Category Archives: technology

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The Future This Week: September 4, 2017

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“Before we work on artificial intelligence why don’t we do something about natural stupidity?” —Steve Polyak

Is this our fate?

There is an ominous feeling in the air about artificial intelligence this week.  It seems to be everywhere, as in “all over the news.”  Elon Musk? We hear from him on the subject every week.  But now one Vladimir Putin has even weighed in.  Both Musk and Putin have dark warnings.  And Putin’s feels a lot like Littlefinger telling Ned Stark not to trust him. Oh, and don’t forget the Chinese, as they weigh in with a massive A.I. investment.  All this as Intel announces a staggering advance in A.I. hardware.

Artificial Intelligence– Elon Musk’s warning du jour on A.I. is that it will be the most likely cause of World War Three.  He’s not worried about North Korea; he thinks that’s just bluster.  The truly hair raising part of it is that he doesn’t so much think it will be a war over A.I. as it will be a war started  by A.I. that has been empowered to make that decision itself.  These conjectures came closely on the heels of Vladimir Putin’s assertion that whomever gains a dominant position in A.I. could rule the world.   He warned that it would be extremely dangerous for any one entity to gain a monopoly.

Cue the Chinese.  They have stated a desire to take a world-leading position in A.I.  by around 2030.  To that end, Chinese internet giant Baidu has teamed up with China Life, a state-owned financial company, to create a 7 Billion Yaun (~$1 Billion US) A.I. investment fund.  The aim is to invest in small private ventures with innovative technologies.

Back in the USA, Intel has announced a new A.I. accelerator that can process 1 Trillion Operations Per Second (TOP) per Watt.  Just what China and Russia are looking for?

Autonomous Vehicles–Ford and Dominoes Pizza have announced a joint venture to test an autonomous pizza delivery vehicle. (Image left).  As 55%of respondents in a recent Gartner survey found said they wouldn’t ride in a self-driving car, I’m wondering if they’d be OK with their pizza riding in one.

 

Please don’t deliver!

How about trusting your garbage to an autonomous vehicle?  Volvo is developing a self-driving garbage truck.  I hope delivery and pickup don’t get confused.

Cryptocurrency/blockchain–Major cryptocurrencies crashed by 20% over the past two trading days of last week.   Apparently China outlawing ICO’s and the SEC questioning their legality did not help things.  I still think they are basically digital tulip bulbs.

 Undaunted by this, six multi-national banks are joining an existing project, headed by UBS to launch their own cryptocurrency, designed for securely clearing large online transactions.  They are currently in talks with regulators on a projected late 2018 launch.

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, PlayerFM, blubrry , and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

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The Future This Week: August 28, 2017

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 “Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”–Susan Ertz

Like it or not, anti-aging reasearch–the quest to slow, stop, or even reverse the aging process, has gone mainstream.  Several serious projects have been funded, animal and even human trials of age retarding pharmaceuticals have begun.  It isn’t just on the fringe, anymore.

Aging/rejuvenation therapy research– The Longevity Fund just completed its second round of capital raising, to the tune of $22 million US dollars.  It aims to invest in all manner of enterprises looking to boost human lifespan.  And it was founded by 23-year-old Laura Deming–she is certainly thinking ahead.

Electric Vehicles-–The latest report on Tesla’s proposed new all-electric semi-truck, is that it will have a range of 200-300 miles.  They also assert that use of it’s auto-pilot feature could reduce crashes by up to 40%, though with the limited range it is not likely to make a significant dent (pardon the expression) in that rate any time soon.  The truck has been promised to be available as soon as next month.

Airline Travel–Qantas has set in motion a very tentative plan to launch the world’s longest regularly scheduled airline route.  They hope to begin service between Sydney and London by 2022.  There’s just one problem.  The key word is tentative–there is no current model airliner capable of a flying that far without refueling.  Qantas has thrown down the challenge to Boeing, Airbus, and others: develop one.

Flying Taxis–Speaking of aircraft manufacturer’s, Airbus intends to launch an urban, autonomous flying taxi service, and do it soon.  Worry no more about traffic jams on the ground–and let the FAA and other air transportation regulators worry about traffic jams in the sky.  Boeing says they will be flying by the end of this year.

Machine-brain Interface–The journal Science reports that engineers at Northeaster University have published a breakthrough study on miniaturized antennas.  The devices are 100-times smaller than any previously possible, and may be used to enable  implants in the brain and micro–medical devices, not to mention tiny consumer electronics.

Creative Artificial Intelligence–The world’s first music album,  composed and arranged by AI in collaboration with a human artist has been released by Amper Music.  The A.I. does almost everything except perform. That is left to popular internet artist Taryn Southern, backed by professional studio musicians. Southern wrote the lyrics and the vocal melody. See the YouTube video below.

Coming Attractions–The next Seeking Delphi™ podcast will feature an interview with Bloomlife CEO and co-founder Eric Dy.  The company’s health monitoring device that keeps tabs, simultaneously, on pregnant women and their unborn babies,  recently won an impressive innovation contest.

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, PlayerFM, blubrry , and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

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The Future This Week, August 21, 2017

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“I wish I had never gotten involved with steroids.  It was wrong. It was stupid.”–Mark McGuire

I’ve been saying it since I first learned about CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, two years ago.  It’s going to happen.  Maybe it has even already happened.   Performance enhancing drugs will be a thing of the past;  they will be replaced by performance enhancing genetics.

Genetic editing/human enhancement–In a wide ranging article in Next Big Future, the potential for athletic performance enhancement is analysed.  Is the super-human athlete coming?

Robotics/Artificial Intelligence–In an open letter to the United Nations, leading industrialists in the robotics and A.I. field urged an immediate global ban on autonomous weapons.  The group of 116 business leaders from 26 companies included Elon Musk, and Mustafa Suleyman, founder and Head of Applied AI at Google’s DeepMind.

—DARPA announced a new program to develop better means of testing, adapting and predicting the behavior of autonomous machine learning systems.  One objective of the effort, called assured autonomy is to get beyond the predominant view of assurance systems, that such algorithms, once deployed (say, as in self-driving cars) will not learn and evolve beyond our control.  (A subject covered in Seeking Delphi™ podcast #14 on self-replicating machines).

–Robots don’t have to threaten your life or evolve out of control to be creepy.  Check out the dancing robots in the YouTube video below.

 Electric/Autonomous Vehicles–Remember the Volkswagon hippie microbus of the 1960’s?  The German automaker now plans a 21st century version of the vehicle;  it will be electric and have level 3 autonomy.    Debut is planned for 2022. Just add a peace sign, blast Jimi Hendrix on the sound system, and you are ready to go.

 

Wearable devices/material science–A university in China reports being able to create strong, flexible silk–that even conducts electricity, by feeding graphene to silk worms.   The resulting material could be used for a new class of wearable health sensors and create flexible robot bodies.

Coming Attractions–Speaking for wearables, the next Seeking Delphi™ podcast will feature an interview with Bloomlife CEO and co-founder Eric Dy.  The company’s health monitoring device that keeps tabs, simultaneously, on pregnant women and their unborn babies,  recently won an impressive innovation contest.

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, PlayerFM, blubrry and , and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

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The Future This Week: August 14, 2017

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“Life isn’t a tiptoe through the tulips.”–Shannon Hoon

“When tulip mania dies down, all that remains are pretty flowers.”–Adam Cohen

I understand the value of cryptocurrency–I think.  But the valuation? Forget it.  Investors’ lives certainly won’t be a tiptoe through the tulips when and if the Bitcoin bubble bursts.  But I’ll still love hearing Tiny Tim sing about it.  And yes, tulips are still pretty flowers.

Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency–The price of a single Bitcoin topped $4,000 for the first time.  Is cryptocurrency the future of our economy?  I have my doubts.   And if you are looking for a way to short it, that makes two of us.

Semi-conductors/material science--With transistor miniaturization in silicon-based microchips rapidly reaching its physical limit,  Moore’s law could also be coming to an end.  But researchers at Stanford University have identified two semi-conductors that could extend the limits of silicon-based miniaturization by augmenting its properties.

Does “too cute to eat” also mean, “too cute to accept an organ transplant from?’

Biotech/gene editing–A group led by Dr. George Church, of Harvard University, has succeeded in using gene-editing to make piglets more suitable for growing replacement human organs.   Dr. Church believes that the first pig-to-human organ transplants may be as close as two years away.

Robotics/Artificial Intelligence–The premiere issue of Age of Robots has hit the digital newsstands.  My article, Self Replicating Machines: Science Fiction vs. Science Fact, appears, along with stories on artificial intelligence, medical robots,  machine consciousness, and more.

   Quantum Reality–A future after death? The notion of life after death has always been the exclusive realm of the spiritual/religious world–until now, that is.  Physicist and author Roger Penrose,  along with some others with impressive scientific credentials, now believe that information stored in our brains in a quantum state may live on, along with our consciousness, after we die.  This report, on the Galaxy Today web page, hints at any number of ideas which I have expounded on in my other blog,  The Millennium Conjectures.

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, PlayerFM, blubrry and , and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

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The Future This Week: July 24, 2017

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“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”–Elon Musk

“I want to die on Mars; just not on impact.”

I see a major quandary going forward with this feature.  Elon Musk quotes may run out before Elon Musk stories run out.  And Elon Musk stories will run out, like, never.  Though this week, a couple of the stories could easily be categorized as anti-Musk.

Hyperloop—Elon Musk says The Boring Company has received verbal government go ahead to tunnel from New York to Washington, DC.  The hyperloop that would run within it could make the run in 29 minutes, vs. the 3+ hours by Amtrak, and could begin construction in as little than 4-6 months, he asserts.

More than one observer thinks Musk is blowing smoke on the rapid startup envisioned for the NY-DC loop.  Government approval for large scale infrastructure projects don’t get done in months; they take years or even decades.

Artists conception of an underground Hyperloop station

Robotics–The L. A. Times reports that a critical shortage of migrant farm workers in California is being met by a move to robotic crop pickers.  It still has a way to go, but after years of crackdown on illegal immigration, there appears to be no other way to go.

Artificial Intelligence–China wants to be the world leader in A.I. by 2030, reports the N.Y. Times. They project a domestic industry worth $150 billion yearly.  That’s a lot of yuan.

—It’s not just government project proposals that Elon Musk doesn’t understand.  According to Rodney Brooks, the founding director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Elon doesn’t know much about artificial intelligence, either.  Speaking in an interview with Tech Crunch, Brooks said that the one thing that Elon, and all of the other naysayers who warn of existential risks in A.I.,  have in common, is that none of them work in A.I.

Autonomous Vehicles–The Verge reports that buyers of autonomous vehicles could effectively face planned obsolescence as technical capabilities advance rapidly.  The last time I heard that phrase in regards to cars, it referred to the size and shape of tail fins, circa 1960.

1959 Chevy Impala tail fins. They got smaller in 1960 and again in 1961, and disappeared altogether in 1962. Planned obsolescence.

 

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, PlayerFM, blubrry and , and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

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The Future This Week: July 17, 2017

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“The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.”–Carl Sandburg

I don’t know about the moon, but when it comes to Mars, it does not appear that NASA will be doing much more than saying hello in the foreseeable future.  It seems there’s this little problem of money.  On the other hand, it’s full speed ahead to the lunar surface for at least one private enterprise.

Space Exploration and Technology–NASA has finally admitted what experts have been saying for some time.  It does not have enough money to land astronauts on Mars.  They could get astronauts there and orbit, but not land.  So I suppose they could say hello.

—Moon Express is full speed ahead on its own ambitious space project.  They recently announced plans to launch a series of robotic lunar mining missions, the third of which will bring back samples from the surface in 2020.  The company is racing four other enterprises as finalists for the Lunar X Prize of $20 milllion, which will be awarded to the first private venture to land a rover on the moon and send back high definition pictures.

eCommerce/Retailing– According to retail guru Brittain Ladd,  Amazon could become the largest U.S. grocery retailer by 2030, if their proposed takeover of Whole Foods goes through.   Ladd predicts Amazon will pass U. S. #2 retailer Kroger by 2025 and take over the top spot from Walmart sometime between 2027 and 2030.

Electric Cars–The greatest roadblock to massive roll out of electric cars may not be infrastructure, but batteries.  Volkswagon, says that as many as 40 new giga-factories may be needed to meet global demand by 2025.

Transhumanism/Brain interface–DARPA has awarded a contract to six organizations, to be led by the University of California, Berkeley, to develop implantable interfaces that could transmit images and sound directly into the brain.  The aim is to compensate for natural visual or hearing loss.  (Reference back: in Seeking Delphi™ podcast #10, on the future of cinema and digital entertainment, film maker Steven Katz discussed this possibility.)

CRISPR/genetic editing–A team of researchers from Harvard and MIT are casting doubt on an earlier study that found that CRISPR/Cas9 gene edits could introduce unexpected mutations.  The original study was done by Columbia University.  It should be noted, however,  that the Broad Institute, a joint venture of Harvard and MIT, is in a pitched patent battle with the University of California, Berkeley, for rights to various uses of the technology.   CRISPR gene editing has the potential to change the face of human health, and perhaps even enter the domain of trans-humanism.  See video embedded below.

—In the meantime, researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley (no surprise there) say they have synthesized a protein they call anti-CRISPR which shut of mutations in CRISPR altered genes.

 

Robotics/Artificial Intelligence–It seems that a security robot has committed suicide in Washington, DC.  After sounding a security all-clear, it threw itself into a pool.

 

Coming Attractions:  I’ll be attending the annual meeting of the Association of Professional Futurists July 27-29 in Seattle.  More to come on that.

A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, PlayerFM, blubrry and , and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.