‘We Are the Biological Boot-Loader for Digital Super-Intelligence’
March 27th, 2017While centered around Elon Musk, this piece also takes a broader look at where AI is headed, and some of the personalities involved. Everyone has heard of AI, but superintelligence is where the crazy comes out. If you don’t know what superintelligence is, and you like stuff that straddles the line between sci-fi and fantasy, read on.
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom goes deeply into the the types of mistakes that might be made with AI that could cause humans to lose control of it.* In short, if humans manage to create a superintelligence, it will almost certainly (much more likely than might) wipe us out. It might not be so much because it has any particular hatred for us, or anything like that. We could simply become irrelevant to it.
Can you tell by my italicizing of the weasel words above that this whole superintelligence thing is mostly about a bunch of whiteboard speculation at this point?
Ok, good.
Now, are you aware of running over insects as you speed along an open highway in your car?
For a superintelligence, exterminating all of humanity could be like that.
Have a nice day.
Via: Vanity Fair:
Musk believes that it is better to try to get super-A.I. first and distribute the technology to the world than to allow the algorithms to be concealed and concentrated in the hands of tech or government elites—even when the tech elites happen to be his own friends, people such as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. “I’ve had many conversations with Larry about A.I. and robotics—many, many,” Musk told me. “And some of them have gotten quite heated. You know, I think it’s not just Larry, but there are many futurists who feel a certain inevitability or fatalism about robots, where we’d have some sort of peripheral role. The phrase used is ‘We are the biological boot-loader for digital super-intelligence.’ ” (A boot loader is the small program that launches the operating system when you first turn on your computer.) “Matter can’t organize itself into a chip,” Musk explained. “But it can organize itself into a biological entity that gets increasingly sophisticated and ultimately can create the chip.”
Musk has no intention of being a boot loader. Page and Brin see themselves as forces for good, but Musk says the issue goes far beyond the motivations of a handful of Silicon Valley executives.
“It’s great when the emperor is Marcus Aurelius,” he says. “It’s not so great when the emperor is Caligula.”
* Note: Read the 1-Star reviews of this before purchasing, because they’re quite valid. In addition to the topic mentioned on the cover, I think this book provides a glimpse inside the mind of someone who is well into the Autism Spectrum. I used to have to work with people like that, so it wasn’t too unusual for me. It’s at various times maddening, hilarious, tedious and insightful, but, understandably, not everyone’s cup of tea.
Populism Is the Result of Global Economic Failure
March 27th, 2017Via: Guardian:
The rise of populism has rattled the global political establishment. Brexit came as a shock, as did the victory of Donald Trump. Much head-scratching has resulted as leaders seek to work out why large chunks of their electorates are so cross.
The answer seems pretty simple. Populism is the result of economic failure. The 10 years since the financial crisis have shown that the system of economic governance which has held sway for the past four decades is broken. Some call this approach neoliberalism. Perhaps a better description would be unpopulism.
Unpopulism meant tilting the balance of power in the workplace in favour of management and treating people like wage slaves. Unpopulism was rigged to ensure that the fruits of growth went to the few not to the many. Unpopulism decreed that those responsible for the global financial crisis got away with it while those who were innocent bore the brunt of austerity.
The Privacyless, Freedomless Smart City of 2030 the Elite Are Engineering
March 27th, 2017Via: Truthstream Media:
Research Credit: rb
Hundreds Arrested in Russia
March 26th, 2017Via: Time:
Russia’s opposition, often written off by critics as a small and irrelevant coterie of privileged urbanites, put on an impressive nationwide show of strength Sunday with scores of protest rallies spanning the vast country. Hundreds were arrested, including Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic.
It was the biggest show of defiance since the 2011-2012 wave of demonstrations that rattled the Kremlin and led to harsh new laws aimed at suppressing dissent. Almost all of Sunday’s rallies were unsanctioned, but thousands braved the prospect of arrests to gather in cities from the Far East port of Vladivostok to the “window on the West” of St. Petersburg.
An organization that monitors Russian political repression, OVD-Info, said it counted more than 800 people arrested in the Moscow demonstrations alone. That number could not be confirmed and state news agency Tass cited Moscow police as saying there were about 500 arrests.
Navalny, who was arrested while walking from a nearby subway station to the demonstration at Moscow’s iconic Pushkin Square, was the driving force of the demonstrations. He called for them after his Foundation for Fighting Corruption released a report contending that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has amassed a collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards.
Uber to Suspend Autonomous Tests After Arizona Accident
March 26th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
Uber Technologies Inc. is suspending its self-driving car program after one of its autonomous vehicles was involved in a high-impact crash in Tempe, Arizona, the latest incident for a company reeling from multiple crises.
In a photo posted on Twitter, one of Uber’s Volvo self-driving SUVs is pictured on its side next to another car with dents and smashed windows. An Uber spokeswoman confirmed the incident, and the veracity of the photo, and added that the ride-hailing company is suspending its autonomous tests in Arizona until it completes its investigation and pausing its Pittsburgh operations.
‘Wright Brothers Moment for Space’
March 24th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
If the rocket Elon Musk’s SpaceX expects to launch next week looks familiar, that’s because it is.
The Falcon 9 rocket slated to take off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, has flown before, marking the first time Space Exploration Technologies Corp. will refly one of the 14-story-tall boosters it recovered from past missions. The reused rocket will ferry a communications satellite into orbit for Luxembourg-based SES SA, SpaceX’s first commercial customer, and signals a leap forward in Musk’s 15-year-quest to drive down launch costs and eventually create a human colony on Mars.
“This is a Wright Brothers moment for space,” said Phil Larson, a former space policy adviser to President Barack Obama who worked for SpaceX and is now at the University of Colorado. “It’s as important as the first plane taking off and landing and taking off again.”
March 7 4Chan Prediction: David Brock’s Death by Heart Attack
March 23rd, 2017Brock is still alive, but… Hmm:
Media Matters founder David Brock has suffered a heart attack but is expected to make a “swift recovery,” a senior aide said Wednesday.
“David Brock suffered a heart attack while working in the Washington DC office early Tuesday,” Bradley Beychok, Brock’s chief of staff, said in a statement.
“He was quickly transported to a local hospital, received prompt medical treatment, and we are looking forward to a swift recovery.”
“We thank everyone for their well wishes, and especially want to thank the wonderful doctors and staff who treated David. We kindly ask for privacy as he recovers,” the statement added.
Brock, 54, a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, founded the nonprofit liberal media watchdog publication Media Matters for America in 2004.
Via: 4plebs:
Anonymous ID:sQCgxrCb Tue 07 Mar 2017 10:49:59 No.115532326 Report
Quoted By: >>115557045,1 >>115557045,10 >>115557045,2 >>115557045,5 >>115557045,7 >>115557045,8
>>115510439
JAMES ALEFANTIS IS A ROTHSCHILD, HE WAS THE BOYFRIEND OF DAVID BROCK OF MEDIA MATTERS WHO IS NOW UNDER HEAVY INVESTIGATION AND IS THE ONLY LINK TO ALEFANTIS
ROTHSCHILDS ARE GOING TO CLEAN UP MEDIA MATTERS IN A GIANT FIRE, BROCK TO BE FOUND DEAD OF A HEART ATTACK LATER
SPREAD THE WORD
Apple Investigating Accessory that Turns iPhone, iPad Into Full-Fledged Touchscreen Laptop
March 23rd, 2017It’s a shit sandwich all around in the general purpose computing world. It’s a very serious worry, because I see the least capable computer users (most computer users, in other words) fully embracing swipetard devices and operating systems, which are mainly intended to serve as tamper proof vending machines and surveillance platforms.
—Windows 10 Is Bringing Shitty Ads to File Explorer, Here’s How to Turn Them Off
Via: AppleInsider:
An Apple patent application published Thursday details a so-called “thin” portable hardware accessory that boasts the components necessary to act as a laptop surrogate for iPhones and iPads.
Apple Says Recent Wikileaks CIA Docs Detail Old, Fixed iPhone and Mac Exploits
March 23rd, 2017Great, I wonder what’s in the other 99% of the Vault 7 docs…
Via: TechCrunch:
We have preliminarily assessed the Wikileaks disclosures from this morning. Based on our initial analysis, the alleged iPhone vulnerability affected iPhone 3G only and was fixed in 2009 when iPhone 3GS was released. Additionally, our preliminary assessment shows the alleged Mac vulnerabilities were previously fixed in all Macs launched after 2013.
We have not negotiated with Wikileaks for any information. We have given them instructions to submit any information they wish through our normal process under our standard terms. Thus far, we have not received any information from them that isn’t in the public domain. We are tireless defenders of our users’ security and privacy, but we do not condone theft or coordinate with those that threaten to harm our users.
WikiLeaks Vault 7: CIA Firmware and Other Exploits on Apple iPhones and Mac Computers
March 23rd, 2017Via: WikiLeaks:
Today, March 23rd 2017, WikiLeaks releases Vault 7 “Dark Matter”, which contains documentation for several CIA projects that infect Apple Mac Computer firmware (meaning the infection persists even if the operating system is re-installed) developed by the CIA’s Embedded Development Branch (EDB). These documents explain the techniques used by CIA to gain ‘persistence’ on Apple Mac devices, including Macs and iPhones and demonstrate their use of EFI/UEFI and firmware malware.
Among others, these documents reveal the “Sonic Screwdriver” project which, as explained by the CIA, is a “mechanism for executing code on peripheral devices while a Mac laptop or desktop is booting” allowing an attacker to boot its attack software for example from a USB stick “even when a firmware password is enabled”. The CIA’s “Sonic Screwdriver” infector is stored on the modified firmware of an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter.
“DarkSeaSkies” is “an implant that persists in the EFI firmware of an Apple MacBook Air computer” and consists of “DarkMatter”, “SeaPea” and “NightSkies”, respectively EFI, kernel-space and user-space implants.
Documents on the “Triton” MacOSX malware, its infector “Dark Mallet” and its EFI-persistent version “DerStake” are also included in this release. While the DerStake1.4 manual released today dates to 2013, other Vault 7 documents show that as of 2016 the CIA continues to rely on and update these systems and is working on the production of DerStarke2.0.
Also included in this release is the manual for the CIA’s “NightSkies 1.2” a “beacon/loader/implant tool” for the Apple iPhone. Noteworthy is that NightSkies had reached 1.2 by 2008, and is expressly designed to be physically installed onto factory fresh iPhones. i.e the CIA has been infecting the iPhone supply chain of its targets since at least 2008.
While CIA assets are sometimes used to physically infect systems in the custody of a target it is likely that many CIA physical access attacks have infected the targeted organization’s supply chain including by interdicting mail orders and other shipments (opening, infecting, and resending) leaving the United States or otherwise.
