The use of increasingly sophisticated techniques and technologies has enabled rapid discoveries and developments in brain research that are being translated into varied applications in medicine, public life, and national security. Such developments foster a host of questions and problems generated both by the novelty of neuroscientific tools and techniques, and by social effects that neuroscientific information and capabilities incur. These issues are the focus of the field of neuroethics. This chapter describes these new developments, addresses neuroethical issues, questions and tasks, and posits directions for neuroethical engagement and guidance of neuroscientific knowledge and capabilities. […]
Read More…
Human-induced climate change is one of the biggest problems that we face today. Unfortunately, existing solutions such as behavioral and market solutions appear to be insufficient to mitigate the effects of climate change while geoengineering could have catastrophic consequences for us and the planet. In this paper, I propose that we explore a new kind of solution to climate change, namely, human engineering, which involves biomedical modifications of humans so that they can mitigate or adapt to climate change. I shall argue that human engineering is potentially less risky than geoengineering and that it could make behavioral and market solutions more likely to succeed. […]
Read More…
Whole-genome sequencing has now become mainstream for diagnosing rare disorders and cancer therapy targets. As the costs have declined the trend is moving toward using it in broader groups of people. Even for people without a strong personal or family history of any disease, screening the seventy-six genes—held by expert medical consensus to influence clinical management—will identify about one in twenty who carry a mutation in a gene that will influence their medical care. However, people who pursue genetic testing may want to obtain life, disability, and/or long-term care insurance prior in order to reduce their premium payments. […]
Read More…
The history of money is wrapped up in sex, religion, and politics, those things we are told not to talk about. After all, these are the themes that rule our lives, and money is at the heart of all three. To put this in context we need to begin at the beginning, as that is a very good place to start, and talk about the origins of humans, which is what I am going to cover in detail in this article. In fact, the origins of money reflect the origins of humans. As you will see, there have been three great revolutions in human history as we formed communities, then civilization and industry. We are currently living through a fourth great revolution in humankind, and these revolutions fundamentally change the way we live. Equally important is the fact that each evolution of humankind creates a revolution in monetary and value exchange. That is why it is important to reflect on the past to understand the present and forecast the future, especially as we are living through a fourth revolution in humanity and trade, and about to enter a fifth. […]
Read More…
Should we be concerned about long-term risks to humanity from superintelligent AI? If so, what can we do about it? While some in the mainstream AI community dismiss these concerns, I will argue instead that a fundamental reorientation of the field is required. Instead of building systems that optimize arbitrary objectives, we need to learn how to build systems that will, in fact, be provably beneficial for us. I will show that it is useful to imbue systems with explicit uncertainty concerning the true objectives of the humans they are designed to help. […]
Read More…
Exponential technologies offer enormous opportunities for building a much more efficient and productive financial system capable of efficiently driving global growth and well-being. This demands a profound transformation of the financial industry and threatens the survival of today’s banks. The present article begins with a consideration of how technological growth affects the economy and companies, and continues by detailing its impact on the financial industry. It then discusses the fundamental risks involved in the transformation that financial institutions must undergo. This final analysis is largely based on BBVA’s experience with the drastic transformation it launched almost a decade ago. […]
Read More…
Media are ubiquitous, especially in our urban environments: one reason is that the vast majority of us now carry smartphones, wearables, or tablets at practically all times. These mobile devices are platforms for the remediation of traditional media (the printed book, film, television, and recorded music) as well as for newer digital forms, such as videogames, social media, and Augmented and Virtual Reality applications. The next step in our media culture will be the continued multiplication and diversification of media forms. There will be no single medium (e.g., VR) that absorbs all others; instead, different media will flourish, each augmenting different aspects of our daily lived experience. […]
Read More…
Artists are often left out in the discussion of the advancement of new technologies, yet they are critical to the evolution of any new medium. Golan Levin points out that artists have early on prototyped many of today’s technologies. To get a jump-start on the future, Levin urges looking to artists working with new technologies. article/the-critical-role-of-artists-in-advancing-augmented-reality […]
Read More…
New technologies, and in particular artificial intelligence, are drastically changing the nature of creative processes. Computers are playing very significant roles in creative activities such as music, architecture, fine arts, and science. Indeed, the computer is already a canvas, a brush, a musical instrument, and so on. However, we believe that we must aim at more ambitious relations between computers and creativity. Rather than just seeing the computer as a tool to help human creators, we could see it as a creative entity in its own right. This view has triggered a new subfield of Artificial Intelligence called Computational Creativity. This article addresses the question of the possibility of achieving computational creativity through some examples of computer programs capable of replicating aspects of creative artistic behavior. We end with some reflections on the recent trend of democratization of creativity by means of assisting and augmenting human creativity. […]
Read More…
The Turing test is regarded as the ultimate milestone for machine communication abilities. It involves distinguishing between a human and a computer in their responses to unrestricted questions. Here we investigate the nature of the communications, including behaviors and interaction in real Turing test scenarios to assess the state of play. In particular we consider the effects of lying, misunderstanding, humor, and lack of knowledge, giving actual examples of each. We look at specific cases of machines performing well and consider transcripts taken from the 2014 Royal Society experiment when a machine first passed the Turing test. […]
Read More…