The Thread To Remind Me We're Living In The Future

[morriswalters]

The Amazon Store is 1800 square feet.

[freezeblade]

As of tomorrow, you can hail a self-driving car from uber in San Fransisco.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/techn ... .html?_r=0

I'm not sure how it will do, as even humans seem to not be able to drive in SF due to density of pedestrians, complicated streets, verticality, etc. The future is now!

[commodorejohn]

I'm not sure how it will do, as even humans seem to not be able to drive in SF due to density of pedestrians, complicated streets, verticality, etc. The future is now!

Fortunately, due to Bay area traffic, we can rest assured that no resulting accidents will take place at greater than 5 MPH.

[elasto]

Genetically modified (GM) plants designed to use light more efficiently produced a 20% greater yield in a study that could have significant implications for global food supplies.

The field trial, which used tobacco plants, is the first to show that GM techniques can be used to boost the basic efficiency of photosynthesis, potentially offering substantial gains across almost all food crops in the future. Until now many scientists had doubted this would be possible.

The scientists believe the finding could help meet the global demand for food, which is projected by the UN to rise by 70% by 2050.

Professor Stephen Long, who led the work at the University of Illinois, said: “We don’t know for certain this approach will work in other crops, but because we’re targeting a universal process that is the same in all crops, we’re pretty sure it will."

The team have now been funded by the Gates Foundation to introduce similar modifications in major food crops, starting with rice, soya bean and cassava.

Cool beans

(Although, it has to be said, poor distribution is the main reason for food scarcity right now, not poor yields; My understanding is the world produces enough to feed everyone - it just doesn't get to everyone that needs it)

[CorruptUser]

I can't tell. Is this the much-vaulted C4 carbon fixation process in C3 crops? If it is, hooray, we finally have that working! If it isn't, hooray, we finally have a massive boon but still have room for improvement!

edit: Comparing to other sources, this does look like the C4 carbon fixation. WOOHOO! We finally have it! If we can do it in tobacco, we should be able to do it in rice and other crops.

[sardia]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/healt ... ccine.html
New vaccine provides 100% protection from Ebola. Fuck you viral hemorrhagic fever.

The vaccine has not yet been approved by any regulatory authority, but it is considered so effective that an emergency stockpile of 300,000 doses has already been created for use should an outbreak flare up again.

[Liri]

And it's potentially effective up to 4 or 5 days post-infection!

[pogrmman]

And the majority of the side effects are mild!

They only had three major adverse reactions -- one of which was due to an allergy.

It is almost too good to be true.

[commodorejohn]

It is almost too good to be true.

Maybe it's just to balance out the karma from the entire rest of 2016.

[sardia]

And the majority of the side effects are mild!

They only had three major adverse reactions -- one of which was due to an allergy.

It is almost too good to be true.

It only targets 2 of the 5ish strains out there, so it's not a silver cure all. And it's not like the flu vaccine where you can give it to everyone. You should only give it to people in a circle around the ill person.

[pogrmman]

And the majority of the side effects are mild!

They only had three major adverse reactions -- one of which was due to an allergy.

It is almost too good to be true.

It only targets 2 of the 5ish strains out there, so it's not a silver cure all. And it's not like the flu vaccine where you can give it to everyone. You should only give it to people in a circle around the ill person.

Even though it doesn't cover every strain -- it's still a great improvement. Having one will probably make it easier to invent vaccines for the other strains.

[Angua]

And the majority of the side effects are mild!

They only had three major adverse reactions -- one of which was due to an allergy.

It is almost too good to be true.

It only targets 2 of the 5ish strains out there, so it's not a silver cure all. And it's not like the flu vaccine where you can give it to everyone. You should only give it to people in a circle around the ill person.

Ring vaccination would probably not happen if the outbreak was still on the uprise. It makes sense when you're only getting sporadic cases though.

[pogrmman]

And the majority of the side effects are mild!

They only had three major adverse reactions -- one of which was due to an allergy.

It is almost too good to be true.

It only targets 2 of the 5ish strains out there, so it's not a silver cure all. And it's not like the flu vaccine where you can give it to everyone. You should only give it to people in a circle around the ill person.

Ring vaccination would probably not happen if the outbreak was still on the uprise. It makes sense when you're only getting sporadic cases though.

Considering that most ebola outbreaks are small (so, what you would call "sporadic cases"), this vaccine is likely to be very helpful -- even with just ring vaccination.

Really, only the big ebola outbreak was different from the norm of "sporadic cases".

Rig vaccination is fine for ebola in most circumstances.

[New User]

I haven't heard anything about administering this vaccine. When the outbreak was continuing in western Africa, I heard that preventive measures recommended by white doctors were being ignored by the locals because of a pervasive conspiracy theory that white doctors were intentionally spreading the disease. If that's still a widespread belief, I predict there will be many who resist vaccination.

[sardia]

I haven't heard anything about administering this vaccine. When the outbreak was continuing in western Africa, I heard that preventive measures recommended by white doctors were being ignored by the locals because of a pervasive conspiracy theory that white doctors were intentionally spreading the disease. If that's still a widespread belief, I predict there will be many who resist vaccination.

There's no plans for widespread vaccination. The side effects are severe enough that they're only going to do ring vaccinations, and not a total purge of the virus, a la smallpox or even the flu.

[New User]

I get that. I just mean that it seems international observers should be wary of how many people in these rings are going to resist vaccination when the time comes to administer it. It would be a shame to get our hopes up only to see widespread resistance when the next epidemic begins.

[CorruptUser]

Can fruit bats be vaccinated? Because I think that would stop Ebola altogether.

[WaterToFire]

You might be able to do with with gene drive. But no one has tried something like that on a large scale as of yet.

[hollow]

There are proposals to try, for an unrelated disease.

[jewish_scientist]

The gene drive sounds like a bad idea to me. Ecology is unbelievable complex and even the most basic studies have to gather data for years. I can easily imagine this ending up like the Aussie cane toad situation.

In the 1930’s, cane-growers in Queensland were very concerned about crop damage due to beetles – especially the frenchi beetle and the greyback beetle. So the Queensland Department of Agriculture looked into possible solutions. The chemicals available to kill insects at that time were very nasty – even DDT was yet to be invented – so “less destructive” approaches were examined. Based on reports of cane toad introduction helping to increase yields in Hawaiian sugar cane crops by eating beetles, Reginald Mungomery organized the import of toads.

It’s easy to criticize scientists like Mungomery - with the benefit of hindsight, bringing in toads was a REALLY bad idea! But we think that’s a bit tough – if they were indeed looking for a more ecologically sustainable solution to beetle damage than harmful chemicals, all we can really say is that they tried to do the right thing, but got it awfully wrong.

[pogrmman]

The gene drive sounds like a bad idea to me. Ecology is unbelievable complex and even the most basic studies have to gather data for years. I can easily imagine this ending up like the Aussie cane toad situation.

It sounds like one to me too -- even seemingly innocuous things can have big effects.

It's not like fruit bats only have a small effect on things -- changing something with them could have really significant repercussions.

[Soupspoon]

The Amazon Store is 1800 square feet.

And now it flies!

(So, a Network of automated robot drone controllers in the Sky...)

[Mambrino]

Japanese insurance firm lays off 34 staff, replaces them with an AI based on IBM's Watson

[Liri]

Japanese insurance firm lays off 34 staff, replaces them with an AI based on IBM's Watson

I wonder what that'll look like on the resumés of those laid off. Being one of the first humans replaced by an AI must have an odd sting to it.

[notzeb]

Master was secretly AlphaGo all along.

Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments/5l3l7e/chinese_ai_crushing_pros_on_fox_server/
Life in 19x19 discussion: http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&p=215117

Don't worry, the singularity is still a long way off.

[Soupspoon]

Don't worry, the singularity is still a long way off.

I'd be more worried about the event horizon than the singularity, strictly...

[elasto]

Don't worry, the singularity is still a long way off.

Sobering Ted Talk on that very topic

[Zamfir]

Japanese insurance firm lays off 34 staff, replaces them with an AI based on IBM's Watson

I wonder what that'll look like on the resumés of those laid off. Being one of the first humans replaced by an AI must have an odd sting to it.

That's mostly a definition issue? Look at typical ENIAC work - numerical integration of non-linear functions for tables. That used to be human work, definitely skilled work as well. I think the literal term "artificial intelligence" is from the 1960s, but people used similar terms before.

[elasto]

Dentists have devised a treatment to regenerate rotten teeth that could substantially reduce the need for fillings in the future. The therapy relies on a drug called tideglusib, which has been assessed as a potential Alzheimer’s treatment, and which is known to be safe for clinical use.

Previous work by the team has shown that the drug stimulates stem cells in the centre of the tooth, triggering them to develop into odontoblasts (specialised tooth cells) and boosting the production of dentine, allowing larger defects to be reversed. “We get more of the cells, much quicker and they are more active,” said Sharpe.

In the study, published in Scientific Reports, the scientists drilled holes into the teeth of mice, inserted a biodegradable collagen sponge soaked in the drug and sealed the tooth with a dental adhesive. When the teeth were examined several weeks later, the sponge had degraded and been replaced with new dentine.

link

[Zohar]

That would be so fantastic, not having to deal with fallen fillings and such, or being able to recreate a broken tooth.

[sardia]

That would be so fantastic, not having to deal with fallen fillings and such, or being able to recreate a broken tooth.

The
Ada would never go for it. Dentist build their lives around drilling teeth until they are replaced, and making you addicted to whitening.

[Zohar]

1. There are other countries than the US that have dental practices.
2. Why would this interfere with whitening treatments? And do most people do those?
3. You'd still, presumably, have to go to the dentist to get this treatment. It wouldn't stop cavities from happening. How often do people replace their cavities? I've had to replace once after maybe 15 or 20 years or something? And the same with a broken tooth I have? Doctors definitely made more off me just from cleaning and annual checkups.

[Mambrino]

And for some weird reason they recommend me to use toothbrush twice a day with fluorine toothpaste, not eat stuff that's bad for teeth, and give other advice that is bad for their business if patients do as told.

[sardia]

And for some weird reason they recommend me to use toothbrush twice a day with fluorine toothpaste, not eat stuff that's bad for teeth, and give other advice that is bad for their business if patients do as told.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... P-gOoMu4CA
Dentists are biased, just like any other profession.

[Zohar]

Which is even more proof this new technology won't bankrupt them...

[Sheikh al-Majaneen]

The question isn't whether dentists will do it, it's whether a company like GSK will hold the license to manufacture and distribute the medicine in the US and proceed not to do either because it might be better for their profits that way. From what I've read, it's not exactly unprecedented.

But also I might be full of shit here.

[Zohar]

I wonder how often (if at all) in US healthcare companies are like "We're not going to provide this thing because it's not profitable to us" and then the rest of the world starts doing thing and the US company is "all right fiiiiiiine"

[speising]

I can see this being more expensive (read more lucrative) than cheap fillings.

[elasto]

Wow. Now this really makes me feel like I'm living in the future:

The European parliament has urged the drafting of a set of regulations to govern the use and creation of robots and artificial intelligence, including a form of “electronic personhood” to ensure rights and responsibilities for the most capable AI.

“A growing number of areas of our daily lives are increasingly affected by robotics,” said the report’s author, Luxembourgish MEP Mady Delvaux. “In order to address this reality and to ensure that robots are and will remain in the service of humans, we urgently need to create a robust European legal framework”.

The proposed legal status for robots would be analogous to corporate personhood, which allows firms to take part in legal cases both as the plaintiff and respondent. “It is similar to what we now have for companies, but it is not for tomorrow,” said Delvaux. “What we need now is to create a legal framework for the robots that are currently on the market or will become available over the next 10 to 15 years.”

Ashley Morgan, of international legal practice Osborne Clarke, says that the proposals will be “extremely controversial.”

“One could argue that, effectively, a law of the nature proposed in this resolution would grant human rights to robots. That’s not going to go down easy with companies that are creating robots and AIs,” he told the Guardian.

“If I create a robot, and that robot creates something that could be patented, should I own that patent or should the robot? If I sell the robot, should the intellectual property it has developed go with it? These are not easy questions to answer, and that goes right to the heart of this debate,”

The report also addresses the risk that overly competitive robots could result in large-scale unemployment, and calls for the serious examination of a general basic income as one possible solution.

link

[Zohar]

I don't get why there's such an emphasis sometimes on robots as persons and not AI. I know a lot of people talk about AI, but sometimes some place choose to concentrate just on robots. It's very strange.