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Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection
a Cengage Company
2018

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Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions
Proctor, Hsiang, Burney, Burke, Schlenker
8/2018

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References

1. 2.
Ocean Studies Board. Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool the Earth (The National Academies, Washington DC, 2015).

2. 5.
Pachauri, R. K. et al. Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Core Writing Team, Pachauri, R. K. & Meyer, L. A.) (IPCC, Geneva, 2015).

3. 26.
Wooldridge, J. M. Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data (MIT Press, Cambridge, 2002).

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Sacks, W. J., Deryng, D., Foley, J. A. & Ramankutty, N. Crop planting dates: an analysis of global patterns. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 19, 607-620 (2010).

5. 35.
Rohde, R. et al. A new estimate of the average Earth surface land temperature spanning 1753 to 2011. Geoinfor. Geostat. Overview 1, 1000101 (2013).

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank M. Anderson, M. Auffhammer, D. Baldocchi, K. Caldeira, C. Field, A. Goldstein, D. Keith, P. Huybers, R. Kopp, D. Lobell, K. Ricke, J. Sallee and seminar participants at Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Allied Social Science Association Annual Meeting for useful comments. We thank I. Bolliger for his contributions to the project and all the members of the Global Policy Laboratory for their valuable feedback. We thank L. Thomason for generously sharing SAOD data used in Fig. 1a-c. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Grant No. CNH-L 1715557 and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE 1752814.

Reviewer information

Nature thanks L. Gu and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Author information

These authors contributed equally: Jonathan Proctor, Solomon Hsiang

Affiliations

1. Global Policy Laboratory, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Jonathan Proctor

& Solomon Hsiang

2. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

3. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, USA

Solomon Hsiang

, Marshall Burke

& Wolfram Schlenker

4. School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

5. Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

6. School of International and Public Affairs and The Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Contributions

S.H. conceived the study; J.P., S.H., J.B., M.B. and W.S. designed the study; J.P. collected and analysed the data with contributions from J.B.; J.P., S.H., J.B., M.B. and W.S. interpreted results; J.P. and S.H. wrote the paper.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan Proctor.

Extended data figures and tables

1. Countries in light green are included in the estimation of the insolation-mediated effect of SSAs on yields for both C3 (soy, rice and wheat) and C4 (maize) crops. Countries in dark green are included only in estimation of the insolation effect for C3 crops, and countries in red are included only in estimation of the insolation effect for maize. Countries in grey are not included in the analysis owing to missing data.

2. Temperature, precipitation and cloud fraction axes show growing-season means. The y axes show partial effects on yield relative to a value of zero for each climatological variable ( f T( T it), f P( P it) and f C( C it) in equation (16) in Supplementary Information). Vertical dotted lines show the placement of the knots for the restricted cubic splines specification. Dashed lines show the 95% confidence intervals. n  = 2,501, 1,256, 1,562 and 2,010 country-years for maize, soy, rice and wheat, respectively.

3. The SAOD axes show growing-season means. Each point on a curve gives the optical effect of SAOD, relative to a value of zero (the slope of the red lines is β in equation (16) in Supplementary Information). Vertical dotted lines show the placement of the knots for the restricted cubic splines specification. Dashed lines show the 95% confidence intervals.

4. SRM-induced changes in maize growing-season average SAOD, temperature, precipitation and cloud fraction, relative to the climate-change-only scenario. Changes in uncropped land have been masked out by setting the values to zero.

5. Total effects are constructed by summing the partial effects from insolation, temperature, precipitation and clouds. Effects are relative to the climate-change-only scenario. Changes in uncropped land have been masked out by setting the values to zero. Statistically insignificant effects ( P > 0.05) are hatched. We calculate P values using a two-sided t-test comparing the estimated effect of SRM to a null hypothesis of zero effect. When calculating the distribution of the estimated SRM effect, we consider only statistical uncertainty. This uncertainty is shown in Extended Data Table 2, Extended Data Fig. 2, and the calculations are described in Supplementary Information, section IV.4.

6. Bar graphs show the total effect of SRM on global yields (cropped-fraction weighted average), relative to the climate change control, for each of the three Earth system model runs. Results are similar across ensemble member runs. Maps on the right show the total effect of SSAs on maize yields for each of the ensemble runs. Error bars in the bar graphs show 95% confidence intervals for estimated mean effects for each crop. Statistically insignificant effects ( P > 0.05) are hatched in the maps. Changes in uncropped land have been masked out by setting the values to zero. We calculate P values using a two-sided t-test comparing the estimated effects to a null hypothesis of zero effect. Within each ensemble member, we calculate the distributions of the estimated effects considering only statistical uncertainty. This uncertainty is shown in Extended Data Table 2, Extended Data Fig. 2, and the calculations are described in Supplementary Information, section IV.4.

7. a, As in Fig. 4e, but comparing a climate change scenario (RCP 4.5) to an historical scenario ( Supplementary Information, section IV.3). b, As in Fig. 4e, but comparing a climate-change-with-SRM scenario to an historical scenario. Note that these calculations consider only climatological and sunlight-mediated effects; changes in yields owing to carbon fertilization, or other factors that may differ between scenarios, are not included. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals around the estimated mean effect.

8. Extended Data Table 1 Effect of SSAs on total, direct and diffuse insolation

9. Extended Data Table 2 Robustness of the insolation effect of SSAs on yields to changes in model specification, data sample and data source

10. Extended Data Table 3 Effect of SSAs on atmospheric forward scattering

Supplementary information

This file contains Supplementary Text and Data and Supplementary References - see contents page for details.

To obtain permission to re-use content from this article visit RightsLink.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions

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Forget the 3D Printer: 4D Printing Could Change Everything

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Forget the 3D Printer: 4D Printing Could Change Everything

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Randy Rieland
5/16/2014

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These days, 3D printing seems to be at the core of most new new research ventures, whether it's developing ways to print entire meals or recreating facial features to repair a patient's face.

But Skylar Tibbits wants to up the ante: He's hoping 4D printing will be the thing of the not-so-far future.

The name for his concept, Tibbits admits, was a bit lighthearted at first. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tibbits and researchers from the firms Stratasys and Autodesk Inc were trying to come up with a way of describing the objects they were creating on 3D printers-objects that not only could be printed, but thanks to geometric code, could also later change shape and transform on their own.

The name stuck, and now the process they developed-which turns code into "smart objects" that can self-assemble or change shape when confronted with a change in its environment-could very well pop up in a number of industries, from construction to athletic wear.

"Normally, we print things and we think they're done," Tibbits says. "That the final output and then we assemble them. But we want them to be able to transform and change shape over time. And we want them to assemble themselves."

Tibbits, a research scientist at MIT, was given the go-ahead last year to establish what's known as the university's Self-Assembly Lab. The challenge was to see how smart researchers could make an object without relying on sensors or chips; how fluid they could make something without wires or motors.

As luck would have it, when Tibbits shared this dilemma with acquaintances at Stratasys, a leading 3D printing firm, they told him the company had developed a printing material that expands by 150 percent when placed in water. It sounded promising. But the real question was how to bring precision to that transformation so an object could unfold, curl and form specific angles instead of just swelling up like a bloated sponge.

Tibbits' answer: Geometry.

With a 3D printer, an operator plugs in a virtual blueprint for an object, which the printer uses to construct the final product layer by layer. To make something "4D," though, Tibbits feeds the printer a precise geometric code based on the object's own angles and dimensions but also measurements that dictate how it should change shape when confronted with outside forces such as water, movement or a change in temperature.

In short, the code sets the direction, the number of times and the angles at which a material can bend and curl. When that object is confronted with a change in environment, it can be stimulated to change shape. Pipes, for instance, could programmed to expand or shrink to help move water; bricks could shift to accommodate more or less stress on a given wall.

Tibbits demonstrated the concept of 4D printing at a TED talk last year, during which he showed how a single strand of printed material could be programmed to fold, on its own, into the word "MIT."
(See a video of that demo below) The shapes of things to come
At face value, it's a concept that's very cool. But when can we expect to see these kinds of transformations out in the real world?

In some cases, they're already happening. Tibbits points out that in nanotechnology, scientists have been able to program physical and biological materials to change their shapes and properties-such as using DNA to self-assemble nanorobots.

Making this happen on a human scale, he concedes, is much more challenging, particularly in more traditional industries, such as construction. But Tibbits says at least one company is interested is seeing how 4D programming can be applied to infrastructure. There's potential, he says, in using self-assembling materials in disaster areas or extreme environments where conventional construction is not feasible or too expensive. For instance, he sees a future for what he calls "adaptive infrastructure" in space.

Tibbits say his lab is working closely with a number of industry partners on ways they could incorporate the 4D concept into their businesses. As for where we might see transforming products on the shelves, Tibbits envisions innovation in furniture or sportswear. He offers the example of sneakers that could change shape and function in response to how they're being used.

"If I start running," he said, "[the sneakers] should adapt to being running shoes. If I play basketball, they adapt to support my ankles more. If I go on grass, they should grow cleats or become waterproof if it's raining. It's not like the shoe would understand that you're playing basketball, of course, but it can tell what kind of energy or what type of forces are being applied by your foot. It could transform based on pressure. Or it could be moisture or temperature change. "
Multi-dimensional thinking
Here's some other recent developments in 3D and 4D printing:

Army maneuvers: The U.S. Army has given a grant to Harvard University, University of Pittsburgh and University of Illinois to explore ways the military could use self-assembling objects, raising the possibility of shelters or bridges that spring into shape.

Just don't tell anyone your makeup came right off the printer: Harvard student Grace Choi has created a prototype for a 3D printer called "Mink" that is designed to let users choose any color imaginable and then actually print out makeup in that hue.

All in a day's work: In China, an engineering company used 3D printers to build 10 one-story houses in a day. The printers, which were 33 feet wide and 22 feet high, used a mix of cement and construction waste to build the walls layer by layer.

And for more on the potential of 4D printing, check out this video:
This article has been updated to reflect Stratys and Autodesk Inc's involvement in 4D printing research.

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Forget the 3D Printer: 4D Printing Could Change Everything

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These days, 3D printing seems to be at the core of most new new research ventures, whether it's developing ways to print entire meals or recreating facial features to repair a patient's face. But Skylar Tibbits wants to up the ante: He's hoping 4D printing will be the thing of the not-so-far future.

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How to Live in Space: Everything You Need to Know for the Not-So-Distant Future

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How to Live in Space: Everything You Need to Know for the Not-So-Distant Future

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Publishers Weekly
5/21/2018

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Nicholas Gerbis
3/27/2016

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Imagine that the machines and structures we use every day, from particleboard bookshelves to apartment blocks, could assemble themselves. No more Ikea hex wrenches, no more cranes, just 3-D-printed materials that "know" how to fold, curl and stiffen, like plants growing in a time-lapse video.

In other words, what if we could print objects that were four-dimensional?

OK, sure, technically everything is four-dimensional - actually, 10-or-more- dimensional, according to physicists - but we mainly think of the built world in terms of length, width and height. The fourth dimension, time, we see as the enemy, the effects of which we do our best to resist (experts remain split as to whether the fifth dimension is "The Twilight Zone" or the band that sang "The Age of Aquarius").

And so we build walls and pipes as strong as we can - and keep repairing them as they age - because construction takes time, money and effort, and we don't want to do it over and over again. But what if time weren't the enemy? Suppose a structure could unfold itself, like origami. Imagine if its walls could flex or stiffen in response to shifting loads, or if a buried pipe could change shape to accommodate varying water flows - or to pump water via peristalsis, like your digestive system. Through 4-D printing, nothing is set in stone unless you want it to be.

If researchers and manufacturers can get it to work, 4-D printing could change our entire idea of manufacturing. Companies could print shelters, machines and tools, then flat-pack them and ship them where needed - disaster areas, perhaps, or prepare them for hostile environments like space or the ocean floor. There, environmental conditions harmful to humans might actually power the object's changes in shape and properties - not just once, but repeatedly.

At the heart of it all lie the basic physics, chemistry and geometry behind the most mundane natural processes. Consider how your hair changes shape as a storm rolls in, a simple matter of airborne water causing keratin proteins to form an unusually high proportion of hydrogen bonds, which cause them fold back instead of stretch out [source: Stromberg]. Or think of how a flat inflatable chair assumes a predictable shape as it takes in air because its sections have different properties.

Four-dimensional devices do not require humans to build them, nor are they robots that require microchips, servos and armatures to work. Their sole "programming" involves the geometry, physics and chemistry embedded in their structures.

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Imagine that the machines and structures we use every day, from particleboard bookshelves to apartment blocks, could assemble themselves. No more Ikea hex wrenches, no more cranes, just 3-D-printed materials that "know" how to fold, curl and stiffen, like plants growing in a time-lapse video.

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Scientists suggest a giant sunshade in the sky could solve global warming

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Scientists suggest a giant sunshade in the sky could solve global warming

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Peter Beaumont
April 5th 2018

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It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: the creation, using balloons or jets, of a manmade atmospheric sunshade to shield the most vulnerable countries in the global south against the worst effects of global warming.

But amid mounting interest in "solar geoengineering " - not least among western universities - a group of scientists from developing countries has issued a forceful call to have a greater say in the direction of research into climate change, arguing that their countries are the ones with most at stake.

Scientists have long known that manmade events like pollution in the atmosphere, smoke from forest fires and volcanic eruptions can create a cooling effect.

That has led scientists at Harvard University to propose their own experiment, which they call "stratospheric controlled perturbation effect", or SCoPEx for short. It involves using a balloon to test the controversial proposition that aerosols released at a height of 20km in the Earth's atmosphere can alter the reflective properties of cloud cover.

Now a dozen scholars, from countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Jamaica and Thailand, have joined the debate, arguing in the journal Nature that poor countries should take a lead in the field since they have most to gain or lose from the technology.

The cooling effect has long been known in phenomena such as "ship tracks" - narrow artificial clouds of pollution, created by emissions from ships, that contain more and smaller water droplets than typical clouds, making them brighter and more reflective of sunlight.

"Solar geoengineering - injecting aerosol particles into the stratosphere to reflect away a little inbound sunlight - is being discussed as a way to cool the planet, fast," the scientists write in Nature.

"Solar geoengineering is outlandish and unsettling. It invokes technologies that are redolent of science fiction - jets lacing the stratosphere with sunlight-blocking particles, and fleets of ships spraying seawater into low-lying clouds to make them whiter and brighter to reflect sunlight.

"Yet, if such approaches could be realised technically and politically, they could slow, stop or even reverse the rise in global temperatures within one or two years.

"The technique is controversial, and rightly so," they add. "It is too early to know what its effects would be: it could be very helpful or very harmful. Developing countries have most to gain or lose. In our view, they must maintain their climate leadership and play a central part in research and discussions around solar geoengineering."

In an interview with Reuters, Dr Atiq Rahman, director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies and the article's lead author, amplified his arguments.

"Clearly [solar radiation management geoengineering] could be dangerous, but we need to know whether, for countries like Bangladesh, it would be more or less risky than passing the 1.5C warming goal. This matters greatly to people from developing countries and our voices need to be heard.

"The overall idea [of solar geoengineering] is pretty crazy, but it is gradually taking root in the world of research," said Rahman.

The solar geoengineering studies may be helped by a new $400,000 (£284,100) research project, the solar radiation management governance initiative (SRMGI), which is issuing a first call for scientists to apply for finance this week.

The initiative is financed by the Open Philanthropy Project, a foundation backed by Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook, and his wife, Cari Tuna.

The fund could help scientists in developing nations study the regional impacts of solar geoengineering, for instance on droughts, floods or monsoons, said Andy Parker, a co-author and project director of the SRMGI.

Rahman said the academics were not taking sides about whether geoengineering would work.

And not everyone is convinced by the prospect of the technology.

In a leaked draft of a report about global warming due for publication in October, a UN panel of climate experts express scepticism about solar geoengineering, suggesting it may be "economically, socially and institutionally infeasible".

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Scientists suggest a giant sunshade in the sky could solve global warming

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It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: the creation, using balloons or jets, of a manmade atmospheric sunshade to shield the most vulnerable countries in the global south against the worst effects of global warming.

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Can Machines Think?

In the first half of the 20 th century, science fiction familiarized the world with the concept of artificially intelligent robots. It began with the "heartless" Tin man from the Wizard of Oz and continued with the humanoid robot that impersonated Maria in Metropolis. By the 1950s, we had a generation of scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers with the concept of artificial intelligence (or AI) culturally assimilated in their minds. One such person was Alan Turing, a young British polymath who explored the mathematical possibility of artificial intelligence. Turing suggested that humans use available information as well as reason in order to solve problems and make decisions, so why can't machines do the same thing? This was the logical framework of his 1950 paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence in which he discussed how to build intelligent machines and how to test their intelligence.

Making the Pursuit Possible

Unfortunately, talk is cheap. What stopped Turing from getting to work right then and there? First, computers needed to fundamentally change. Before 1949 computers lacked a key prerequisite for intelligence: they couldn't store commands, only execute them. In other words, computers could be told what to do but couldn't remember what they did. Second, computing was extremely expensive. In the early 1950s, the cost of leasing a computer ran up to $200,000 a month. Only prestigious universities and big technology companies could afford to dillydally in these uncharted waters. A proof of concept as well as advocacy from high profile people were needed to persuade funding sources that machine intelligence was worth pursuing.

The Conference that Started it All

Five years later, the proof of concept was initialized through Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert Simon's, Logic Theorist. The Logic Theorist was a program designed to mimic the problem solving skills of a human and was funded by Research and Development (RAND) Corporation. It's considered by many to be the first artificial intelligence program and was presented at the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence (DSRPAI) hosted by John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky in 1956. In this historic conference, McCarthy, imagining a great collaborative effort, brought together top researchers from various fields for an open ended discussion on artificial intelligence, the term which he coined at the very event. Sadly, the conference fell short of McCarthy's expectations; people came and went as they pleased, and there was failure to agree on standard methods for the field. Despite this, everyone whole-heartedly aligned with the sentiment that AI was achievable. The significance of this event cannot be undermined as it catalyzed the next twenty years of AI research.

Roller Coaster of Success and Setbacks

From 1957 to 1974, AI flourished. Computers could store more information and became faster, cheaper, and more accessible. Machine learning algorithms also improved and people got better at knowing which algorithm to apply to their problem. Early demonstrations such as Newell and Simon's General Problem Solver and Joseph Weizenbaum's showed promise toward the goals of problem solving and the interpretation of spoken language respectively. These successes, as well as the advocacy of leading researchers (namely the attendees of the DSRPAI) convinced government agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to fund AI research at several institutions. The government was particularly interested in a machine that could transcribe and translate spoken language as well as high throughput data processing. Optimism was high and expectations were even higher. In 1970 Marvin Minsky told Life Magazine, "from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being." However, while the basic proof of principle was there, there was still a long way to go before the end goals of natural language processing, abstract thinking, and self-recognition could be achieved.

Breaching the initial fog of AI revealed a mountain of obstacles. The biggest was the lack of computational power to do anything substantial: computers simply couldn't store enough information or process it fast enough. In order to communicate, for example, one needs to know the meanings of many words and understand them in many combinations. Hans Moravec, a doctoral student of McCarthy at the time, stated that "computers were still millions of times too weak to exhibit intelligence." As patience dwindled so did the funding, and research came to a slow roll for ten years.

In the 1980's, AI was reignited by two sources: an expansion of the algorithmic toolkit, and a boost of funds. John Hopfield and David Rumelhart popularized "deep learning" techniques which allowed computers to learn using experience. On the other hand Edward Feigenbaum introduced expert systems which mimicked the decision making process of a human expert. The program would ask an expert in a field how to respond in a given situation, and once this was learned for virtually every situation, non-experts could receive advice from that program. Expert systems were widely used in industries. The Japanese government heavily funded expert systems and other AI related endeavors as part of their Fifth Generation Computer Project (FGCP). From 1982-1990, they invested $400 million dollars with the goals of revolutionizing computer processing, implementing logic programming, and improving artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, most of the ambitious goals were not met. However, it could be argued that the indirect effects of the FGCP inspired a talented young generation of engineers and scientists. Regardless, funding of the FGCP ceased, and AI fell out of the limelight.

Ironically, in the absence of government funding and public hype, AI thrived. During the 1990s and 2000s, many of the landmark goals of artificial intelligence had been achieved. In 1997, reigning world chess champion and grand master Gary Kasparov was defeated by IBM's Deep Blue, a chess playing computer program. This highly publicized match was the first time a reigning world chess champion loss to a computer and served as a huge step towards an artificially intelligent decision making program. In the same year, speech recognition software, developed by Dragon Systems, was implemented on Windows. This was another great step forward but in the direction of the spoken language interpretation endeavor. It seemed that there wasn't a problem machines couldn't handle. Even human emotion was fair game as evidenced by Kismet, a robot developed by Cynthia Breazeal that could recognize and display emotions.

Time Heals all Wounds

We haven't gotten any smarter about how we are coding artificial intelligence, so what changed? It turns out, the fundamental limit of computer storage that was holding us back 30 years ago was no longer a problem. Moore's Law, which estimates that the memory and speed of computers doubles every year, had finally caught up and in many cases, surpassed our needs. This is precisely how Deep Blue was able to defeat Gary Kasparov in 1997, and how Google's was able to defeat Chinese Go champion, Ke Jie, only a few months ago. It offers a bit of an explanation to the roller coaster of AI research; we saturate the capabilities of AI to the level of our current computational power (computer storage and processing speed), and then wait for Moore's Law to catch up again.

Artificial Intelligence is Everywhere

We now live in the age of " big data," an age in which we have the capacity to collect huge sums of information too cumbersome for a person to process. The application of artificial intelligence in this regard has already been quite fruitful in several industries such as technology, banking, marketing, and entertainment. We've seen that even if algorithms don't improve much, big data and massive computing simply allow artificial intelligence to learn through brute force. There may be evidence that Moore's law is slowing down a tad, but the increase in data certainly hasn't lost any momentum. Breakthroughs in computer science, mathematics, or neuroscience all serve as potential outs through the ceiling of Moore's Law.

The Future

So what is in store for the future? In the immediate future, AI language is looking like the next big thing. In fact, it's already underway. I can't remember the last time I called a company and directly spoke with a human. These days, machines are even calling me! One could imagine interacting with an expert system in a fluid conversation, or having a conversation in two different languages being translated in real time. We can also expect to see driverless cars on the road in the next twenty years (and that is conservative). In the long term, the goal is general intelligence, that is a machine that surpasses human cognitive abilities in all tasks. This is along the lines of the sentient robot we are used to seeing in movies. To me, it seems inconceivable that this would be accomplished in the next 50 years. Even if the capability is there, the ethical questions would serve as a strong barrier against fruition. When that time comes (but better even before the time comes), we will need to have a serious conversation about machine policy and ethics (ironically both fundamentally human subjects), but for now, we'll allow AI to steadily improve and run amok in society.
Rockwell Anyoha is a graduate student in the department of molecular biology with a background in physics and genetics. His current project employs the use of machine learning to model animal behavior. In his free time, Rockwell enjoys playing soccer and debating mundane topics.
This article is part of a Special Edition on Artificial Intelligence.

For more information:

Brief Timeline of AI
https://www.livescience.com/47544-history-of-a-i-artificial-intelligence-infographic.html
Complete Historical Overview
http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/csep590/06au/projects/history-ai.pdf
Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence
https://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/1904/1802
Future of AI
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602830/the-future-of-artificial-intelligence-and-cybernetics/
Discussion on Future Ethical Challenges Facing AI
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170307-the-ethical-challenge-facing-artificial-intelligence
Detailed Review of Ethics of AI
https://intelligence.org/files/EthicsofAI.pdf

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The History of Artificial Intelligence - Science in the News

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by Rockwell Anyoha Can Machines Think? In the first half of the 20th century, science fiction familiarized the world with the concept of artificially intelligent robots. It began with the "heartless" Tin man from the Wizard of Oz and continued with the humanoid robot that impersonated Maria in Metropolis.

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4D Printing to rewrite book on cool tech

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4D Printing to rewrite book on cool tech

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No Clear Author
4/15/2015

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The fourth dimension is time, shape shifting in fact, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) at the University of Wollongong is helping to set the pace in the next revolution in additive manufacturing.

Just as the extraordinary capabilities of 3D printing have begun to infiltrate industry and the family home, researchers have started to develop 3D printed materials that morph into new structures, post production, under the influence of external stimuli such as water or heat - hence the name, 4D printing.

So, as in 3D printing, a structure is built up layer by layer into the desired shape, but these new materials are able to transform themselves from one shape into another, much like a child's Transformer toy.

This ground-breaking science promises advancement in myriad fields - medicine, construction, automation and robotics to name a few.

ACES researchers have turned their attention to the medical field of soft robotics, manufacturing a valve that actuates in response to its surrounding water's temperature.

ACES Professor Marc in het Panhuis said it was the cleverness of the valve's creation that was remarkable.

"The cool thing about it is, is it's a working functioning device that you just pick up from the printer," he said.

"There's no other assembly required."

The materials scientist said the valve, a 3D printed structure, possessed actuators that are activated solely by water.

"So it's an autonomous valve, there's no input necessary other than water; it closes itself when it detects hot water," he said.

The ACES Chief Investigator said the ACES group was the first to combine printing a 4D device with four different cartridges simultaneously, while using tough gels with the incorporated actuating materials.

Authors Shannon Bakarich (PhD candidate), Doctor Robert Gorkin III, Professor Marc in het Panhuis and Professor Geoff Spinks have published the work in Macromolecular Rapid Communications under the title 4D Printing with Mechanically Robust, Thermally Actuating Hydrogels.

Resources provided by Australian National Fabrication Facility.

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4D Printing: Australian researchers create objects where the fourth dimension is time - News - ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science

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The fourth dimension is time, shape shifting in fact, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) at the University of Wollongong is helping to set the pace in the next revolution in additive manufacturing.

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Stratospheric controlled perturbation experiment:a small-scale experiment to improve understanding of the risks of solar geoengineering by John A. Dykema, David W. Keith James G. Anderson and Debra Weisenstein

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Stratospheric controlled perturbation experiment:a small-scale experiment to improve understanding of the risks of solar geoengineering by John A. Dykema, David W. Keith James G. Anderson and Debra Weisenstein

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2014

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The International Space Station (ISS) is mankind's only permanently manned outpost. In low-Earth orbit it circles the Earth every 90 minutes.

A visit to the ISS is like no other experience. When you reach Earth orbit you will be traveling at 17,500 miles per hour, over 250 miles above the Earth's surface and you will be weightless, floating inside your spacecraft.

Space Adventures has arranged all eight of the flights to space completed by private citizens to date. All of our clients have flown to the International Space Station on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and have lived and worked alongside professional astronauts for 10 days or more.

Since the dawn of manned spaceflight, just over 550 people have traveled to space - we are pleased to be able to offer you the opportunity to be the next.

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SPACE STATION The International Space Station (ISS) is mankind's only permanently manned outpost. In low-Earth orbit it circles the Earth every 90 minutes. A visit to the ISS is like no other experience.

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Matthew Young
No Date

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4D Printing Company #1: Self-Assembly Lab

Meanwhile, at MIT's Self-Assembly Lab, Assistant Professor Skylar Tibbits is working on taking 4D printing to the next level. As he states in his TED talks, Tibbits has always been fascinated with the capabilities of 3D printing. But he wanted to know how someone could get an object to change shape (i.e. what 4D printing allows for) with accuracy and precision.

In 2014, MIT approved a grant for Tibbits to open his new Self-Assembly Printing Lab. Since then, Tibbits has been working with Autodesk on creating a computer system that allows geometry inputs to measure how 3D printed objects will be able to change post-print. He also publishes a quarterly 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing Journal and offers scientific insights to a lot of 3D printing topics.

Tibbits sees all kinds of future applications for 4D printing. They range from sneakers that change how they fit on your feet based on what activities you are doing to or how clothing changes composition based on the weather.

Within the context of MIT's Self-Assembly Lab, this technology is merely one of several avenues pursued by Tibbits and his colleagues. Among the other technologies under research are molecular structures that organize into complex structures when they are agitated and other non-3D printing concepts.

4D Printing Company #2: Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering

At Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, a team of scientists is studying a way that a special ink, known as hydrogel in. It changes shape and form when stimulated with water.

Jennifer Lewis, Sc.D., L. Mahadevan, Ph.D., and Ralph Nuzzo, Ph.D. make up this team of exceptional scientists.

Hydrogel ink works by allowing the objects that it prints on to change shape to form new structures which are similar to those found in flowers. The tissue microstructures and compositions of different plants change depending on the situation of their environments.

Wyss has replicated the process by developing 4D-printed hydrogel. Its composites are programmed to contain precise swelling, allowing 3D-printed flowers to change shape when exposed to water and other environmental changes. These composites containing specific cellulose fibrils derived from wood - that resemble the same microstructures that allow plants to change shape - are capable of mimicking the changes that plant organs undergo in response to humidity, temperature, and other environmental stimuli.

This is a huge advancement because it allows for materials of varying compositions to be used in a printing process to achieve specific, measurable, accurate geometric results moving forward in various industries that may employ this technology in the future (think construction).

4D Printing Company #3: University of Wollongong

At the University of Wollongong in Australia, Professor Marc in het Panhuis and a team of researchers have created the first 4D-printed water valve. It shuts when exposed to hot water and re-opens when hot temperatures subside by using a hydrogel ink that responds rapidly to heat.

The team demonstrated the functioning of this water valve by pouring hot water through it. They showed how it closed instantaneously and then re-opened when cooler water was pumped through it.

While this sort of process is young in nature, the team hopes that it can be put to multiple useful practices in reality in the biotechnology and medical fields in the intermediate future.

4D Printing Company #4: Singapore University of Technology and Design

As 4D printing is still an emerging technology, the approaches outlined have some drawbacks that have so far prevented its commercialization. To give an example, solid materials are laborious to manufacture, requiring five distinctive steps to prepare them for use.

Enter the team around Zhen Ding at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. They developed a new process that integrates these five steps into one. To this end, the researchers used a commercially available Multimaterial 3D printer.

Zhen Ding's research group demonstrated the new process with a range of test objects, like a flat star that curves into the shape of a dome or a flower whose petals close instantly upon touching warm water. With these exciting new findings the tide is slowly but surely turning towards commercially viable applications of 4D printing.

The paper describing the methods and results of this newly developed approach is available for free download in Science Advances.

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4D Printing - All You Need to Know | All3DP

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4D Printing Company #1: Self-Assembly Lab Meanwhile, at MIT's Self-Assembly Lab, Assistant Professor Skylar Tibbits is working on taking 4D printing to the next level. As he states in his TED talks, Tibbits has always been fascinated with the capabilities of 3D printing.

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Metaphors We Die By? Geoengineering, Metaphors, and the Argument From Catastrophe

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Metaphors We Die By? Geoengineering, Metaphors, and the Argument From Catastrophe

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By Brigitte Nerliche and Rusi Jaspal 2012

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Metaphors We Die By? Geoengineering, Metaphors, and the Argument From Catas...: Literary Reference Center - powered by EBSCOhost

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Opinion: Space Tourism - Pros & Cons | Pegasus Magazine

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UCF professors debate the pros & cons of space tourism: adventure, boosting the economy & making people more aware of the vulnerability of our planet.

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Issues and Controversies

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The News Media and the Human Cloning Debte

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The News Media and the Human Cloning Debte

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The Ethics of Cloning Humans
Greenhaven Press
2001

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Clustered Regularly Inter-spaced Short Palindromic Repeats, a tool used to design modifications to strands of bacteria and archaea.

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In the movie "Rampage," a genetic engineering technology called CRISPR transforms a gorilla into a flying dragon-monster with gigantic teeth. Although this is science fiction, not to mention impossible, the movie captures the recent interest and fascination with one of the newest scientific technologies.

CRISPR - which stands for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats" - was originally seen as part of a bacterial defense system that evolved to destroy foreign DNA that entered a bacterium. But this system is also capable of editing DNA - and now geneticists have honed the technology to alter DNA sequences that we specify.

This has generated enormous excitement and great expectations about the possibility of using CRISPR to alter genetic sequences to improve our health, to treat diseases, to improve the quality and quantity of our food supplies, and to tackle environmental pollution.

Using genome editing to treat human diseases is very tantalizing. Correcting inherited genetic defects that cause human disease - just as one edits a sentence - is the obvious application. This strategy has been successful in tests on animals.

But a few recent scientific papers suggest that CRISPR is not without its problems. The research reveals that CRISPR can damage DNA located far from the target DNA we are trying to correct. As a cancer biologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, I use CRISPR in my lab to study human cancers and develop ways to kill cancer cells.

Although the new findings appear significant, I don't think that these revelations rule out using the technology in a clinical setting; rather, they suggest we take additional cautionary measures as we implement these strategies.

Treating human diseases

In the United States and Europe, clinical trials have been planned for several human diseases. Most notably, a gene-editing Phase I/II trial is planned in Europe for beta-thalassemia, a hereditary blood disorder that causes anemia that requires lifelong blood transfusions. This year, a CRISPR trial for sickle cell anemia, another inherited blood disorder caused by a mutation that deforms the red blood cells, is planned in the United States.

For both of these trials, the gene editing is done ex vivo - meaning outside the patient's body. Hematopoietic blood cells - the stem cells that generate red blood cells - are taken from the patient and edited in the lab. The cells are then reintroduced into the same patients after the mutations have been corrected. The expectation is that by correcting the stem cells, the cells they produce will be normal, curing the disease.

The ex vivo approach has also been used in China to test treatments against an array of human cancers. There, researchers take immune cells called T cells from cancer patients and use CRISPR to stop these cells from producing a protein called PD-1 (program cell death-1). Normally, PD-1 prevents T cells from attacking one's own tissues. However, cancer cells exploit this protective mechanism to evade the body's defense system. Removing PD-1 allows T cells to attack cancer cells vigorously. The initial results from clinical trials using gene-edited T cells appear mixed.

In my lab, we have recently been focusing on chromosome rearrangement, a genetic defect where a segment of chromosome skips and joins distant parts of the same or a different chromosome. A scrambled chromosome is a defining characteristic of most cancers. The most famous example of such an alteration is the "Philadelphia Chromosome" - in which Chromosome 9 is connected to Chromosome 22 - which causes acute myeloid leukemia.

My team has used CRISPR in animal models to insert a suicide gene to specifically target liver and prostate cancer cells that harbor such rearrangements. Since these chromosome rearrangements occur only in cancer cells but not normal cells, we can target the cancer without collateral damage to healthy cells.

CRISPR concerns

Despite all the excitement surrounding CRISPR editing, researchers have urged caution about moving too fast. Two recent studies have raised concerns that CRISPR may not be as effective as previously thought, and in some cases it may produce unwanted side effects.

The first study showed that when the Cas9 protein - part of the CRISPR system that snips the DNA before correcting the mutation - cuts the DNA of stem cells, it causes them to become stressed and stops them from being edited. While some cells can recover after their DNA has been corrected, other cells could die.

The second study showed that a protein called p53, which is well known for guarding against tumors, is activated by cellular stress. The protein then inhibits CRISPR from editing. Since CRISPR activity causes stress, the editing process may be thwarted before it even accomplishes its task.

Another study over the past year has revealed an additional potential issue with using CRISPR in humans. Because CRISPR is a bacterial protein, a significant portion of the human population may have been exposed to it during common bacterial infections. In these cases, the immune systems of these people may have developed immune defense against the protein, which means a person's body could attack the CRISPR machinery, just as it would attack an invading bacterium or virus, preventing the cell from the benefits of CRISPR-based therapy.

Additionally, like most technologies, not all editing is accurate. Occasionally, CRISPR targets the wrong sites in the DNA and makes changes that researchers fear could cause disease. A recent study showed that CRISPR caused large chunks of the chromosome to rearrange near the site of genome editing in mouse embryonic stem cells, although this effect isn't always observed in the other cell systems. Most published results indicate that off-target rates range from 1 to 5 percent. Even if the off-target rate is relatively low, we don't yet understand the long-term consequences.

Dangers have been hyped

The studies referenced above have led to a glut of media reports about the potential negative effect of CRISPR, many citing potential cancer risk. More often than not, these involve a far-fetched extrapolation of actual results. As far as I am aware, no animals treated with the CRISPR-Cas9 system have been shown to develop cancers.

Studies have shown CRISPR-based genome editing works more efficiently in cancer cells than normal cells. Indeed, the resistance of normal cells to CRISPR editing actually makes it more appealing for cancer treatment since there would be less potential collateral damage to normal tissues, a conclusion that is supported by research in our lab.

Looking forward, it is obvious that the technology has great potential to treat human diseases. The recent studies have revealed new aspects of how CRISPR works that may have implications for the ways in which these therapies are developed. However, the long-term effect of genome editing can only be assessed after CRISPR has been used widely to treat human diseases.
health-science@washpost.com This article was corrected to accurately reflect the CRISPR story line in the movie "Rampage."
Luo is a professor of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh. This article was originally published on theconversation.com.

Read more

A new CRISPR breakthrough could lead to simpler, cheaper disease diagnosis

Ethicists advise caution in applying CRISPR gene editing to humans

Scientists have found a fast and cheap way to edit your food's DNA

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Perspective | Here's what we know about CRISPR safety - and reports of 'genome vandalism'

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In the movie "Rampage," a genetic engineering technology called CRISPR transforms a gorilla into a flying dragon-monster with gigantic teeth. Although this is science fiction, not to mention impossible, the movie captures the recent interest and fascination with one of the newest scientific technologies.

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Author: Dan Raviv
Date: December 18, 2014

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Additive manufacturing - or 3D printing - is 30 years old this year. Today, it's found not just in industry but in households, as the price of 3D printers has fallen below US$1,000. Knowing you can print almost anything, not just marks on paper, opens up unlimited opportunities for us to manufacture toys, household appliances and tools in our living rooms.

But there's more that can be done with 3D printed materials to make them more flexible and more useful: structures that can transform in a pre-programmed way in response to a stimulus. Recently given the popular science name of "4D printing", perhaps a better way to think about it is that the object transforms over time.

These sorts of structural deformations are not new - researchers have already demonstrated "memory" and "smart material" properties. One of the most popular technologies is known as shape memory alloy, where a change of temperature triggers a shape change. Other successful approaches use electroactive polymers, pressurised fluids or gasses, chemical stimulus and even in response to light.

In a paper published in Nature Scientific Reports, we looked at the design of complex self-deformations in objects that have been printed from multiple materials as a means to customise the object into specific forms.

Unlike many others who have demonstrated how to bend simple paper-like shapes, we constructed a two-dimensional grid structure that deforms itself by stretching or shrinking across a complex three-dimensional surface.

Imagine dropping a flat stretchable cloth onto a randomly shaped object, where the cloth moulds over the shape beneath it. In geometrical terms, as the curvature of the cloth changes to fit the object, the distances and areas alter. We took this into account by providing a solution that copes with bending and also expansion in size, and came up with several designs that demonstrated that this is possible.

Underwater transformation

Head of the MIT's Self-Assembly Laboratory, Skylar Tibbits, started this line of research a few years ago with expanding materials and simple deformations. The collaboration of researchers from MIT's Camera Culture group and Self-Assembly Laboratory and the companies Stratasys and Autodesk Inc took this further.

Our approach was to print 3D structures using materials with different properties: one that remained rigid and another that expanded up to 200% of its original volume. The expanding materials were placed strategically on the main structure to produce joints that stretched and folded like a bendy straw when activated by water, forming a broad range of shapes. For example, a 3D-printed shape that resembled the initials "MIT" was shown to evolve into another formation that looks like the initials "SAL".

What now?

We imagine there's a wide range of applications such as home appliances and products that can adapt to heat or moisture to improve comfort or add functionality. Childcare products that can react to humidity or temperature, for example, or clothes and footwear that optimise their form and function by reacting to changes in the environment.

There are also uses for pre-programmed self-deforming materials in healthcare - researchers are printing biocompatible components that can be implanted in the human body. There are many more uses these could be put to if they can be manufactured to change shape and function without external intervention from a surgeon. Individually designed cardiac tubes are one good example.

This was a proof of concept for self-transforming materials, with an easy production process and an available suite of tools to customise and analyse the process. But even so, this is just scratching the surface - in the future we aim to produce larger structures which can handle more complex transformations, as well as smaller, miniaturised models which can be used in the body. While we found the deformations could be applied and reversed repeatedly, the material degraded after a while, so we need to improve its long-term durability.

With 4D printing there's a lot to play with. Now, that 3D printing captured our imagination, just think what adding time to the equation could do.

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Additive manufacturing - or 3D printing - is 30 years old this year. Today, it's found not just in industry but in households, as the price of 3D printers has fallen below US$1,000.

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Virgin Galactic Aims to Fly Space Tourists in 2018, CEO Says

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Virgin Galactic Aims to Fly Space Tourists in 2018, CEO Says

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Irene Klotz
April 28, 2017

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is on track to begin commercial passenger spaceflights before the end of next year, the company's chief executive said.

For years, Branson has been optimistically forecasting the start of rides aboard SpaceShipTwo, an air-launched suborbital spaceplane that is designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to an altitude of about 62 miles (100 kilometers).

During the suborbital hop, passengers will be able to experience a few minutes of microgravity and see the limb of Earth set against the blackness of space.

Virgin Galactic's commercial spaceplane Spaceshiptwo, shown here during a glide test in December 2016.

Credit: Virgin Galactic

Branson has been more circumspect in his schedule projections since an October 2014 fatal accident during a test flight of Virgin's first vehicle. But in an interview with The Telegraph earlier this month, the billionaire entrepreneur said he'd be "very disappointed" if the program isn't well underway by the end of next year.

Virgin Galactic is one of three companies in the Virgin Group's spaceflight division, known as Galactic Ventures. On Wednesday (April 26), Galactic Ventures chief executive George Whitesides, a soft-spoken, former NASA staff chief, said Branson's expectations for commercial flights in 2018 are realistic.

"We're well into test flight now," Whitesides told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The Virgin CEO addressed the committee along with other industry leaders during a hearing on reducing regulation barriers in the space industry.

Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides confirmed on April 26, 2017, that the company plans to fly space tourists in 2018.

Credit: Getty Images

"We're looking forward ... to a fairly big transition of our staff to your state of New Mexico," Whitesides added in response to a question from Sen. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat.

Virgin Galactic intends to base its commercial spaceflight service at New Mexico's Spaceport America, which was finished five years ago at a cost of nearly $220 million.

Construction funds for the spaceport came from state oil and gas taxes and from bonds, which were backed by a quarter-cent tax levied by the two counties closest to the 18,000-acre spaceport.

" Spaceport America and many New Mexicans hope to see full commercial spaceflight operations begin as soon as possible," Udall told Whitesides.

The second in a planned fleet of Virgin spaceships is undergoing testing in Mojave, California. So far, the ship, known as VSS Unity, has made three glide flights. The company has not said when Unity's first powered test flight will be, nor how many flights are expected before the start of commercial service.

About 500 people have signed up to take a ride on SpaceShipTwo. Tickets are currently selling for $250,000.

Follow Irene Klotz on Twitter. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Virgin Galactic Aims to Fly Space Tourists in 2018, CEO Says

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is on track to begin commercial passenger spaceflights before the end of next year, the company's chief executive said. For years, Branson has been optimistically forecasting the start of rides aboard SpaceShipTwo, an air-launched suborbital spaceplane that is designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to an altitude of about 62 miles (100 kilometers).

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Animal Cloning Can Save Endangered Species
Steve Connor
February 3, 2009

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Scientists edit human embryos for first time in US

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Scientists edit human embryos for first time in US

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report: scientists edit human embryos for first time in us - cnn

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Report: Scientists edit human embryos for first time in US

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For the first time in the United States, researchers reportedly use CRISPR to edit the genes of human embryos in the lab.

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Successful rocket test takes Virgin Galactic a supersonic step closer to putting tourists in space

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Successful rocket test takes Virgin Galactic a supersonic step closer to putting tourists in space

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Barry Neild

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(CNN) - The race to put tourists into space seems to be a glacially slow one most of the time, and then BOOM -- it suddenly takes a supersonic leap forward.

That's the case with Richard Branson's long-delayed Virgin Galactic project, which on Thursday completed rocket-powered test flight at 2.47 times the speed of sound.

Carried up to an altitude of 46,500 feet over the Mojave Desert in California, Virgin's VSS Unity was released from its mother ship before blasting into the stratosphere.

With rockets blazing for 42 seconds, it then entered a near-vertical climb to 170,800 feet, approximately halfway to the edge of space.

The ship then glided back down to Earth, making a successful landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

"It was a thrill from start to finish," said David Mackay, who co-piloted Unity alongside Mike "Sooch" Masucci. "Unity's rocket motor performed magnificently again and Sooch pulled off a smooth landing."

The third rocket-powered outing in less than four months was hailed as the most successful yet for the project, which eventually aims to carry passengers and commercial payloads into space.

It was the first to reach the mesosphere, which Virgin Galactic describes as an "under-studied atmospheric layer" because it's beyond the range of balloon flight.

"This was a new altitude record for both of us in the cockpit, not to mention our mannequin in the back, and the views of Earth from the black sky were magnificent," Mackay added.

Last year, George Whitesides, the CEO of Virgin Galactic,said it was on track to begin commercial passenger space flights by the end of 2018.

Branson also predicted it would be up and running by December in an interview released on the eve of the latest test.

If Virgin Galactic gets up and running, passengers paying north of $250,000 will experience a two-and-a-half-hour flight to the edge of space. The flight will culminate with several minutes of weightlessness during which they'll be able to float from their seats.

While the ticket price will put it out reach for most people, it'll still come cheaper than a prolonged sojourn in space, which can cost many millions of dollars.

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virgin galactic rocket test brings space tourism a step closer - cnn

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Virgin Galactic blasts towards edge of space

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(CNN) - The race to put tourists into space seems to be a glacially slow one most of the time, and then BOOM -- it suddenly takes a supersonic leap forward. That's the case with Richard Branson's long-delayed Virgin Galactic project, which on Thursday completed rocket-powered test flight at 2.47 times the speed of sound.

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Coordinated Action Against Climate Change

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Coordinated Action Against Climate Change

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Jane Long
Spring 2017

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Stuart Russell weighs up a book on the risks and rewards of the AI revolution.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Knopf: 2017. 9781101946596 9780241237199

Max Tegmark is a renowned physicist. He is also the irrepressibly optimistic co-founder of the Future of Life Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts (motto: "Technology is giving life the potential to flourish like never before ... or to self-destruct. Let's make a difference!"). Now, in Life 3.0, he tackles a pressing future development - the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI). He argues that the risks demand serious thought if our "cosmic endowment" is not to be inadvertently thrown away.

'RoboBees' are meant for artificial pollination but could have unforeseen environmental effects. Image: Thierry Falise/Lightrocket Via Getty

In the interests of disclosure, Tegmark and I are collaborators and share a literary agent. With physicists Stephen Hawking and Frank Wilczek, we wrote the 2014 Huffington Post article 'Transcending complacency on superintelligent machines' (see go.nature.com/2wadkao). Ostensibly a review of Wally Pfister's dystopian AI film Transcendence, this was really a call to the AI community to take the risks of intelligent systems seriously. Thus, I am unlikely to disagree strongly with the premise of Life 3.0. Life, Tegmark argues, may or may not spread through the Universe and "flourish for billions or trillions of years" because of decisions we make now - a possibility both seductive and overwhelming.

The book's title refers to a third phase in evolutionary history. For almost 4 billion years, both hardware (bodies) and software (capacity for generating behaviour) were fixed by biology. For the next 100,000 years, learning and culture enabled humans to adapt and control their own software. In the imminent third phase, both software and hardware can be redesigned. This may sound like transhumanism - the movement to re-engineer body and brain - but Tegmark's focus is on AI, which supplements mental capabilities with external devices.

Tegmark considers both risks and benefits. Near-term risks include an arms race in autonomous weapons and dramatic reductions in employment. The AI community is practically unanimous in condemning the creation of machines that can choose to kill humans, but the issue of work has sparked debate. Many predict an economic boon - AI inspiring new jobs to replace old, as with previous industrial revolutions. Tegmark wryly imagines two horses discussing the rise of the internal combustion engine in 1900. One predicts "new jobs for horses ... That's what's always happened before, like with the invention of the wheel and the plow." For most horses, alas, the "new job" was to be pet food. Tegmark's analysis is compelling, and shared by economists such as Paul Krugman. But the question remains: what desirable economy might we aim for, when most of what we now call work is done by machines?

The longer-term risks are existential. The book's fictional prelude describes a reasonably plausible scenario in which superintelligent AI might emerge. Later, Tegmark ranges over global outcomes from near-Utopias to human enslavement or extinction. That we have no idea how to steer towards the better futures points to a dearth of serious thinking on why making AI better might be a bad thing.

Computer pioneer Alan Turing, raising the possibility in 1951 that our species would at best be "greatly humbled" by AI, expressed the general unease of making something smarter than oneself. Assuaging this unease by curtailing progress on AI may be neither feasible nor preferable. The most interesting part of Life 3.0 explains that the real issue is the potential for misaligned objectives. Cybernetics founder Norbert Wiener wrote in 1960, "We had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire." Or, as Tegmark has it, "It's unclear how to imbue a superintelligent AI with an ultimate goal that neither is undefined nor leads to the elimination of humanity." In my view, this technological and philosophical problem demands all the intellectual resources we can bring to bear.

Only if we solve it can we reap the benefits. Among these is expansion across the Universe, perhaps powered by such exotic technologies as Dyson spheres (which would capture the energy of a star), accelerators built around black holes or Tegmark's theorized sphalerizers (like diesel engines, but quark-powered and one billion times more efficient). For sheer science fun, it's hard to beat the explanations of how much upside the Universe and the laws of physics will allow. We may one day, for example, expand the biosphere "by about 32 orders of magnitude". It's seriously disappointing, then, to learn that cosmic expansion may limit us to settling only 10 billion galaxies. And we feel our descendants' anxiety as "the threat of dark energy tearing cosmic civilizations apart motivates massive cosmic engineering projects".

The book concludes with the Future of Life Institute's role in moving these issues into mainstream AI thinking - for which Tegmark deserves huge credit. He is not alone, of course, in raising the alarm. In its sweeping vision, Life 3.0 has most in common with Nick Bostrom's 2014 Superintelligence (Oxford University Press). Unlike Bostrom, however, Tegmark is not trying to prove that risk is unavoidable; and he eschews dense philosophy in favour of asking the reader which scenarios they think more probable or desirable.

Although I strongly recommend both books, I suspect that Tegmark's is less likely to provoke in AI researchers a common allergic reaction - a retreat into defensive arguments for paying no attention. Here's a typical one: we don't worry about remote but species-ending possibilities such as black holes materializing in near-Earth orbit, so why worry about superintelligent AI? Answer: if physicists were working to make such black holes, wouldn't we ask them if it was safe?

The Economist has drily characterized the overarching issue thus: "The implications of introducing a second intelligent species onto Earth are far-reaching enough to deserve hard thinking." Life 3.0 is far from the last word on AI and the future, but it provides a fascinating glimpse of the hard thinking required.

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Artificial intelligence: The future is superintelligent

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Stuart Russell weighs up a book on the risks and rewards of the AI revolution. Knopf: 2017. 9781101946596 9780241237199 Max Tegmark is a renowned physicist. He is also the irrepressibly optimistic co-founder of the Future of Life Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts (motto: "Technology is giving life the potential to flourish like never before ...

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Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Technologies

Luis Batista
2015

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IPS Cell Technologies | Learn Science at Scitable

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Unlike the differentiated cells that make up mature organs and tissues, stem cells are immature cells that have not yet specialized and have the capacity to divide and differentiate into a wide variety of cell types. During development, stem cells gradually lose this potential and progressively differentiate to form specific tissues.

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CRISPR is a powerful tool for editing genomes, meaning it allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function. It has many potential applications, including correcting genetic defects, treating and preventing the spread of diseases, and improving the growth and resilience of crops. However, despite its promise, the technology also raises ethical concerns.

In popular usage, "CRISPR" (pronounced "crisper") is shorthand for "CRISPR-Cas9." CRISPRs are specialized stretches of , and the protein Cas9 - where Cas stands for "CRISPR-associated" - is an that acts like a pair of molecular scissors, capable of cutting strands of DNA.

CRISPR technology was adapted from the natural defense mechanisms of and archaea, a domain of relatively simple single-celled microorganisms. These organisms use CRISPR-derived , a molecular cousin to DNA, and various Cas proteins to foil attacks by . To foil attacks, the organisms chop up the DNA of viruses and then stow bits of that DNA in their own genome, to be used as a weapon against the foreign invaders should those viruses attack again.

When the components of CRISPR are transferred into other, more complex, organisms, those components can then manipulate genes, a process called "gene editing." No one really knew what this process looked like until 2017, when a team of researchers led by Mikihiro Shibata of Kanazawa University in Japan and Hiroshi Nishimasu of the University of Tokyo showed, for the very first time, what it looks like when a CRISPR is in action, Live Science previously reported.

Related: Genetics by the numbers: 10 tantalizing tales

Key components of CRISPR

CRISPRs: The term "CRISPR" stands for "clusters of regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats" and describes a region of DNA made up of short, repeated sequences with so-called "spacers" sandwiched between each repeat.

When we talk about repeats in the genetic code, we're talking about the ordering of rungs within the spiral ladder of a DNA molecule. Each rung contains two chemical bases bound together: A base called adenine (A) links up to another called thymine (T), and the base guanine (G) pairs with cytosine (C).

In a CRISPR region, these bases appear in the same order several times, and in these repeated segments, they form what's known as "palindromic" sequences, according to the Max Planck Institute. A palindrome, like the word "racecar," reads the same forward as it does backward; similarly, in a palindromic sequence, bases on one side of the DNA ladder match those on the opposing side when you read them in opposite directions.

For example, a super simple palindromic sequence might look like this:

Short palindromic repeats appear throughout CRISPR regions of DNA, with each repeat bookended by "spacers." Bacteria swipe such spacers from viruses that have attacked them, meaning they incorporate a bit of viral DNA into their own genome. These spacers serve as a bank of memories, which enables the bacteria to recognize the viruses if they should ever attack again. You can also think of spacers like "Wanted" posters, providing a snapshot of the bad guys so they can be easily spotted and brought to justice.

Related: Going viral: 6 new findings about viruses

Rodolphe Barrangou and a team of researchers at Danisco, a food ingredients company, first demonstrated this process experimentally. In a 2007 paper published in the journal Science, the researchers used Streptococcus thermophilus bacteria, which are commonly found in yogurt and other dairy cultures, as their model, according to the Joint Genome Institute, part of the U.S. Department of Energy. They observed that after a viral attack, the bacteria incorporated new spacers into their CRISPR regions. Moreover, the DNA sequence of these spacers was identical to parts of the virus genome.

The team also manipulated the spacers by removing them and inserting new viral DNA sequences in their place. In this way, the researchers were able to alter the bacteria's resistance to an attack by a specific virus, confirming CRISPRs' role in regulating bacterial immunity.

CRISPR RNA (crRNA): CRISPR regions of DNA act as a kind of bank of viral memories; but for that stored information to be useful elsewhere in the cell, it must be copied, or "transcribed," into a different genetic molecule called RNA. Unlike DNA sequences, which remain lodged inside the DNA molecule, this CRISPR RNA (crRNA) can roam about the cell and team up with proteins - namely the molecular scissors that snip viruses to bits.

RNA also differs from DNA in that it's only one strand, rather than two, meaning it looks like just a half of a ladder. To build an RNA molecule, one part of the CRISPR acts as a template and proteins called polymerases swoop in to construct an RNA molecule that is "complementary" to that template, meaning the two strands' bases would fit together like puzzle pieces. For example, a G in the DNA molecule would get transcribed as a C in the RNA.

Each snippet of CRISPR RNA contains a copy of a repeat and a spacer from a CRISPR region of DNA, according to a 2014 review by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, published in the journal Science. The crRNA interacts with the Cas9 protein and another kind of RNA, called "trans-activating crRNA" or tracrRNA, in order to help bacteria fend off viruses.

Cas9: The Cas9 protein is an enzyme that cuts foreign DNA. The protein binds to crRNA and tracrRNA, which together guide Cas9 to a target site on the virus's DNA strand where the protein will make its cut. The target DNA that the Cas9 will cut through is complementary to a 20-nucleotide stretch of the crRNA, where a "nucleotide" is a building block of DNA that contains one base.

Using two separate regions or "domains" on its structure, Cas9 cuts both strands of the DNA double helix, making what is known as a "double-stranded break," according to the 2014 Science article.

There is a built-in safety mechanism that ensures that Cas9 doesn't just cut just anywhere in a genome. Short DNA sequences known as "protospacer adjacent motifs," or PAMs, serve as tags and sit adjacent to the target DNA sequence. If the Cas9 complex doesn't see a PAM next to its target DNA sequence, it won't cut. This is one possible reason that Cas9 doesn't ever attack the CRISPR region in bacteria, according to a 2014 review published in Nature Biotechnology.

How CRISPR works as a genome-editing tool

Genomes encode a series of messages and instructions within their DNA sequences, and genome editing involves changing those sequences, thereby changing the messages they contain. This can be done by inserting a cut or break in the DNA and tricking a cell's natural DNA repair mechanisms into introducing the targeted changes. CRISPR-Cas9 provides a means to do so.

In 2012, two pivotal research papers were published in the journals Science and , describing how the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 could be used to chop up any DNA, not just that of viruses. In this way, the natural CRISPR system could be transformed into a simple, programmable genome-editing tool.

To direct Cas9 to snip a specific region of DNA, scientists can simply change the sequence of the crRNA, which binds to a complementary sequence in the target DNA, the studies concluded.In the 2012 Science article, Martin Jinek and his colleagues further simplified the system by fusing crRNA and tracrRNA to create a single "guide RNA." Thus, genome editing requires only two components: a guide RNA and the Cas9 protein.

"Operationally, you design a stretch of 20 base pairs that match a gene that you want to edit," and from there, one can figure out what the complementary crRNA sequence would be, George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, told Live Science. Church emphasized the importance of making sure that the nucleotide sequence is found only in the target gene and nowhere else in the genome.

"Then the RNA plus the protein [Cas9] will cut - like a pair of scissors - the DNA at that site, and ideally nowhere else," Church explained. Once the DNA is cut, the cell's natural repair mechanisms kick in and work to piece the DNA back together, and at this point, edits can be made to the genome. There are two ways this can happen:

According to the Huntington's Outreach Project at Stanford University, one repair method involves gluing the two cuts back together. This method, known as "non-homologous end joining," tends to introduce errors where nucleotides are accidentally inserted or deleted, resulting in that could disrupt a gene.

In the second method, the break is fixed by filling in the gap with a sequence of nucleotides. In order to do so, the cell uses a short strand of DNA as a template. Scientists can supply the DNA template of their choosing, thereby writing-in any gene they want, or correcting a mutation.

Who discovered CRISPR?

Scientists originally discovered the CRISPRs in bacteria in 1987, but they didn't initially understand the biological significance of the DNA sequences, and they didn't yet call them "CRISPRs," according to Quanta Magazine. Yoshizumi Ishino and colleagues at Osaka University in Japan first found the characteristic nucleotide repeats and spacers in the gut microbe , and as the technology for genetic analysis improved in the 1990s, other researchers found CRISPRs in many other microbes.

Francisco Mojica, a scientist at the University of Alicante in Spain, was the first to describe the distinct characteristics of CRISPRs and found the sequences in 20 different microbes, according to a 2016 report in the journal Cell. At one point, he dubbed the sequences "short regularly spaced repeats" (SRSRs), but he later suggested that they be called CRISPRs instead. The term CRISPR first appeared in a 2002 report, published in the journal Molecular Microbiology and authored by Ruud Jansen of Utrecht University, with whom Mojica had been in correspondence.

In the following years, scientists also discovered Cas genes and the function of Cas enzymes, and they figured out that the spacers in CRISPRs came from invasive viruses, Quanta reported.

Among these pioneering researchers was Jennifer Doudna, a professor of biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology at the University of California, Berkeley, who went on to share the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Emmanuelle Charpentier, director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens. The two scientists are credited with adapting the bacterial CRISPR/Cas system into a handy gene-editing tool, Live Science previously reported.

Charpentier initially discovered tracrRNA while studying the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes, which causes a range of diseases from tonsillitis to sepsis. Having uncovered tracrRNA as a previously unknown component of the CRISPR/Cas system, Charpentier began collaborating with Doudna to recreate that system in a test tube. In 2012, the team published their seminal work in the journal Science, announcing that they'd successfully simplified the molecular scissors into a gene-editing tool.

Some thought that biochemist Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute might also earn the Nobel for his own, separate work with the CRISPR system, Science Magazine reported. Zhang demonstrated that the CRISPR system works in mammalian cells, and based on this work, the Broad Institute earned the first patent for the use of CRISPR gene-editing technology in eukaryotes, or complex cells with nuclei to hold their DNA.

How has CRISPR been used?

(Image credit: KEITH CHAMBERS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)

In 2013, researchers in the labs of Church and Zhang published the first reports describing the use of CRISPR-Cas9 to edit human cells in an experimental setting. Studies conducted in lab dish and animal models of human disease have demonstrated that the technology can effectively correct genetic defects. Examples of such diseases include cystic fibrosis, cataracts and Fanconi anemia, according to a 2016 review article published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. These studies have paved the way for therapeutic applications in humans.

In the realm of medicine, CRISPR has been tested in early-stage clinical trials as cancer therapy and as a treatment for an inherited disorder that causes blindness. It's also been investigated as a strategy for preventing the spread of Lyme disease and malaria from viral vectors to people, and it's also been studied in animal models of HIV as a way to rid infected cells of the virus, Live Science previously reported. One research team in China attempted to treat a human patient's HIV using CRISPR, and while the treatment wasn't successful in curing the infection, the gene therapy also didn't cause any harmful effects, Live Science reported.

"I think the public perception of CRISPR is very focused on the idea of using gene editing clinically to cure disease," said Neville Sanjana of the New York Genome Center and an assistant professor of biology, neuroscience and physiology at New York University. "This is no doubt an exciting possibility, but this is only one small piece."
Related: 10 amazing things scientists just did with CRISPR
CRISPR technology has also been applied in the food and agricultural industries to engineer probiotic cultures and to vaccinate industrial cultures (yogurt, for example) against viruses. It is also being used in crops to improve yield, drought tolerance and nutritional properties.

One other potential application is to create gene drives, a genetic engineering technique that increases the chances of a particular trait passing on from parent to offspring; this kind of genetic engineering derives from a natural phenomenon, where specific versions of genes are more likely to be inherited. Eventually, over the course of generations, the trait spreads through entire populations, according to the Wyss Institute. Gene drives could be used for various applications, such as eradicating invasive species or reversing pesticide and herbicide resistance in crops, according to a 2014 report published in the journal .

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the CRISPR-Cas9 system has been used to develop various diagnostic tests for the viral infection, BBC News reported.

In April 2017, a team of researchers released research in the journal Science that they had programmed a CRISPR molecule to find strains of viruses, such as Zika, in blood serum, urine and saliva.

On Aug. 2, 2017, scientists revealed in the journal Nature that they had removed a heart disease defect in an embryo successfully using CRISPR.

On Jan. 2, 2018, researchers announced that they may be able to stop fungi and other problems that threaten chocolate production using CRISPR to make the plants more resistant to disease.

On April 16, 2018, researchers upgraded CRISPR to edit thousands of genes at once, according to research published by the journal BioNews.

In addition, CRISPR has recently been used in the following ways:

However, despite its wide range of uses, the tool is not without its drawbacks.

"I think the biggest limitation of CRISPR is it is not a hundred percent efficient," Church told Live Science. That means, in a given experiment, CRISPR may successfully edit only a percentage of the targeted DNA. According to the 2014 Science article by Doudna and Charpentier, in a study conducted in rice, gene editing occurred in nearly 50% of the cells that received the Cas9-RNA complex. Meanwhile, other analyses have shown that depending on the target, editing efficiencies can reach as high as 80% or more.

The technology can also create "off-target effects" when DNA is cut at sites other than the intended target. This can lead to the introduction of unintended mutations. Furthermore, Church noted, even when the system cuts on target, there is a chance of not getting a precise edit. He called this "genome vandalism."

Potential risks and ethical concerns of using CRISPR

The many potential applications of CRISPR technology raise questions about the ethical merits and consequences of tampering with genomes. And in particular, a slew of ethical debates flared up in 2018 when He Jiankui, formerly a biophysicist at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, announced that his team had edited DNA in human embryos and thus created the world's first gene-edited babies.

He was subsequently sentenced to three years in prison and fined 3 million yuan ($560,000) for practicing medicine without a license, violating Chinese regulations on human-assisted reproductive technology and fabricating ethical review documents, Live Science previously reported. But even after his sentencing, He's experiments raised questions about how the use of CRISPR should be regulated going forward, especially given that the technology is still fairly new.

Illegal experimentation in human embryos represents an extreme misuse of CRISPR, of course, but even seemingly ethical uses of the technology could carry risks, scientists say.

In general, making genetic modifications to human embryos and reproductive cells such as sperm and eggs is known as germline editing. Since changes to these cells can be passed on to subsequent generations, using CRISPR technology to make germline edits has raised a number of ethical concerns.

Variable efficacy, off-target effects and imprecise edits all pose safety risks. In addition, there is much that is still unknown to the scientific community. In a 2015 article published in Science, David Baltimore and a group of scientists, ethicists and legal experts note that germline editing raises the possibility of unintended consequences for future generations "because there are limits to our knowledge of human genetics, gene-environment interactions, and the pathways of disease (including the interplay between one disease and other conditions or diseases in the same patient)."

In the 2014 Science article, Oye and colleagues point to the potential ecological impact of using gene drives. An introduced trait could spread beyond the target population to other organisms through crossbreeding. Gene drives could also reduce the genetic diversity of the target population, potentially hampering its ability to survive.

Other ethical concerns are more nuanced. Should we make changes that could fundamentally affect future generations without having their consent? What if the use of germline editing veers from being a therapeutic tool to an enhancement tool for various human characteristics?

To address these concerns, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine put together a comprehensive report with guidelines and recommendations for genome editing.

Although the National Academies urge caution in pursuing germline editing, they emphasize "caution does not mean prohibition." They recommend that germline editing be done only on genes that lead to serious diseases and only when there are no other reasonable treatment alternatives. Among other criteria, they stress the need to collect data on the health risks and benefits and to maintain continuous oversight during clinical trials. They also recommend that, after a trial concludes, trial organizers should follow up with the participants' families for multiple generations to see what changes persist in the genome over time.
This article includes additional reporting by Alina Bradford, Live Science contributor. Originally published on Live Science.
Additional resources

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CRISPR is a powerful tool for editing genomes, meaning it allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function. It has many potential applications, including correcting genetic defects, treating and preventing the spread of diseases, and improving the growth and resilience of crops. However, despite its promise, the technology also raises ethical concerns.

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Crispr's stock has gone down by 5 percent in the past week and in response they have decided to open $200 million worth of stocks to get more investments.

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National Human Genome Research Institute
March 21, 2017

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The term cloning describes a number of different processes that can be used to produce genetically identical copies of a biological entity. The copied material, which has the same genetic makeup as the original, is referred to as a clone. Researchers have cloned a wide range of biological materials, including genes, cells, tissues and even entire organisms, such as a sheep.

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The term cloning describes a number of different processes that can be used to produce genetically identical copies of a biological entity. The copied material, which has the same genetic makeup as the original, is referred to as a clone.

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What you need to Know about CRISPR | Ellen Jorgensen

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What you need to Know about CRISPR | Ellen Jorgensen

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Ellen Jorgensen: What you need to know about CRISPR

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Should we bring back the wooly mammoth? Or edit a human embryo? Or wipe out an entire species that we consider harmful? The genome-editing technology CRISPR has made extraordinary questions like these legitimate -- but how does it work?