Lifeboat Foundation

This next wave of automation won’t just be sleek robotic arms on factory floors. It will be ordering kiosks, self-service apps and software smart enough to perfect schedules and cut down on the workers needed to cover a shift. Employers are already testing these systems. A recession will force them into the mainstream.

Robots’ infiltration of the workforce doesn’t happen gradually, at the pace of technology. It happens in surges, when companies are given strong incentives to tackle the difficult task of automation.

Typically, those incentives occur during recessions. Employers slash payrolls going into a downturn and, out of necessity, turn to software or machinery to take over the tasks once performed by their laid-off workers as business begins to recover.

Continue reading “When the next recession comes, the robots will be ready” »

July 2019 will see the launch of our second Ending Age-Related Diseases conference at the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, Cooper Union in New York City. The event was so popular last year that we decided to expand it to two full days of science and biotech business this year.

We will be bringing you the latest aging research, investment, and business knowledge from some of the top experts in the industry. We will be packing two days full of talks from and discussion panels with the people who are developing the technologies that could change the way we regard and treat aging forever.

With just over a month left to grab a lower-cost early bird ticket for the event, we thought that it would be a good opportunity to take a look at what we have in store. We have already announced lots of inspiring speakers from the research and business sectors of the industry, and here are just a few of them.

Continue reading “Ending Age-Related Diseases Conference: February Update” »

Circa 2015

Death is the one thing that’s guaranteed in today’s uncertain world, but now a new start-up called Humai thinks it might be able to get rid of that inconvenient problem for us too, by promising to transfer people’s consciousness into a new, artificial body.

If it sounds like science fiction, and that’s because it still is, with none of the technology required for Humai’s business plan currently up and running. But that’s not deterring the company’s CEO, Josh Bocanegra, who says his team will resurrect their first human within 30 years.

Continue reading “A New Start-Up Wants to Transfer Your Consciousness to an Artificial Body So You Can Live Forever” »

Barely a week goes by without reports of some new mega-hack that’s exposed huge amounts of sensitive information, from people’s credit card details and health records to companies’ valuable intellectual property. The threat posed by cyberattacks is forcing governments, militaries, and businesses to explore more secure ways of transmitting information.

But as the Chinese authorities embrace new information technology to monitor, manage and control the public like never before, the prospect of a sweeping social credit system has raised alarm around the world, especially with the ever-tightening grip on civil society, rights activism and religion.

A dozen or so cities are test beds for carrot-and-stick programmes to encourage businesses and individuals to comply with existing rules. The schemes have been criticised as Orwellian, but experience varies for those on the ground.

Salim Ismail and Francisco Palao

Nothing lasts forever and the startup era is no exception. Exponential Organizations (ExOs) are a new breed of organizations disrupting entire industries by scaling as fast as exponential technologies do. In addition, the ExO model is the framework that finally allows both entrepreneurs and corporations to speak the same language and disrupt industries together.

In the late 90s, the emergence of the Internet brought new opportunities to most existing industries and created vast new markets. As a result, a new type of business peaked in that decade: the technology startup.

Continue reading “Forget startups, ExOs (Exponential Organizations) are the new way to innovate” »

The country’s antitrust regulator told Facebook it couldn’t demand so much data from users simply to have an account. Experts say it’s a big deal.

How competing software, hardware and political ideology could accelerate existing divisions in humanity into the future

It’s been great to get people’s thoughts and feedback on the last article on “The iPhone 20”. Some of your responses considered that given Apple’s business model is effectively a walled garden, this makes any integration with the human body very unlikely in the future.

That’s why in this article, rather than focusing on Apple, I’ll look to explore some of the ways tech companies and organisations (including government bodies) will compete on software, hardware and protocols that will shape humanity’s journey to 2029, which may accelerate our existing divisions that stifle collaboration and splinters our future societies.

In part three of Hello World Shenzhen, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Ashlee Vance heads out into a city where you can’t use cash or credit cards, only your smartphone, where AI facial-recognition software instantly spots and tickets jaywalkers, and where at least one factory barely needs people. This is the society that China’s government and leading tech companies are racing to make a reality, with little time to question which advancements are net positives for the rest of us.

Part One — Inside China’s Future Factory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLmaIbb13GM

Continue reading “Inside China’s High-Tech Dystopia” »