Tag Archives: future

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Podcast #21: The Future of Privacy In The Digital Age, with Gray Scott

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 “We are losing privacy at an alarming rate–we have none left.”–John McAfee

“Privacy is becoming irrelevant.”–Gray Scott

 

Is privacy dead?  The answer may be more indifferent than you suspect.  Gray Scott says it’s becoming irrelevant.  People and politicians may squawk, but if you look at their behavior, it looks as if they just don’t really care.  It seems we’d rather have free content–even at the cost of privacy–than pay even nominal amounts to access online materials.  In this wide ranging interview, conducted just hours before Mark Zuckerberg’s senate testimony in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, Gray provides us with his nuanced view of the state of privacy, both present and future.

A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi™  podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Podcast episode #21: The Future of Privacy In The Digital Age, with Gray Scott

YouTube slide show of Podcast #21: The Future of Privacy with Gray Scott

A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and  YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

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News of The Future This Week: April 6, 2018

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“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”–Neil DeGrasse Tyson

“This is the way the world ends.  With a whimper, not a bang.”–TS Eliot

 

NDT is absolutley correct, but TS Eliot?  Maybe not so much. The latest theory of how the universe will end is most decidedly with a bang: a second big bang, to be precise.  But it’s probably a few trillion years in the future–assuming the math is correct.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

Cosmology–According to a new Harvard study,  the universe might end with a second big bang, caused by changes to the Higgs Boson.  While the process may have already begun in some distant galaxy, it’s  most likely to occur trillions of years in the future.    So return those overdue library books now.

–While the universe is still here, a team based at Plymouth University in the UK has published a study suggesting artificial intelligence can be use to predict the likelihood of life on other planets. 

Credit: USC

Transhumanism–A DARPA-funded prosthetic memory system has shown significant efficacy.  Researchers at Wake Forrest and USC report a  35%+ imrovement in memory by writing codes directly into the hippocampus of subjects.

Future of Work–A new OECD report projects that job losses from automation and robotics in coming years may not be a severe as some are projecting.  Just 14% of jobs are at high risk of automation in OECD countries, they say, versus the 47% risk cited in an Oxford University study.

Quantum Computing–IBM announced a new initiative to work with several startup companies to further develop applications for quantum computing.  One of the companies is Strangeworks, started by whurley, and briefly discussed in the Seeking Delphi™ podcast, with You Tube link below.

whurley on Quantum Computing and Strangeworks

Aerospace–NASA awarded a contract to Lockheed-Martin to build its first  supersonic X-plane slated for test flights by 2021.  The craft is designed to break the sound barrier over land, without blasting the ground with sonic booms.

3D printed bridge or robot pasta?

3D Printing–Dutch company MX3D is creating a fully funcional 3D printed stainless steel bridge to cross one of Amsterdam’s canals.  It looks eerie, to say the least.

You can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

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News of the Future This Week, March 28, 2018

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 “A space station is a rangy monstrosity, a giant erector set built by a madman.”–Mary Roach

Oh, how jaded we’ve become.  Remember Skylab?  When it became the first orbiting space station to crash back to earth, away back in 1979, it provoked a wide range of bizarre cultural outcroppings, from Skylab crash parties to insurance against it landing on your head.  This time?  Not so much.  If the cable news channels can’t politicize it, they won’t give it much mention.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

Chinese Space Station: look out below!

Space–The Chinese space station will hurtle back to earth this weekend.  Time Magazine reports that you don’t have to worry–much–about it landing on you.

—According to a paper by Gregory Matloff, published in Centauri Dreams, the combination of the SpaceX Falcom Heavy rocket, a Bigelow inflatable habitat, and huge solar sail, would be the perfect combination for manned expeditions to near earth objects in the 2020’s.

–NASA’s next Mars rover isn’t scheduled for launch until 2020.  In advance of that,  today they’re testing the parachute designed to deploy at supersonic speeds and drop it gently to the Martian surface.

James Webb telescope or Klingon battleship? Image Credit: NASA

—Speaking of NASA, they’ve delayed the launch of the James Webb Space Telescopte–again.  The successor to Hubble is now scheduled for launch in May of 2020.   Anyone taking bets?

Electric Vehicles–Speaking of betting on late deployment, FedEx has apparently ordered 20 of Tesla’s new electric semi-trucks.  The scheduled roll out for these is 2019.  Based on Mr. Musk’s timetable track record, I’d set an over-under on actual delivery to Fedex at January 2021.

Artificial Intelligence—According to Mashable, NVIDIA’s new supercomputer will create A.I. that’s “terrifyingly smart.”  Well, maybe not–most experts believe we won’t AGI–artifiicial general intelligence–for least 15-30 years, if ever.  But even they don’t agree.

Automation/Future of Work–Hardly a week goes by without some new forecast of an automation driven job-killing apocolypse.  The latest one, from Bain Consulting, foresees 50% of current jobs eventually going away, and specifically forecasts that U.S. employers will need 20-25% fewer workers by 2030.

Extreme Bionics–In case you missed it, here’s the link to the final Seeking Delphi™ podcast from SXSW 2018, on Extreme Bionics: The Future of Human Ability.  It feature two bilateral amputees,  paralympian and actrees Aimee Mullins (Stranger Things, Unsane) and MIT Media lab associate professor, Hugh Herr.  (YouTube slide show link below).

You can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

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News of The Future This Week, February 14, 2018

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“I don’t believe in a conspiracy to hide the existence of extraterrestrial life.”–David Duchovney

“Where are they?”–Enrico Fermi

If David Duchovney is right–and I for one agree with him–then Fermi and his paradox certainly become relevent.  But it hardly proves that extraterrestrials don’t exist.  It just proves we haven’t been able to confirm any signals or communication.  What hampers us from doing so?  The vastness of the universe? Our relatively inferior technology?  Maybe they are hiding, as in Cixin Liu’s chilling novel The Dark Forrest?  These are all possiblities, true.  But in a strange ocurrance of the law of unintended consequences, the biggest current hindernece to finding E.T. could be bitcoin mining.

 While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related  news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube (audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

 SETI/Cryptocurrencies–This heading might look like an oxymoron.  But in a bizarre turn of events, the cornering of the GPU market by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency mining has created a shortage that is hitting the video game market, and even the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

NASA/Space–In another unusual turn of events, NASA will be sending a Martian meteorite back to its home planet on a rover scheduled for launch in 2020.  The purpose is best described as “target practice” for precision lasers designed to pick targets for sample collection that a future mission might return to earth.

How about these for target practice?

—The FCC is looking closely at SpaceX’s plan to provide sattelite delivered  internet.  The head of the agency views it favorably, so don’t bet against it.

—The Trump administration’s latest NASA plans call for a return to the moon.  They call for it; but they don’t budget it.  It likely won’t happend until after The Donald leaves office, even if he gets re-elected.

Autonomous Vehicles —The U.S. Transportation Agency has called a summit on autonomous vehicles for March 1 of this year.  One can only hope that the government might become as concerned with artificial intelligence as it is with this one application.

Matt Chappell has been effectively cured of HIV

Genetic Editing/HIV–As gene editing techniques continue their rapid advance, efforts are accelerating to control, and possibly cure, HIV.  The template may be one patient who has been off medications for over two years with no recurrence.

Artificial Intelligence/Singularity–In an interview with Futurism.com, the father of artificial intelligence says that the singularity is 30 years away.

Nanotechnology–Reasearchers at Arizona State University, working with a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have created nanorobots designed to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply.

“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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Podcast #20: Ending Aging, Part Two, with Elizabeth Parrish

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“There is something called bioethics that is probably the least ethical thing on the planet right now.”–Elizabeth Parrish

Welcome to the second year of the Seeking Delphi™ podcast.  We eneded 2017 with Part One of Ending Aging, featuring an interview with the author of Ending Aging, SENS foundation Chief Science Officer, Aubrey de Grey.  2018 kicks off with part two of Ending Aging, featuring Bioviva CEO, Elizabeth Parrish.  In 2015 she became the first person ever to receive genetic editing therapies to reverse some aspects of biological aging.  Her comments–especially the one above–are well worth the while of anyone with interest in the subject.

Links to relevant stories appear after the audio file and embedded YouTube video below.  A reminder that this and all Seeking Delphi ™podcasts are available on iTunes, PlayerFM, and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook and on twitter @MarkSackler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode #20. Ending Aging, Part Two, with Elizabeth Parrish

YouTube slide show of Episode #20

 

And in case you missed it, ending aging, Part 1, with Aubrey de Grey

 

Relevant links

Elizabeth Parrish Biography

Bioviva home page

Aubrey de Grey wikipedia bio

Ending Aging, by Aubrey de Grey, on Amazon

The Abolition of Aging, by David Wood, on Amazon

Elizabeth Parrish self-tests Bioviva gene therapy

George Church’s ambitious plans

Subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ on iTunes 

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The Future Last Year: 2017 In Review

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“My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.”–Elon Musk

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”–Alan Kay

Technology was everywhere in 2017.  And everywhere technology went, Elon Musk was sure to lead.  Perhaps we should paraphrase Alan Kay.  The best way to predict the future, is to watch Elon. If anybody is inventing it, it’s him. Tesla, Solar City, SpaceX, Neuralink, Hyperloop.  If it involved renewable energy, autonomous vehicles, space commerce, transhumanism, or warnings about artificial intelligence (lot’s of warnings), it probably involved Elon.

With that, I name Elon Musk, in total, our first Future Story of The Year, for 2017.  Here’s a very brief history of his year, along with some of the other top stories from 2017.

While you’re reading about it all, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes or PlayerFM, and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook 

Elon Musk

Tesla– Even as the lower priced ($35,000) model 3 production lagged way behind predictions, Elon revealed the new Tesla semi.  It’s great that he aims high, but in 2018 he will need to deliver, not just promise.

SpaceX—As of this writing, the Falcon Heavy rocket sits on pad 39A at Cape Canaveral.  It’s the precursor of even heavier launch vehicles that Elon hopes will send humans to Mars by 2030. 

Hyperloop—Musk may have invented it, but Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop One is making the bulk of the headlines these days.  Kudos to Elon, though, for open sourcing the concept and allowing competition to rapidly develop it.

The Boring Company—While aiming to odominate the transportation on the surface of the earth (Tesla) and space above it (SpaceX) , Elon also created The Boring Company to drill tunnels below it. give him credit for a sense of humor with this company’s name.

Neuralink–When it comes to A.I., Elon’s motto seems to be “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” He created Neuralink to accelerate the merger of mind and machine.

So…how many new technology ventures will he create in 2018, as he continues to invent the future?  I’d put the over/under at 2 1/2.

Other top stories of the Year.

Artificial intelligence, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, self-driving cars, Bitcoin and blockchain, reversing aging and the future of work, were all frequently in the news in 2017.   Somewhat less visible were stories about laboratory grown meat, reversing aging, hypersonic weapons, 3D printing and advanced drone technology.  Here are few top story lists from other sources.

Futureseek Daily Link Digest

Wired Magazine’s top stories of 2017

Favorite 2017 Science Stories, The Verge

Science Fiction vs. Science Fact: Replicating Machines (my article from the first issue of Age of Robots)

IEEE Spectrum best stories of 2017

2017 in 3D printing

Dave Barry’s less than reassuring look back at 2017

Seeking Delphi™ finished the year with a podcast interview with SENS foundation,s chief science officer,  Aubrey de Grey, on ending aging.

 

Happy New Year, all.  2018 figures to be quite a ride.

Coming Attractions–2018 will kick off with an interview with Bioviva CEO Elizabeth Parrish, the first person to edit parts of her own genome to reverse aging.

 

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.