Lifeboat Foundation

Ubik radio ads by Kobi LaCroix. Inspired by the Philip K. Dick novel “Ubik” (1969).

Kobi was nominated for a Logan Award for comedy music for his song “We Are The Vikings.” He was also featured on the Weird Al tribute album “Twenty-Six And A Half.” His music has been featured several times on the Dementia Top Twenty, Dementia Radio, the Mad Music Archive, and Dr. Demento. His website is at www.zencavern.com

Logic gates in biology can be set up to lead to timing important biological events. How is this done?

Edit: at 4:00, not all pathways make use of this motif. This is just one way timing can happen in biology.

Continue reading “Decoding nature’s masterful engineering using math” »

In the current issue of Nature Photonics, Prof. Dr. Oliver G. Schmidt, Dr. Libo Ma and partners present a strategy for observing and manipulating the optical Berry phase in Möbius ring microcavities. In their research paper, they discuss how an optical Berry phase can be generated and measured in dielectric Möbius rings. Furthermore, they present the first experimental proof of the existence of a variable Berry phase for linearly or elliptically polarized resonant light.

A Möbius strip is a fascinating object. You can easily create a Möbius strip when twisting the two ends of a strip of paper by 180 degrees and connecting them together. Upon closer inspection, you realize that this ribbon has only one surface that cannot be distinguished between inside and outside or below and above. Because of this special topological property, the Möbius strip has become an object of countless mathematical discourses, artistic representations and practical applications, for example, in paintings by M.C. Escher, as a wedding ring, or as a drive belt to wear both sides of the belt equally.

EEG hyperscanning during multiuser gaming offers opportunities to study brain characteristics of social interaction under various paradigms. In this study, we aimed to characterize neural signatures and phase-based functional connectivity patterns of gaming strategies during collaborative and competitive alpha neurofeedback games. Twenty pairs of participants with no close relationship took part in three sessions of collaborative or competitive multiuser neurofeedback (NF), with identical graphical user interface, using Relative Alpha (RA) power as a control signal. Collaborating dyads had to keep their RA within 5% of each other for the team to be awarded a point, while members of competitive dyads scored points if their RA was 10% above their opponent’s. Interbrain synchrony existed only during gaming but not during baseline in either collaborative or competitive gaming. Spectral analysis and interbrain connectivity showed that in collaborative gaming, players with higher resting state alpha content were more active in regulating their RA to match those of their partner. Moreover, interconnectivity was the strongest between homologous brain structures of the dyad in theta and alpha bands, indicating a similar degree of planning and social exchange. Competitive gaming emphasized the difference between participants who were able to relax and, in this way, maintain RA, and those who had an unsuccessful approach. Analysis of interbrain connections shows engagement of frontal areas in losers, but not in winners, indicating the formers’ attempt to mentalise and apply strategies that might be suitable for conventional gaming, but inappropriate for the alpha neurofeedback-based game. We show that in gaming based on multiplayer non-verbalized NF, the winning strategy is dependent on the rules of the game and on the behavior of the opponent. Mental strategies that characterize successful gaming in the physical world might not be adequate for NF-based gaming.

Humans are social creatures whose behavior and consciousness are heavily shaped by their environment. Hence, it is natural that hyperscanning, a technique which involves simultaneous recording of physiological activity from more than one subject, is used to deepen our understanding of human interaction. In recent years, hyperscanning has been applied to brain activity to shed light on the neurophysiological representation of various types of interpersonal communication. These range from verbal interaction (Pérez et al., 2017; Ahn et al., 2018), leader-imitator (Dumas et al., 2010; Yun et al., 2012), joint attention and joint decision-making (Toppi et al., 2016; Hu et al., 2018), to teaching or playing music in a duet (Sänger et al., 2012; Müller et al., 2013). Moreover, the neurological coupling of mothers and their infants was investigated for positive and negative emotions and their regulation (Reindl et al., 2018; Santamaria et al., 2020).

In a groundbreaking achievement, Aaron Kemmer and his co-producer Richard Juan have successfully used ChatGPT, one of today’s hottest artificial intelligence chatbots, to write and direct a film in just one weekend.

That’s right, while it typically takes roughly 1–2.5 months for most indie filmmakers to pull off a project of this caliber, ChatGPT has truly raised the bar and set a new standard for what’s possible in the world of indie filmmaking.

Continue reading “ChatGPT Makes History: First AI to Write & Direct Film” »

99% of the following speech was written by ChatGPT. I made a few changes here and there and cut and pasted a couple of paragraphs for better flow. This is the prompt with which I started the conversation:

Write a TED Talks style speech explaining how AI will be the next cross-platform operating system, entertainment service, and search engine as well as source of news and accurate information. Elaborate further in this speech about how this future AI could produce tailored entertainment experiences for the end-user. Explain its application in creating real-time, personally-tailored and novel media including mixed reality, virtual reality, extended reality, and augmented reality media as well as in written fiction and nonfiction, music, video and spoken-word entertainment for its end users. Write a strong and compelling opening paragraph to this speech and end it memorably. Add as much detail as you can on each point. The speech should last at least 15 minutes.

Continue reading “ChatGPT Says: AI Will Change EVERYTHING” »

In this episode, Emad and Peter discuss everything from AI-generated content and property rights to ethical implications, along with the upcoming hyper-disruption wave of technology in all industries.

Emad Mostaque is the CEO and Co-Founder of Stability AI, a company funding the development of open-source music-and image-generating systems such as Dance Diffusion and Stable Diffusion.

Continue reading “AI Will Be a Public Good With Emad Mostaque | EP #16 Moonshots and Mindsets” »

After the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, all bets were off for live musicians who played in movie theaters. Thanks to synchronized sound, the use of live musicians was unnecessary — and perhaps a larger sin, old-fashioned. In 1930 the American Federation of Musicians formed a new organization called the Music Defense League and launched a scathing ad campaign to fight the advance of this terrible menace known as recorded sound.

The evil face of that campaign was the dastardly, maniacal robot. The Music Defense League spent over $500,000, running ads in newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. The ads pleaded with the public to demand humans play their music (be it in movie or stage theaters), rather than some cold, unseen machine. A typical ad read like this one from the September 2, 1930 Syracuse Herald in New York:

Tho’ the Robot can make no music of himself, he can and does arrest the efforts of those who can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf7PEz1VJpE

Universal media synthesis, the innovation pyramid and autolism — part 1

AI can now generate images and text that’s as good as a human. What happens when AI can generate all kinds of media as good as a human?

Continue reading “Part 1: Universal Media Synthesis, The Innovation Pyramid and Autolism” »