Lifeboat Foundation

Ray Kurzweil explores how and when we might create human-level artificial intelligence at the January 2017 Asilomar conference organized by the Future of Life Institute.

The Beneficial AI 2017 Conference: In our sequel to the 2015 Puerto Rico AI conference, we brought together an amazing group of AI researchers from academia and industry, and thought leaders in economics, law, ethics, and philosophy for five days dedicated to beneficial AI. We hosted a two-day workshop for our grant recipients and followed that with a 2.5-day conference, in which people from various AI-related fields hashed out opportunities and challenges related to the future of AI and steps we can take to ensure that the technology is beneficial.

Continue reading “Creating Human-Level AI: How and When | Ray Kurzweil” »

The loss of life would be equivalent to six planes, each carrying 200 passengers, killing everyone on board, every year.

Reducing air pollution from road transport will save thousands of lives and improve the health.

In our published research we evaluated the costs and benefits of a rapid transition. In one scenario, Australia matches the pace of transition of world leaders such as Norway. The modeling estimates this would save around 24,000 lives by 2042. Over time, the resulting greenhouse emission reductions would almost equal Australia’s current total annual emissions from all sources.

Continue reading “Rapid adoption of electric vehicles could save money and avoid 24,000 deaths over 20 years” »

Midjourney is one of the leading drivers of the emerging technology of using artificial intelligence (AI) to create visual imagery from text prompts. The San Francisco-based startup recently made news as the engine behind the artwork that won an award in a Colorado state fair competition, and that’s unlikely to be the last complicated issue that AI art will face in the coming years.

Midjourney differentiates from others in the space by emphasizing the painterly aesthetics in the images it produces.

Serial entrepreneur David Holz explains the goals and methods of the revolutionary text-to-image platform and his vision for the future of human imagination.

Continue reading “Midjourney Founder David Holz On The Impact Of AI On Art, Imagination And The Creative Economy” »

Yoshua Bengio (MILA), Irina Higgins (DeepMind), Nick Bostrom (FHI), Yi Zeng (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and moderator Joshua Tenenbaum (MIT) discuss possible paths to artificial general intelligence.

The Beneficial AGI 2019 Conference: https://futureoflife.org/beneficial-agi-2019/

Continue reading “Possible Paths to Artificial General Intelligence” »

Sustensis is a Think Tank providing inspirations, suggestions, and solutions for Humanity’s transition to the time when it will coexist with Superintelligence. In some way it falls into a broad spectrum of Transhumanism. However, we only consider certain aspects of Transhumanism, emphasizing technological progress, which may ultimately lead to the emergence of a new species – Posthumans. Thus for us “Transhumanism is about Humanity’s transition to its coexistence with Superintelligence until it evolves into a new species”. Such a transition must start with an urgent reform of democracy, promoting a planetary outlook, and evolving the most mature organisation, such as the European Union, into a Human Federation. That is covered by our subsidiary website Euro Agora.

Our websites have been designed using our own Digitized Structured Content. It can be used for debating complex political, social, scientific or economic problems. On this website it is focused on minimizing the risk of developing a malicious Superintelligence, which requires a global co-operation. Similarly, as in a book, the Content (in this case – the problem area) is described in chapters. As you move from left to right, the numbered top level tabs describe the problem in more detail.

Continue reading “Humanity’s Transition to Superintelligence” »

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A grim future awaits the United States if it loses the competition with China on developing key technologies like artificial intelligence in the near future, the authors of a special government-backed study told reporters on Monday.

If China wins the technological competition, it can use its advancements in artificial intelligence and biological technology to enhance its own country’s economy, military and society to the determent of others, said Bob Work, former deputy defense secretary and co-chair of the Special Competitive Studies Project, which examined international artificial intelligence and technological competition. Work is the chair of the U.S. Naval Institute Board of Directors.

Continue reading “Losing to China in AI, Emerging Tech Will Cost U.S. Trillions, Threaten Security, Says Panel” »

Ray Kurzweil predicted Technological Singularity nearly 20 years ago. Elon Musk could enable a world of economic abundance with real world AI. Robotaxi and Teslabot will transform the world more than car and the first industrial revolution.

Tesla sells Model Ys for about $60000, but it currently costs them about $30000–40000 to make them. A Teslabot is 1/30th of the mass of a Model Y. It will use 1/30th of the batteries. The software is an overall cost of development. If billions of bots are produced then the cost would trend toward the cost of the hardware plus Apple iPhone-like margins including the software (say 40% gross margin). At Model Y cost of $30k then the hardware cost for Teslabot will go to $1000. $2000 with margins and software. A bot can work for 8,000 hours in a year. 8,760 hours in a year. $2000 divided by 8,000 hours is $0.25. If you add 10 cents per hour for electricity then it is $0.35 per hour. Going beyond that is bots can work in the factory and work cheaper than humans. Currently 15,000 workers in Tesla China factory. Replace all of them with $0.35 per hour bots. Reduce labor cost component. If a lot of bots can increase production rates. by 2X then all costs spread over more units. Bot-produced solar and batteries can lower the cost of energy by vastly increasing the supply. Those trends could get us to $500‑1000 per bot costs and lower energy costs. Having virtually unlimited labor costing less than 35 cents per hour will be transformational.

Continue reading “Elon’s Real World AI is the Real World Technological Singularity” »

Space is no longer a remote and special place – it is becoming a part of our life and economy.

In parallel with technological advances such as space travel, lunar exploration and next-generation spacecraft, the number of businesses that utilize space has grown. Space has become an indispensable part of our lives.

The Nikkei Virtual Global Forum “The Future of Space 2022” will explore the possibilities of space, from Earth’s orbit to the Moon, Mars and beyond, and the global benefits and impacts on the economy, business and society. We will also discuss such issues as international collaboration, sustainable space utilization and policy responses.

The Clemson Composites Center is developing new ways of 3D-printing low-cost manufacturing tools and is funding the research with $5.16 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office and industry partners. Collaborators on the project include Honda Development & Manufacturing of America, Ohio State University and Additive Engineering Solutions, LLC.

The Clemson Composites Center is leading a new study that could help manufacturers save time and money while reducing their environmental impact– a project that adds to the center’s fast-growing portfolio of industry-guided automotive and advanced manufacturing research.

Continue reading “Manufacturers could save time and money with the help of new research led by the Clemson Composites Center” »