News — At The Edge — 9/14
While technological innovation is always a double-edge sword — climate, artificial intelligence, 3-D printing & aging — the existential risks may be outpacing the desirable potential.
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NASA visualization shows a rapid decline in Arctic Sea ice over the last 35 years. (2 min. video) —
In the 1st week of January 1988, over 1.2 million sq. miles were covered by sea ice 4 years of age or older, compared with just over 44,000 sq. miles in the same week in 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTaRhCrzkEk
When economists ruled the world: They have a lot to answer for —
“[Despite] a few individuals such as John Maynard Keynes, economists as a class were once held in almost universally low esteem by serious policymakers…[until] the decades after the second world war…[and] ended in a fog of financial crisis, economic conflict and resurgent nationalism….
[They] worked to turn legal attitudes to antitrust on their head, allowing decades of corporate concentration and increasing market power…[and] a wave of deregulation from the 1970s to the 1990s, and provided the intellectual case for tax cuts from the 1960s to the 1980s….
But overall growth never rose as…promised. Inequality widened. Workers and communities increasingly lost out to firms…[and] recessions stoked by monetarism did immense harm….
[Economists] were often…accomplices to a broader movement of conservatives determined to reverse the encroachment of the state…passionate about reducing tax and regulation…[and] the easy ascent of a few ideas that appealed to the wealthy and powerful….
[Also] ignored critics…within the profession…[warning] theories did not adequately capture society’s complexities…[but] too impressed with their own intelligence to consider the unintended consequences…[or] implications of the politics that allowed them to enact their ideas….
Often, their theories operated on the assumption that the self-interested actions of the rich would benefit everyone, even as those self-interested rich used the same economists to pursue their own agenda.” https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/08/31/when-economists-ruled-the-world
Artificial intelligence is changing every aspect of war: A new type of arms race could be on the cards —
“[T]he allure of semi-automated war never faded…[but] is being supercharged by…artificial intelligence (AI)…[and] ‘poised to change the character of the future battlefield’….
The Pentagon’s budget for 2020 has…$1bn on AI and over four times as much on unmanned and autonomous capabilities that rely on it….[China] wants to lead the world in AI by 2030…[and] Putin famously…[said] ‘whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world’….
[T]he paradox is that AI might at once penetrate and thicken the fog of war…[at] a speed and complexity that renders it essentially opaque to humans….
[Military] applications into three sorts. One is to allow machines to act without human supervision. Another is to process and interpret large volumes of data. A third is aiding, or even conducting, the command and control of war….
- [O]n the battlefield…AI is required to endow machines with the requisite skills… like perception and navigation, and higher-order skills, like co-ordination with other agents…[to] do things that individual humans cannot. ‘Already, an AI system can outperform an experienced military pilot in simulated air-to-air combat…[and] latest test of a six-strong drone swarm capable of collaborating in a ‘high-threat’ environment, even when cut off from human contact….
- [Often] the point is to beam back raw data that might be turned into useful intelligence….’Bulk data combined with modern analytics make the modern world transparent…[and] beginning to shift intelligence from…[when] agencies used collection assets to find the answer, to a world where answers are in…the cloud’….
- AI will change warfare is by seeping into military decision-making from…plan missions by crunching large volumes of data…then serves up options to harried decision-makers, along with an explanation of why each was chosen….
[Still] many modern AI systems combine rule-following with added randomness as a stepping stone to more complex planning. DARPA’s Real-time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making (RAID) software aims to predict the goals, movements and even the possible emotions of enemy forces five hours into the future….
’For Chinese military strategists…AlphaGo’s victories was the fact that an AI could create tactics and stratagems superior to those of a human player in a game that can be compared to a war-game’….
[I]f algorithms that surpass human creativity also elude human understanding, they raise problems of law, ethics and trust…proportionality (between civilian harm and military advantage) and necessity….
’What do we do when AI is applied to military strategy and has calculated the probabilistic inferences of multiple interactions many moves beyond that which we can consider…and recommends a course of action that we don’t understand’…[yet] might result from the AI grasping a political chain of events that would not be immediately perceptible to commanders….
[A]n AI might support, if not take over, decision-making in real-world warfighting’ by using a ‘massive near-real-time simulation’….[Military] already purchasing a…cloud-based virtual replication of a complex operating environment — known as a single synthetic environment…using open standards, so everything from secret intelligence to real-time weather data can be plugged in.
‘It will revolutionize how command and control is done…[creating] a ‘single synthetic command tool from the national security council down to the tactical commander….
It seems likely humans will be increasingly both out of the loop and off the team in decision-making’….The result would not only be autonomous weapons, but an automated battlefield. At the outset of a war, interconnected AI systems would pick out targets…and choreograph rapid and precise strikes to destroy them in the most efficient order. The wider consequences of that remain unclear.
The prospect of accurate and rapid strikes ‘could erode stability by increasing the perceived risk of surprise attack’…[or] AI might equally…parry such blows, by identifying the telltale signs of an impending strike….
[N]o power wants to risk falling behind….[Since] ‘data is the fuel of AI…China may have a structural advantage over the rest of the world.’” https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/09/07/artificial-intelligence-is-changing-every-aspect-of-war
‘Particle’ Robots Work Together to Perform Tasks —
“[New] robot consisting of multiple units that can operate as a cluster, responding to…their environment without the need for any centralized control — much like living cells…[and] capable of more sophisticated behavior….
The weakly linked mass is…[resilient] because it has no single point of failure and can keep working even if some individuals become disabled…[for] search and rescue operations…deliver drugs to hard-to-reach parts of the human body or boost research by modeling the cellular action involved in organ formation….
[I]n simulations with up to 100,000 units, even if 20 percent stopped functioning the cluster could still travel at about half of its top speed…[Researching] applications, including the ability to adapt to changes in tasks, the environment and the robot’s own state.’” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/particle-robots-work-together-to-perform-tasks/
3-D Printers Could Help Spread Weapons of Mass Destruction —
“Modern technologies…mean one does not need to be…[smart] to create [weapons]…in their living room — and firearms are just the beginning…[since] artificial intelligence and 3-D printing might…make it much easier…to covertly build nuclear, chemical and biological weapons….
[Already] U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)…[uses] these machines to manufacture models of nuclear weapons for testing… Raytheon has a 3-D printer that can manufacture 80 percent of a missile, and Los Alamos National Laboratory is using these machines to produce high explosives….
[T]here are concerns that AI could allow unskilled humans to come up with the necessary blueprints, thanks to…generative design…process [where] a user can give a computer a design problem and set requirements for the final result. The AI suggests many possible solutions, and humans pare down the results….NASA recently used the technique to create a prototype lander for space missions…
[3-D] manufacturing and AI creates three major risk areas….
- [A] nation with an existing missile program, such as North Korea, improving its output by printing rocket parts or propulsion-system components…’or at least prototype missiles more quickly’….
- 3-D printers could help establish a weapons program by producing the required infrastructure — without alerting international watchdogs…[and] existing arms control frameworks….
- [A] ‘black swan’ event, a threat no one sees coming….
’Given the speed at which technology is advancing’…3-D printing could be part of the WMD supply chain within the next 10 years.’” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/3-d-printers-could-help-spread-weapons-of-mass-destruction/
3D printers on the final frontier: Made In Space is building satellites that build themselves —
“[A] company named Made In Space is building…first self-manufacturing satellite, due for launch in three years…[using] 3D printers and automated assembly….
3D printers have already done several tours of duty on the International Space Station…[and] Made in Space…will manufacture two ten-meter-long wings of solar arrays…generating ‘as much as five times more power than traditional solar panels on spacecraft…[using] recycled waste polymer on the ISS. They plan to manufacture optical fiber in space which would ‘greatly outperform‘ standard fibers…and are interested in 3D printing metals….
70% moondust can be mixed with 30% polymer…that can be heated into 3D feedstock for a remarkable one-thirtieth the energy cost…[with] ambitious long-term plan to construct spacecraft from asteroids.” https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/02/3d-printers-on-the-final-frontier-made-in-space-is-building-satellites-that-build-themselves/
Novameat has a platform for 3D-printing steaks and has new money to take it to market —
“[T]he production of the world’s first 3D-printed plant-based beefsteak in 2018…[now] meats like steak, chicken breasts and other fibrous textured meat replacements…[with] a new scaffolding technology that mimics the texture, appearance, nutritional and sensorial properties of fibrous meats….
While many clean meat and plant-based food companies have…meat replacements…with similar taste and textural qualities to the real thing, steaks and cuts of muscle meat have proven harder to replicate….
[Novameat] customized printer that enables companies to create the kinds of fibrous tissues needed to make a steak…’providing the equipment, the machinery, under a licensing agreement’…[and] speeds up the time to create meat substitutes….
[The] company’s micro-extrusion technology enables companies to get a three-dimensional structure…[and] provides a flexible and tunable method of producing plant-based meat, with the utility to create different textures from a wide variety of ingredients, all within a single piece of meat….
[This] gives plant-based meat manufacturers a wider array of tools to mimic all types of meat and seafood.’” https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/05/novameat-has-a-platform-for-3d-printing-steaks-and-has-new-money-to-take-it-to-market/
The science of senolytics: how a new pill could spell the end of ageing —
“[I]n five to 12 years…a pill that could…stave off the fragility, osteoarthritis, memory loss, macular degeneration and cancers that plague old age….
[T]he science of senolytics: an…area of anti-ageing medicine…more concerned with prolonging…‘healthspan’ than [lifespan]…to age with less pain and illness…with a lot of benefits, both for governments and older patients….
[Ageing] is the biggest risk factor for most chronic diseases…[so senolytics] targets senescent…so-called ‘zombie’ cells linger and proliferate as we age, emitting substances that cause inflammation and turn other healthy cells senescent, ultimately leading to tissue damage throughout the body….
[2019] a small early human trial showed an improvement in the distance patients were able to walk…[and] injecting a senolytic drug into the knees of people with osteoarthritis showed promising, if mixed results….
[Theoretically] it should prove impossible to build up a resistance to the drugs, ‘because senescent cells cannot proliferate’…[and] there is significant data to show ‘that…just treat them once a week or once a month…[will] have huge benefits….
[Also] obesity can cause senescent cells to develop prematurely…[so] clearing senescent cells improves insulin sensitivity….[and] senescent cells ‘play a big role after cancer treatment’, developing as a result of chemotherapy and radiation therapy…[so] a detrimental side-effect…could be alleviated’….
[T]he ideal treatment age will differ from person to person, and…a blood or urine test that can assess the level of senescence present [soon]….
Intermittent fasting may have senescent effects…[and] linked to healthy ageing and longevity. Mouse trials have shown that they can live 30 to 50% longer than control animals….
[A] healthy diet, ‘reducing the amount of animal protein…[to] once per week, maximum…[because] association between low protein intake and longevity is well established in humans…[so] protein should come from vegetables.’” https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/02/the-science-of-senolytics-how-a-new-pill-could-spell-the-end-of-ageing
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Doc Huston
