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Neuro, Cyber, Slaughter: Emerging Technological Threats In 2017 (thebulletin.org)
"Wouldn't it be nice if advances in technology stopped throwing new problems at the world? No such luck," writes Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "Several emerging technological threats could -- soon enough -- come to rival nuclear weapons and climate change in their potential to upend (or eliminate) civilization." Lasrick writes:
In 2017, the cyber threat finally began to seem real to the general public. Advances in biotech in 2017 could lead to the deliberate spread of disease and a host of other dangers. And then there were the leaps forward made in AI. Here's a roundup of coverage from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on advances in emerging technological threats that were made in the last year.
One article even describes the possibility of malevolent brain-brain networks in the future, warning scientists (and the international community) to "remain vigilant about neurotechnologies as they become more refined -- and as the practical barriers to their malevolent use begin to lower."
One article even describes the possibility of malevolent brain-brain networks in the future, warning scientists (and the international community) to "remain vigilant about neurotechnologies as they become more refined -- and as the practical barriers to their malevolent use begin to lower."
Aren't those things the reason I've been wearing tin-foil hats all this time?
Sharks with "lasers".
Signed,
Dr. Evil.
Grey goo. Let's just hope it won't happen during my lifetime.
Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say its time for our viewers to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside?
One of my favoite SciFi/fantasy flicks that never made it big.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamscape_(1984_film)
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
We used to have sanitariums where we could put people with communicable diseases. Now they just wander around, wheezing on people, asking for spare change. We have a big public health campaign to get adults vaccinated for whooping cough because "Muh poor baby!" But parents think nothing of dragging their kid with them to Starbucks and plopping them down next to a bum coughing up a lung.
Have gnu, will travel.
"...and as the practical barriers to their malevolent use begin to lower."
The Military Industrial Complex champions warmongering for profit.
Big Pharma continues to put opium in a bottle, creating millions of addicts.
The Banking Industry creates a housing crisis and global financial collapse, with zero punishment or deterrent to repeat it.
Let's not even fucking pretend we give a shit about being malevolent. Greed welcomes that activity.
We all understand the civilization ending power of nuclear power, but climate change? Does anybody know anybody who knows anybody who has died from climate change? Just remember in 20-30 years how often we saw this chicken little syndrome today, because surely the next batch of boys crying wolf can't be expected to keep track of social phenomenon from decades ago, that's somebody else's job.
Visualize human knowledge as a sphere. The surface area of that sphere increases as the square of the radius -- in other words our contact with the unknown grows more rapidly than our reach.
At the edge of that sphere is a shell of things we've only recently become aware of -- the known but unfamiliar. For a stone age hunter-gatherer this was a very thin rind, like the skin of an apple. For us, that rind is big fraction of the fruit's volume. In other words Og the Caveman almost always knew exactly what he was doing. In comparison we spend a huge amount of effort in making things up as we go along, and it will only get worse as knowledge continues to advance.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Errrrrr.. leaps in hype about AI.
....we can barely create functional software. Major corporations release software regularly that has huge bugs and security holes. But, yeah, magically we are going to create malevolent "AI". Right after they figure out how to play "Go" or "Chess" or Monopoly or whatever the AI "researchers" think of next.
Survival of the fittest -- the paranoid amongst us will survive! Doomsday Preppers! Gloria Gayner, not so much.
That would make it easier to deal with.
They shouldn't mix.
If I recall correctly, MKULTRA main achievement was to destroy a few patients minds at McGill University.
Cyber started to become a nasty threat in 1992.
First time I was cybered by a man masquerading as a woman :(