Lifeboat Foundation

One of the birthplaces of artificial intelligence, MIT, has announced a bold plan to reshape its academic program around the technology. With $1 billion in funding, MIT will create a new college that combines AI, machine learning, and data science with other academic disciplines. It is the largest financial investment in AI by any US academic institution to date.

New school: The new college of computing is being built with $350 million in funding from Stephen A. Schwarzman, the CEO and cofounder of Blackstone, a private equity firm. Schwarzman has already donated billions to other institutions for studying issues related to AI. MIT’s new Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing will create 50 new faculty positions and numerous fellowships for graduate students. The school will open next September and will be housed in existing buildings at MIT before moving to its own space, expected in 2022.

Data everywhere: Data and computing are already having a major impact on disciplines like the humanities, and machine learning and AI may have an even bigger one. Rafael Reif, the president of MIT, said in an announcement that the new approach was necessary because of the way computing, data, and AI are “reshaping the world,” and he added that students and researchers will be taught to use AI in their disciplines from first principles, instead of dividing their time between computer science and other departments. “Computing is no longer the domain of the experts alone,” Reif said. “It’s everywhere, and it needs to be understood and mastered by almost everyone.”

Continue reading “MIT has just announced a $1 billion plan to create a new college for AI” »

My colleague Conor Sen recently made a bold prediction: Government will be the driver of the U.S. economy in coming decades. The era of Silicon Valley will end, supplanted by the imperatives of fighting climate change and competing with China.

This would be a momentous change. The biggest tech companies — Amazon.com, Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Google (Alphabet Inc.) and (a bit surprisingly) Microsoft Corp. — have increasingly dominated both the headlines and the U.S. stock market:

The push for drug treatments for prediabetes takes place in an environment rife with financial conflicts of interest. For years, ethicists have criticized ADA for financial dependence on diabetes drugmakers. In recent years, ADA says, it has received $18 million to $27 million annually from drug companies, including many donations of $500,000 to $1 million per year. The group also gets up to $500,000 annually from each of more than a dozen other firms in the diabetes and prediabetes markets, including makers of consumer and medical products, testing labs, insurance companies, and drug retailers.

A third of Americans are considered prediabetic—but many may be better off without treatment.

Artificial intelligence and its subset of disciplines—such as machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision —are seemingly becoming integrated into our daily lives whether we like it or not. What was once sci-fi is now ubiquitous research and development in company and university labs around the world.

Similarly, the startups working on many of these AI technologies have seen their proverbial stock rise. More than 30 of these companies are now valued at over a billion dollars, according to data research firm CB Insights, which itself employs algorithms to provide insights into the tech business world.

Continue reading “The World’s Most Valuable AI Companies, and What They’re Working On” »

Join S-Booster 2019!

We will invite space-based business ideas from the Asia and Oceania regions!The Contest facilitates the realization of each business idea through open innovation with Japanese companies, and also provides financial support, business coaching and other assistances. Promoting Win-Win Business Cooperation Between Asia and Japan!

Samsara Therapeutics has completed a seed financing round in collaboration with Apollo Ventures, a venture capital company and biotech incubator that supports longevity research and treatments for age-related diseases.

Samsara Therapeutics, Inc. (“Samsara,”) a platform biotechnology startup engaged in the discovery and development of compounds that address the primary molecular causes of aging, announced today the closing of a seed financing round. The financing was led by Apollo Ventures, a life sciences venture capital firm and company builder working across Europe and North America.

Additionally, on February 19th, 2019 Nature Communications published a peer-reviewed paper, “The flavonoid 4,4′-dimethoxychalcone promotes autophagy-dependent longevity across species” authored by Samsara’s scientific team [1]. The paper demonstrates the capability of the Samsara platform to identify novel MoA geroprotective small molecules that extend healthy lifespan across species and which are protective in mammalian models of disease.

Continue reading “Samsara is Developing Autophagy Boosting Therapies to Combat Aging” »

Quantum computers could help explain some of the most fundamental mysteries in the universe and upend everything from finance to encryption – if only someone could get them to work.

A way to speed up quantum computer tech progress has arrived from Intel. If you are interested in following the waves and advances in quantum computing, then get familiar with this word trio: Cryogenic Wafer Prober. Before their design, the electrical characterization of qubits was slower than with traditional transistors. Even small subsets of data might take days to collect.

Drug development. Chemistry. Climate change. Financial modeling. Scientists in all areas look forward to more advancements to push quantum computers to the frontlines. Speeding progress could also mean speeding up advancements in science and industry.

“Quantum computing, in essence, is the ultimate in parallel computing, with the potential to tackle problems conventional computers can’t handle,” said Intel.

With the development of deep fakes and social media bots, there’s a concern about the use of AI in crime. This paper by Floridi is a great analysis of the possible problems that may arise. From the above mentioned deep fakes to AI copying someone’s social media account into another media and pretending to be them or the use of AI financial bots to gather insider information to use in financial manipulation.

The last idea reminds of the scenes in Transcendence where the AI Will Caster makes a fortune in the markets.

Artificial intelligence (AI) research and regulation seek to balance the benefits of innovation against any potential harms and disruption. However, one unintended consequence of the recent surge in AI research is the potential re-orientation of AI.