The World Transformed

Latest Episodes:

We’re (Once Again) Not Saying It’s Aliens...Plus Really Old Shark! Dec 16, 2017

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Phil and Stephen discuss a variety of future-facing new stories, starting with the big one: NASA has once again not discovered aliens. NASA ANNOUNCEMENT: First solar system like ours with eight planets discovered NASA today announced it has found another solar system just like ours with EIGHT planets... boosting the chances of finding ALIEN life elsewhere in the Universe. NASA says the new discovery has been made by researchers using machine learning from Google, which is an approach to artificial intelligence, and demonstrates new ways of analysing Kepler data. Bitcoin mining 'is using so much energy that it is causing electricity blackouts' amid fears it will consume more power than the world by 2020 The virtual mining of Bitcoins is using up so much energy that it is causing electricity blackouts in some countries, it has been revealed. Experts say the high-tech activity is consuming a higher level of power than in 159 countries across the globe - amid fears it will use more than the world by 2020. This Shark Could Be Oldest Living Vertebrate At 512 Danish scientists believe they've discovered the oldest living vertebrate: A Greenland shark lurking in the frigid North Atlantic and Arctic waters that could be 512 years old, according to the journal Science. Here's why your attitude is more important than your intelligence GEEKOUT! Day-late predictions and wish list for Star Wars: the Last Jedi WT 382-693

Get Used to It: Robots Are Smarter than Us Dec 14, 2017

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Has machine intelligence overtaken human intelligence, or will it do so shortly? Phil and Stephen examine recent news stories that may provide some answers. Insurance Companies Are Now Offering Discounts if You Let Your Tesla Drive Itself Britain’s largest automobile insurance company, Direct Line, has announced a 5 percent discount for customers who activate Autopilot functionality in their Tesla. It follows in the footsteps of Root, a startup that offers a similar promotion across nine states in the US. DeepMind AI needs mere 4 hours of self-training to become a chess overlord Evolved now to AlphaZero, this latest iteration started from scratch and bested the program that beat the human Go champions after just eight hours of self-training. And when AlphaZero instead decided to teach itself chess, the AI defeated the current world-champion chess program, Stockfish, after a mere four hours of self-training. (For fun, AlphaZero also took two hours to learn shogi—"a Japanese version of chess that’s played on a bigger board," according to The Verge—and then defeated one of the best bots around.) AI will obliterate half of all jobs, starting with white collar, says ex-Google China president Everyone needs to rethink the practical and social impact of fewer jobs in the future, Kai-Fu Lee says. The chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures believes about half of all jobs will disappear over the next decade. True Artificial Intelligence will change everything Eventually AIs will set their own goals and become much smarter than we are WT 381-692

AI in Medicine Dec 12, 2017

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Phil and Stephen review a series of articles from MIT Technology Review goo.gl/kspwkz showcasing progress in artificial-intelligence driven medicine Can AI Keep You Healthy? ICX wants to capture more data about your body than has ever before been possible. It starts with your DNA sequence and includes data from Fitbit-style wearables that measure your steps, heart rate, and sleep patterns. The Artificially Intelligent Doctor Will Hear You Now U.K.-based startup Babylon will launch an app later this year that will listen to your symptoms and provide medical advice. Will it help or hinder the health-care system? Treating Addiction with an App Using smartphone data and artificial intelligence to track and interpret behavior, a Chicago startup is attempting something extraordinary: predicting and preventing relapse into drug use. Stopping Breast Cancer with Help from AI In an effort to find targeted treatments for particularly invasive types of breast cancer that don’t respond well to existing drugs, the Department of Defense announced this week that it is enlisting the biopharma company Berg Health to use AI for drug discovery. The Recipe for the Perfect Robot Surgeon One of Verb’s priorities is to use artificial intelligence to help surgeons interpret what they see inside a patient. WT 380-691

Realizing Possibilities...Fast! (PS: Specialization Is for Insects) Dec 09, 2017

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We live in an age of acceleration. But it’s primarily the technology that’s going faster, right? Humans are still just humans. There is no Moore’s Law making us incredibly more powerful and efficient. Is there? M2M Day 1: Completing 12 ridiculously hard challenges in 12 months Here’s the list of challenges: November: Memorize the order of a deck of cards in less than 2 minutesDecember: Draw a realistic self-portraitJanuary: Solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 secondsFebruary: Land a standing backflipMarch: Play a 5-minute improvisational blues guitar soloApril: Hold a 30-minute conversation in Hebrew on the future of techMay: Build a self-driving carJune: Develop perfect pitch — identify 20 random musical notes in a rowJuly: Finish a Saturday NYT crossword puzzle in one sittingAugust: Complete one continuous set of 40 pull-upsSeptember: Continuously freestyle rap for 3 minutesOctober: Defeat world-champion Magnus Carlsen at a game of chess A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein GEEKOUT Geekzone https://www.youtube.com/user/kscerri WT 379-690

Happy Accidents and Unintended (Amazing) Consequences Dec 07, 2017

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Phil and Stephen dip into the archives to discuss the strange ways in which progress doesn’t always occur on purpose. Where do solutions come from? Careful planning. Intentional behavior. Hard work. Or sometimes we just stumble into them. Cure for cancer might accidentally have been found, and it could be malaria By attaching malaria proteins to cancer cells, tumours could be burrowed into and then destroyed — and it seems to be effective on 90 per cent of types of cancers Can a Diabetes Drug Cure Aging? A 2014 study found that people with Type 2 diabetes who took metformin lived longer than healthy people without diabetes who weren't taking it. 10 Awesome Accidental Discoveries Penicillin The Microwave Oven Velcro The Big Bang Teflon Vulcanized Rubber Coca-Cola Radioactivity Smart Dust 'Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration ... Thomas A Edison Artificial intelligence will plunge into the universe of molecules in the search for amazing drugs “There are two strategies of innovation on the basis of the AI in the pharmaceutical industry, which will provide you the best molecules and the rapid approval,” says lark. “One is looking for the needle in the haystack, and the other creates a new needle”. WT 378-689

What Happens When We Conquer Aging? Dec 05, 2017

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Phil and Stephen discuss some of the broader social implications associated with ending aging. Aging Expert: The First Person to Live to 1,000 Has Already Been Born According to the United Nations, the population of those aged 60 and older is expected to more than double by 2050 — increasing from 962 million globally in 2017 to 2.1 billion in 2050. If or when humanity determines how to reject aging, de Grey foresees the development of rejuvenation clinics that will address seven issues related to aging: tissue atrophy, cancerous cells, mitochondrial mutations, death-resistant cells, extracellular matrix stiffening, extracellular aggregates, and intracellular aggregates. The above story drew the following comment on Facebook: If that’s the case, then we are going to have to implement a one child policy or things are going to get out of hand. Will we? What can we expect to change / has to change when people live to be 1,000? How long before treatments for aging are a big factor in population?Will we face a population explosion?How long will there be two populations: one that ages normally and one that doesn’t age?What factors might offset the explosion?Education / Career / Marriage / Family -- What will be the right age to start each of these in a world without aging?What should the population of the planet be?What should the population of the solar system be? WT 377-688

Space Bacteria, 400-Year Battery, Tiny Robots, Drug-Sleuthing AI Dec 02, 2017

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It's a Friday World Transformed, complete with aliens and GEEKOUT. Cosmonaut says space station bacteria 'come from outer space' The bacteria turned up after swabbing of the space station's exterior. The question is, how did they get there? Student Invents A Phone Battery That Lasts 400 Years Back in April, Thai was messing around in the lab and coated a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell, then once again in an electrolyte made of a Plexiglas-like gel. “The coated electrode holds its shape much better, making it a more reliable option... Tiny robot designed to fight cancer could be inserted into human body Scientists have developed tiny, remote-controlled “microrobots” with the ability to release cancer-targeting drugs, which they hope will one day be used to diagnose disease and administer drugs inside the human body. Artificial intelligence will plunge into the universe of molecules in the search for amazing drugs In our galaxy, they are 100 to 400 billion galaxies in the Universe, and even more. Out in the night sky not as many stars. However, even this number gives us a deep story… of drugs and medicines. GEEKOUT Coco, new Pixar movie Justice League WT 376-687

The Amazing Wealth Machine Nov 30, 2017

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How much is that smartphone really worth? Phil and Stephen discuss multiple analyses. Everything from 1991 Radio Shack ad I now do with my phone We’ll get to those someday, but today, something much simpler. The back page of the front section on Saturday, February 16, 1991 was 4/5ths covered with a Radio Shack ad. There are 15 electronic gizmo type items on this page, being sold from America’s Technology Store. 13 of the 15 you now always have in your pocket. How much would an iPhone have cost in 1991? Innovation blindness, I’ve long argued, is a key obstacle to sound economic and policy thinking. And this is a perfect example. When we make policy based on today’s technology, we don’t just operate mildly sub-optimally. No, we often close off entire pathways to amazing innovation. The iPhone in Your Pocket Is Worth Millions My iPhone 7 has 128 gigabytes (GB) of flash memory, which would have cost around $5.76 million back in 1991. Do “They” Really Say “Technological Progress Is Slowing Down?” Consider the 256 GB memory iPhone X: Implemented in vacuum tubes in 1957, the transistors in an iPhoneX alone would have: cost 150 trillion of today's dollars: one and a half times today's global annual producttaken up a hundred-story square building 300 meters high, and 3 kilometers long and widedrawn 150 terawatts of power—30 times the world's current generating capacity WT 375-686

Robot Apocalypse, Dorky Headsets, Mechanical Hands, and Super Spiders Nov 28, 2017

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How to Survive a Robot Apocalypse: Just Close the Door Robots may enslave us all someday. In the meantime, if one of them goes berserk, here’s a useful tactic: Shut the door behind you. But then again, some progress has been made since 2015. The Inevitability Of Augmented Reality HMDs We are constantly shifting between the world in our hands and the physical world. Tens of thousands of people die every year because of this incredibly bad form factor, and the need to change it is urgent. Spider drinks graphene, spins web that can hold the weight of a human For the study, Nicola Pugno and team at the University of Trento in Italy added graphene and carbon nanotubes to a spider's drinking water. The materials were naturally incorporated into the spider's silk, producing webbing that is five times stronger than normal. That puts it on par with pure carbon fibers in strength, as well as with Kevlar, the material bulletproof vests are made from. High-tech neuroprosthetic ‘Luke’ arm lets amputee touch and feel again “When I went to grab something, I could feel myself grabbing it. When I thought about moving this or that finger, it would move almost right away,” Keven Walgamott said. “I don’t know how to describe it except that it was like I had a hand again.” Plus -- was it an alien spacecraft? (Timothy Gordon says yes!) WT 374-685

Rebuilding Bodies, Alien Flyby, and the Dawn of the Age of Imagination Nov 25, 2017

Show notes

Phil and Stephen conclude their special Thanksgiving week series. Good-news-a-palooza wraps up with a Black Friday show presenting still more tremendously encouraging news that is breaking all around us. Once again, aliens are mentioned right in the title of the show! And once again, it's a no Buzzkill Zone. Heart failure could be treated using umbilical cord stem cells goo.gl/eB9imT Using stem cells derived from the umbilical cord, researchers have improved the heart muscle and function of heart failure patients, paving the way for noninvasive therapies. Last of the Iron Lungs goo.gl/Pwv9ek Hours, days, and years sealed within a machine forcing breath into your lungs. This is life for people born before the polio vaccine. Deep Learning is Eating Software goo.gl/P6HzAm The pattern is that there’s an existing software project doing data processing using explicit programming logic, and the team charged with maintaining it find they can replace it with a deep-learning-based solution. How Technology Is Leading Us Into the Imagination Age goo.gl/s63h9N Initially coined by Rita J. King, the imagination age is a theoretical period beyond the information age where creativity and imagination will become the primary creators of economic value. An Organism That Regenerates Could Allow Us to Heal Humans goo.gl/9Yg4K5 The gecko’s remarkable ability to regenerate its tail in the space of a month could help scientists figure out how to heal spine injuries in humans, and it’s all down to the regenerative ability of stem cells. GEEKOUT Oumuamua = Alien Spacecraft? goo.gl/XUBsND Time for Stephen to adopt the Giorgio A. Tsoukalos haircut? goo.gl/Unh6ur WT 373-684

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