Lifeboat Foundation

“An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate). The “returns,” such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity — technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.” — Ray Kurzweil.

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One of the biggest existential challenges that transhumanists face is that most people don’t believe a word we’re saying, however entertaining they may find us. They think we’re fantasists when in fact we’re talking about a future just over the horizon. Suppose they’re wrong and we are right. What follows? Admittedly, we won’t know this until we inhabit that space ‘just over the horizon’. Nevertheless, it’s not too early to discuss how these naysayers will be regarded, perhaps as a guide to how they should be dealt with now.

So let’s be clear about who these naysayers are. They hold the following views:

1) They believe that they will live no more than 100 years and quite possibly much less.
2) They believe that this limited longevity is not only natural but also desirable, both for themselves and everyone else.
3) They believe that the bigger the change, the more likely the resulting harms will outweigh the benefits.

Now suppose they’re wrong on all three counts. How are we to think about such beings who think this way? Aren’t they the living dead? Indeed. These are people who live in the space of their largely self-imposed limitations, which function as a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are programmed for destruction – not genetically but intellectually. Someone of a more dramatic turn of mind would say that they are suicide bombers trying to manufacture a climate of terror in humanity’s existential horizons. They roam the Earth as death-waiting-to-happen. This much is clear: If you’re a transhumanist, ordinary people are zombies.

Continue reading “We May Look Crazy to Them, But They Look Like Zombies to Us: Transhumanism as a Political Challenge” »

Immersive virtual reality is the vision of a computer-generated reality that looks, sounds, smells and feels so authentic that it psychologically tricks our brain into accepting that it is real.

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How would Ethereum’s network autonomously run transportation apps, delivery services, and other companies? And would we even want that?

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It’s sad that the U.S. government doesn’t fund risky research anymore.

After all, “the day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea”… and if you’re not funding crazy ideas, you’re stuck with linear (incremental) thinking.

This blog is about why YOU as an entrepreneur (or ‘exponential CEO’) are going to be solving our problems, as opposed to waiting for the government. Read more

Elon Musk has made it official: his electric car company, Tesla Motors, is planning to debut an unnamed new Roadster in four years, and it won’t be based on the Lotus like the last one.

But Musk isn’t done with the old cars yet. The electric tech mogul held a press conference on Friday to tell reporters how fast his old car goes with its new upgrade: zero to 60 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds, which would put the four-door sedan in a league with high-end sports cars like the most recent Lamborghini Murciélago. Read more

Imagine accessing Wikipedia just by thinking about it. It sounds like science fiction now, but futurist and Google engineer Ray Kurzweil thinks that reality is just a few years away.

At the Exponential Finance conference on June 3, he predicted that humans will be cyborgs by 2030, according to CNNMoney. Read more:

At an industrial park in San Leandro, a small group of artists, scientists and tech enthusiasts are trying to sell an alternative to death: cryonic suspension. The company, Transtime, preserves the recently deceased in liquid nitrogen under the assumption that one day the frozen cadavers can be revived.

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“With more artificial intelligence being built into operating systems and their greater ability to find and present relevant data, some have predicted contextual information may eventually push users off of third-party apps…After all, why open an app if the data within it is easily accessible through Google Now or Siri?” Read more