Singularitarian

Links, news, commentary and ramblings on Singularitarianisms and the coming changes to our future world through the explosion of technological singularity. Covering topics and their relation to the Singularity including: Artificial Intelligence,Internet...

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By Lindsay Brownell (CAMBRIDGE, Mass.) — Soft robotics has made leaps and bounds over the last decade as researchers around the world have experimented with different materials and designs to allow…

Soft robotics has made leaps and bounds over the last decade as researchers around the world have experimented with different materials and designs to allow once rigid, jerky machines to bend and flex in ways that mimic and can interact more naturally with living organisms. However, increased flexibility and dexterity has a trade-off of reduced strength, as softer materials are generally not as strong or resilient as inflexible ones, which limits their use.

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The human cyborg collecting his memories on video

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It’s about to get very crowded up there, and cyberattacks pose a bigger threat than ever.

Hundreds of multi-ton liabilities—soaring faster than the speed of sound, miles above the surface of the earth—are operating on Windows-95.

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The city will be walkable and car free, and use only the renewable energy it creates.

Oslo could soon be home to the most sustainable city in the world. This prospective city next to Oslo Airport will utilize green technologies and produce all of its own, renewable energy.

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Nectome will preserve your brain, but you have to be euthanized first.

So yeah. Nectome is a preserve-your-brain-and-upload-it company. Its chemical solution can keep a body intact for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, as a statue of frozen glass. The idea is that someday in the future scientists will scan your bricked brain and turn it into a computer simulation. That way, someone a lot like you, though not exactly you, will smell the flowers again in a data server somewhere.

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To solve the many human-related limitations of space travel, SpaceWorks Enterprises is looking into selectively hibernating the crew during extended trips.

Journeying to Mars is seldom out of the news these days. From Elon Musk releasing plans for his new rocket to allow SpaceX to colonize Mars, to NASA announcing another rover as part of the Mars 2020 mission, both private and public organizations are racing to the red planet.

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Experts debate what amateur scientists could accomplish with the powerful DNA editing tool—and whether its ready availability is cause for concern

“We aren’t going to get sick, are we?” my roommate Brett asked me. He cringed as I knelt down and stuffed a plate of E. coli bacteria—which came as part of the DIY CRISPR–Cas9 kit I bought online—into our fridge next to cartons of eggs, strawberry jam, bottles of beer and a block of cheese.

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About half the normal matter in our universe had never been observed – until now. Two teams have finally seen it by combining millions of faint images into one

The missing links between galaxies have finally been found. This is the first detection of the roughly half of the normal matter in our universe – protons, neutrons and electrons – unaccounted for by previous observations of stars, galaxies and other bright objects in space.

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From afterlife to machine transcendence, Digitalism offers a new promise of paradise.

We are witnessing the beginning of Silicon Valley institutionalizing its religious beliefs. As Wired reported recently, Anthony Levandowski, a top Silicon Valley engineer formerly working for Google's self-driving car company Waymo and now at the center of the trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, founded a religious organization called Way of the Future. Its goal? To "develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence." According to Wired, Way of the Future was founded in September 2015.

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A “spongy” crystal that can turn thin air into fuel by extracting carbon dioxide has been developed by scientists. The researcher said the light-activated material was a “critical step” towards making a high-value fuel while at the same time reducing the amount of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. It works by turning carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which can be turned into a useful source of energy.

A “spongy” crystal that can turn thin air into fuel by extracting carbon dioxide has been developed by scientists.

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An artificial intelligence system being developed at Facebook has created its own language. It developed a system of code words to make communication more efficient. Researchers shut the system down when they realized the AI was no longer using English.

An artificial intelligence system being developed at Facebook has created its own language. It developed a system of code words to make communication more efficient. Researchers shut the system down when they realized the AI was no longer using English.

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Newly-developed hands-free musical instrument now allows people to make music with their minds

Neurologists have created a hands-free, thought-controlled musical instrument, which they've recently described in a report in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Researchers hope that this new instrument will help empower and rehabilitate patients with motor disabilities such as those from stroke, spinal cord injury, amputation, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

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How will the future be different? See this compilation of predictions on future technology from trusted groups like Scientific American.

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The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has released the first set of images and videos taken by its debut zero-gravity camera drone or "Int-Ball," the cute orb of a drone, will optimize communication between crew in space and on Earth.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has released the first set of images and videos taken by its debut zero-gravity fully-autonomous camera drone.

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Google DeepMind AI taught itself to walk

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Scientists from the Foundation For Responsible Robotics have released a report asking society to consider a possible future where humans have sex with robo

Scientists from the Foundation For Responsible Robotics have released a report asking society to consider a possible future where humans have sex with robots, and have outlined some things that society needs to do to prepare for that future.

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The Hubble telescope just weighed a star using a technique the famed physicist described but said humanity would have “no hope” of using.

Recently, Hubble spied a dead star about 18 light-years away warping the light of a more distant star that appeared to pass behind it. Einstein predicted this effect would happen based on his general theory of relativity, but he then claimed scientists had “no hope” of actually seeing it.