News — At The Edge — 9/21
The handwriting is on the wall — rich get richer, poor poorer, ubiquitous computer & AI systems, security & law — that our future will often be beyond our ken and control.
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Why have no bank executives been prosecuted? (5 min. video)? —
“Steve Kroft discusses his team’s five-year-long effort to unravel the financial mess of 2008.”
‘Two decades with no progress for the middle class’: New census data shows household income is the same as in 1999 —
“[T]he poverty rate fell to 11.8%, its lowest level since 2001…[but] median household income…’ today is right where it was in 1999….
Two decades with no progress for the middle class’…suggests rising inequality is a central issue…[and] gains from economic growth are not being broadly shared…[and] $1.5 trillion tax-cut package…last year could further widen the gap….
Americans without health insurance rose to 8.5% last year for the first time since [2010]…to 27.5 million without coverage….
This all came despite a continuation of the decade-long expansion…[and] historically low unemployment rates.” https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/household-income-flat-in-2018-at-similar-level-to-1999-2019-9-1028513995
This AI can pass a 12th-grade standardized science test —
“[AI] could ace an eighth-grade multiple-choice science test with more than 90 percent correct…[and] on a 12th-grade science test…more than 80 percent correct….
[AI] called Aristo, took the New York Regents Science Exam…from different years and found that its…an A student….
[2016] no one in the field could…[score] 60 percent on a similar eighth-grade science exam….
The rapid advances in AI has many experts…predicting that human-level AI may be only 10 or 20 years away…[and] faster than our understanding of AI policy and AI safety….
It’s not clear…AI is doing something fundamentally different from what humans [do]….Aristo cannot solve problems…[or] take knowledge from one domain and apply it to entirely new problems in other areas…humans still surpass computer systems…[but] how long that lasts [unclear].” https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/13/20863269/ai-aristo-science-test-allen-institute
Drastic falls in cost are powering another computer revolution –
“[T]he computer revolution…is only just getting started…[and] bring computerization to…buildings, cities, clothes and…bodies, all linked by the internet…gathering and processing vast quantities of data about itself…[to] quantify and analyze all manner of things that used to be intuitive and inexact…[aiming] to do for information what electricity did for energy….
The price of computation today is…one hundred-millionth what it was in [1970s]…[and] those trends have transformed airliners and cars, which have become networks of computers with wings or wheels….
[Today] 51.2% of the world’s population has internet access in 2018, up from 23.1% ten years ago….
Ubiquitous communications mean that data gathered by comparatively simple chips…[that] cost less than a cent each and…able to harvest the energy they need…from sunlight or ambient heat….
[But] world of ubiquitous sensors is a world of ubiquitous surveillance….
Thirty years of hacks and cyber-attacks have proved that computers are insecure….[Now] miscreants will be able to exploit it…at a huge scale.” https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2019/09/12/drastic-falls-in-cost-are-powering-another-computer-revolution
What digital nerds and bio geeks have to worry about —
“Genes and genomes are based on code…[like] digital language of computers…[but] with four DNA letters…[that] encodes an organism…[and] you could recreate it…alter an existing organism or create a novel one…[all] a lot like software coding….
As synthetic biology looks more like computer technology, the risks [greater]…because we’re dealing with molecules — and sometimes actual forms of life….
Synthetic biology arose in the early 2000s when biologists adopted the mindset of engineers…[and] designed complex genetic circuits…[and] what could arguably be called new forms of life….
Today you can write DNA code…[like] computer code…[then] use a DNA synthesizer or order DNA from a commercial vendor, and…[using] editing tools such as CRISPR to ‘run’ it in an already existing organism….
In the future, it may be possible to build an entire complex organism such as a dog or cat, or recreate an extinct mammoth (currently underway)….
[So-called] ‘cyberbiosecurity’ [issues]…exists between biological and information systems where vulnerabilities in one can affect the other…[like] the security of DNA databanks, the fidelity of transmission of those data, and information hazards associated with specific DNA sequences that could encode novel pathogens for which no cures exist….The difference is that biological systems have the potential to cause much greater, and far more lasting, damage….
Programmers write software through trial and error…[since] there is no real theory of software…[but] cost of getting it wrong and the ease of trying again is [low]…[and] software you use is regularly updated….
[But] making lots of mistakes and fixing them as you go doesn’t work in biology…[where] trial and error is handled by ‘the survival of the fittest’ and occurs slowly over many generations…[and] there’s no way so far to ‘patch’ biological systems once released to the wild….
Opportunities for mischief and malfeasance often occur when expertise is siloed, fields intersect only at the margins, and when the gathered knowledge of small, expert groups doesn’t make its way into the larger body of practitioners….
We need to share information and experiences, classified and unclassified…[because] have tools among our digital and biological communities to identify and mitigate biological risks.” https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/12/opinions/digital-nerds-bio-geeks-worry-about-opinion-schneier-rudenko/index.html
Is ‘Neurolaw’ Coming Soon to a Courtroom Near You? —
“[The] improvements in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and…functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)…[now] look at blood flows and oxygenation in the brain….
Attorneys working civil cases introduce brain imaging ever more routinely to argue that a client has or has not been injured. Criminal attorneys…sometimes argue that a brain condition mitigates a client’s responsibility….Neuroscience researchers aren’t there yet….
MRIs are most often used to assess brain injury or trauma in capital cases (eligible for the death penalty) ‘to ensure that there’s not something obviously neurologically wrong’….
[Seems] more than 2,800 recorded legal opinions between 2005 and 2015 where criminal defendants in the US had used neuroscience…as part of their defense…[with] 20 percent of defendants…[receiving] some favorable outcome….
[Neuroscientists] hope to better understand the biological correlates of recidivism…[and] brain’s maturation process could have relevance for juvenile justice reform…[and] how we treat young adults….[Still] remains to be seen if all this research will yield actionable results….
But brain science will never gain a full understanding of addiction…or lead courts to abandon notions of responsibility or free will…[and] may not shed light on a defendant’s motivations and behavior at the time a crime was committed — which is what matters….
[Also] how an average brain works do not always provide reliable information on…specific individual’s brain…[so] ‘a disjunct between what the neuroscience shows and what the behavior shows, you’ve got to believe the behavior.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-neurolaw-coming-soon-to-a-courtroom-near-you/
A swifter way towards 3D-printed organs —
“20 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant in [U.S.]…while more than 30,000 transplants are now performed annually, there are over 113,000 patients currently on [waitlists]….
Artificially grown human organs are… the ‘holy grail’…[but] all 3D-printed human tissues to date lack the cellular density and organ-level functions required….
[A] new technique called SWIFT…[prints] vascular channels into living matrices composed of stem-cell-derived organ building blocks…yielding viable, organ-specific tissues with high cell density and function…[to] therapeutically to repair and replace human organs with lab-grown versions containing patients’ own cells’….
[SWIFT] method is highly effective at creating organ-specific tissues at scale from…aggregates of primary cells to stem-cell-derived organoids’….
’The ability to support living human tissues with vascular channels is a huge step toward the goal of creating functional human organs outside of the body.’” https://wyss.harvard.edu/a-swifter-way-towards-3d-printed-organs/
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Doc Huston
