pale blue dot
Human-level intelligence is familiar in biological hardware – you’re using it now. Science and technology seem to be converging, from several directions, on the possibility of similar intelligence in non-biological systems. It is difficult to predict when this might happen, but most artificial intelligence (AI) specialists estimate that it is more likely than not within this century. …
Continue reading “Now it’s time to prepare for the Machinocene”
On January 13, 1993, Tracking and Data Relay Satellite 6 (TDRS-6), the American communications satellite launched by Space Shuttle Endeavour. TDRS-6 is still operational today, well past its intended design life”.
Mining asteroids might seem like the stuff of science fiction, but there are companies and a few governments already working hard to make it real. This should not be surprising: compared with the breathtaking bridges that engineers build on Earth, asteroid-mining is a simple, small-scale operation requiring only modest technological advances. If anything is lacking, …
Continue reading “Want faster data and a cleaner planet? Start mining asteroids”
Using data from the exoplanet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope and a machine learning algorithm from Google, researchers discovered an 8th planet orbiting a distant star. The newly discovered planet is circling Kepler-90, a G-type main-sequence star (Sun-like star), 2,545 light-years from Earth. It is named Kepler-90i. According to the press release from NASA, Kepler-90i is “a sizzling …
