Artificial General Intelligence, Automation and Economics

J Storrs Hall points out employment test for Artificial General Intelligence that was suggested by Nils Nilsson AI programs must be able to perform the jobs ordinarily performed by humans. Progress toward human-level AI could then be measured by the fraction of these jobs that can be acceptably performed by machines. The list of jobs …

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Five Year Project To Make Nanostructured Boron Doped Superconducting Wires

Wires made up of yarns spun from millions of carbon nanotube bundles may help make superconductivity practical. Researchers from UT Dallas, Clemson University and Yale University are using science on the nanoscale to address one of the most elusive challenges in physics—the discovery of room temperature superconductivity. With that as the ultimate goal, the team …

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Future X-ray Sources Will Enable New Science

Science and Technology of Future Light Sources (91 pages) by Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory X-rays with energies above 10 keV offer capabilities extending beyond the nanoworld shown aboce due to their ability to penetrate into optically opaque or thick objects. This opens the door …

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Supersensors and Labs on a Chip Advances

1. Tel Aviv University’s “super sensor” sniffs out disease and pollution. Coupling biological materials with an electrode-based device, Prof. Judith Rishpon of TAU’s Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology is able to quickly and precisely detect pathogens and pollution in the environment – and infinitesimally small amounts of disease biomarkers in our blood. About the …

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Commercial Shipping Uses 9% of world oil and is Major Air Pollution Source

Air pollution from commercial shipping kills 60,000 people per year. Converting all commercial ships to run on nuclear power would be economic even without considering carbon taxes or fees. In 2000, there were 6800 container ships in the world. At the cold war peak the Soviets had or had almost built about 400 nuclear powered …

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Ultra-Broadband Worldwide and GDP Boost

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and broadband can have a direct and measurable impact on GDP and that a number of studies have indicated that ‘true’ broadband (that is, symmetrical bandwidth in excess of 100 Mb/s) can increase GDP by up to 5%. Other studies indicate a return ten times greater than the investment in …

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Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC/Bussard) Fusion

A–Plasma Wiffleball 8 Testing Funded The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake intends to procure on sole-sourced basis, a Cost Plus Fixed Fee contract for research, analysis, development, and testing to validate the basic physics of the plasma fusion (polywell) concept as well as requirements to provide the Navy with data for potential …

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Charlie Stross Wrong About Space Colonization and Singularity

Charlie Stross has a 21st Century FAQ which tells people to forget about space colonization and the Singularity. 99.999% of the human species who will never get off the planet are concerned. There’ll probably be a Mars expedition too. But barring fundamental biomedical breakthroughs, or physics/engineering breakthroughs that play hell with the laws of physics …

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Energy plan

Updating and synthesizing my articles on energy into an energy plan. I will update this article with more updates and synthesize past and new information that I have gathered. Short termEfficiency and drilling for regular and enhanced recovery, policy that discourages coal and fossil fuel and encourages nuclear and renewables. Try to reduce fuel usage …

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