The United States Air Force may become a sort of space cop in the not-too-distant future.
An off-Earth economy cannot truly take off unless moon miners and other pioneering entrepreneurs are able to operate in a safe and stable environment, said Air Force Lt. Col. Thomas Schilling, of Air University.
A tsunami of change is already arriving. Artificial intelligence is now capable of doing desk jobs that were previously safe from automation. The social and economic effects remain to be seen, but is AI what we think it is?
Workplaces that include artificial intelligence (AI) will soon be reality, say researchers who believe the rise of AI in all areas of life is not only inevitable, it’s set to reshape the way we think about consciousness and human identity.
From Metropolis to 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Terminator, robots and super-intelligent AIs in film have seduced and terrified our collective consciousness, having an impact on how we view artificial intelligence. But will they really crush the puny humans and take over the world?
Continue reading “Workplace diversity will soon include artificial intelligence” »
The year is 2030. Former president Donald Trump’s border wall, once considered a political inevitability, was never built. Instead, its billions of dollars of funding were poured into something the world had never seen: a strip of shared territory spanning the border between the United States and Mexico. Otra Nation, as the state is called, is a high-tech ecotopia, powered by vast solar farms and connected with a hyperloop transportation system. Biometric checks identify citizens and visitors, and relaxed trade rules have turned Otra Nation into a booming economic hub. Environmental conservation policies have maximized potable water and ameliorated a new Dust Bowl to the north. This is the future envisioned by the Made Collective, a group of architects, urban planners, and others who are proposing what they call a “shared co-nation” as a new kind of state.
Many people have imagined their own alternatives to Trump’s planned border wall, from the plausible — like a bi-national irrigation initiative — to the absurd — like an “inflatoborder” made of plastic bubbles. Made’s members insist that they’re serious about Otra Nation, though, and that they’ve got the skills to make it work. That’s almost certainly not true — but it’s also beside the point. At a time when policy proposals should be taken “seriously but not literally,” and facts are up for grabs, Otra Nation turns the slippery Trump playbook around to offer a counter-fantasy. In the words of collective member Marina Muñoz, “We can really make the complete American continent great again.”
RAND has opened an office in the San Francisco Bay Area to foster collaboration with the region’s leaders and researchers working to solve today’s complex problems—issues including technological change and innovation, social inequality, water resource management, and transportation.
“RAND’s research and analysis in technology, science, and economic policy intersect directly with the innovation emerging from the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Michael D. Rich, president and CEO of RAND. “RAND’s new office should help strengthen awareness within the Bay Area community of our long-standing commitment to using evidence and data to help policy and decisionmakers enhance well-being in the region and beyond.”
RAND brings a unique set of tools to address these policy concerns: big-data analytics, gaming, and methods to help people make difficult decisions in the face of uncertainty. Nidhi Kalra, a senior information scientist, is leading the new office and will be convening public- and private-sector stakeholders to discuss important issues. “We want to partner with the region’s technology and innovation communities, to link our research and their expertise to make better policies and improve people’s lives,” she said.
Continue reading “RAND Opens Office in the San Francisco Bay Area” »
United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tory Bruno and key space enterprise partners discuss the vision of a self-sustained space economy within the confines of CisLunar space.
Panel members will representatives from American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Boeing, Made in Space, Offworld, and the United States Air Force.
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Thanks to SAP Italia for making this video available, the original video is at https://youtu.be/PLS5wGAM3R8 You can download all my slides at www.gerdcloud.net; direct link to the slides used here is gerd.fm/sapitaliagerd
By Paula Klein
Is work becoming obsolete? Will Americans learn to love their leisure time? As the spotlight focuses on AI and its various implementations, former Harvard Professor Jeffrey Sachs, now at Columbia University and a special adviser to the United Nations, has some strong and diverse opinions about the macroeconomic impact of robots on the role of work in the future.
At a Mar. 24 seminar hosted by MIT IDE — the same day Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin amazed the tech community by saying AI wasn’t even on his radar — Sachs described AI developments as a “huge” with implications as vast as any previous seismic technology wave. “We are in the midst of a major transformation” that will fundamentally change civilization from the past, he said.
Continue reading “Redefining Work, Income in the AI Economy” »
I’m excited to share my interview and footage I took of Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows at The Venus Project for Now This. This video is really doing well! https://www.facebook.com/NowThisFuture/videos/1500983249942850/ #transhumanism #future
This man is trying to create a world without money.
The race is on to edit genes and prevent disease. But this technology is ripe for abuse.
Economic inequity already exists in the reproductive industry. IVF, for example, is not covered by insurance in most states (Massachusetts excepted), setting up a situation in which only infertile people with well-padded pockets can afford the treatment. And of course the well-off have easier access to good health care via quality private insurance — or their own bank accounts. Steve Jobs, for example, spent $100,000 in 2011 to sequence his genome and that of his pancreatic tumor — a bill not many could hope to afford.
“The beautiful thing about this [gene-editing] work is it offers an opportunity to intervene around the moment of birth,” says Katy Kozhimannil, an associate professor in the Division of Health Policy at University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. “That said, as we pay attention to the opportunity of that moment, it’s important to bear in mind the value of liberty and justice for all.”
Continue reading “Customized babies are closer than you think” »
