On The Threat Of Extinction Of The Human Race
Alex Tabarrok is not bothered by the prospect of the eventual extinction of the human race. He thinks our genetically engineered successors will be cyborgs and cease to be humans. This begs the question: what is a human? Is someone with a 170 IQ still homo sapiens? Well, yes. Suppose genetic engineering produces a lot more very high IQ people whose bodies last a couple of centuries even without medical intervention. Will they still be humans? Yes. Yet this will usher in a huge change in human societies. Very bright people will function at a higher level. This does not strike me as an extinction event. If society radically ...
Source: FuturePundit - June 6, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Telomere Length Changes And Cancer Risk
When telomere caps on chromosomes get too short cells usually lose the ability to divide. Telomere shortening is a major cause of aging. But it is also a protective mechanism against cancer. A pattern in telomore length changes is associated with the development of cancer. CHICAGO --- A distinct pattern in the changing length of blood telomeres, the protective end caps on our DNA strands, can predict cancer many years before actual diagnosis, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine in collaboration with Harvard University. The pattern -- a rapid shortening followed by a stabilization three or four years before ...
Source: FuturePundit - June 6, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Robotics For Food Processing
A company in the Netherlands, Lacquey, has developed a robot that can pick up, orient, and core a cabbage. What's the big deal about that? vegetables and fruits are much more inconsistent in shape than manufactured parts. Machines can much more easily recognize a manufactured part, pick it up, and install it somewhere. Amazon recently held a contest for robots to pick up goods from shelves since that work is still done by humans in Amazon warehouses. The robots did not do well enough to pose a threat to humans who do this work currently. But given that a robot can handle a cabbage I expect warehouse goods picking to fall t...
Source: FuturePundit - June 2, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Our Robotic Future Is Going To Look Like Science Fiction
Andrew McAfee and David Autor at MIT see a future with extensive automation of jobs. Mcafee thinks people would rather not have to interact with service workers so much. Agreed. We want to just walk into a place and have the whole thing be totally seamless. No lines. No new guy at the desk who has to ask someone else for help when someone else is available. Just go. In addition, it turns out people like self-service a lot. I don't want to talk to somebody when I go check in at an airport. I just either download the boarding pass to my phone or walk up to a kiosk and get it. The person that checks my ID and... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - May 24, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Genetic Engineering For Agriculture Has Bright Future
See this Newsweek article on how genetic modification could end world hunger. That's probably excessively optimistic as long as sub-Saharan Africa's fertility rate remains above 5. However, in large parts of the world big boosts in farm productivity will reduce the number of acres under plow and probably enable a lot more land to return to natural state. This will reduce the rate of species extinction and make the human race less vulnerable to mega disasters (say a VEI 7 or 8 volcano like Santorini or even bigger). Genetic engineering of plants will also play a big role in textiles. How a plant that makes silk? Or make cot...
Source: FuturePundit - May 24, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Los Angeles $15 Per Hour Min Wage Will Spur Robot Development
A gradual rise to $15 per hour puts LA on course to a $15 per hour minimum wage along with San Francisco and Seattle. I expect this move will spur more venture capital funding for start-ups trying to automate fast food restaurants, janitoral work, retail stores, movie theatres, and other places that employ lots of minimum wage workers. This will widen an already large gap in employment rate by educational level. But it will only change the rate at which this gap is widening. At any give moment in time there is a gap between the average productivity in an industry and the potential highest level of productivity given curren...
Source: FuturePundit - May 20, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Low Mars Gravity, Radiation Shielding Suits
Kill 2 birds with one stone on Mars: use lead-laced protective clothing to reduce radiation exposure and also reduce bone loss from low gravity. Since gravity on Mars is only about 38% of its force on Earth a 180 person on Earth will weight only 68.4 pounds on Mars. That's a problem for the eventual return to Earth. But suppose an astronaut visiting Mars wore a lead jacket, pants, and hat. The weight on their body would probably make their bones weaken more slowly. Also, the radiation would reduce radiation exposure. Suppose a person who weighs 180 pound wears an amount of lead that would weigh 294 pounds on Earth. The tot...
Source: FuturePundit - May 20, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
How To Colonize Mars: Send First Humans For Robot Maintenance
Elon Musk wants us to go to Mars. He sees this as a necessary move to ensure Earth's survival. I find the discussions about how to do this as impractical and premature as well. I'd like to introduce some ideas about how to go about doing this. First thing we have to be aware of: Mars is a very hostile environment for humans. Little atmosphere, too much radiation, too cold, too far from the Sun, low on nitrogen (which is probably a bigger problem than low on water), very costly to ship to, too far away to do remote real-time control of equipment. Really a very unappetizing place to live. Manufacturing is the hard part. In a...
Source: FuturePundit - May 17, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Do You Fear An Elite Population Of Enhanced Babies?
We each have lots of mildly harmful genetic defects. If I was given a magic wand to wave at myself to eliminate all my genetic defects I'd wave the wand. I'd feel better afterward. The benefit would be much greater if delivered earlier: before fetal development. Various less than optimal developmental outcomes would be avoided. But some people fear future humans who are smarter and better looking. While everyone welcomes Crispr-Cas9 as a strategy to treat disease, many scientists are worried that it could also be used to alter genes in human embryos, sperm or eggs in ways that can be passed from generation to generation. T...
Source: FuturePundit - May 12, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Robot Room Service
A robot does delivery to hotel rooms. A Japanese company intends to automate almost all work in a hotel. If they even automate half the work in the next 5 years that'll be impressive. Cleaning a room seems like the hardest part. Front desk check-in work seems almost all automatable now. It can be done using computer systems similar in sophistication to the ones rental car companies provide to enable getting and returning cars without human contact. The key just happens to open a room door rather than a car door. 50 years ago entry level workers could start at jobs in hotels, restaurants, gas stations, rental companies, and...
Source: FuturePundit - May 11, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Daimler Starts Testing Autonomous Freightliner In Nevada
Daimler's Mercedes has been testing autonomous trucks in Germany under controlled conditions. So this next step is not surprising. The car makers are rolling out autonomous vehicles faster than the truck makers. The car markers have a lower bar to reach before they produce something of commercial value. As a first step they want to provide a better traveling experience to luxury car buyers. The buyers want an easier time traveling. Being able to stretch out by yourself in the backseat and take a nap while barreling down the highway can come in a later model. The truck makers could save a lot of labor cost and reduce accide...
Source: FuturePundit - May 5, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Few Laws Against Autonomous Vehicles
As long as a person with a driver's license is sitting behind the wheel the car can drive itself in most states. In the United States only New York state has a law requiring at least one hand on the wheel at all times. Since Tesla, Audi, Cadillac and other luxury car makers are rushing to add limited autonomous driving features to their cars the lack of laws lets faster innovation happen and will save lives as computers do a better job than humans at driving cars. I am reminded of a book I read a long time ago by a Cuban (Shadow Warrior by Felix Rodriguez) who had worked for the CIA against Castro. One time he was cruising...
Source: FuturePundit - May 4, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Warming Planet Will Have Less Extreme Weather Changes
The weather will vary less in the future as the temperature at higher latitudes gets closer to temperatures in the equatorial region. Cold snaps like the ones that hit the eastern United States in the past winters are not a consequence of climate change. Scientists at ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology have shown that global warming actually tends to reduce temperature variability. I want a ship that will let me travel between parallel universes. I want to find a parallel Earth where humans did not evolve and the plant is colder and covered with massive forests. Then I could travel to this parallel Earth...
Source: FuturePundit - May 2, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Astronaut Brain Damage From Mars Trip Radiation
Some researchers think a 1000 day Mars trip would damage the brains of astronauts. First off, going to Mars and back is going to have about as much impact as going to the Moon and back: Great TV video streams and then forget about it. Anything short of a major colonization effort is not worth it. A major colonization effort won't be worth trying until we have sufficient tech (notably biotech) to enable the colonists to produce the very wide array of drugs, foods, and equipment needed to maintain a complex technological civilization. However, we can make a human Mars expedition safer for the astronauts and also a much more ...
Source: FuturePundit - May 2, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Tesla Announces Home Battery Packs
Tesla has announced home battery packs. They can be used for shifting home PV electric power usage from day to night and also to lessen the impacts of grid outages. If your utility is willing to sell you electric power at discount at night and for a higher price in the day then home batteries might pay themselves back in electric power costs reduced. One version of the Tesla home battery will cost $3500 for 10 kwh plus installation costs. Lets put that in perspective. 10 kwh is about a third of an average US home's daily electric power usage. In 2013, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utilit...
Source: FuturePundit - April 30, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
