Wednesday 1st November 2023
A.I., the Birds and the Bees, and our food
How about beginning with a quote from the Forum at the WEF? After all, the transhumanist agenda is pretty clearly summarised there:
humans can and will be enhanced by the genetic engineering and information technology of today, as well as anticipated advances, such as bioengineering, artificial intelligence, and molecular nanotechnology. The result is an iteration of Homo sapiens enhanced or augmented, but still fundamentally human.
In that article, there is an inverted usage of what has been a popular reference to a scene from the Matrix, save that here, the advocacy and ‘free-ing’ is considered to be with the advocates of the transhumanist agenda:
There is a famous scene in the film The Matrix in which Morpheus asks Neo whether he wants to take the blue pill or the red pill. One returns him unawares to his life of total physical and mental enslavement within the simulation programme of the Matrix, the other gives him access to the real world with all its brutal challenges. But after experiencing this, he can never go back to life within the Matrix, and must survive outside it.
Advocates of transhumanism face a similar choice today. One option is to take advantage of the advances in nanotechnologies, genetic engineering and other medical sciences to enhance the biological and mental functioning of human beings (never to go back). The other is to legislate to prevent these artificial changes from becoming an entrenched part of humanity, with all the implied coercive bio-medicine that would entail for the species.
In Ethical machines: The human-centric use of artificial intelligence, the existing use is probably something that many of us have already experienced to some degree:
Today’s increased availability of large amounts of human behavioral data and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are contributing to a growing reliance on algorithms to make consequential decisions for humans, including those related to access to credit or medical treatments, hiring, etc. Algorithmic decision-making processes might lead to more objective decisions than those made by humans who may be influenced by prejudice, conflicts of interest, or fatigue.
But let’s move on… by-passing ‘Bill Gates & Ray Kurzweil discuss deployment of Vitaliano Clathrin GQD Neural Interface‘…
With regards Birds and Bees… here is something on birds:
> Bird-like robots could assist in medical emergencies and hunt down drones
Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are set to form a growing multi-billion dollar industry in the skies in the coming years, with rising potential for a wide range of uses from emergency assistance to drug delivery, home deliveries and precision agriculture.
The GRIFFIN project he leads is seeking to create prototypes of highly autonomous, ultra-lightweight robot birds that can minimise energy in flight, perch on curved surfaces, carry out tasks with moving limbs and artificial beaks, and intelligently interact with people and the environment.
HawkEye has uncovered different strategies. The team found that peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) use visual feedback for guidance in a similar way to visually guided missiles, making them highly efficient for chasing prey moving in a smooth, straight line.
In contrast, a later study found that Harris’s hawks (Parabuteo unicinctus) use a ‘mixed guidance’ strategy to pursue prey through ‘cluttered’ habitats such as desert scrub or trees, improving performance for chasing agile, zigzagging targets.
Aside from the potential to apply this knowledge in navigation systems, it could be harnessed to help flying vehicles intercept drones that pose a threat. Though visually guided systems have been developed for missile interception, blocking drones in the more crowded urban airspace of cities and stadiums poses a new challenge, says Prof. Taylor.
In a different report, there is a concluding quote that mentions that:
‘future drones will play an important role in aiding humanity in search and rescue missions, disaster mitigation or efficient delivery,’ said Prof. Floreano. ‘To successfully complete those missions, they will have to navigate autonomously in complex environments. Thus, the challenges such drones must overcome are very similar to the challenges birds are tackling every day’.
As regards bees, :
> Building a buzz: robot bees to simulate pollination
Two scientists from the UK and the US have been jointly awarded £640,000 to build microrobots that simulate the buzzing of bees.
Evolutionary biologist Dr Mario Vallejo-Marin [and] engineer Dr Noah Jafferis, will work to build tiny robots that can reproduce the buzzes of pollinating bees.
Twenty-thousand plants, including tomatoes, potatoes and blueberries, depend on buzz pollination, so understanding which bees do it best, and how they do it, could improve agriculture as well as help us understand the evolution of different types of bees and flowers.
“These microrobots are the size of your fingernail and weigh a quarter of a honeybee. They will allow us to control the vibrations – their pitch, force, and timing – and simulate bees’ interactions with flowers’.
Bee populations worldwide are in decline, but the researchers say their work is not to create robotic substitutes for bees, but to better understand pollination and the diversity of bee species.
“In Australia and Southern Africa, for example, they need buzz pollinating bees for pollinating some fruit crops,” said Dr Vallejo-Marin. “But bumblebees are not native there so they can’t be used in agriculture as we use them in Europe, and farmers have resorted to using electric toothbrushes to pollinate tomatoes.
“Understanding buzz pollination better could lead to stronger motivation for conserving the diversity of bees, beyond honeybees and bumblebees, as well as potentially optimising fruit and vegetable yields in agriculture.”
Which leads us to food…
If you haven’t come across GeneEthics before (most of their material is now from their Facebook page and Newsletter, linked to their site), do give them a look – they have been around for some time and have continuously raised concerns about genetically modified foods.
Yet, even Ray Kurzweil, in his Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, one of the key people behind much of the transhumanist movement, advocates (at least for those who can now afford it) eating organic foods, steering clear of produce that ‘tend to be the most contaminated’, use non-toxic cleaners to remove wax on fruit, eating ‘lower on the food chain’ to minimise accumulation of metals, etc. Even advocating to reduce exposure to radiation (which, by the way, has a detrimental impact on bee colonies), and minimising (or eliminating) food and stock containing heavy metals (p414).