Lifeboat Foundation

The Astana Global Challenge Summit 2018 will host a series of panels and talks on longevity and rejuvenation.

As it has every year since 2008, the Astana Economic Forum (AEF) is about to take place in Astana, Kazakhstan. AEF, now also known as the Global Challenges Summit (GCS), is an international and regional non-profit platform for public discourse on topics such as economics, globalization, security, global risks, energy efficiency, innovation, and, more generally, matters concerning the future of our world and society. It was jointly created by the Eurasian Economic Club of Scientists Association and the Kazakhstan government back in 2008, and over the years, it has hosted innumerable talks and presentations by scientists, economists, world leaders, entrepreneurs, Nobel laureates, and other key people.

In our rapidly changing world, where we sometimes struggle to keep up the pace with progress, initiatives like this are greatly needed and welcome. In order to address the global issues we will face in the coming decades, cooperation, dialogue, information sharing, and networking will be pivotal, and events like the GCS are instrumental in achieving success. The themes of the 2018 event, which will be held on May 17–19, will include global strategy, sustainability, the future of money, clean energy, a unified economy, and many others. Around 500 speakers from all over the world will be on stage to discuss these important topics, sharing visions and insights to build a brighter and safer future together.

Is it possible to exercise the same kind of control over the most complex network we know of: the human brain?

Rewriting Life.

How network neuroscience is creating a new era of mind control.

Continue reading “Neuroscientists see a new way to manipulate minds” »

An interview on rejuvenation science, advocacy, and more with Reason from the blog Fight Aging!.

Most people interested in rejuvenation and life extension are familiar with Fight Aging!, one of the very first rejuvenation advocacy blogs dating back all the way to the early 2000s; if you’re one of them, then you certainly are familiar with Reason, the man behind FA!.

Over the years, Reason has been a patient yet relentless advocate, acting not only as an information provider for the public but also helping out innumerable organizations and companies in the field of rejuvenation biotechnology in financial and other ways. Back in the day when SRF didn’t exist yet, Reason was a volunteer for Methuselah Foundation; eventually, he helped fund companies such as Oisìn Biotechnologies, CellAge, and LysoCLEAR; and, earlier this month, Reason and Bill Cherman co-founded Repair Biotechnologies, a company focused on gene therapy for rejuvenation, as announced on FA!.

Continue reading “Reason – Fight Aging! blog and Repair Biotechnologies” »

Roadways clogged by commercial vehicles and intense competition for affordable housing are imposing costs on prosperous cities and their most vulnerable residents.

Cities are the hubs of the emerging digital economy, attracting knowledge workers with higher pay and alluring lifestyles. One consequence of this concentrated prosperity is rising rents and a scramble for housing that places disadvantaged citizens in peril—as seen in the increasing rates of homelessness in cities such as Seattle. More people living in urban cores also means more commercial vehicles are needed to serve them, which is fueled by a surge in online deliveries. The resulting congestion is burdening cities with surprisingly high costs. The social stresses of the new growth should be on your radar.

So much talk about AI and robots taking our jobs. Well, guess what, it’s already happening and the rate of change will only increase. I estimate that about 5% of jobs have been automated — both blue collar manufacturing jobs, as well as, this time, low-level white collar jobs — think back office, paralegals, etc. There’s a thing called RPA, or Robot Process Automation, which is hollowing out back office jobs at an alarming rate, using rules based algorithms and expert systems. This will rapidly change with the introduction of deep learning algorithms into these “robot automation” systems, making them intelligent, capable of making intuitive decisions and therefore replacing more highly skilled and creative jobs. So if we’re on an exponential curve, and we’ve managed to automate around 5% of jobs in the past six years, say, and the doubling is every two years, that means by 2030, almost all jobs will be automated. Remember, the exponential math means 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 100%, with the doubling every two years.

We are definitely going to need a basic income to prevent people (doctors, lawyers, drivers, teachers, scientists, manufacturers, craftsmen) from going homeless once their jobs are automated away. This will need to be worked out at the government level — the sooner the better, because exponentials have a habit of creeping up on people and then surprising society with the intensity and rapidity of the disruptive change they bring. I’m confident that humanity can and will rise to the challenges ahead, and it is well to remember that economics is driven by technology, not the other way around. Education, as usual, is definitely the key to meeting these challenges head on and in a fully informed way. My only concern is when governments will actually start taking this situation seriously enough to start taking bold action. There certainly is no time like the present.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to create trillions of dollars of value across the economy—if business leaders work to understand what AI can and cannot do.

In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey Global Institute partner Michael Chui and MGI chairman and director James Manyika speak with McKinsey Publishing’s David Schwartz about the cutting edge of artificial intelligence.

David Schwartz: Hello, and welcome to the McKinsey Podcast. I’m David Schwartz with McKinsey Publishing. Today, we’re going to be journeying to the frontiers of artificial intelligence. We’ll touch on what AI’s impact could be across multiple industries and functions. We’ll also explore limitations that, at least for now, stand in the way.

Continue reading “The real-world potential and limitations of artificial intelligence” »

Hughes, 34, now devotes his time to evangelizing for higher taxes on the rich, such as himself. He’s proposing that the government give a guaranteed income of $500 a month to every working American earning less than $50,000 a year, at a total cost of $290 billion a year. This is a staggering number, but Hughes points out that it equals half the U.S. defense budget and would combat the inequality that he argues is destabilizing the nation.

Chris Hughes thinks $290 billion a year is a small price to pay for equality.

Yes!

New research from North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado Boulder finds that steep declines in the use of coal for power generation over the past decade were caused largely by less expensive natural gas and the availability of wind energy – not by environmental regulations.

“From 2008 to 2013, coal dropped from about 50 percent of U.S. power generation to around 30 percent,” says Harrison Fell, an associate professor of resource economics at NC State and co-lead author of a paper on the work.

Continue reading “Natural gas prices, not ‘war on coal,’ were key to coal power decline” »

Pilots programs are underway in Canada and rural Kenya. India — with a population of more than 1.3 billion residents — is considering establishing a universal basic income as well. Finland’s trial with a universal basic income, in which payments were given to 2,000 unemployed people, will come to an end this year.

Longtime basic income advocates say we’re closer than ever to adopting the program, as fears of automation mount.