Science, Mindfulness & the Urgency of Reducing Suffering – Christof Koch
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Science, Mindfulness & the Urgency of Reducing Suffering – Christof Koch

In this interview with Christof Koch, he shares some deeply felt ideas about the urgency of reducing suffering (with some caveats), his experience with mindfulness – explaining what it was like to visit the Dali Lama for a week, as well as a heart felt experience of his family dog ‘Nosey’ dying in his arms,…

The Antispeciesist Revolution – read by David Pearce
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The Antispeciesist Revolution – read by David Pearce

The Antispeciesist Revolution [Original text found here] Speciesism. When is it ethically acceptable to harm another sentient being? On some fairly modest(1) assumptions, to harm or kill someone simply on the grounds they belong to a different gender, sexual orientation or ethnic group is unjustified. Such distinctions are real but ethically irrelevant. On the other…

CLAIRE – a new European confederation for AI research
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CLAIRE – a new European confederation for AI research

While the world wakes up to the huge potential impacts of AI in the future, how will national worries about other nations gaining ‘AI Supremacy’ effect development? Especially development in AI Ethics & safety? Claire-AI is a new European confederation. Self described as Liking the ‘human-centered’ focus (albeit a bit vague), but where is their…

Moral Enhancement – Are we morally equipped to deal with humanities grand challenges? Anders Sandberg
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Moral Enhancement – Are we morally equipped to deal with humanities grand challenges? Anders Sandberg

The topic of is controversial (and often misrepresented); it is considered by many to be repugnant – provocative questions arise like “who’s morals?”, “who are the ones to be morally enhanced?”, “will it be compulsory?”, “won’t taking a morality pill decrease the value of the intended morality if it skips the difficult process we normally…

Another Milestone in Achieving Brain Preservation & Whole Brain Emulation
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Another Milestone in Achieving Brain Preservation & Whole Brain Emulation

A technology designed to preserve synapses across the whole brain of a large mammal is successful – covered in this interview with Keith Wiley, Fellow of the Brain Preservation Foundation. (see below) In an announcement from the Brain Preservation Foundation, it’s president Ken Hayworth writes: Using a combination of ultrafast glutaraldehyde fixation and very low…

The Point of View of the Universe – Peter Singer
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The Point of View of the Universe – Peter Singer

Peter Singer discusses the new book ‘The Point Of View Of The Universe – Sidgwick & Contemporary Ethics’ (By Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer) He also discusses his reasons for changing his mind about preference utilitarianism.   Buy the book here: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/97… Bart Schultz’s (University of Chicago) Review of the book: http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/49215-he-poin… “Restoring Sidgwick…

Amazing Progress in Artificial Intelligence – Ben Goertzel
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Amazing Progress in Artificial Intelligence – Ben Goertzel

At a recent conference in Beijing (the Global Innovators Conference) – I did yet another video interview with the legendary AGI guru – Ben Goertzel. This is the first part of the interview, where he talks about some of the ‘amazing’ progress in AI over recent years, including Deep Mind’s AlphaGo sealing a 4-1 victory…

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The future of neuroscience and understanding the complexity of the human mind – Brains and Computers

Two of the world’s leading brain researchers will come together to discuss some of the latest international efforts to understand the brain. They will discuss two massive initiatives – the US based Allen Institute for Brain Science and European Human Brain Project. By combining neuroscience with the power of computing both projects are harnessing the…

Building Brains – How to build physical models of brain circuits in silicon
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Building Brains – How to build physical models of brain circuits in silicon

Event Description: The brain is a universe of 100 billion cells interacting through a constantly changing network of 1000 trillion synapses. It runs on a power budget of 20 Watts and holds an internal model of the world.   Understanding our brain is among the key challenges for science, on equal footing with understanding genesis and…

David Brin on Marching for Science and the Future
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David Brin on Marching for Science and the Future

March Fourth – on March 4th for Science and the Future! Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwW3nIPQYwc A discussion on science advocacy & the future! David discussed how to think about strategic foresight (because it was kind of Future Day being March fourth) and science advocacy (especially in relation to the global science march). We also covered the kinds…