Lifeboat Foundation

A Mad Scientist conference in Austin, Texas, recently addressed robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomy, the future of space, planetary habitability, and the legal and ethical dilemmas surrounding disruptive technologies.

Abstract: In standard nonrelativistic quantum mechanics the expectation of the energy is a conserved quantity. It is possible to extend the dynamical law associated with the evolution of a quantum state consistently to include a nonlinear stochastic component, while respecting the conservation law. According to the dynamics thus obtained, referred to as the energy-based stochastic Schrodinger equation, an arbitrary initial state collapses spontaneously to one of the energy eigenstates, thus describing the phenomenon of quantum state reduction. In this article, two such models are investigated: one that achieves state reduction in infinite time, and the other in finite time. The properties of the associated energy expectation process and the energy variance process are worked out in detail. By use of a novel application of a nonlinear filtering method, closed-form solutions—algebraic in character and involving no integration—are obtained for both these models. In each case, the solution is expressed in terms of a random variable representing the terminal energy of the system, and an independent noise process. With these solutions at hand it is possible to simulate explicitly the dynamics of the quantum states of complicated physical systems.

From: Dorje C. Brody [view email]

[v1] Mon, 29 Aug 2005 13:22:36 UTC (43 KB)

The Amazon Rainforest is well known across the world for being the largest and most dense area of woodland in the world. Spanning across nine countries, the Amazon is home to millions of different animal and plant species, as well as harboring some for the world’s last remaining indigenous groups. The Waorani people of Pastaza are an indigenous tribe from the Ecuadorian Amazon and have lived in the Rainforest for many generations. However, there Home came under threat from a large oil company — they didn’t take it lightly.

After a long legal battle with a number of organizations, the Waorani people successfully protected half a million acres of their ancestral territory in the Amazon rainforest from being mined for oil drilling by huge oil corporations. The auctioning off of Waorani lands to the oil companies was suspended indefinitely by a three-judge panel of the Pastaza Provincial Court. The panel simply trashed the consultation process the Ecuadorian government had undertaken with the tribe in 2012, which rendered the attempt at land purchase null and void.

Continue reading “Amazon Tribe Wins Lawsuit Against Big Oil, Saving Millions Of Acres Of Rainforest” »

GEDmatch’s revamped genetic privacy policy could set off legal battles that go all the way to the US Supreme Court.

By Peter Aldhous

Decades after Isaac Asimov first wrote his laws for robots, their ever-expanding role in our lives requires a radical new set of rules, legal and AI expert Frank Pasquale warned on Thursday.

The world has changed since sci-fi author Asimov in 1942 wrote his three rules for robots, including that they should never harm humans, and today’s omnipresent computers and algorithms demand up-to-date measures.

According to Pasquale, author of “The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms Behind Money and Information”, four new legally-inspired rules should be applied to robots and AI in our daily lives.

Continue reading “New laws of robotics needed to tackle AI: expert” »

From the beginning of the year 2019, the sales of Boox eReaders slightly increase, and so do many other brands such as Kindle, Kobo and Sony. All of them suffered a rapid drop in sales in the previous year but now they are getting back. This may cause by the event that France prohibits students from using smartphones and tablets in schools.

Under the legislation passed in 2018, the French students as old as 15 were not allowed to bring their smartphones as well as tablets to schools from September. The law was originally noted in President Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign. Now, one semester has gone, actually what do folks think to this policy? Earlier than that, France endorsed a blanket smartphone ban for drivers, even those who park at the side of the road, so the further action to school is not that surprising. It seems that the French government is getting realized that the control of electronics use is significant to beat back the encroachment of digital technology in everyday life.

Continue reading “Digital Paper Could Probably Be Alternative After France Banned Tablets in Schools” »

Airborne lead from recycled car batteries at the Exide plant in Vernon ended up in the baby teeth of children living nearby, a USC study shows.

“We found the higher the level of lead in the soil, the higher the amount of lead in baby teeth,” said first author Jill Johnston, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “There’s no safe level of lead; it’s a potent neurotoxin. Our study provides insight into the legacy of the impact of industrial contamination on children.”

The Exide plant, located just southeast of downtown Los Angeles, recycled 11 million auto batteries per year and released 3,500 tons of lead until it closed in March 2015 as part of a legal settlement for hazardous waste violations.

Continue reading “Lead contamination found in baby teeth of children living near Exide battery plant” »

The Estonian Ministry of Justice has officially asked Ott Velsberg, the country’s chief data officer, to design a “robot judge” to take care of a backlog of small claims court disputes, Wired reports.

The artificial intelligence-powered “judge” is supposed to analyze legal documents and other relevant information and come to a decision. Though a human judge will have an opportunity to revise those decisions, the project is a striking example of justice by artificial intelligence.

Concord, the fastest-growing contract management platform company, today announced accelerated market adoption of its cloud-based contract management platform and 2.5x revenue growth over the last 12 months. There are now 260,000 companies on the Concord Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. The Concord SaaS platform drives horizontal adoption by providing all key stakeholders collaborative access to the contract drafting, negotiation, signing and renewal processes within a single cloud-based platform.

Concord also announced a new pricing model. Unlike other contract management solutions that charge per seat regardless of usage, Concord pricing reflects the actual functionality needed by different stakeholders. Pricing is now based on Creator, Collaborator and Viewer usage options. For example, legal teams need Creator usage comprising full platform functionality including contract creation, editing and negotiation rights. Procurement, HR and sales teams typically only require Collaborator rights such as contract requests and the ability to select from previously approved form fields. Finance teams often only need Viewer rights to have visibility to track contract status, time to revenue and renewals. DevOps teams simply need API access to connect and integrate with other enterprise tools. By pricing and providing access according to need, the Concord platform is seamless and economical to adopt throughout an organization.

The cross-functional and external stakeholder proliferation capability is unique to Concord and a key factor to Concord’s platform adoption dramatically outpacing that of its competitors. For example, 64 new customers from vertical industries including e-commerce, logistics and healthcare have joined the Concord platform in the past two quarters. The horizontal approach Concord takes to the contracting process creates a powerful network effect which has resulted in 60,000 new users to the platform in the past two quarters.

Continue reading “Concord Posts Record Growth and Introduces New Pricing Model” »