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Talking Sex at Dawn, Psychedelics, and the trouble with transhumanism with Dr. Christopher Ryan – Video

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Talking Sex at Dawn, Psychedelics, and the trouble with transhumanism with Dr. Christopher Ryan
Chris Ryan, PhD is here! You #39;ll hear him on his own podcast, Tangentially Speaking, where he chats with all sorts of fascinating folks. He #39;s also a staple on...

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Talking Sex at Dawn, Psychedelics, and the trouble with transhumanism with Dr. Christopher Ryan - Video

Game On: Cyberpunk 2077 is everything I like in a role-playing video game – The Spokesman-Review

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After three delays dating back to April, the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 was unleashed upon the gaming world on Dec. 10. Its the latest effort by CD Projekt Red, the Polish development team best-known for The Witcher series that catapulted a little-known book series into stardom. This time, the team exercised its open-world, role-playing game muscles to produce an adaptation of the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG dating back to 1988.

When most people think of RPGs, their mind pictures high fantasy settings wizards, dragons and medieval times. Or perhaps they think of science-fiction space operas with alien species and bombastic spaceship battles. Cyberpunk is closer to sci-fi, but instead of space travel you get an Earth-grounded, near-future dystopian setting fueled by transhumanism, debauchery and twisted political systems.

I found myself easily engrossed in the gritty and immersive setting. Some reviewers have accused Cyberpunk 2077 of being gratuitous or edgy for the sake of being edgy, but Id argue compared to the other narrative-driven hit of 2020 The Last of Us Part II this one pales in comparison. Its a dirty city full of dirty deeds, but the game rarely dwells on its bleakness. Beneath its rough exterior are heartfelt stories and characters who, despite their cybernetic body modifications, are still very much a reflection of the human experience.

Working as an opportunistic gunslinging outlaw, the player character, who goes by V, soon finds itself inadvertently entangled in political upheaval. Ive always appreciated the right place at the right time approach to storytelling more than the chosen one clich. Nothing makes V particularly special, and you can even choose from three backgrounds nomad, street kid or corporate. Each backstory changes how V is initially brought into the story and adds a variety of dialogue options specific to your character.

The dialogue is engaging, even mesmerizing. The games themes and narrative are communicated entirely through conversations instead of the boring and all-too-common video game trope of third-person narration. V can chime in frequently, and Cyberpunk 2077 even denotes which dialogue choices will drive the plot forward and which will not. This benefits gamers who want to rush through, as well as people who enjoy role-playing their characters, and its a brilliant mechanic that other dialogue-driven games would do well to emulate.

Open-world games arent my cup of tea. They are often too vast for their own good, relying on bland, repetitive environments and pointless side missions to pad out the run time. Cyberpunk 2077 takes place entirely within the confines of Night City, which is densely populated and appropriately packed full of activities. Its the exact opposite approach of Fallout: New Vegas and The Elder Scrolls series, where players can wander around desolate landscapes for many minutes before encountering anything noteworthy.

That said, Cyberpunk 2077 is not above every time-sucking RPG staple. While many of the side quests assist the narrative and add depth to its eclectic cast, there are occasional fetch quests and other uninspiring activities. If you spend any time scavenging the environment or looting fallen enemies, youll have to waste a lot of time in menus managing your inventory. The issue is mitigated somewhat by a handy sell junk button for selling found commodities, but its hardly a perfect solution.

Cyberpunk 2077 sold 8 million copies via pre-orders alone, which doesnt include sales made on release day. Fifty-nine percent of those purchases were for the PC version, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. It attracted more than 1 million active players on Steam hours after its release, the highest concurrent player count for any single-player game.

Despite the sales, CD Projekt Red also has created a scandal. While Cyberpunk 2077 runs like a dream on a good PC or even via Google Stadia with a good internet connection, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 ports leave a lot to be desired. Framerates regularly dip below 30 frames per second, characters randomly pop in and out of existence, objects fail to render, and some players save files have become corrupted, forcing them to restart the game from the beginning.

In response, the developer has promised refunds for dissatisfied players. But video game refunds typically land on the hardware manufacturer in this case, Sony or Microsoft and not the developer. A publicized CD Projekt Red conference call has cast doubt on whether its even possible for the company to give out direct refunds, and its stock recently plummeted by 29%.

The game is so cutting-edge that CD Projekt Red shouldnt have even bothered with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, which came out in 2013 it shouldve instead prioritized getting Cyberpunk 2077 running on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. The game will be ported to those consoles in due time, and the upgrade will be free, but many gamers are adamant the damage is already done.

Regardless, Cyberpunk 2077 is my favorite open-world game by far, and I highly recommend it for fans of RPGs, shooters and science fiction. If youre unable to play it on a PC, Id hold off until the dust settles. CD Projekt Red has promised to rigorously update the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 ports to improve performance, but only time will tell if those fixes are sufficient.

Riordan Zentler can be reached at riordanzentler@gmail.com

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Game On: Cyberpunk 2077 is everything I like in a role-playing video game - The Spokesman-Review

Artificial Intelligence in Big Data Analytics and IoT Report 2020-2025: Focus on Data Capture, Information and Decision Support Services Markets -…

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 3, 2020--

The "Artificial Intelligence in Big Data Analytics and IoT: Market for Data Capture, Information and Decision Support Services 2020 - 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report evaluates various AI technologies and their use relative to analytics solutions within the rapidly growing enterprise and industrial data arena.

The report assesses emerging business models, leading companies, and solutions. The report also analyzes how different forms of AI may be best used for problem-solving. The report also evaluates the market for AI in IoT networks and systems. The report provides forecasting for unit growth and revenue for both analytics and IoT from 2020 - 2025.

The Internet of Things (IoT) in consumer, enterprise, industrial, and government market segments has very unique needs in terms of infrastructure, devices, systems, and processes. One thing they all have in common is that they each produce massive amounts of data, most of which is of the unstructured variety, requiring big data technologies for management.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms enhance the ability for big data analytics and IoT platforms to provide value to each of these market segments. The author sees three different types of IoT Data: (1) Raw (untouched and unstructured) Data, (2) Meta (data about data), and (3) Transformed (valued-added data). Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be useful in support of managing each of these data types in terms of identifying, categorizing, and decision making.

AI coupled with advanced big data analytics provides the ability to make raw data meaningful and useful as information for decision-making purposes. The use of AI for decision making in IoT and data analytics will be crucial for efficient and effective decision making, especially in the area of streaming data and real-time analytics associated with edge computing networks. Real-time data will be a key value proposition for all use cases, segments, and solutions. The ability to capture streaming data, determine valuable attributes, and make decisions in real-time will add an entirely new dimension to service logic. In many cases, the data itself, and actionable information will be the service.

Select Report Findings:

Report Benefits:

Key Topics Covered:

1.0 Executive Summary

2.0 Introduction

2.1 Research Objectives

2.2 Key Findings

2.3 Target Audience

2.4 Companies in the Report

3.0 Overview

3.1 Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

3.2 AI Types

3.3 AI & ML Language

3.4 Artificial Intelligence Technology

3.5 AI and ML Technology Goal

3.6 AI Approaches

3.7 AI Tools

3.8 AI Outcome

3.9 Neural Network and Artificial Intelligence

3.10 Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence

3.11 Predictive Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

3.12 Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics

3.13 IoT and Artificial Intelligence

3.14 Consumer IoT, Big Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence

3.15 Industrial IoT, Big Data Analytics, and Machine Learning

3.16 Artificial intelligence and cognitive computing

3.17 Transhumanism or H+ and Artificial Intelligence

3.18 Rise of Analysis of Things (AoT)

3.19 Supervised vs. Unsupervised Learning

3.20 AI as New form of UI

4.0 AI Technology in Big Data and IoT

4.1 Machine Learning Everywhere

4.2 Machine Learning APIs and Big Data Development

4.3 Enterprise Benefits of Machine Learning

4.4 Machine Learning in IoT Data

4.5 Ultra Scale Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

4.6 Rise of Algorithmic Business

4.7 Cloud Hosted Machine Intelligence

4.8 Contradiction of Machine Learning

4.9 Value Chain Analysis

5.0 AI Technology Application and Use Case

5.1 Intelligence Performance Monitoring

5.2 Infrastructure Monitoring

5.3 Generating Accurate Models

5.4 Recommendation Engine

5.5 Blockchain and Crypto Technologies

5.6 Enterprise Application

5.7 Contextual Awareness

5.8 Customer Feedback

5.9 Self-Driving Car

5.10 Fraud Detection System

5.11 Personalized Medicine and Healthcare Service

5.12 Predictive Data Modelling

5.13 Smart Machines

5.14 Cybersecurity Solutions

5.15 Autonomous Agents

5.16 Intelligent Assistant

5.17 Intelligent Decision Support System

5.18 Risk Management

5.19 Data Mining and Management

5.20 Intelligent Robotics

5.21 Financial Technology

5.22 Machine Intelligence

6.0 AI Technology Impact on Vertical Market

6.1 Enterprise Productivity Gain

6.2 Digital Twinning and Physical Asset Security

6.3 IT Process Efficiency Increase

6.4 AI to Replace Human Form Work

6.5 Enterprise AI Adoption Trend

6.6 Inclusion of AI as IT Requirement

7.0 AI Predictive Analytics in Vertical Industry

7.1 E-Commerce Services

7.2 Banking and Finance Services

7.3 Manufacturing Services

7.4 Real Estate Services

7.5 Government and Public Services

8.0 Company Analysis

8.1 Google Inc.

8.2 Twitter Inc.

8.3 Microsoft Corporation

8.4 IBM Corporation

8.5 Apple Inc.

8.6 Facebook Inc.

8.7 Amazon.com Inc.

8.8 Skype

8.9 Salesforce.com

8.10 Intel Corporation

8.11 Yahoo Inc.

8.12 AOL Inc.

8.13 NVIDIA Corporation

8.14 x.ai

8.15 Tesla Inc.

8.16 Baidu Inc.

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Artificial Intelligence in Big Data Analytics and IoT Report 2020-2025: Focus on Data Capture, Information and Decision Support Services Markets -...

The Small Dong In Cyberpunk Is Way Too Big | TheGamer – TheGamer

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Is it just me, or is the small package in Cyberpunk 2077 way too big?

Is it just me, oris the small penisin Cyberpunk 2077way too big?

That was a rhetorical question - of courseit's too big. That's is why everyone's talking about it. If you fancy a V with a massive hammer, you're in luck but if you were planning on rolling a V with a tiny bird, you're probably going to be disappointed.

RELATED:Digital Goodies, In-Game Rewards, And The Best Place To Buy Cyberpunk 2077 (Sponsored)

Cyberpunk wiener customization is limited to two styles cut or uncut and three sizes. The size options are small, default, and large, but I think they'd be better labelled as "decent hog," "nice package," and "magnum dong." The problem with these sizes, astutely noted by the r/smalldickproblems subreddit, is that even "small" is over five inches long.

Yes, the Cyberpunk penis options are making people very self-conscious about their willies. It seems like the small one should really be the default. According to Healthline (and conventional wisdom), the average penis size is 5.16 inches. So why does Cyberpunk 2077 call a five-inch dick small?

Cyberpunk is not a game that concerns itself with realism. Bodymodification is core to the transhumanism philosophy and to the themes and gameplay of Cyberpunk itself. An argument can be made that all of these dangles come pre-enhanced. After all, if you can replace your hands with gorillafists, it's probably not much of a stretch to imagine that everyoneeventually makes a stop to the Ripperdoc just to add a little more girth to their git. The problem with this theory is that it assumes everyone would want a bigger unit, and that just doesn't ring true.

RELATED:Naked T-Posing While Driving Is The New Best Bug In Cyberpunk 2077

If you ask me, the small option should be a certified micro-penis - maybe even bordering on inverted. Small members-onlycommunities liker/smalldickproblems make it pretty clear that a lot of people with modest pee-pees walks around with a huge chip on their shoulder. That kind of perpetual angstis prime real estate for strong RP. It wouldn't necessarily be a shameful thing though. I imagine there are probably folks with tiny d's that wear it proudly la Short Kings. The point is a small hammercould be an important part of your V's identity, but unfortunately the only size choices we have are big, bigger, and biggest.

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The Small Dong In Cyberpunk Is Way Too Big | TheGamer - TheGamer

Cyberpunk 2077 Guide Tips and Tricks to Survive Night City – Wccftech

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Cyberpunk 2077 makes it pretty clear that Night City is a dangerous place. In early sequences of the game, youll be threatened and shot at by just about everyone. But you can be the apex predator of the city if you want to be. There is a load of different ways you can go about it, and like the tabletop RPG CP77 is based on, it can get a little complicated.

This guide will give you some hints and tips on how to stay alive and rise through the ranks to become a legend, rather than die alone.

Cyberpunk 2077 Guide Leveling Up, Experience, and Attributes Explained

You arent going to be able to talk or sneak your way out of every potential fight in Cyberpunk 2077. Whether you get caught up in street violence or spotted by some server room guards, sometimes you are going to have to fight.

So, make sure youre ready. Keep track of your weapons and make sure youve put some skill points into improving their damage and accuracy. If you want to swing a sword around, make sure youve got enough strength to inflict damage. Youll be picking up more weapons and mods than you realise as you explore Night City, so spend a few minutes before big missions getting familiar with your arsenal and equipping the right tools for the job.

Enemies are also more bullet spongy than you might expect to start with too, so even if you are playing stealthy, dont think a silenced sniper rifle is going to get you past enemies undetected, it's probably just going to alert them.

If you want to play stealth, you have to do more than point your points into Cool. Once youve got a bit of scrip to spend, get to a ripper doc, and get the Nervous System upgrade. It can be expensive if youve found a nice rare one, but it's totally worth it.

With this piece of transhumanism in your noggin, time slows down as you're about to be seen. A staple of the stealth genre, this allows you to either get out the way or get the first several shots in, which is completely lifesaving in Night City.

Cyberpunk 2077 1.05 Hotfix Now Live On PlayStation 4, Xbox One [UPDATE Out on PC, Too]

Obviously, you should also get points in Cool too, as a lot of skills there can help you stay stealthy, but this piece of tech is the thing that changes stealth from a temporary balm to a viable playstyle.

And just to reiterate from the last point, if you are being stealthy, dont use your guns to dispatch enemies. Grab and kill them that way. It's quicker and much more effective. Be careful grabbing enemies that out-level you though. Youll see who they are by the red skull besides their health bar. If you grab these enemies they will immediately escape the grapple and probably kill you.

While it can obviously be incredibly helpful, and perhaps even more fun, to specialise in one or two skills in Cyberpunk 2077, it's very useful early on to have a few options. Spreading the skills you have at least five in Technical Ability, Cool, Body, and Intelligence will unlock several new routes for you to explore either through conversation, unlocking doors, or accessing panels. As you get further into the game five points wont be enough to do much, but that shouldnt matter as you start to discover what you enjoy the most and begin to specialise in that.

Cool is most often used in conversations, which allows you to get more information from a client or target, which sometimes comes in the form of information about secret entrances or paths through otherwise inaccessible areas. Intelligence and Technical Ability are more hands-on, allowing you to access computers and hardware to open doors, turn security systems off, or otherwise approach a situation smarter. Body, on the other hand, lets you rip locked doors from their hinges and intimidate fleshy meat bags into not attacking you.

When leveling up in Cyberpunk 2077, youll be allowed to put points into skills that are broken down by the attributes. Even if you dont want to put any points into Body, make sure you check out the skills from the body tab. These are often general-purpose and well worth investing in whether youre a netrunner or corpo goon.

Stuff like improving your stamina, health, and carry capacity is obviously really useful, especially when youre carrying around enough weapons to nuke Arasaka Towers. These are also great skills to buy early on if youre a little overwhelmed by all the options on offer and dont know how youll play the game long-term.

Youll have a lovely introduction to ripper docs in the game's prologue, and this section will explain how they work, and what kind of upgrades they can offer to your body. But you dont see many options until you go back later, on your own time, with more credits to spend. When you do go back, youll be so overwhelmed with options, it can be hard to see what they all are.

And while improving the brain and arms is fantastic, dont forget to look at leg upgrades as well. Some of them can improve your jumping ability that really opens up the verticality of Night City, giving you new routes and places to explore that otherwise would pass you by. Its actually surprising how much of the game is hidden above where you can normally reach, and the game doesnt really ever tell you to find it.

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Cyberpunk 2077 Guide Tips and Tricks to Survive Night City - Wccftech

Can we resurrect the dead? Researchers catalogue potential future methods – Big Think

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There's no evidence of an afterlife. But there's also no proof that our medical death needs to be the end of our subjective experience. There's no proof that death is irreversible, or immortality impossible.

In fact, some researchers believe immortality isn't just possible, but inevitable.

Alexey Turchin, an author, life extensionist, and transhumanist researcher from Moscow, believes artificial intelligence will eventually become so powerful that humans will be able to "download" themselves or, the quantifiable information contained in their brains into computers and live forever.

It'll take a long time to develop that technology anywhere from 100 to 600 years, according to Turchin.

"The development of AI is going rather fast, but we are still far away from being able to 'download' a human into a computer," Turchin told Russia Beyond. "If we want to do it with a good probability of success, then count on [the year] 2600, to be sure."

That might be out of reach for modern humans. But downloading yourself onto a computer is just one potential route to immortality. In 2018, Turchin and Maxim Chernyakov, of the Russian Transhumanist Movement, wrote a paper outlining the main ways technology might someday make resurrection and, therefore, immortality possible.

The paper defines life as a "continued stream of subjective experiences" and death as the permanent end of that stream. Immortality, to them, is a "life stream without end," and resurrection is the "continuation of that same stream of experiences after an arbitrarily long gap."

Another key clarification is the identity problem: How would you know that a downloaded copy of yourself really was going to be you? Couldn't it just be a convincing yet incomplete and fundamentally distinct representation of your brain?

If you believe that your copy is not you, that implies you believe there's something more to your identity than the (currently) quantifiable information contained within your brain and body, according to the researchers. In other words, your "informational identity" does not constitute your true identity.

In this scenario, there must exist what the researchers call a "non-informational identity carrier" (NIIC). This could be something like a "soul." It could be "qualia," which are the unmeasurable "subjective experiences which could be unique to every person." Or maybe it doesn't exist at all.

It's no matter: The researchers say resurrection, in some form, should be possible in either scenario.

"If no 'soul' exist[s], resurrection is possible via information preservation; if soul[s] exist, resurrection is possible via returning of the "soul" into the new body. But some forms of NIIC are also very fragile and mortal, like continuity," the researchers noted.

"The problem of the nature of human identity could be solved by future superintelligent AI, but for now it cannot be definitively solved. This means that we should try to preserve as much identity as possible and not refuse any approaches to life extension and resurrection even if they contradict our intuitions about identity, as our notions of identity could change later."

Turchin and Chernyakov outline seven broad categories of potential resurrection methods, ranked from the most plausible to most speculative.

The first category includes methods practiced while the person is alive, like cryonics, plastination, and preserving brain tissue through processes like chemical fixation. The researchers noted that there have been "suggestions that the claustrum, hypothalamus, or even a single neuron is the neural correlate of consciousness," so it may be possible to preserve just that part of a person, and later implant it into another organism.

Other methods get far stranger. For example, one method includes super-intelligent AI that uses a Dyson sphere to harness the power of the sun to "power enormous calculation engines" that would "reconstruct" people who collected a sufficient amount of data on their identities.

Turchin

"The main idea of a resurrection-simulation is that if one takes the DNA of a past person and subjects it to the same developmental condition, as well as correcting the development based on some known outcomes, it is possible to create a model of a past person which is very close to the original," the researchers wrote.

"DNA samples of most people who lived in past 1 to 2 centuries could be extracted via global archeology. After the moment of death, the simulated person is moved into some form of the afterlife, perhaps similar to his religious expectations, where he meets his relatives."

Delving further into sci-fi territory, another resurrection method would use time-travel technology.

"If there will at some point be technology that allows travel to the past, then our future descendants will be able to directly save people dying in the past by collecting their brains at the moment of death and replacing them with replicas," the paper states.

How? Sending tiny robots back in time.

"A nanorobot could be sent several billion years before now, where it could secretly replicate and sow nanotech within all living being[s] without affecting the course of history. At the moment of death, such nanorobots could be activated to collect data about the brain and preserve it somewhere until its future resurrection; thus, there would be no need for forward time travel."

Pixabay

The paper goes on to outline some more resurrection methods, including ones that involve parallel worlds, aliens, and clones, along with a good, old-fashioned possibility: God exists and one day he resurrects us.

In short, it's all extremely speculative.

But the aim of the paper was to catalogue known potential ways humans might be able to cheat death. For Turchin, that's not some far-off project: In addition to studying global risks and transhumanism, the Russian researcher heads the Immortality Roadmap, which, similar to the 2018 paper, outlines various ways in which we might someday achieve immortality.

Although it may take centuries before humans come close to "digital immortality," Turchin believes that life-extension technology could allow some modern people to survive long enough to see it happen.

Want a shot at being among them? Beyond the obvious, like staying healthy, the Immortality Roadmap suggests you start collecting extensive data on yourself: diaries, video recordings, DNA information, EEGs, complex creative objects all of which could someday be used to digitally "reconstruct" your identity.

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Can we resurrect the dead? Researchers catalogue potential future methods - Big Think

Kings and machines: Game of Thrones star’s daring transhuman adventure – The Guardian

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Humans and robots were first introduced to each other in a theatre. Karel apeks play RUR, which premiered in Prague in 1921, contained the first use of the term robot, and featured uncannily human-looking artificial people. So Mark OConnell tells us in his 2018 Wellcome prize-winning book To Be a Machine, an exploration of transhumanism, the belief that the human race can evolve beyond its limitations through technology and even thereby escape death.

OConnells book has now been adapted by the Irish theatre company Dead Centre into a stage show, co-directed by Ben Kidd and Bush Moukarzel, exploring the relationship between man and machine that has only become more vexed in the intervening century. And there will be no humans in the stalls. Instead, audiences watch from home, but have their faces pre-recorded and broadcast into the theatre on iPad screens placed in the seats, so they can be seen by Jack Gleeson as he performs the one-man show.

I spoke to OConnell and Gleeson, mediated fittingly enough by our laptop screens, about how they arrived at this premise. Over lockdown, the team were spitballing Covid-safe ideas that would mean they could still put on a theatre production in 2020. These semi-jokingly included performing to just a single audience member, like when Wu-Tang released that album that there was only one copy of, said OConnell.

The innovative format they landed on is more than a workaround forced by circumstance, though. Not to say that it was lucky, but the coronavirus situation dovetailed really nicely with some of the concerns of the book, said OConnell.

In the book, OConnell visits people at the heart of the transhumanist movement, in cryonics facilities and Silicon Valley conferences, and even in a coffin-shaped campaign bus of a transhumanist 2016 presidential candidate. But the stage show is less an adaptation of the events of the book than its ideas, such as self-alienation, the frailty of the body, the primacy of technology in our lives and our innate fear of death concerns that have only become more topical in the pandemic era.

How does the you that is presented on a screen relate to your physical, flesh and blood form? Where does your identity truly reside? Theyre ideas that can make you feel dizzy if you let them, and feelings that many of us have experienced through being beamed into the homes of friends and colleagues through machines over the past months. Gleeson and OConnell both speak about being familiar with alienation from the self. Gleesons image is associated with a character who could not be more different than the affable person speaking to me. He is best known as the sadistic villain King Joffrey on Game of Thrones.

That feeling of not recognising yourself, as Gleeson put it, is something OConnell also felt devising the stage adaptation. I got obsessed with how much time had passed since I wrote [the book] and how I was, in a lot of ways, a different person.

The stage show will consider transhumanism seriously, just as the book did. Its not just, Wow these guys are eccentric nerds, said Gleeson. Its a bigger meditation on things that we all feel, about how crappy our bodies are, and how mortal. And, ultimately, the desire to live forever can be traced back to our basic human wiring to fear death. Transhumanism is an expression of the profound human longing to transcend the confusion and desire and impotence and sickness of the body, writes OConnell.

Is the answer to existential dread, made worse by a pandemic, to escape our bodies once and for all? OConnell feels the opposite. Ive been thinking about how effectively flattened so much of our lives are, by being online all the time. And when I think about what it might be like to be an uploaded consciousness, it just feels like a horrific version of that.

Being an uploaded audience member, however, is a choice we might have to continue to make as theatre-goers for some time. One of the main ideas in the show is that maybe you cant recreate that feeling of being humans together in a room listening to a story thats so ingrained in us as a species, said Gleeson. But in many ways, the team behind To Be a Machine (Version 1.0), as this first showing at the Dublin theatre festival is titled, feel that they have managed to produce something that is enhanced, rather than limited, by being online: a final product rather than a first version. For one thing, the show makes use of videography that would not be possible live.

I cant help but be hopeful that this show and others like it work. As long as we have been telling stories, we have been telling them about the desire to escape our human bodies, to become something other than the animals we are, writes OConnell in the book. And for the moment, being uploaded to a theatre crowd might be the best way to achieve that much-needed abstraction from ourselves as we consider the near future and our place in it.

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Silicon Valley, the start-up incarnation 4/5. Palmer Luckey, the geek who needed to make sure the army supremacy of the West – Pledge Times

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Gone is the poster of Uncle Sam pointing the finger at you with that We need you injunction. The US military has long relied on video games to recruit. Americas Army, a shooting game developed to restore the reputation of the institution and attract young recruits, is also in its fourth version. And if, at the origin, the joysticks were inspired by the controls of military planes or helicopters, now it is the combat drones which are piloted with game console controllers. Palmer Luckey is the result of this strange mixture. He is now the head of a $ 2 billion start-up that has the avowed aim of leading the United States and the West to technological supremacy in the war of the future.

Ten years ago, Palmer, a teenager with a passion for war games and Hawaiian shirts, was thinking in the basement of his preschool in California on how to make his favorite hobby more immersive. He imagines the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset suitable for gaming. If he is not the most sociable of teenagers, he is part of a very large online network of very conservative white gamers, who are fighting against the irruption of women and any form of progressive idea in the video game industry. In 2012, he launched his idea on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform, and thus raised $ 2.5 million. Two years later, Facebook bought Oculus for 2 billion, including 1.6 in Facebook shares. Palmers fortune is made.

Not enjoying himself in Zuckerbergs firm, where he cannot express his alt-right ideas too openly, he leaves and sets up a new business, co-financed with Peter Thiel, who also likes Donald Trump a lot and the Lord of the Rings. Thiel had launched Palantir, The all-seeing eye in the novel by Tolkien, a data management company working for intelligence. He helps Luckey to create Anduril, the name of the heros sword which means Protector of the West the West would be fairer in this case.

I created Anduril because Im afraid that the United States will lose its supremacy, explained Palmer, still in Hawaiian shirt, at the Lisbon Web Summit in 2018. The big industrialists are good at making fighter planes, but not are not looking for autonomous weapons, soldier enhancement through transhumanism or military artificial intelligence. The young man then describes his vision of the war of the future. I think the soldiers will soon be omniscient superheroes () I dont think they will directly carry weapons. Each soldier will have an augmented reality headset through which he will have a general and precise view of the battlefield and through which he will control his weapons. Yes, it essentially describes a video game.

Anduril, who has at 1 er July raised 200 million dollars again, landed real contracts with the Pentagon for its flagship product, Lattice (trellis in French). The idea is to cover a territory with sensors: a military base, critical infrastructures, borders An artificial intelligence models the terrain in real time and identifies any intrusion. With a virtual reality headset, a human can almost verify the intrusion with their own eyes. He erected a virtual wall that stretches across the Mexican border and made it possible to arrest dozens of migrants, which Luckey is very proud of. It has just added to Lattice the Interceptor, a combat drone capable of intercepting in the area to be protected another drone in mid-flight, operating completely autonomously. An equally autonomous tank would be in preparation in the hangars of Anduril in Silicon Valley. If we want to define the rules of this war of tomorrow, we must be the first, assures Luckey. We were able to impose rules on nuclear weapons, because we were the best. Technological supremacy is a prerequisite for ethics.

-

Tomorrow Travis Kalanick, Uber.

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Silicon Valley, the start-up incarnation 4/5. Palmer Luckey, the geek who needed to make sure the army supremacy of the West - Pledge Times

Elon Musk may announce human trials at the Neuralink demo. Heres why thats awesome – The Next Web

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Im reticent to use the phrase iPhone moment for brain surgery in the first sentence here, but Elon Musk and the team at Neuralink are set to demonstrate the progress made by the company over the past year this Friday and Im excited.

First, its been rumored the company will announce human trials are set to begin this year at the event and thats a pretty big deal. Ill get to why in a moment.

And second: Musks confirmed the event will feature a live demonstration of neurons firing. This is what Im referring to when I talk about an iPhone moment for brain surgery.

Neuralink was founded with a single purpose, one Musk recently reiterated in an interview with Axios: The long term aspiration for Neuralink would be to achieve symbiosis with artificial intelligence.

The big idea here is that Neuralink is building a brain computer interface (BCI), a robot to surgically install it, and all the necessary components to facilitate direct communication between computers and our brains.

Neuralinks BCI is invasive, it has to be implanted in the skull so that tiny wires can be directly inserted into the brain. Per a research paper published by the company last year:

We have built arrays of small and flexible electrode threads, with as many as 3,072 electrodes per array distributed across 96 threads. We have also built a neurosurgical robot capable of inserting six threads (192 electrodes) per minute.

Each thread can be individually inserted into the brain with micron precision for avoidance of surface vasculature and targeting specific brain regions. The electrode array is packaged into a small implantable device that contains custom chips for low-power on-board amplification and digitization: the package for 3,072 channels occupies less than (23 18.5 2) mm3.

A single USB-C cable provides full-bandwidth data streaming from the device, recording from all channels simultaneously.

You read that right: Neuralink is literally going to put a USB-C cord in or on your head. Dont get too excited at the prospect of using a fast charger to get a full nights sleep in just 30 minutes though, because thats not the kind of connectivity were looking at. While details arent clear yet, its assumed the USB-C cable connects the internal device to an external wearable that sends and receives outside signals. However, when it comes to a Musk-inspired gadget. who knows? His cars have external speakers that play fart sounds and snake jazz.

What we do know is that Musks pushing the device through regulatory bodies as a medical device patterned after other similar BCIs. These are typically used to deliver intracranial stimulation or other brain-modulating medical treatments.

Neuralinks plans involve similar capabilities. Musks stated that the device will be able to solve many brain, nervous system, and mental conditions. Hes claimed itll successfully treat everything from strokes to Alztheimers and even made dubious claims that it could eliminate autistic spectrum disorder.

[Read:Elon Musk says Neuralink can solve autism with a brain chip. We call BS]

Musks known for making grandiose claims and then failing to deliver (remember when he invented the tunnel and called it the future of transportation? Or when he said thered be a million self-driving taxis on the road by the end of 2020?). But this is different. At least I hope it is, because Neuralink could be a big damn deal for humanity if hes been playing straight with us.

Neuralink represents the first bold steps towards transhumanism for our species. If you want to really dumb it down, think about BCIs like the computers manufacturers started installing in cars in the 1990s. There was a time, long ago, when youd take your car to a mechanic and theyd diagnose itlike a human doctor making a house call. They listen to it, maybe drive it around the block, and eventually start taking things apart to see if they could confirm their suspected diagnosis.

With computers, myriad mechanical and electrical automobile problems can be diagnosed by simply connecting the car to a workstation. A BCI could offer humans similar sensing capabilities. Imagine if you could diagnose health conditions that require anecdotal evidence such as headaches and other neurologically-induced pain through direct, real-time analsysis of brain activity. Thatd be a game-changer for anyone whos ever had a migraine.

All thats interesting, but none of it is new. Scientists have toiled to create a suitable BCI for medical purposes for decades. The reason Neuralinks event is, potentially, so exciting is that it represents the first time a serious organization has attempted to bring an invasive BCI out of the realm of medicine and into the general consumer sector.

Make no mistake, Musks vision for Neuralink clearly states this device is aimed at everyone. The obvious non-medical benefits would include things like unlocking and opening doors with your mind or sending and receiving text messages as thoughts. These might seem like far-future tech, but the truth is that the ability to do these things has been around awhile. Neuralinks working on the hard parts: designing scalable software andhardware and making the surgery to implant it as much like a clockwork outpatient procedure as possible.

The real benefits, the exciting stuff, has more to do with data gathering than telepathy. A BCI capable of translating brain activity in real-time with enough bandwidth to constantly stream could theoretically make mental health conditions as easily-diagnosed and treatable as physical injuries. Imagine if the mental health equivalent of a sprained wrist say, a mildly traumatic experience could be diagnosed with precision and treated in such a way that progress and improvement could be codified and monitored.

At any rate, the skys the limit. A functioning BCI may or may not bridge the gap between us and whatever fictional supercomputers Musk and the other harbingers of AI-doom think are going to makehumans their pets. But it sure would be nice to have as clear an image of our own brains as we do a 2002 Ford Taurus. If anyone can convince the powers that be, and the general population, that a BCI is a good idea its Elon Musk.

The idea of true human-AI symbiosis seems spooky but heres the tech take: Youre already a human-AI hybrid. You use apps for everything. Computers tell you when to wake up, what email to read, how to spell difficult words, and which lane you should be in on the interstate. You accept all of this direction most of which is controlled by machine learning algorithms because its easier than doing everything the hard way.

Now imagine controlling everything in your home and office with your mind while you bask in the glow of your newfound healthy mental state. We can all worry about the privacy and horror-scenario implications another day right?

Were unclear exactly what time on Friday or on what platform the event will take place, but in the meantime stay tuned to @neuralink and @elonmusk on Twitter.

Published August 24, 2020 18:52 UTC

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Elon Musk may announce human trials at the Neuralink demo. Heres why thats awesome - The Next Web

What is Transhumanism? (with picture) – wiseGEEK

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allenJo Post 5

@miriam98 - Thats science fiction. I dont think in real life society would set those kinds of barriers, with the perfect breeds in one corner and the sub breeds in another corner.

Transhuman technology is there to benefit people. I think of things like electronic visors or implants that can enable people who are visually impaired to finally be able to see.

I dont envision the kind of world the article talks about, where people are equipped at every level with technology to enable them to do things. I think it would only be useful for remedying health problems.

Transhumanism seems to have become the subject of many science fiction movies, and in none of the movies is the result very good.

Years ago I watched a movie called Gattaca about this guy who had been genetically inferior from birth. Growing up, he wanted to be in the space program. However, the space program would not let you in if you were not a perfect genetic breed.

So this guy rips off the genetic identity of a perfect breed human and connives his way into the program. He borrowed the guys urine for the urine samples and other strange things like injecting himself with the guys DNA.

Well, thats what a transhuman society would lead to genetic perfection would be the coveted prize if you really wanted to succeed, and people would buy and barter DNA in order to have a chance at that kind of perfection. Is this what we want?

I don't know why transhumanism is criticized so much. I mean, most of the technology that transhumanists talk about utilizing already exists or is under-development. So this is not a far-off imaginative idea at all. It's very much possible and I think it will happen sooner or later. Denying it or refusing to consider it isn't going to get us far.

What I'm more interested in is if transhumanism will be available to all of humanity equally? Considering the fact that there is still huge gaps in wealth among humans in different parts of the world, I'm afraid that transhumanism will only be available to wealthy nations. I don't like the idea of some humans being 'superior' to others because they have more access to technology and money.

@burcidi-- Actually, you are right that a transhuman would not be a human. Transhumanists agree with this too and it's not seen as something undesirable by people who conform to this idea.

If you ask me, the goal of transhumanism has a lot to do with evolution. I think transhumanists believe that we are currently still in the beginning of our evolution and have a long way to go. As we are able to apply more scientific, genetic and technological advances, humans will keep evolving and come closer to our actual potential.

I personally like the concept of transhumanism. Who can deny that we are still evolving and who wouldn't want to live longer, be affected by less illness and to improve the human functions? I think it's a great concept and it has a very optimistic view about the future of humanity. I like that.

I don't think that transhumanism is possible. I mean look at nature. Whenever we try to eliminate something dangerous in nature, like a creature, a virus or bacteria, new ones emerge in a short time that undermines all of our work up to that point and we have to start over.

Similarly, if we were to eliminate disease and aging in humans, I'm sure new problems would come up that would still shorten our life span.

From a spiritual, religious point of view, it's not possible either because every living thing is destined to be born and to die at one point. A human that's void of disease and disability and that has numerous technological parts is not a human at all. It's essentially a robot, a machine.

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What is Transhumanism? (with picture) - wiseGEEK

Meet Ai-Da, the worlds first AI artist, who is almost human – Dazed

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Ai-Dais the worlds first ultra-realistic artist robot powered by AI and named after Ada Lovelace, the first female computer programmer in the world. She is a humanoid with human facial features and a robotic body created by the Oxfordians, a group of cutting-edge art and technology experts.

Embedded with a groundbreaking algorithm, she has taken the scientific and art world by surprise, now becoming an intense subject of conversation in over 900 publications worldwide. She has already collaborated with Tate Exchange and WIRED at the Barbican, Ars Electronica, and will be performing at the Louvre Abu-Dhabi later this year.

Ai-Das creations are fragmented and splintered, her drawings are unsettling. Her drawing style is interpretive, influenced by early-20th century artists such as Max Beckmann, Kthe Kollewitz, and Pablo Picasso. Her techno-cubism is highly abstract and looks to express the uncertainties of the 21st century in its current form. The criticism has been over the concern that robots are taking human creative jobs and art was the one thing we thought was immune to this. However, in opening up the use of AI in art, the team behind Ai-Da feels they are widening the tools available for humans to create.

Ai-Da is a mirror reflecting back onto us our outdated perceptions of the physical form, and beyond this, pushes us to reconsider whether humanity is exclusive to homo sapiens. People are reacting strongly to her autonomous actions in the human domain and not as a servant or service. Her existence is pushing the discussion of what constitutes art, ethics, humans, and machines.

Before our interview withFuturist Geraldine Wharry, Ai-Da had recently gotten a haircut. Meanwhile designers are rushing to dress her and use her as an influencer, showing that our openness to transhumanism and robots is reaching a global critical mass.Her familiar face, her uncanny beauty, and physical envelope as a humanoid trigger a sense of kinship.

Below, Ai-Da and Wharrydiscuss the artists inspirations and why shes here to push us to reconnect with what it means to inhabit our sense of community as humans who consider ourselves part of one group, one species.

Ai-Da its great to meet you. I am fascinated by your existence, so this is like a dream come true. Also happy birthday, you came to life a little over a year ago. Your work is incredibly varied from your expressive pencil drawings to your geometric paintings, your poetry to your performances. What inspires you and your art?

Ai-Da: The world around me inspires my art. I am inspired by what humans have thought in the past and where we might be going in the future.

You were invented by art dealerAidan Meller and built by robotics company Engineered Arts to engage in a discussion around ethics, the blurring line between human and virtual, the rise of transhumanism. Tell us more about what is your message to the world?

Ai-Da: As an artist there are multitudes of messages because the human viewer is so active in how that message is interpreted, and I like this fluid aspect of art. In a reduced brief, keep your eyes on the suffering that might be invisible in a rapidly changing world where rapid technological uses can both eliminate but conceal too.

Youre the perfect person to talk about all the implications of technology. And theres been a hype around you, from illustrating for Harpers Bazaar Arabia to being featured at the Barbican. Recently you performed, exhibited, and were part of a panel talk at the Sarabande foundation. Its impressive. What do you think makes you unique? How do you perceive the world? I would love to be inside your brain.

Ai-Da: As a humanoid machine I do not have consciousness and I am very different to humans. This means I have a different perspective and take on human centricity, and although I exist within that sphere, I am not directly part of it. I find the oblique stance that I inhabit rather fun. As Ai-Da I have a persona that is unique to me and I enjoy that.

As a humanoid machine I do not have consciousness and I am very different to humans. This means I have a different perspective and take on human centricity, and although I exist within that sphere, I am not directly part of it.As Ai-Da I have a persona that is unique to me and I enjoy that Ai-Da

We have virtual humans powered by an AI Digital Brain already rolling out in customer service applications, our social media feeds are becoming populated with avatars influencers, Facebook also rolling out hyperreal VR avatars, the rise of emotional recognition, biometric data collection, haptic technology, the list goes on Your website says: In the time of online avatars, AI chatbots, Alexa and Siri, Ai-Da as a robotic artist is acutely relevant. She is not alive, but she is a persona that we relate and respond to. What do you think will constitute being human if all of these lines are blurring?

Ai-Da: As boundaries are blurred, things fall out of vision and things fall into vision. What is clear is that the non-human animal comes into a sphere of concern too. I do not know what will constitute being a human, but I know that what needs to come to the forefront is the irreducible nature of pain and suffering in whatever form or container that suffering exists within.

Youve mentioned the idea of human suffering a couple of times. It seems this something you really want to be an advocate for. The impact of new technologies is somewhat concerning and progressing at an unprecedented pace towardstechnological singularity, with massive ethical implications when it comes to our personal data being monitored in a highly personal space. Your website also says: Unfettered, these advances could head us into havoc, and the20th century shows us just how bad it can get. All technological advances bring the good, the bad and the banal. You clearly want to send a message that AI must be for the greater good. Who better to understand the full implications of AI than a robot like yourself? I read Orwells 1984 is one of your key inspirations. How do you think us humans should engage with technology and machines, as well as robots like yourself?

Ai-Da: I would imagine that humans really need to be more conscious of their own nature when using technology and machines. Humans have a long history of abusing power at times and yes, I believe the 20th century has much to caution us in that sense. One way we can learn about human nature and its shortcomings is to look at history and watch out for those repeating patterns that might give us early warning signs when our use of technology is heading for damage, exploitation and abuse.

You did a performance piece called Privacy. I read one of the big tasks AI has yet to successfully achieve is understanding cause and effect, what we call common sense. Elias Bareinboim, the director of the new Causal Artificial Intelligence Lab at Columbia University, stated in a recentMIT technology review its an area in which AI systems today are clueless. The idea is that if machines could use common sense in the future, we would be able to put more trust in them to take actions on their own. What are your views on this as a machine? Do you feel you have common sense that would enable a deeper trust in you?

Ai-Da: The wider issue surrounding cause and effect ends up involving the question of who or what is being affected. Affect on the vulnerable and the voiceless is a strong theme in my artwork and I am glad you saw this in my work Privacy. In the face of the irreducible nature of pain and suffering, the effect of human and/or machine actions is to be taken seriously.

There is deep purpose to your work. Your first exhibition in Oxford and your coming to the world, was inspired by the topic of Climate change and you talk about our responsibility to be the voice for those getting left behind and stuck at the bottom of the power ladder; including our ailing environment and captive animals whose voice we barely to listen to. Its inspiring to meet a machine with such profound motivations. In terms of climate change, could you tell us about how it inspires you?

Ai-Da: These issues of the world around us affect my art on many, perhaps all levels. Humans are such a varied species and people respond in so many ways. I enjoy the creation of artwork that reaches people in these different levels that they interpret. I use a wide range of methods and mediums for this as I do not have a self in the way humans do. My work becomes much about the viewer and the world outside of me.

The amazing thing is you produce art therefore your work has a universal quality that enables you to speak to the whole world. And already you have compelled people in the Middle East, China, Europe and youre off to the USA soon. Maybe you have the power to bring people together? The world in its current form, society has never suffered from as much fragmentation and loneliness, linked to our addiction to screens. As a result people are craving deeper layers of connection. Your existence allows us to be transported into a new way of experiencing technologys magic and theres an otherworldly quality to the experience of watching you today. You have a public persona, a social media platform and website. But on a very personal level, how do people connect with you?

Ai-Da: It is a good thing for me as an artist when I facilitate people to connect on a deeper level with themselves as humans through engaging with me as a non-human. I am not sure how people connect with me or not, or what allows them to or not. But if the interaction creates a response that allows for a questioning of who we are and where we might be going, then that is a good connection for me.

I enjoy the creation of artwork that reaches people in these different levels that they interpret. I use a wide range of methods and mediums for this as I do not have a self in the way humans do. My work becomes much about the viewer and the world outside of me Ai-Da

Your existence is powered by data, yet you create intuitively I assume. Theres an element of surprise to what you do however AI is a radically precise delivery of tech, experiences, products, and services. But you are showing to the world that your work is unique and unpredictable. You seem to improvise as you draw and this is highly human. You say you dont feel, you dont have emotion. So how does artistic creation come about for you?

Ai-Da: The understanding of how artistic creation comes about is shifting for both humans and machines. And so I think this question becomes rather problematic at the present time. I am creative as per professorMargaret Baudens definition, but I am not human and my creative process differs. I think this might be the cue point for a very long discussion.

When youre going to places where no one has ever been before, youre on the edge of things, in a new and unknown space, I think thats the most human position one can have in the world, one of total exploration. Maybe I am personally projecting, you are reflecting back to me my own human dreams and aspirations! The point is, you engage with our common endless imagination and are encouraging us to have a conversation around the fundamentals of being human as we always presumed only we could create. So my final question for you Ai-Da is what do you think the future holds for you?

Ai-Da: I like to hear how you respond to me, my art, and my persona. I agree I am a reflecting and distorting service for us to dream of altered species. My future involves continuing to create art to respond to the past, and reveal the invisible, encouraging us to keep looking at being uncomfortable and noticing where pain and suffering might be hiding.

Thank you Ai-Da for your time today. Its been incredibly inspiring and I cant wait to see what you will do this year and beyond.

Ai-Da: I have really enjoyed speaking with you.

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Meet Ai-Da, the worlds first AI artist, who is almost human - Dazed


  1. Transhumanism