

The amount of time it takes for you to receive your genetic test results depends on the type of test and your health care facility. Talk to your doctor, medical geneticist or genetic counselor before the test about when you can expect the results and have a discussion about them.

If the genetic test result is positive, that means the genetic change that was being tested for was detected. The steps you take after you receive a positive result will depend on the reason you had genetic testing.

If the purpose is to:

Talk to your doctor about what a positive result means for you. In some cases, you can make lifestyle changes that may reduce your risk of developing a disease, even if you have a gene that makes you more susceptible to a disorder. Results may also help you make choices related to treatment, family planning, careers and insurance coverage.

In addition, you may choose to participate in research or registries related to your genetic disorder or condition. These options may help you stay updated with new developments in prevention or treatment.

A negative result means a mutated gene was not detected by the test, which can be reassuring, but it's not a 100 percent guarantee that you don't have the disorder. The accuracy of genetic tests to detect mutated genes varies, depending on the condition being tested for and whether or not the gene mutation was previously identified in a family member.

Even if you don't have the mutated gene, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll never get the disease. For example, the majority of people who develop breast cancer don't have a breast cancer gene (BRCA1 or BRCA2). Also, genetic testing may not be able to detect all genetic defects.

In some cases, a genetic test may not provide helpful information about the gene in question. Everyone has variations in the way genes appear, and often these variations don't affect your health. But sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between a disease-causing gene and a harmless gene variation. These changes are called variants of uncertain significance. In these situations, follow-up testing or periodic reviews of the gene over time may be necessary.

No matter what the results of your genetic testing, talk with your doctor, medical geneticist or genetic counselor about questions or concerns you may have. This will help you understand what the results mean for you and your family.

Explore Mayo Clinic studies of tests and procedures to help prevent, detect, treat or manage conditions.

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Genetic testing - Mayo Clinic

OverviewWhat are genetic disorders?

Genetic disorders occur when a mutation (a harmful change to a gene, also known as a pathogenic variant) affects your genes or when you have the wrong amount of genetic material. Genes are made of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), which contain instructions for cell functioning and the characteristics that make you unique.

You receive half your genes from each biological parent and may inherit a gene mutation from one parent or both. Sometimes genes change due to issues within the DNA (mutations). This can raise your risk of having a genetic disorder. Some cause symptoms at birth, while others develop over time.

Genetic disorders can be:

There are many types. They include:

Chromosomal disorders

Multifactorial disorders

Monogenic disorders

Genetic disorders may also cause rare diseases. This group of conditions affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. According to experts, there may be as many as 7,000 of these diseases.

Rare genetic disorders include:

To understand genetic disorder causes, its helpful to learn more about how your genes and DNA work. Most of the DNA in your genes instructs the body to make proteins. These proteins start complex cell interactions that help you stay healthy.

When a mutation occurs, it affects the genes protein-making instructions. There could be missing proteins. Or the ones you have do not function properly. Environmental factors (also called mutagens) that could lead to a genetic mutation include:

Symptoms vary depending on the type of disorder, organs affected and how severe it is. You may experience:

If you have a family history of a genetic disorder, you may wish to consider genetic counseling to see if genetic testing is appropriate for you. Lab tests can typically show whether you have gene mutations responsible for that condition. In many cases, carrying the mutation does not always mean youll end up with it. Genetic counselors can explain your risk and if there are steps you can take to protect your health.

If theres a family history, DNA testing for genetic disorders can be an important part of starting a family. Options include:

Most genetic disorders do not have a cure. Some have treatments that may slow disease progression or lessen their impact on your life. The type of treatment thats right for you depends on the type and severity of the disease. With others, we may not have treatment but we can provide medical surveillance to try to catch complications early.

You may need:

There is often little you can do to prevent a genetic disorder. But genetic counseling and testing can help you learn more about your risk. It can also let you know the likelihood of passing some disorders on to your children.

Some conditions, including certain rare and congenital diseases, have a grim prognosis. Children born with anencephaly typically survive only a few days. Other conditions, like an isolated cleft lip, do not affect lifespan. But you may need regular, specialized care to stay comfortable.

When you are living with a genetic disorder, you may have frequent medical needs. Its important to see a healthcare provider specializing in the condition. They are more likely to know which treatments are best for your needs.

You may also benefit from the support of others. Genetic disorders often have local or national support groups. These organizations can help you access resources that make life a little easier. They may also host events where you can meet other families going through similar challenges.

A note from Cleveland Clinic

Genetic disorders occur when a mutation affects your genes or chromosomes. Some disorders cause symptoms at birth, while others develop over time. Genetic testing can help you learn more about the likelihood of experiencing a genetic disorder. If you or a loved one have a genetic disorder, its important to seek care from an experienced specialist. You may be able to get additional information and help from support groups.

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Genetic Disorders: What Are They, Types, Symptoms & Causes

Colossal Biosciences Project to Revive the Prehistoric Woolly Mammoth Raises Staggering $60 Million Series A Funding  Nature World News

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Colossal Biosciences Project to Revive the Prehistoric Woolly Mammoth Raises Staggering $60 Million Series A Funding - Nature World News

2023 is going to witness a surge in technology courses top courses that will remain in vogue  Times of India

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2023 is going to witness a surge in technology courses top courses that will remain in vogue - Times of India

M.R.S. Rao birthday: All you need to know about the Padma Shri winning Indian scientist  Free Press Journal

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M.R.S. Rao birthday: All you need to know about the Padma Shri winning Indian scientist - Free Press Journal

Russian philosophical and cultural movement

Russian cosmism, also cosmism, is a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in Russia at the turn of the 19th century, and again, at the beginning of the 20th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a burst of scientific investigation into interplanetary travel, largely driven by fiction writers such as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells as well as philosophical movements like the Russian cosmism.

The Culture of Health is the basic science about Spiritual Humanity. It studies the perspectives of harmonious development of Spiritual man and Spiritual ethnos as a conscious creator of the State of Light into the territory of the Solar System

Victor Skumin[1][2]

Cosmism entailed a broad theory of natural philosophy, combining elements of religion and ethics with a history and philosophy of the origin, evolution, and future existence of the cosmos and humankind. It combined elements from both Eastern and Western philosophic traditions as well as from the Russian Orthodox Church.[3]

Cosmism was one of the influences on Proletkult, and after the October Revolution, the term came to be applied to "...the poetry of such writers as Mikhail Gerasimov and Vladimir Kirillov...: emotional paeans to physical labor, machines, and the collective of industrial workers ... organized around the image of the universal 'Proletarian', who strides forth from the earth to conquer planets and stars."[4] This form of cosmism, along with the writings of Nikolai Fyodorov, was a strong influence on Andrei Platonov.[1]

Many ideas of the Russian cosmists were later developed by those in the transhumanist movement.[1] Victor Skumin argues that the Culture of Health will play an important role in the creation of a human spiritual society into the Solar System.[5][6]

Among the major representatives of Russian cosmism was Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov (18281903), an advocate of radical life extension by means of scientific methods, human immortality, and resurrection of dead people.[7]

In 1881, Russian revolutionary and rocket pioneer Nikolai Kibalchich proposed an idea of pulsed rocket propulsion by combustion of explosives, which was an early precursor for Project Orion.[citation needed]

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (18571935) was among the pioneers of theoretical space exploration and cosmonautics. In 1903, Tsiolkovsky published the first serious scientific work on space travel. His work was essentially unknown outside the Russian Empire, but inside the country it inspired further research, experimentation and the formation of the Society for Studies of Interplanetary Spaceflight.[8] Tsiolkovsky wrote a book called "The Will of the Universe; Unknown Intelligent Forces" in which he propounded a philosophy of panpsychism. He believed humans would eventually colonize the Milky Way. His thought preceded the Space Age by several decades, and some of what he foresaw in his imagination has come into being since his death. Tsiolkovsky did not believe in traditional religious cosmology, but instead he believed in a cosmic being that governed humans.[9]

Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928) was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and Bolshevik revolutionary. His wide scientific and medical interests ranged from the universal systems theory to the possibility of human rejuvenation through blood transfusion. He saw heterochronic blood transfusions as a alliance of solidarity between the generations, where the old benefited from the rejuvenating effects of the young blood, while the young received immunities from the elders blood. Ironically, he died as a result of a hemolytic transfusion reaction. His successors put Russia in the forefront of the development of centralized national blood transfusion services.[10]

Other cosmists included Vladimir Vernadsky (18631945), who developed the notion of noosphere and the question of noosphere's evolution from biosphere, and Alexander Chizhevsky (18971964), pioneer of "heliobiology" (study of the sun's effect on biology).[11][12][13] A minor planet, 3113 Chizhevskij, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978, is named after him.[14] The outstanding Russian palaeontologist and sci-fi writer Ivan Yefremov developed the ideas of cosmism and has concluded that the communism is a necessary structure of the future society, which wants to survive in space. The successor of the traditions of Ivan Yefremov was a geologist and sci-fi writer Alexander Shalimov. The astrophysicist Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev was the discoverer of Lunar tectonic activity (1959) and author of Causal Mechanics/Theory of Time.

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Russian cosmism - Wikipedia

Social, political and cultural movement advocating for the elimination of gender in humans

Postgenderism is a social, political and cultural movement which arose from the eroding of the cultural, psychological, and social role of gender, and an argument for why the erosion of binary gender will be liberatory.[1]

Postgenderists argue that gender is an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation on human potential, and foresee the elimination of involuntary psychological gendering in the human species as a result of social and cultural designations and through the application of neurotechnology, biotechnology, and assistive reproductive technologies.[1]

Advocates of postgenderism argue that the presence of gender roles, social stratification, and gender differences are generally to the detriment of individuals and society. Given the radical potential for advanced assistive reproductive options, postgenderists believe that sex for reproductive purposes will either become obsolete or that all post-gendered humans will have the ability, if they so choose, to both carry a pregnancy to term and impregnate someone, which, postgenderists believe, would have the effect of eliminating the need for definite genders in such a society.[1]

Postgenderism as a cultural phenomenon has roots in feminism, masculism, along with the androgyny, metrosexual/technosexual and transgender movements. However, it has been through the application of transhumanist philosophy that postgenderists have conceived the potential for actual morphological changes to the members of the human species and how future humans in a postgender society will reproduce. In this sense, it is an offshoot of transhumanism, posthumanism,[2] and futurism.[1]

In the 19th century, Russian philosopher Nikolay Chernyshevsky believed that "people will be happy when there will be neither women nor men".[3]

Urania, a feminist journal privately published between 1916 and 1940, advanced the abolishment of gender;[4] each issue was headed with the statement: "There are no 'men' or 'women' in Urania."[5]

One of the earliest expressions of postgenderism was Shulamith Firestone's 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex. It argues,[6]

[The] end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally. (A reversion to an unobstructed pansexuality Freud's 'polymorphous perversity'would probably supersede hetero/homo/bi-sexuality.) The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both would be replaced by (at least the option of) artificial reproduction: children would be born to both sexes equally, or independently of either, however one chooses to look at it; the dependence of the child on the mother (and vice versa) would give way to a greatly shortened dependence on a small group of others in general, and any remaining inferiority to adults in physical strength would be compensated for culturally.

Another important and influential work in this regard was socialist feminist Donna Haraway's essay, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century", in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149181. In this work, Haraway is interpreted as arguing that women would only be freed from their biological restraints when their reproductive obligations were dispensed with. This may be viewed as Haraway expressing a belief that women will only achieve true liberation once they become postbiological organisms, or postgendered.[1] However, Haraway has publicly stated that their use of the word "post-gender" has been grossly misinterpreted.[7]

The term "postgenderism" is also used by George Dvorsky to describe the diverse social, political, and cultural movement that affirms the voluntary elimination of gender in the human species by applying advanced biotechnology and assisted reproductive technologies.[8] In 2008, Dvorsky wrote with James Hughes that "dyadic gender roles and sexual dimorphism are generally to the detriment of individuals and society" and that "greater biological fluidity and psychological androgyny will allow future persons to explore both masculine and feminine aspects of personality."[9]

Postgenderists are not exclusively advocates of androgyny, although most believe that a "mixing" of both feminine and masculine traits is desirableessentially the creation of androgynous individuals who exhibit the best of what females and males have to offer in terms of physical and psychological abilities and proclivities. Just what these traits are exactly is a matter of great debate and conjecture.[1]

Postgenderism is not concerned solely with the physical sex or its assumed traits. It is focused on the idea of eliminating or moving beyond gendered identities. In a traditional gender construct, one is either a man or woman, but in postgenderism one is neither a man nor woman nor any other assumed gender role. Thus an individual in society is not reduced to a gender role but is simply an agent of humanity who is to be defined (if at all) by one's actions.

However, not all postgenderists are against the existence of gender roles in some form; some only argue for the deemphasization of gender roles. In this situation, people would be able to identify as a gender if they decided to, but identifying as one would not be mandatory, and gender roles would have little bearing on how people actually act or are treated in society.

In regard to potential assistive reproductive technologies, it is believed that reproduction can continue to happen outside of conventional methods, namely intercourse and artificial insemination. Advances such as human cloning, parthenogenesis and artificial wombs may significantly extend the potential for human reproduction.[1]Bodies and personalities in our postgender future will no longer be constrained and circumscribed by gendered traits, but enriched by their use in the palette of diverse self-expression.[10]

Many argue that posthuman space will be more virtual than real. Individuals may consist of uploaded minds living as data patterns on supercomputers or users engaged in completely immersive virtual realities. Postgenderists contend that these types of existences are not gender-specific thus allowing individuals to morph their virtual appearances and sexuality at will.[1]

Postgenderists maintain that a genderless society does not imply the existence of a species uninterested in sex and sexuality. It is thought that sexual relations and interpersonal intimacy can and will exist in a postgendered future, but that those activities may take on different forms.[1] For example, this theory raises the relationship between gender and technologies such as the latter's role in the dismantling of the conventional gender order.[11] Postgenderism, however, is not directly concerned with the physical action of sex or with sexuality. It is believed to offer a more egalitarian system where individuals are classified according to factors such as age, talents, and interests instead of gender.[11]

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Postgenderism - Wikipedia

Rationality-focused community blog

LessWrong (also written Less Wrong) is a community blog and forum focused on discussion of cognitive biases, philosophy, psychology, economics, rationality, and artificial intelligence, among other topics.[1][2]

LessWrong promotes lifestyle changes believed by its community to lead to increased rationality and self-improvement. Posts often focus on avoiding biases related to decision-making and the evaluation of evidence. One suggestion is the use of Bayes' theorem as a decision-making tool.[2] There is also a focus on psychological barriers that prevent good decision-making, including fear conditioning and cognitive biases that have been studied by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman.[3]

LessWrong is also concerned with transhumanism, existential threats and the singularity. The New York Observer noted that "Despite describing itself as a forum on 'the art of human rationality,' the New York Less Wrong group... is fixated on a branch of futurism that would seem more at home in a 3D multiplex than a graduate seminar: the dire existential threator, with any luck, utopian promiseknown as the technological Singularity... Branding themselves as 'rationalists,' as the Less Wrong crew has done, makes it a lot harder to dismiss them as a 'doomsday cult'."[4]

LessWrong developed from Overcoming Bias, an earlier group blog focused on human rationality, which began in November 2006, with artificial intelligence theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky and economist Robin Hanson as the principal contributors. In February 2009, Yudkowsky's posts were used as the seed material to create the community blog LessWrong, and Overcoming Bias became Hanson's personal blog.[5] In 2013, a significant portion of the rationalist community shifted focus to Scott Alexander's Slate Star Codex.[6]

LessWrong and its surrounding movement are the subjects of the 2019 book The AI Does Not Hate You, written by former BuzzFeed science correspondent Tom Chivers.[7][8][9]

In July 2010, LessWrong contributor Roko posted a thought experiment to the site in which an otherwise benevolent future AI system tortures people who heard of the AI before it came into existence and failed to work tirelessly to bring it into existence, in order to incentivise said work. Using Yudkowsky's "timeless decision" theory, the post claimed doing so would be beneficial for the AI even though it cannot causally affect people in the present. This idea came to be known as "Roko's basilisk", based on Roko's idea that merely hearing about the idea would give the hypothetical AI system stronger incentives to employ blackmail. Yudkowsky deleted Roko's posts on the topic, saying that posting it was "stupid" as the dissemination of information that can be harmful to even be aware of is itself a harmful act, and that the idea, while critically flawed, represented a space of thinking that could contain "a genuinely dangerous thought", something considered an information hazard. Discussion of Roko's basilisk was banned on LessWrong for several years because Yudkowsky had stated that it caused some readers to have nervous breakdowns.[10][11][4] The ban was lifted in October 2015.[12]

David Auerbach wrote in Slate "the combination of messianic ambitions, being convinced of your own infallibility, and a lot of cash never works out well, regardless of ideology, and I don't expect Yudkowsky and his cohorts to be an exception. I worry less about Roko's Basilisk than about people who believe themselves to have transcended conventional morality."[11]

Roko's basilisk was referenced in Canadian musician Grimes's music video for her 2015 song "Flesh Without Blood" through a character named "Rococo Basilisk" who was described by Grimes as "doomed to be eternally tortured by an artificial intelligence, but she's also kind of like Marie Antoinette". After thinking of this pun and finding that Grimes had already made it, Elon Musk contacted Grimes, which led to them dating.[13][14] The concept was also referenced in an episode of Silicon Valley titled "Facial Recognition".[15]

The Basilisk has been compared to Pascal's wager.[16]

The neoreactionary movement first grew on LessWrong,[17][18] attracted by discussions on the site of eugenics and evolutionary psychology.[19] Yudkowsky has strongly rejected neoreaction.[18][20][21] In a survey among LessWrong users in 2016, 28 out of 3060 respondents, or 0.92%, identified as "neoreactionary".[22]

LessWrong played a significant role in the development of the effective altruism (EA) movement,[23] and the two communities are closely intertwined.[24]:227 In a survey of LessWrong users in 2016, 664 out of 3060 respondents, or 21.7%, identified as "effective altruists". A separate survey of effective altruists in 2014 revealed that 31% of respondents had first heard of EA through LessWrong,[24] though that number had fallen to 8.2% by 2020.[25] Two early proponents of effective altruism, Toby Ord and William MacAskill, met transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom at Oxford University. Bostrom's research influenced many effective altruists to work on existential risk reduction.[24]

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LessWrong - Wikipedia

American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky (born September 11, 1979) is an American decision theory and artificial intelligence (AI) researcher and writer, best known for popularizing the idea of friendly artificial intelligence.[1][2] He is a co-founder[3] and research fellow at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a private research nonprofit based in Berkeley, California.[4] His work on the prospect of a runaway intelligence explosion was an influence on Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.[5]

Yudkowsky's views on the safety challenges posed by future generations of AI systems are discussed in the undergraduate textbook in AI, Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Noting the difficulty of formally specifying general-purpose goals by hand, Russell and Norvig cite Yudkowsky's proposal that autonomous and adaptive systems be designed to learn correct behavior over time:

Yudkowsky (2008)[6] goes into more detail about how to design a Friendly AI. He asserts that friendliness (a desire not to harm humans) should be designed in from the start, but that the designers should recognize both that their own designs may be flawed, and that the robot will learn and evolve over time. Thus the challenge is one of mechanism designto design a mechanism for evolving AI under a system of checks and balances, and to give the systems utility functions that will remain friendly in the face of such changes.[1]

In response to the instrumental convergence concern, where autonomous decision-making systems with poorly designed goals would have default incentives to mistreat humans, Yudkowsky and other MIRI researchers have recommended that work be done to specify software agents that converge on safe default behaviors even when their goals are misspecified.[7][2]

In the intelligence explosion scenario hypothesized by I. J. Good, recursively self-improving AI systems quickly transition from subhuman general intelligence to superintelligent. Nick Bostrom's 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies sketches out Good's argument in detail, while citing writing by Yudkowsky on the risk that anthropomorphizing advanced AI systems will cause people to misunderstand the nature of an intelligence explosion. "AI might make an apparently sharp jump in intelligence purely as the result of anthropomorphism, the human tendency to think of 'village idiot' and 'Einstein' as the extreme ends of the intelligence scale, instead of nearly indistinguishable points on the scale of minds-in-general."[1][3][6][8]

In Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, authors Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig raise the objection that there are known limits to intelligent problem-solving from computational complexity theory; if there are strong limits on how efficiently algorithms can solve various computer science tasks, then intelligence explosion may not be possible.[1]

Between 2006 and 2009, Yudkowsky and Robin Hanson were the principal contributors to Overcoming Bias, a cognitive and social science blog sponsored by the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. In February 2009, Yudkowsky founded LessWrong, a "community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality".[9][10] Overcoming Bias has since functioned as Hanson's personal blog.

Over 300 blogposts by Yudkowsky on philosophy and science (originally written on LessWrong and Overcoming Bias) were released as an ebook entitled Rationality: From AI to Zombies by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) in 2015.[11] MIRI has also published Inadequate Equilibria, Yudkowsky's 2017 ebook on the subject of societal inefficiencies.[12]

Yudkowsky has also written several works of fiction. His fanfiction novel, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, uses plot elements from J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series to illustrate topics in science.[9][13] The New Yorker described Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality as a retelling of Rowling's original "in an attempt to explain Harry's wizardry through the scientific method".[14]

Yudkowsky is an autodidact[15] and did not attend high school or college.[16] He was raised as a Modern Orthodox Jew.[17]

See the article here:
Eliezer Yudkowsky - Wikipedia