Tag Archives: genetic engineering

News of The Future This Week: March 19, 2019

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“If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.”–George Gobel

And…exactly what happens if you build better mice?   Genetic editing seems to be making many strides in that direction.  The only question left is, will it ultimately make better people?

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.

 Genetic Editing–Researchers at UC, Berkeley, claim to have restored sight of blind mice by using a killed virus to insert a gene with green-light receptors into their eyes.  They hope human trials might begin within 3 years.

Longevity/Anti-Aging–Have you considered the potential impact that superlongevity could have on retirement and social security?  I have.  So has next big future in this think piece. I’ll be attending the 2019 Undoing Aging conference in Berlin later this month, and I intend to put the question to several of the key people there.

Future Cities/Autonomous Vehicles–What will the smart cities of 2050 look like? Peter Diamandis thinks autonomous vehicles will be a major part of it.

–Speaking of smart cities and autonomous vehicles, Hacker Noon, thinks the IoT can converge with vehicles to ease congestion. That’s something Rapid Flow Technologies is already doing (see YouTube podcast slide show link below).

–While we’re talking about autonomous vehicles, here’s another video demonstrating autonomous valet car parking at one of France’s busiest airports.

 

Robotics/Artificial Intelligence–Seeking Delphi first explored the concept of the robotic uncanny valley in a 2017 podcast interview with Heart of The Machine author, Richard Yonck.  Wired says eerie robot voices make them even more uncanny, and that nobody is talking about it. (Richard Yonck would probably disagree–he talked about it in his book).

–It seems that A.I. might not only replace many existing professions, it might be used to revive new ones as well.   A Chinese University is using A.I. as a sort of autonomous truant officer to monitor class attendance rates and reduce absenteeism.

Space/Space Commerce–25 nations are meeting this week to discuss treaties to prevent the militarization of space.  But a U.S. challenge to Russia and China over development of anti-satellite weapons could disrupt the whole process.

Maybe a SpaceX logo on the next space suit?

–NASA plans for a return to the moon may include commercial rockets.  The Verge reports that this may signal a paradigm shift in deep space exploration.

Seeking Delphi™ podcast/coming attractions: In the weeks ahead. look for David Wood on his newest book, Sustainable superabundance, Verne Wheelright on personal futures, and highlights from the 2019 Undoing Aging Conference (Berlin, Germany, March 28-30).

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

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.