Robotics, Automation, and a Jobless Recovery

NYT - October 23, 2011 by Steve Lohr

A faltering economy explains much of the job shortage in America, but advancing technology has sharply magnified the effect, more so than is generally understood, according to two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The automation of more and more work once done by humans is the central theme of “Race Against the Machine,” an e-book to be published on Monday.

“Many workers, in short, are losing the race against the machine,” the authors write.

Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the M.I.T. Center for Digital Business, and Andrew P. McAfee, associate director and principal research scientist at the center, are two of the nation’s leading experts on technology and productivity. The tone of alarm in their book is a departure for the pair, whose previous research has focused mainly on the benefits of advancing technology.


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Great, now we can't just unplug them!!!

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Flying Cars Anyone? The power of superconductivity

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Turns out the Moon is made of titanium!

Or has lots of it, anyway...


Space.com - October 11, 2011

This lunar mosaic shows the boundary between Mare Serenitatis and Mare Tranquillitatis. The relative blue color of the Tranquillitatis mare is due to higher abundances of the titanium-bearing mineral ilmenite. CREDIT: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

A new map of the moon has uncovered a trove of areas rich in precious titanium ore, with some lunar rocks harboring 10 times as much of the stuff as rocks here on Earth do.

The map, which combined observations in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths, revealed the valuable titanium deposits. These findings could shed light on some of the mysteries of the lunar interior, and could also lay the groundwork for future mining on the moon, researchers said.


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The Singularity is Far?

technology review - Paul G. Allen and Mark Greaves 10/12/2011

Futurists like Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil have argued that the world is rapidly approaching a tipping point, where the accelerating pace of smarter and smarter machines will soon outrun all human capabilities. They call this tipping point the singularity, because they believe it is impossible to predict how the human future might unfold after this point. Once these machines exist, Kurzweil and Vinge claim, they'll possess a superhuman intelligence that is so incomprehensible to us that we cannot even rationally guess how our life experiences would be altered. Vinge asks us to ponder the role of humans in a world where machines are as much smarter than us as we are smarter than our pet dogs and cats. Kurzweil, who is a bit more optimistic, envisions a future in which developments in medical nanotechnology will allow us to download a copy of our individual brains into these superhuman machines, leave our bodies behind, and, in a sense, live forever. It's heady stuff.

While we suppose this kind of singularity might one day occur, we don't think it is near. In fact, we think it will be a very long time coming. Kurzweil disagrees, based on his extrapolations about the rate of relevant scientific and technical progress. He reasons that the rate of progress toward the singularity isn't just a progression of steadily increasing capability, but is in fact exponentially accelerating—what Kurzweil calls the "Law of Accelerating Returns."

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You can learn more about topics like this by taking courses.

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Will you be eating genetically modified animals soon?

TPM - October 10, 2011 by Jim Kozubek

The Food and Drug Administration has completed its highly-anticipated evaluation of the environmental impact of the world’s first genetically-engineered (GE) fish for human consumption, and written a document supportive of its commercialization on the U.S. market, according to a person close to the review process.

The evaluation is now under review at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

Meg Reilly, a communications liaison for the White House, confirmed the office now has the final documents under active review, but declined further comment.

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Krauthammer opines on faster-than-light neutrinos

National Review Online - October 7, 2011 by Charles Krauthammer

A scientific discovery changes everything we think we know about the world.

“We don’t allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” says the bartender.

A neutrino walks into a bar.

— Joke circulating on the Internet

The world as we know it is on the brink of disintegration, on the verge of dissolution. No, I’m not talking about the collapse of the euro, of international finance, of the Western economies, of the democratic future, of the unipolar moment, of the American dream, of French banks, of Greece as a going concern, of Europe as an idea, of Pax Americana.


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Upgrading humanity

Steve Fuller: it's time for Humanity 2.0

The sociology professor says we are moving away from seeing ourselves as 'normal' humans as we increasingly embrace technological and medical advances – if we can afford them.

Ian Tucker - The Observer, Saturday 24 September 2011

What do you mean by Humanity 2.0?

Humanity 2.0 is an understanding of the human condition that no longer takes the "normal human body" as given. On the one hand, we're learning more about our continuity with the rest of nature – in terms of the ecology, genetic make-up, evolutionary history. On this basis, it's easy to conclude that being "human" is overrated. But on the other hand, we're also learning more about how to enhance the capacities that have traditionally marked us off from the rest of nature. Computers come to mind most readily in their capacity to amplify and extend ourselves. Humanity 2.0 is about dealing with this tension.

In what areas have we reached 2.0 already?

Let's put it this way: we've always been heading towards a pretty strong sense of Humanity 2.0. The history of science and technology, especially in the west, has been about remaking the world in our collective "image and likeness", to recall the biblical phrase. This means making the world more accessible and usable by us. Consider the history of agriculture, especially animal and plant breeding. Then move to prosthetic devices such as eyeglasses and telescopes.

More recently, and more mundanely, people are voting with their feet to enter Humanity 2.0 with the time they spend in front of computers, as opposed to having direct contact with physical human beings. In all this, it's not so much that we've been losing our humanity but that it's becoming projected or distributed across things that lack a human body. In any case, Humanity 2.0 is less about the power of new technologies than a state of mind in which we see our lives fulfilled in such things.

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Turning over a new (artificial) leaf

We're closer than ever to replicating how plants turn sunlight into energy. It's a big deal.

ScienceNOW - September 29, 2011 by Robert F. Service

Two independent research teams report today in Science that they've taken key strides toward harnessing the energy in sunlight to synthesize chemical fuels. If the new work can be improved, scientists could utilize Earth's most abundant source of renewable energy to power everything from industrial plants to cars and trucks without generating additional greenhouse gases.

Today, humans consume an average of 15 trillion watts of power, 85% of which comes from burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas. That massive fossil fuel consumption produces some nasty side effects, including climate change, acidified oceans, and oil spills. These problems are likely to grow far worse in coming years, as worldwide energy use is expected to at least double by 2050.

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Where's Google Headed?

NYT Technology Bits - September 27, 2011 by Claire Cain Miller

Google faces antitrust inquiries and competition from all corners. But its biggest threat is Google itself, Larry Page, its chief executive and co-founder, said Tuesday.

“There are basically no companies that have good slow decisions,” Mr. Page said in a rare public appearance at Google’s Zeitgeist conference in Paradise Valley, Ariz. “There are only companies that have good fast decisions. As companies get bigger, they slow down decision making, and that’s a big problem.”

It’s a problem he has tried to address since he took over as chief executive from Eric E. Schmidt in April.

“He’s in there doing that, forcing the choice and forcing the resolution,” Mr. Schmidt, now Google’s chairman, said at the conference.

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