CRISPR-Cas9 is a revolutionary gene editing tool that has wide spread implications for research, medical treatments, the environment, and ethics. In this pla…
H umans are at the center of most discussions about both the environment and technology. One goal of sustainability is to ensure that future generations of humans have opportunities to thrive on planet Earth. Debates about the ethics of technology often focus on how to protect human rights and promote human autonomy.
At the same time, some conversations about the environment and technology are now taking humans out of the equation. As Adam Kirsch points out in a new book, “The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us,” people in two very different schools of thought are coming to a similar conclusion: that the world might not have people much longer and might be better off as a result.
Kirsch takes readers on a guided tour of the discussions in these two camps. “Antihumanists” are obsessed with our having sown the seeds of our demise and bringing environmental apocalypse upon ourselves — possibly even deserving to go extinct. “Transhumanists” are obsessed with maintaining control and envision a future in which we use technology to become something greater than homo sapiens and even cheat death itself.
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst.
Irina Rish is a world-renowned professor of computer science and operations research at the Université de Montréal and a core member of the prestigious Mila organisation. She is a Canada CIFAR AI Chair and the Canadian Excellence Research Chair in Autonomous AI. Irina holds an MSc and PhD in AI from the University of California, Irvine as well as an MSc in Applied Mathematics from the Moscow Gubkin Institute. Her research focuses on machine learning, neural data analysis, and neuroscience-inspired AI. In particular, she is exploring continual lifelong learning, optimization algorithms for deep neural networks, sparse modelling and probabilistic inference, dialog generation, biologically plausible reinforcement learning, and dynamical systems approaches to brain imaging analysis. Prof. Rish holds 64 patents, has published over 80 research papers, several book chapters, three edited books, and a monograph on Sparse Modelling. She has served as a Senior Area Chair for NeurIPS and ICML. Irina’s research is focussed on taking us closer to the holy grail of Artificial General Intelligence. She continues to push the boundaries of machine learning, continually striving to make advancements in neuroscience-inspired AI.
Continue reading “Prof. IRINA RISH — AGI, Complex Systems, Transhumanism #NeurIPS” »
Mental health has become a widespread topic nowadays.
In the past, discussions concerning mental health were often hushed up or altogether swept under the rug. A gradual cultural change has led to openly considering mental health issues and eased qualms about doing so in publicly acknowledged ways.
You might give some of the credit for this change in overarching societal attitudes as an outcome of the advent of easily accessed smartphone apps that aid your personal mindfulness and presumably spur you toward mental well-being. There are apps for mindfulness, ones for meditation, ones for diagnosing your mental health status, ones for doing mental health screening, and so on.
Bigger, better, and badder. That’s the overall gist of what is going to happen with Artificial Intelligence (AI) throughout the upcoming year of 2023.
What is going to happen with generative AI and ChatGPT in 2023? Here’s your answer. Filled with lots of helpful background and insights. Start the new year armed with the latest on where AI is heading.
Do animals dream? Join David Peña-Guzmán as he explores behavioural and neuroscientific research on animal sleep with philosophical theories of dreaming. Watch the Q&A here: https://youtu.be/LpI7zNHUFRQ
David’s latest book ‘When animals dream: the hidden world of animal consciousness’ is available now: https://geni.us/YW7arw6
Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe.
Continue reading “The hidden world of animal consciousness — with David Peña-Guzmán” »
Transhuman brains are the melding of hyper-advanced electronics and super-artificial intelligence (AI) with neurobiological tissue. The goal is not only to repair injury and mitigate disease, but also to enhance brain capacity and boost mental function. What is the big vision, the end goal — how far can transhuman brains go? What does it mean for individual consciousness and personal identity? Is virtual immortality possible? What are the ethics, the morality, of transhuman brains? What are the dangers?
Free access to Closer to Truth’s library of 5,000 videos: http://bit.ly/376lkKN
It’s not clear what, explicitly, human intelligence is or even how it originates. Ethics aside, there’s no way to decide who to save and who to throw away.
How ethical would aliens be?
Ethics derived from biological evolution can be harsh — parasitism, invasiveness, and survival at all costs. Ethics derived from human culture is far more benevolent. Would alien ethics be based more on biology or culture? Let’s hope the latter.
Posted on big think, direct weblink at.
Continue reading “What Sort of Ethics Would Aliens Practice?” »
