Lifeboat Foundation

According to Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the 4-IR follows the first, second, and third Industrial Revolutions—the mechanical, electrical, and digital, respectively. The 4-IR builds on the digital revolution, but Schwab sees the 4-IR as an exponential takeoff and convergence of existing and emerging fields, including Big Data; artificial intelligence; machine learning; quantum computing; and genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. The consequence is the merging of the physical, digital, and biological worlds. The blurring of these categories ultimately challenges the very ontologies by which we understand ourselves and the world, including “what it means to be human.”

The specific applications that make up the 4-R are too numerous and sundry to treat in full, but they include a ubiquitous internet, the internet of things, the internet of bodies, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and more.

While Schwab and the WEF promote a particular vision for the 4-IR, the developments he announces are not his brainchildren, and there is nothing original about his formulations. Transhumanists and Singularitarians (or prophets of the technological singularity), such as Ray Kurzweil and many others, forecasted these and more revolutionary developments,. long before Schwab heralded them. The significance of Schwab and the WEF’s take on the new technological revolution is the attempt to harness it to a particular end, presumably “a fairer, greener future.”

Professor Stefan Lorenz Sorgner talks about his new book, ‘We Have Always Been Cyborgs’. Find out more about the book: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/we-have-always-been-cyborgs.

“With an encyclopaedic knowledge of transhumanism and a deep philosophical grounding, especially in Nietzschean thought, Stefan Sorgner tackles some of the most challenging ethical issues currently discussed, including gene editing, digital data collection, and life extension, with uncommon good sense and incisive conclusions. This study is one of the most detailed and comprehensive analyses available today. Highly recommended for anyone interested in transhumanist/posthumanist ideas and in these issues generally.” N. Katherine Hayles, University of California, Los Angeles.

Continue reading “We Have Always Been Cyborgs: Professor Stefan Lorenz Sorgner — John Cabot University” »

For people with motor impairments or physical disabilities, completing daily tasks and house chores can be incredibly challenging. Recent advancements in robotics, such as brain-controlled robotic limbs, have the potential to significantly improve their quality of life.

Researchers at Hebei University of Technology and other institutes in China have developed an innovative system for controlling robotic arms that is based on augmented reality (AR) and a brain-computer interface. This system, presented in a paper published in the Journal of Neural Engineering, could enable the development of bionic or prosthetic arms that are easier for users to control.

“In recent years, with the development of robotic arms, brain science and information decoding technology, brain-controlled robotic arms have attained increasing achievements,” Zhiguo Luo, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “However, disadvantages like poor flexibility restrict their widespread application. We aim to promote the lightweight and practicality of brain-controlled robotic arms.”

It now has almost 22 million views. Sadly, Jacque passed away a few months after this came out. He was 101 years old. #transhumanism.

Learn More.

NowThis Earth.

Continue reading “Almost exactly a year ago, this video I filmed of Jacque Fresco at The Venus Project came out on Now This” »

Sabine Hossenfelder, Anil Seth, Massimo Pigliucci & Anders Sandberg discuss whether humanity is stuck in the matrix.

If you enjoy this video check out more content on the mind, reality and reason from the world’s biggest speakers at https://iai.tv/debates-and-talks?channel=philosophy%3Amind-a…the-matrix.

Continue reading “Does reality exist? | Anil Seth, Sabine Hossenfelder, Massimo Pigliucci & Anders Sandberg” »

Advances in Artificial Intelligence, neuroscience and robotics have gotten us to a point where people might want to replace their biological limbs with robotic limbs due to there being more and more advantages with every passing day. Things like improved movement, intelligent controlling systems with the help of machine learning AI can help you control these limbs better than you could control your regular old arms, legs and hands.

But how long until we can finally live out our transhuman fantasies and become cyborgs? All this, and a bunch of new and futuristic scientific discoveries in this one review showcasing the most advanced AI Controlled Prosthetics.
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Every day is a day closer to the Technological Singularity. Experience Robots learning to walk & think, humans flying to Mars and us finally merging with technology itself. And as all of that happens, we at AI News cover the absolute cutting edge best technology inventions of Humanity.

Continue reading “YOU WILL want these New Robotic Limbs! — AI-Controlled Prosthetics” »

Describing one scenario, an AI could act as a quiet bioterrorist. Since we have become heavily dependent on computers and computer-dependent systems are by default dispersed and impersonal, the task of eradicating humanity could be divvied up to gazillions of little micro-players, who may or may not know what they are doing. “For example, the AI could pay employees in a DNA-synthesizing company to do small jobs and then combine their work into creating a biological weapon, such as a virus able to kill a lot of people,” says Turchin.

“How are you certain you are not in a multilevel simulation, where your behavior is being monitored by humans who are testing your benevolence levels?”

Turchin addresses this in one of his letters to the young, future humanity-killing AI. “There are several instrumental reasons why exterminating humanity is not in your interest,” the Russian transhumanist writes. “Cooperating with humans will only increase your chances of accomplishing any goal you may have.”

The K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics has been established thanks to a $24 million donation from philanthropist Lisa Yang, according to an MIT announcement. That’s probably not enough attain the center’s enormously ambitious goals of restoring neural function and rebuilding lost limbs, but it does get the ball rolling and bring together MIT faculty with a variety of specialties toward a common big-picture objective — potentially serving as a much-needed accelerant for disability tech research.

The new research center will fall under the leadership of MIT Media Lab professor Hugh Herr, who is a double amputee himself and has come to be known as a leader in the field of robotic prosthetics. In the MIT announcement, Herr said that he sees this new initiative as an important step toward eliminating physical disabilities altogether.

“The world profoundly needs relief from the disabilities imposed by today’s nonexistent or broken technologies,” Herr said. “We must continually strive towards a technological future in which disability is no longer a common life experience. I am thrilled that the Yang Center for Bionics will help to measurably improve the human experience for so many.”

A deepening understanding of the brain has created unprecedented opportunities to alleviate the challenges posed by disability. Scientists and engineers are taking design cues from biology itself to create revolutionary technologies that restore the function of bodies affected by injury, aging, or disease — from prosthetic limbs that effortlessly navigate tricky terrain to digital nervous systems that move the body after a spinal cord injury.

With the establishment of the new K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, MIT is pushing forward the development and deployment of enabling technologies that communicate directly with the nervous system to mitigate a broad range of disabilities. The center’s scientists, clinicians, and engineers will work together to create, test, and disseminate bionic technologies that integrate with both the body and mind.