First, a quick overview of the Three Laws. As stated by Asimov in his 1942 short story “Runaround”:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

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The Future of War Post-Crimea http://www.21stcentech.com/future-war-post-crimea/

The State or Lack Thereof of Fusion http://www.21stcentech.com/energy-update-state-lack-thereof-fusion/

NASA Working on Robot to Mine Materials for Off-World Habitats http://www.21stcentech.com/space-update-nasa-working-robot-miner/

Clean Freshwater Gets Help from Plant Xylem Filter http://www.21stcentech.com/gizmos-gadgets-clean-freshwater-plant-xylem-filter/

Great Unsung Science Fiction Authors That Everybody Should Read http://io9.com/great-unsung-science-fiction-authors-that-eve…socialflow

5 most incredible discoveries of the week http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/03/29/newser-most-in…s/7050211/

State of Global Security and Aerospace: The Industry That’s Creating the Future https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140325101935&#…the-future

Yale researchers reconstruct facial images locked in a viewer’s mind http://news.yale.edu/2014/03/25/yale-researchers-reconstruct…wer-s-mind

Silicon Valley Never Talks About The Real Reason You Don’t Own A Smart Watch Or ‘Wearable Tech’ http://www.businessinsider.com/the-biggest-challenges-in-wea…2014-3

Wearable tech users consider themselves early adopters http://www.bizreport.com/2014/03/wearable-tech-users-conside…pters.html

Sony’s Digital Paper: A Bit Like Paper, a Lot Like $1,100 http://gizmodo.com/sonys-digital-paper-a-bit-like-paper-a-lo…1553493800

Facebook and Google in tech cold war http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/26/technology/innovation/facebook-google/index.html

25 Futuristic Technologies For The Year 2050 http://boredfactory.com/blog/cool-25-futuristic-technologies…-2050.html

Europe’s Answer To the Space Shuttle Is Almost Ready For Prime Time http://io9.com/europes-answer-to-the-space-shuttle-is-almost-ready-fo-1549019339

10 Real Technologies That Look Insanely Futuristic http://io9.com/10-real-technologies-that-look-insanely-futuristic-1156180204/all

Scientists just took a major step toward making life from scratch http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/27/5553044/first-functional-eukaryotic-chromosome

Lockheed Martin opens new laboratory facility http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2014/03/2…395779157/

The Future of the Internet of Things [infographic] http://dailyinfographic.com/the-future-of-the-internet-of-things-infographic

Quantum mechanics may lead to ultra-secure Internet http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20140326-quantum-m…e-internet

Switching an antibiotic on and off with light http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140321094849.htm

This Is What a Facial-Detection Algorithm Looks Like in 3D http://www.nextgov.com/big-data/2014/03/what-facial-detectio…ng-HPriver

Meetings and Conventions 2030: A study of megatrends shaping our industry http://www.gcb.de/en/meetings-and-conventions-2030:-a-study-…r-industry

Will ‘Smart Drugs’ Really Make Us Smarter, or Just Ruin Our Lives? http://www.vice.com/read/nootropics-smart-drugs

Cholesterol transporter structure decoded http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140321095342.htm

New infrared technique aims to remotely detect dangerous materials http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140321101742.htm

Google Glass University Course Aims to Revolutionise Journalism http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/google-glass-university-course-aims…sm-1442089

The Economist: Charting world GDP http://720investor.com/video/the-economist-charting-world-gdp.html

Doctors Are About to Start Human Trials for Suspended Animation http://gizmodo.com/surgeons-are-about-to-start-human-trials-…1552062924

Facebook, Google, And Sony Are Getting Ready To Fight A Cyberpunk War http://www.fastcodesign.com/3027921/facebook-google-and-sony…erpunk-war

Will we ever… travel in wormholes? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140326-will-we-ever-travel-in-wormholes

New Alaska Wind Turbine Literally Up in the Air http://www.21stcentech.com/energy-update-alaska-wind-turbine-literally-air/

U.S. Navy’s Robot Firefighters Prepare for a Test Run http://mashable.com/2014/03/20/navy-robots-firefighters/

Researchers 3D print micro trusses as strong as steel, lighter than water http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247189/Researchers_3…than_water

The Future of Robotics http://www.futureforall.org/robotics/robotics.htm

The American Dream meets the robot future http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/american-dream-meets-robo…-1.1734639

Quantum Research Shows D-Wave’s Computers Are (Probably) the Real Deal http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=145854&trk=my_groups-b-grp-v

Exxon to Account to Shareholders for Potential Unburnable Assets http://www.21stcentech.com/headlines-exxon-account-sharehold…le-assets/

IBM predicts five big tech innovations coming by 2015 http://www.i-free.com/en/industry/hi-tech/3251

Mind Reading Comes One Step Closer To Reality With The Glass Brain http://www.fastcocreate.com/3027904/mind-reading-comes-one-s…lass-brain

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Vote For The Design Of NASA’s Next Spacesuit http://offworld.gizmodo.com/you-can-decide-how-the-nasas-nex…/+gmanaugh

10 Technological Breakthroughs Of 2014 That Could Change The World http://www.businessinsider.com/technological-breakthroughs-2014-3

Artificial Biological Life Achieved. First synthetic yeast chromosome revealed.  http://www.nature.com/news/first-synthetic-yeast-chromosome-revealed-1.14941

First comprehensive atlas of human gene activity released http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-comprehensive-atlas-of-human…y-released

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Bio-printing tissues for cheaper, faster drug testing http://www.kurzweilai.net/bio-printing-tissues-for-cheaper-faster-drug-testing

The bioretrosynthesis solution: shifting evolution into reverse to make cheaper drugs http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-bioretrosynthesis-solution-shi…aper-drugs

Simulated human liver achieved in ‘benchtop human’ project http://www.kurzweilai.net/simulated-human-liver-achieved-in-…an-project

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A better way to make muscle cells from human stem cells http://www.kurzweilai.net/researchers-discover-new-way-to-ma…stem-cells

MRI technique reveals genes’ roles in learning and memory http://www.kurzweilai.net/mri-technique-reveals-genes-roles-…and-memory

Multi-party quantum communication now possible, physicists demonstrate http://www.kurzweilai.net/multi-party-quantum-communication-…emonstrate

MIT engineers design hybrid living/nonliving materials http://www.kurzweilai.net/mit-engineers-design-hybrid-livingnonliving-materials

Regards,

Mr. Andres Agostini

Risk-Management Scientific Futurist and Entrepreneurial Success Consultant

http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Every year, more than 46,000 square miles of arable land turns to desert. As deserts spread–a process that keeps moving faster thanks to climate change and practices like clear-cutting–the UN estimates that more than 1 billion people will be directly affected. Many of them, living in places like Northern Africa and rural China, are already struggling with poverty, so the loss of farmland would be especially hard to handle.

One potential answer: An enormous mobile oasis that roams over drylands planting seeds. The Green Machine, originally designed by Malka Architecture and Yachar Bouhaya Architecture for the Venice Biennale, may some day be rolling around the borders of the Sahara Desert holding back the dust and sand.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3028173/this-enormous-rolling-cit…esertp://” target=“_blank”>Read More

People are always joking about our robot overlords, but before robots become the world’s rulers, they’re probably going to be our bosses at work first. Either way, it’s important to know how pliable we humans are going to be.

Researchers at the University of Manitoba were curious about how far people would go in obeying the commands of a robot, so they designed an experiment that echoes Stanley Milgram’s infamous obedience studies, in which many participants obeyed an authority figure who told them to administer painful electrical shocks to strangers.

Substitute a small but slightly evil-sounding humanoid robot for the lab-coated researcher, and give the participants a really, really boring task rather than a morally fraught one, and you have the set up below. It’s actually a little uncomfortable to watch.

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In the coming weeks, the net widened to include caches of assault rifles, a Mexico-bound 18-wheeler with drug money hidden in fresh produce, and a crooked Texas sheriff who helped traffic narcotics through his county. In Mexico City, a financier was arrested for laundering drug money through a minor-league soccer team named the Raccoons (and an avocado farm). After one especially large bust, when it came time for a “dope on the table” photo, there was in fact no table big enough to support the thousands of tightly bundled kilos of confiscated cocaine. They had to be stacked in the back parking lot of a police station.

The raids and arrests were the final stage of a DEA-led investigation called Project Reckoning—18 months, 64 cities, 200 agencies—intended to cripple Mexico’s Gulf Cartel. Over the past two decades, the organization had built a drug empire that spanned across Mexico and into the U.S. It had become pervasive, hyper-violent, brazen. Cartel operatives had smuggled billions of dollars’ worth of narcotics into the U.S. They had assassinated Mexican politicians and corrupted entire police departments. One of the organization’s leaders had famously brandished a gold-plated .45 at two agents from the DEA and FBI traveling through northeastern Mexico. The cartel had even formed its own paramilitary unit, a band of former Mexican police and special-forces soldiers called the Zetas, to seize territory and dispatch rivals. The notorious syndicate became known as La Compañia, or The Company.

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Originally published at h+ Magazine

Who is more “luddite”: the individual or the state?

In a recent TED talk, an individual – the robot body of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in Vancouver – said he beat the state. He argued that, while the internet enabled states with unprecedented powers to spy, it has also provided individuals with the ability to singlehandedly “win” against the state by exposing such abuse to the public. Snowden’s statement highlights the way in which the internet, along with other emerging technologies that promise similar decentralization and power to the individual, could be called a double-edged sword.

The capacity of democratized technology to either free people or control them often seems balanced in such a way that new technologies can be validly heralded as liberators or as enslavers, depending on one’s own personal experience with them. However, in spite of this duality, the overwhelming direction does seem to go towards empowering the individual rather than the state. After all, as Snowden so succinctly put it, he did “win”. We know the era of powerful states and monolithic corporations dictating the capabilities of the individual is coming to an end, as what could be called a libertarian or DIY culture is taking hold instead. As Kevin Kelly has put it, technology possesses its own will, and a specific preference for greater freedom.

The fear that advanced technology plays only into the hands of elites to the disadvantage of most of the world is quite common among progressives, as has been described by the IEET’s James Hughes. In reality, the alarmists who signal dangers and negative political outcomes from emerging technologies are missing a big piece of the puzzle. This piece is already forcing itself on us increasingly in the headlines, showing that our era’s defining technologies actually have far more potential to empower and liberate the masses of people now than ever before in history.

Further, the liberation is much more likely to ensue if technologies can advance in a maximally unregulated and un-policed manner. A democratic explosion of liberating technology is possible in the lives of the voiceless and worst-off people in the world, and several emerging technologies could feature significantly in that explosion.

To understand this possibility, it is important to direct our attention to two different kinds of disparity in the world. The first is the inequality that makes the citizens of a country voiceless and powerless in the face of the power of a strong state and massive corporations. The second is the inequality between the weak states or regions and the strong states or regions of the world-economy.

Both of the two arenas suggested above appear to be related. Strong states and corporations benefit exclusively from the system, and find the justification for their power in a global division of labor that says a cherished few can produce things of more value than the other countries. This division of labor exploits the weaker peripheral majority of the world as unrewarded instruments in the global production process, while the high-tech sophisticated work that is maximally profitable remains in the rich minority spaces of strong states and firms. With the club of powerful states and firms essential to the functioning of the world-system, trends that weaken the traditional power of the nation-state or cause rewards to be more equitably distributed are direct threats to the survival of the current global mode of production.

Already, the state is threatened by its inability to control the world of information, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel was mocked for calling “neuland” or “virgin territory.” As idiosyncratic as her choice of words may have seemed, it reflects the attitude of many heads of state. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy had already used almost exactly the same meaning when describing the internet. The ongoing digitization of politics may appear to be unrelated to the world-economy, but it is relevant, because it betrays the worsening ability of powerful states to stay in control of decisive technologies in the long term, as we shall see.

Many progressives and critics of modern society see advanced and emerging technologies as inherently benefiting only powerful and elitist goals. However, as James Hughes argues in Citizen Cyborg, much of this view is simply not rational and leans towards a primitivist stance on modern industrial developments. It also adheres to an old-fashioned way of thinking that was true in a time when all the decisive technologies were unwieldy and had to be rigidly controlled or sanctioned by governments and powerful monopolistic firms to even be operated with any efficacy.

In attempting to rein in technology now, states and corporations will increasingly find themselves having to appeal to emotional or outright fabricated security concerns to maintain their profits. As patents and other forms of protection are increasingly circumvented by the geeks, pirates, cyber-idealists, Assanges and Snowdens being created by the internet culture, the only defense for statist and corporate interests will be to call these troublesome individuals security threats. By saying a radical new technology could become a threat, e.g. it could be used by terrorists, it could be hacked, there could be an accident, etc. powerful regimes and firms give themselves a convenient mandate to keep their technologies in their own hands, behind their walls, and prevent them from getting out to empower the public or weaker regimes such as those in the Global South. Regimes in the Global South must be weak for the present world-economy to function, so painting an empowered Global South as a deadly and irresponsible threat is probably going to be increasingly necessary for the Global North to maintain its privileges. By appealing to this narrative, the dominant states and firms will become true “luddites”: they are going to smash (discredit) the technologies they don’t like, so they get to keep their job (dominating the profitable production processes).

Increased numbers of progressives do overwhelmingly recognize the powerful potential of the internet to empower the public and traditionally weaker sections of global society. In fact, the internet has made a huge impact on the history of protest and the history of dissent, making it indispensable to progressive causes and the alternate media endorsed by progressives. However, progressive support for other areas of the democratization of technology and freedom of world-liberating technologies from regulation and authoritarian policing is very thin (just consider their responses to GM technology).

Reservations held by progressives about emerging technologies are not very consistent with the view of the internet as a useful political instrument. Many lack the understanding that the internet is not a fluke in technology, but part of a larger trend. Progressives would do best to learn the trend set by the internet, and adopt an anarchic view of technology as something that is becoming overwhelmingly liberating and increasingly easy for the common people to conquer and use for themselves.

A number of emerging technologies have high democratic value, being set to liberate and empower people more rapidly than ever in history. From personal computers to 3D printers, nanotechnologyand perhaps the salient breakthroughs of synthetic biology, the one thing all the big advancements in emerging technologies today have in common is that they do not have any great need to be monopolized by governments and corporations. Possibly the most important observation of their democratic potential is that these devices all seem to have the potential to copy themselves. Synthetic organisms may be the first man-made products to have this ability, while other man-made things do not. They may not need to be supplied or replaced by any authority or special provider. In theory, such devices could be leaked once and become rapidly available everywhere, just as information can be rapidly pirated and circulated on the internet every day.

The global division of labor, and by extension the massive inequality in terms of rewards in the present world-system, would face an existential threat from the leaking of decisive emerging technologies. World inequality, if it is a product of a large division of labor, would not survive the leaking and decentralization of a generation of advanced self-replicating, redundant manufacturing technologies into the poorer parts of the world-economy.

The last line of defense available to states and massive corporations, to protect against their privileged economic and political positions being damaged by the circulation of self-sustaining technologies, would be for them to rant about security and try to whip up paranoia. If they do so, then the security concerns about emerging technologies will come to be seen by many as the discourse to create authoritarian controls over who can and who can’t have something. At that time, there would be no doubt that the true luddites interfering in the inevitable course of technology are the rich and powerful – not the poor and disenfranchised.

To sum up, there is a trend of techno-liberation set to break a number of emerging technologies free. Many remain the apparent trademarks of powerful companies at present, but still they carry powerful democratic potential even as they remain locked in the Pandora’s Box of security arguments and fears. People who care about subverting global inequality should not be deterred by such rhetoric.

They should covet emerging technologies, such as synthetic organisms, as a gift and a perfect means of liberation for the poorer parts of the world-economy. This should be pursued without hesitation, in the hope that yet more democratic opportunities like the internet will surface and become available to the world’s marginal and oppressed people.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment for you: What happens to life imprisonment — for murder and other heinous crimes — if the human lifespan is increased? If we live until 150 or 250 or 350 (which is very possible, given the direction of recent efforts into life extension) how many more prisons will we have to build to hold all of those murderers and rapists who just won’t die? Even if we can build enough prisons to hold them, will it be economically viable to do so? What about parole? Right now, many life sentences are up for parole after 15 or 20 years — but if we live for 350 years, doesn’t a 15-year incarceration seem a little bit on the lenient side for a serious crime?

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Could similar modifications to the immune system’s fighter pilots provide revolutionary cures for other cancers and even other diseases?

The U. Penn researchers are applying a similar technique to that other hardest-to-treat disease, HIV/AIDS. They recently completed a Phase 1 clinical trial in which they removed HIV-positive patients’ T cells and genetically modified a portion of them to include a rare HIV-resistant genetic mutation of the CCR5 gene (called delta 32).

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Software is writing news stories with increasing frequency. In a recent example, an LA Times writer-bot wrote and posted a snippet about an earthquake three minutes after the event. The LA Times claims they were first to publish anything on the quake, and outside the USGS, they probably were.

The LA Times example isn’t special because it’s the first algorithm to write a story on a major news site. With the help of Chicago startup and robot writing firm, Narrative Science, algorithms have basically been passing the Turing test online for the last few years.

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The promise of bitcoin is a universal currency free from the control of any nation or government. But a new generation of cryptocurrencies are focusing on the opposite goal: building money to solve problems specific to one country.

On midnight Monday, Auroracoin, a bitcoin clone which is the fourth most valuable cryptocurrency being traded today, entered the second phase of its life, with a “helicopter drop” of 30 auroracoins to every citizen of Iceland.

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