Lifeboat Foundation

Title: Strong AI: Why we should be concerned about something nobody knows how to build.
Synopsis: At the moment, nobody fully knows how to create an intelligent system that rivals or exceed human capabilities (Strong AI). The impact and possible dangers of Strong AI appear to concern mostly those futurists that are not working in day-to-day AI research. This in turn gives rise to the idea that Strong AI is merely a myth, a sci fi trope and nothing that is ever going to be implemented. The current state of the art in AI is already sufficient to lead to irrevocable changes in labor markets, economy, warfare and governance. The need to deal with these near term changes does not absolve us from considering the implications of being no longer the most intelligent beings on this planet.
Despite the difficulties of developing Strong AI, there is no obvious reason why the principles embedded in biological brains should be outside of the range of what our engineering can achieve in the near future. While it is unlikely that current narrow AI systems will neatly scale towards general modeling and problem solving, many of the significant open questions in developing Strong AI appear to be known and solvable.

Talk held at ‘Artificial Intelligence / Human Possibilities’ event as adjunct to the AGI17 conference in Melbourne 2017.

Continue reading “Joscha Bach — Strong AI: Why we should be concerned” »

Were you unable to attend Transform 2022? Check out all of the summit sessions in our on-demand library now! Watch here.

As the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry is undergoing a staggering growth in the creation of data, organizations need to place a strong focus on data governance best practices.

That is one of the findings of a new study of the AEC sector that reveals it has experienced a 31.2% compound growth rate in data storage since 2017. The amount of new data being captured or created is staggering, but getting full value from it depends on how the data is managed, stored, accessed and protected.

An international team of scientists, led by the University of Leeds, have assessed how robotics and autonomous systems might facilitate or impede the delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Their findings identify key opportunities and key threats that need to be considered while developing, deploying and governing robotics and autonomous systems.

The key opportunities robotics and autonomous systems present are through autonomous task completion, supporting human activities, fostering innovation, enhancing remote access and improving monitoring. Emerging threats relate to reinforcing inequalities, exacerbating environmental change, diverting resources from tried-and-tested solutions, and reducing freedom and privacy through inadequate governance.

We’re live now, on Space Renaissance YouTube channel, with Wes Faires, giving a lecture on space law:

The Working Group on Space Resources under the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS), presents an opportunity for a legally binding instrument to develop under the auspices of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNOOSA), and do so in a manner favorable to space resource utilization for the private sector. The intended result of the Working Group, as stated its 5 years workplan, is to conclude discussions on the development of space resources followed with possible adoption by the United Nations General Assembly as a dedicated resolution or other action. This presentation draws a parallel to a similar scenario with regard to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), where a working group on Deep Sea-Bed resources, executed via specific legal channels within the United Nations, led to a legally binding instrument: The 1994 Agreement on Implementation, resulting in a modification of the international framework governing ocean floor minerals.
The avenue utilized for the execution of the 1994 Agreement on Implementation for UNCLOS provides a course for legally binding instrument to develop via the Working Group on Space Resources. Such an instrument could serve to interpret and elaborate on ambiguities within the Outer Space Treaty framework, while avoiding any parallels to the commercially harmful aspects of the top-down governance structure embedded within the International Seabed Authority.

Continue reading “Toward an Acceptable Framework for Off-Planet Resource Utilization, with Wes Faires” »

A Korean company hopes to build a floating city Oceanix Busan. Seasteading is seen as a means to address climate-change-induced sea-level rise, as well as a sociology experiment.

But libertarian ideas are not the sole reasoning behind seasteading and floating cities. A prototype floating community is planned on the water next to Busan, South Korea. For the company that is creating it, Oceanix, it is about addressing the coastal community climate challenge of rising sea levels. Rather than building dikes and sea walls to hold back the ocean, Oceanix is offering a city that floats. So instead of increased sunshine day flooding along the US eastern seaboard that inundates Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Charleston, Norfolk, Hampton Roads and other Chesapeake Bay communities quite regularly these days, there would be cities that ride the surface of the ocean rather than be flooded by it.

It’s not like people haven’t been living in floating accommodation for decades. Houseboat communities here in Toronto have been around for a number of years. I visited one of these homes a few years ago and was surprised to see the quality of accommodation and the lifestyle it supported. Today, there are people living permanently on cruise ships that travel the globe. And in The Netherlands, boats and retired ships moored along its many canals have been turned into permanent homes often featured in HGTV’s House Hunters International. But it is in low-lying coastal areas like Bangladesh, The Maldives, and many Pacific island nations where the floating city is seen as a climate change solution for encroaching seas.

Continue reading “Oceanix Busan in South Korea Could Be The World’s First Floating City” »

Many criticisms have been leveled against Elon Musk—that he’s part of the elite, that Tesla has been the beneficiary of government handouts and exemptions, that his transhumanist Neuralink is a brain-data-mining operation. Yet his planned purchase of Twitter, his supposed free-speech absolutism, and his subsequent renunciation of the Democratic Party as “the party of hate” have put Musk squarely in the crosshairs of the woke cartel.

Vitriolic Twitter storms, a New York Times-Financial Times biographical exposé, a slew of hit pieces and scaremongering segments in the legacy media, and allegations of sexual harassment have dogged the automobile magnate ever since his Twitter bid. In response, Musk announced on Twitter that he’s assembling a legal crew to sue defamers and defend Tesla (and likely himself) against lawsuits.

But the best indication that the woke cartel has really gone berserk is its removal of Tesla from the S&P 500’s ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Index. This last rebuff proves that “ESG is a scam.”

In the last part of this interview, Ian talks about the lack of a global legal / governance framework to deal with accelerating technologies.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos today, the president of Switzerland warned of a world in the throes of multiple crises. This also is the subject of a new book by political scientist Ian Bremmer. In “The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World,” Bremmer looks at how we can better prepare for the global challenges ahead, as he explains to Walter Isaacson.

Continue reading “Ian Bremmer on NATO Expansion and the Opportunity for American Unity | Amanpour and Company” »

Showcasing my finalist entry in the Future of Life Institute’s AI worldbuilding competition.