Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: existential risks – Page 122

YANKEE.BRAIN.MAP
The Brain Games Begin
Europe’s billion-Euro science-neuro Human Brain Project, mentioned here amongst machine morality last week, is basically already funded and well underway. Now the colonies over in the new world are getting hip, and they too have in the works a project to map/simulate/make their very own copy of the universe’s greatest known computational artifact: the gelatinous wad of convoluted electrical pudding in your skull.

The (speculated but not yet public) Brain Activity Map of America
About 300 different news sources are reporting that a Brain Activity Map project is outlined in the current administration’s to-be-presented budget, and will be detailed sometime in March. Hoards of journalists are calling it “Obama’s Brain Project,” which is stoopid, and probably only because some guy at the New Yorker did and they all decided that’s what they had to do, too. Or somesuch lameness. Or laziness? Deference? SEO?

For reasons both economic and nationalistic, America could definitely use an inspirational, large-scale scientific project right about now. Because seriously, aside from going full-Pavlov over the next iPhone, what do we really have to look forward to these days? Now, if some technotards or bible pounders monkeywrench the deal, the U.S. is going to continue that slide toward scientific… lesserness. So, hippies, religious nuts, and all you little sociopathic babies in politics: zip it. Perhaps, however, we should gently poke and prod the hard of thinking toward a marginally heightened Europhobia — that way they’ll support the project. And it’s worth it. Just, you know, for science.

Going Big. Not Huge, But Big. But Could be Massive.
Both the Euro and American flavors are no Manhattan Project-scale undertaking, in the sense of urgency and motivational factors, but more like the Human Genome Project. Still, with clear directives and similar funding levels (€1 billion Euros & $1–3 billion US bucks, respectively), they’re quite ambitious and potentially far more world changing than a big bomb. Like, seriously, man. Because brains build bombs. But hopefully an artificial brain would not. Spaceships would be nice, though.

Practically, these projects are expected to expand our understanding of the actual physical loci of human behavioral patterns, get to the bottom of various brain pathologies, stimulate the creation of more advanced AI/non-biological intelligence — and, of course, the big enchilada: help us understand more about our own species’ consciousness.

On Consciousness: My Simulated Brain has an Attitude?
Yes, of course it’s wild speculation to guess at the feelings and worries and conundrums of a simulated brain — but dude, what if, what if one or both of these brain simulation map thingys is done well enough that it shows signs of spontaneous, autonomous reaction? What if it tries to like, you know, do something awesome like self-reorganize, or evolve or something?

Maybe it’s too early to talk personality, but you kinda have to wonder… would the Euro-Brain be smug, never stop claiming superior education yet voraciously consume American culture, and perhaps cultivate a mild racism? Would the ‘Merica-Brain have a nation-scale authority complex, unjustifiable confidence & optimism, still believe in childish romantic love, and overuse the words “dude” and “awesome?”

We shall see. We shall see.

Oh yeah, have to ask:
Anyone going to follow Ray Kurzweil’s recipe?

Project info:
[HUMAN BRAIN PROJECT - € - MAIN SITE]
[THE BRAIN ACTIVITY MAP - $ - HUFF-PO]

Kinda Pretty Much Related:
[BLUE BRAIN PROJECT]

This piece originally appeared at Anthrobotic.com on February 28, 2013.

I continue to survey the available technology applicable to spaceflight and there is little change.

The remarkable near impact and NEO on the same day seems to fly in the face of the experts quoting a probability of such coincidence being low on the scale of millenium. A recent exchange on a blog has given me the idea that perhaps crude is better. A much faster approach to a nuclear propelled spaceship might be more appropriate.

Unknown to the public there is such a thing as unobtanium. It carries the country name of my birth; Americium.

A certain form of Americium is ideal for a type of nuclear solid fuel rocket. Called a Fission Fragment Rocket, it is straight out of a 1950’s movie with massive thrust at the limit of human G-tolerance. Such a rocket produces large amounts of irradiated material and cannot be fired inside, near, or at the Earth’s magnetic field. The Moon is the place to assemble, test, and launch any nuclear mission.

Such Fission Fragment propelled spacecraft would resemble the original Tsolkovsky space train with a several hundred foot long slender skeleton mounting these one shot Americium boosters. The turn of the century deaf school master continues to predict.

Each lamp-shade-spherical thruster has a programmed design balancing the length and thrust of the burn. After being expended the boosters use a small secondary system to send them into an appropriate direction and probably equipped with small sensor packages, using the hot irradiated shell for an RTG. The Frame that served as a car of the space train transforms into a pair of satellite panels. Being more an artist than an *engineer, I find the monoplane configuration pleasing to the eye as well as being functional. These dozens and eventually thousands of dual purpose boosters would help form a space warning net.

The front of the space train is a large plastic sphere partially filled filled with water sent up from the surface of a a Robotic Lunar Polar Base. The Spaceship would split apart on a tether to generate artificial gravity with the lessening booster mass balanced by varying lengths of tether with an intermediate reactor mass.

These piloted impact threat interceptors would be manned by the United Nations Space Defense Force. All the Nuclear Powers would be represented.…..well, most of them. They would be capable of “fast missions” lasting only a month or at the most two months. They would be launched from underground silos on the Moon to deliver a nuclear weapon package towards an impact threat at the highest possible velocity and so the fastest intercept time. These ships would come back on a ballistic course with all their boosters expended to be rescued by recovery craft from the Moon upon return to the vicinity of Earth.

The key to this scenario is Americium 242. It is extremely expensive stuff. The only alternative is Nuclear Pulse Propulsion (NPP). The problem with bomb propulsion is the need to have a humungous mass for the most efficient size of bomb to react with.

The Logic Tree then splits again with two designs of bomb propelled ship; the “Orion” and the “Medusa.” The Orion is the original design using a metal plate and shock absorbing system. The Medusa is essentially a giant woven alloy parachute and tether system that replaces the plate with a much lighter “mega-sail.” In one of the few cases where compromise might bear fruit- the huge spinning ufo type disc, thousands of feet across, would serve quite well to explore, colonize, and intercept impact threats. Such a ship would require a couple decades to begin manufacture on the Moon.

Americium boosters could be built on earth and inserted into lunar orbit with Human Rated Heavy Lift Vehicles (SLS) and a mission launched well within a ten-year apollo type plan. But the Americium Infrastructure has to be available as a first step.

Would any of my hundreds of faithful followers be willing to assist me in circulating a petition?

*Actually I am neither an artist or an engineer- just a wannabe pulp writer in the mold of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Humanities wake-up call has been ignored and we are probably doomed.

The Chelyabinsk event is a warning. Unfortunately, it seems to be a non-event in the great scheme of things and that means the human race is probably also a non-starter. For years I have been hoping for such an event- and saw it as the start of a new space age. Just as Sputnik indirectly resulted in a man on the Moon I predicted an event that would launch humankind into deep space.

Now I wait for ISON. Thirteen may be the year of the comet and if that does not impress upon us the vulnerability of Earth to impacts then only an impact will. If the impact throws enough particles into the atmosphere then no food will grow and World War C will begin. The C stands for cannibalism. If the impact hits the ring of fire it may generate volcanic effects that may have the same effect. If whatever hits Earth is big enough it will render all life above the size of microbes extinct. We have spent trillions of dollars on defense- yet we are defenceless.

Our instinctive optimism bias continues to delude us with the idea that we will survive no matter what happens. Beside the impact threat is the threat of an engineered pathogen. While naturally evolved epidemics always leave a percentage of survivors, a bug designed to be 100 percent lethal will leave none alive. And then there is the unknown- Earth changes, including volcanic activity, can also wreck our civilization. We go on as a species the same way we go on with our own lives- ignoring death for the most part. And that is our critical error.

The universe does not care if we thrive or go extinct. If we do not care then a quick end is inevitable.

I have given the world my best answer to the question. That is all I can do:

http://voices.yahoo.com/water-bombs-8121778.html?cat=15

KILL.THE.ROBOTS
The Golden Rule is Not for Toasters
Simplistically nutshelled, talking about machine morality is picking apart whether or not we’ll someday have to be nice to machines or demand that they be nice to us.

Well, it’s always a good time to address human & machine morality vis-à-vis both the engineering and philosophical issues intrinsic to the qualification and validation of non-biological intelligence and/or consciousness that, if manifested, would wholly justify consideration thereof.

Uhh… yep!

But, whether at run-on sentence dorkville or any other tech forum, right from the jump one should know that a single voice rapping about machine morality is bound to get hung up in and blinded by its own perspective, e.g., splitting hairs to decide who or what deserves moral treatment (if a definition of that can even be nailed down), or perhaps yet another justification for the standard intellectual cul de sac:
“Why bother, it’s never going to happen.“
That’s tired and lame.

One voice, one study, or one robot fetishist with a digital bullhorn — one ain’t enough. So, presented and recommended here is a broad-based overview, a selection of the past year’s standout pieces on machine morality.The first, only a few days old, is actually an announcement of intent that could pave the way to forcing the actual question.
Let’s then have perspective:

Building a Brain — Being Humane — Feeling our Pain — Dude from the NYT
• February 3, 2013 — Human Brain Project: Simulate One
Serious Euro-Science to simulate a human brain. Will it behave? Will we?

• January 28, 2013 — NPR: No Mercy for Robots
A study of reciprocity and punitive reaction to non-human actors. Bad robot.

• April 25, 2012 — IEEE Spectrum: Attributing Moral Accountability to Robots
On the human expectation of machine morality. They should be nice to me.

• December 25, 2011 — NYT: The Future of Moral Machines
Engineering (at least functional) machine morality. Broad strokes NYT-style.

Expectations More Human than Human?
Now, of course you’re going to check out those pieces you just skimmed over, after you finish trudging through this anti-brevity technosnark©®™ hybrid, of course. When you do — you might notice the troubling rub of expectation dichotomy. Simply put, these studies and reports point to a potential showdown between how we treat our machines, how we might expect others to treat them, and how we might one day expect to be treated by them. For now morality is irrelevant, it is of no consideration nor consequence in our thoughts or intentions toward machines. But, at the same time we hold dear the expectation of reasonable treatment, if not moral, by any intelligent agent — even an only vaguely human robot.

Well what if, for example: 1. AI matures, and 2. machines really start to look like us?
(see: Leaping Across Mori’s Uncanny Valley: Androids Probably Won’t Creep Us Out)

Even now should someone attempt to smash your smartphone or laptop (or just touch it), you of course protect the machine. Extending beyond concerns over the mere destruction of property or loss of labor, could one morally abide harm done to one’s marginally convincing humanlike companion? Even if fully accepting of its artificiality, where would one draw the line between economic and emotional damage? Or, potentially, could the machine itself abide harm done to it? Even if imbued with a perfectly coded algorithmic moral code mandating “do no harm,” could a machine calculate its passive non-response to intentional damage as an immoral act against itself, and then react?

Yeah, these hypotheticals can go on forever, but it’s clear that blithely ignoring machine morality or overzealously attempting to engineer it might result in… immorality.

Probably Only a Temporary Non-Issue. Or Maybe. Maybe Not.
There’s an argument that actually needing to practically implement or codify machine morality is so remote that debate is, now and forever, only that — and oh wow, that opinion is superbly dumb. This author has addressed this staggeringly arrogant species-level macro-narcissism before (and it was awesome). See, outright dismissal isn’t a dumb argument because a self-aware machine or something close enough for us to regard as such is without doubt going to happen, it’s dumb because 1. absolutism is fascist, and 2. to the best of our knowledge, excluding the magic touch of Jesus & friends or aliens spiking our genetic punch or whatever, conscious and/or self-aware intelligence (which would require moral consideration) appears to be an emergent trait of massively powerful computation. And we’re getting really good at making machines do that.

Whatever the challenge, humans rarely avoid stabbing toward the supposedly impossible — and a lot of the time, we do land on the moon. The above mentioned Euro-project says it’ll need 10 years to crank out a human brain simulation. Okay, respectable. But, a working draft of the human genome, an initially 15-year international project, was completed 5 years ahead of schedule due largely to advances in brute force computational capability (in the not so digital 1990s). All that computery stuff like, you know, gets better a lot faster these days. Just sayin.

So, you know, might be a good idea to keep hashing out ideas on machine morality.
Because who knows what we might end up with…

“Oh sure, I understand, turn me off, erase me — time for a better model, I totally get it.“
- or -
“Hey, meatsack, don’t touch me or I’ll reformat your squishy face!”

Choose your own adventure!

[HUMAN BRAIN PROJECT]
[NO MERCY FOR ROBOTS — NPR]
[ATTRIBUTING MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY TO ROBOTS — IEEE]
[THE FUTURE OF MORAL MACHINES — NYT]

This piece originally appeared at Anthrobotic.com on February 7, 2013.

I was recently accused on another blog of repeating a defeatist mantra.

My “mantra” has always been WE CAN GO NOW. The solutions are crystal clear to anyone who takes a survey of the available technology. What blinds people is their unwillingness to accept the cost of making it happen.
There is no cheap.

Paul Gilster comments on his blog Centauri Dreams, concerning Radiation, Alzheimer’s Disease and Fermi;

“Neurological damage from human missions to deep space — and the study goes no further than the relatively close Mars — would obviously affect our planning and create serious payload constraints given the need for what might have to be massive shielding.”

Massive shielding.
This is the game changer. The showstopper. The sea change. The paradigm shift.
The cosmic ray gorilla. Whatever you want to call it, it is the reality that most of what we are familiar with concerning human space flight is not going to work in deep space.
Massive Shielding=Nuclear Propulsion=Bombs
M=N=B
We have to transport nuclear materials to the Moon where we can light off a nuclear propulsion system. The Moon is where the ice-derived Water to fill up a Massive radiation shield is to be found.
Massive Shield=Water=Lunar Base
M=W=L
Sequentially: L=W=M=N=B
So, first and last, we need an HLV to get to this Lunar Base (where the Water for the shield is) and we need to safely transport Nuclear material there (and safely assemble and light off the Bombs to push the shield around).

Radiation shielding is the first determining factor in spaceship design and this largely determines the entire development of space travel.

http://voices.yahoo.com/water-bombs-8121778.html?cat=15

I recently posted this on the only two other sites that will allow me to express my opinions;

I see the problem as one of self similarity; trying to go cheap being the downfall of all these schemes to work around human physiology.

When I first became interested in space travel several years ago I would comment on a couple blogs and find myself constantly arguing with private space proponents- and saying over and over again, “there is no cheap.” I was finally excommunicated from that bunch and banned from posting. They would start calling me an idiot and other insults and when I tried to return the favor the moderator would block my replies. The person who runs those two sites works for a firm promoting space tourism- go figure.

The problem is that while the aerospace industry made some money off the space program as an outgrowth of the military industrial complex, it soon became clear that spaceships are hard money- they have to work. The example of this is the outrage over the Apollo 1 fire and subsequent oversight of contractors- a practice which disappeared after Apollo and resulted in the Space Shuttle being such a poor design. A portion of the shuttle development money reportedly went under the table into the B-1 bomber program; how much we will never know. Swing wings are not easy to build which is why you do not see it anymore; cuts into profits.

The easy money of cold war toys has since defeated any move by industry to take up the cause of space exploration. No easy money in spaceships. People who want something for nothing rarely end up with anything worth anything. Trying to find cheap ways around furnishing explorers with the physcial conditions human beings evolved in is going to fail. On the other hand if we start with a baseline of one gravity and Earth level radiation we are bound to succeed.

The engineering solutions to this baseline requirement are as I have already detailed; a tether for gravity and a massive moonwater shield with bomb propulsion. That is EXACTLY how to do it and I do not see any one else offering anything else that will work- just waffling and spewing about R&D.
We have been doing R&D for over half a century. It is a reason to go that is supposedly lacking.

When that crater in Mexico was discovered in 1980 the cold war was reaching it’s crescendo and the massive extinction it caused was overshadowed by the threat of nuclear weapons. Impact defense is still the only path to all that DOD money for a Moon base.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121231180632.htm

Excerpt: “Galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts,” said M. Kerry O’Banion, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and the senior author of the study. “The possibility that radiation exposure in space may give rise to health problems such as cancer has long been recognized. However, this study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”

It appears when Eugene Parker wrote “Shielding Space Travelers” in 2006 he was right- and all the private space sycophants claiming radiation mitigation is trivial are wrong.

Only a massive water shield a minimum of 14 feet thick and massing 400 tons for a small capsule can shield human beings in deep space on long duration missions. And since a small capsule will not have sufficient space to keep a crew psychologically healthy on a multi-year journey it is likely such a shield will massive over a thousand tons.

This mass may seem to make Human Space Flight Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit (HSF-BELO) impractical but in fact it is not an obstacle but an enabler. Nuclear Pulse Propulsion using bombs to push a spaceship to the outer solar sytem becomes more efficient the larger the ship and this amount of water is useful in a closed loop life support system.

Lighting off bombs in the Earth’s magnetosphere is not acceptable and this points to the Moon as the obvious place to launch nuclear missions and also to acquire the water for radiation shielding. The Space Launch System (SLS) is the human-rated Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV) with a powerful escape system that can safely transport the required fissionables to the Moon.

2013 may be the year of the comet and the year of the spaceship if the two goals of protecting the planet from impacts and establishing off world colonies are finally recognized as vital to the survival of humankind.

A happy new year to the human race from it’s most important member; me. Since self-worship seems to be the theme of the new American ideal I had better get right with me.

With my government going over the fiscal cliff it would appear that the damned soul of Ayn Rand is exerting demonic influence on the political system through worship of the individual. The tea party has the Republicans terrified of losing their jobs. Being just like me, those individuals consider themselves the most important person on the planet- so I cannot fault them.

As Ayn Rand believed, “I will not die, it’s the world that will end”, so who cares about the collective future of the human race? Towards the end of 2013 the heavens may remind us the universe does not really care about creatures who believe themselves all important. The choice may soon be seen clearly in the light of the comet’s tail; the glorification of the individual and the certain extinction of our race, or the acceptance of a collective goal and our continued existence.

Ayn Rand made her choice but most of us have time to choose more wisely. I pray for billions, tens and hundreds of billions of dollars- for a Moonbase.

I am not one of the Earth is overpopulated crowd. We could have a high quality of life for every man, woman and child on this planet if we did not, as a species, spend most of our resources pandering to moral weakness and cravings for profit. The myth of scarcity is a smokescreen to obscure the reality of greed and ignorance. Which is why people like Gerard K. O’Neill sought to improve the human condition with space colonies.

We need to go into space to first safeguard the Earth from impacts and the human race from extinction, and along with these missions to spread life into the universe through colonization. None of those three things has anything to do with getting filthy rich or intimidating other nations with our firepower so we can steal their resources. Which is why it has not happened.

Happy New Year with hopes for a more enlightened public.

Happy new year to my Wife, my Daughter, my Father, and to those who give a damn about next year even if they will not be there.

http://news.yahoo.com/nowhere-japans-growing-plutonium-stockpile-064038796.html

A half century after being developed, nuclear pulse propulsion remains the only practical system of interplanetary travel. What is required to launch a bomb propelled mission to the outer solar system? Well, first you need.…..bombs.

There is no shortage of bomb material on planet Earth. The problem is lack of a vehicle that can get this material to the nearest place a nuclear mission can be launched; the Moon. For over a quarter of a century a launch vehicle capable of sending significant payloads (and people) to the Moon has been lacking. The Space Transportation System, aka the space shuttle, was a dead end as far as exploration due to the lack of funding for a Sidemount cargo version.

Now we wait on the SLS.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121228100748.htm

Only this human rated Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV) with a powerful escape tower will be suitable for transporting survivable packaged fissionables to the Moon. It is not only the fissionables that are required; hundreds of tons of water from lunar ice deposits are necessary to fill the radiation shield for any such Human Space Flight Beyond Earth Lunar Orbit (HSF-BELO).

Eventually lunar resources can be used to actually construct atomic spaceships and also the thorium reactors necessary to power colonies in the outer system. It is the establishment of a beam propulsion infrastructure that will finally open up the solar system to large scale development. This will require a massive infrastructure on the Moon. Such a base will serve as insurance against an extinction level event wiping out our species. As such it deserves a full measure of DOD funding. Like that trillion dollars that is going to be spent on the F-35 stealth fighter over the next half century.

Only monthly Heavy Lift Vehicle launches of payloads to the Moon can be considered as a beginning to a true space program- where Apollo left off. There is no cheap and there is no flexible path.