In this update:
1. our latest salon video on institutions, civilizations and the future, featuring Anders Sandberg visiting from the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford
2. the 2018 laureate of Foresight’s Distinguished Student Award
3. advances in the field of Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, and Nanotechnology, led by our 2018 fellows
4. a Nanotech workshop invite
We spent a wondrous evening with Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford to discuss his recent paper Dissolving the Fermi Paradox, co-authored by Eric Drexler and Toby Ord. Through a re-examination of the parameters of the Drake Equation, they conclude there should be little surprise we have failed to observe evidence of other intelligent life.
Although it is a relief to think that a sky of silent stars might not be foretelling our doom, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
If not alone, we could be pretty special indeed. There is some food for thought when it comes to our responsibility as a civilization to endure. So, on our side, we will dutifully continue our Strengthening Civilization salon series
For the rest of Anders and Allison’s far future musings during this salon, watch the full salon video just below:
Dissolving The Fermi Paradox & The Far Future – Anders Sandberg in discussion with Allison Duettmann
Our salons aim at helping our civilization prosper – through a healthy critique of our current paradigms.
The monthly salon series in 2018 focuses on strengthening civilization— if you wonder why, watch Allison Duettmann explaining this choice in this uplifting video, and inspiring the movement toward Existential Hope.
Topics we have discussed to date (all salon videos available in this YouTube playlist):
President Steve Burgess awards Distinguished Student award to Qi Li
At the occasion of our last nanotechnology workshop “Atomic Precision for Longevity”, we had the great pleasure to announce the laureate of the 2018 Distinguished Student Award. The Award recognizes the College graduate or undergraduate student whose work is considered most notable in advancing the development and understanding of nanotechnology, and has done so since 1997.
Carnegie Mellon PhD Student, Qi Li is this year’s winner of the Foresight Institute Distinguished Student Award, in recognition of his breakthrough developing a means of nanoparticle “surgery”and by doing so advancing the field of nanochemistry.
For more information, read the press release on this topic.
Our warmest congratulations to Sergei Kalinin, Foresight Fellow in Electron Beam Atom by Atom Assembly, for winning the 2018 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists
Sergei Kalinin, Foresight Fellow in Electron Beam Atom by Atom Assembly
Sergei Kalinin is the director of the ORNL Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials and distinguished research staff member at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (at ORNL since 2002). He also holds a Joint Associate Professor position at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His research interests include application of big data and machine learning in atomically resolved and mesoscopic imaging to guide the development of advanced materials for energy and information technologies, electromechanics and electrochemistry of nanoscale systems, as well as applications of electron beam for direct atom by atom assembly of matter.
In the last section of this newsletter, find an invite and registration link to a workshop coming up next week and organized by Sergei: “Atom by atom fabrication via electron beams and scanning probes”
Peter Scheyer, Fellow in Corporate Artificial General Intelligence & Computer Security
Peter is a U.S. Air Force veteran in cybersecurity, holds an MBA, and as a serial entrepreneur has founded over ten companies. His research into corporations as artificial persons and collective intelligences has been credited as a novel and foundational approach to corporate governance by professionals in the legal, policy, and commercial spheres. Peter authored AGI, Corporations, and Alignment Literature Review, a literature review seeking to combine research on artificial intelligence with findings on corporations, then to explore implications of these findings for entity alignment studies.
Watch Peter’s on this topic at our Seminar on AGI and Corporations just below:
Peter Scheyer: Corporations as Artificial General Intelligences
We are pleased to share with you all this invite from our dear fellow Sergei Kalinin (featured in this Update):
Dear colleagues,
We would like to bring your attention to the workshop “Atom by atom fabrication via electron beams and scanning probes”, to be held at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on November 1,2. This workshop will bring together experts in scanning probe atomic fabrication and emerging field of atomically resolved electron beam matter manipulation, to highlight the recent advances and opportunities and serve as a much-needed seed to establish its rapid growth. It will provide a forum to present recent achievements in electron beam manipulation, novel opportunities for instrumental development enabled by the availability of high speed data analytic tools and machine learning, integration of atomic-scale device engineering into semiconductor workflows, and opportunities for quantum information systems.
The confirmed plenary and invited speakers include Toma Susi (U. Vienna) and John Randall (Zyvex), as well as David Forrest (DOE), and Khershed Cooper (NSF).
Read here the partial program (allowing for additional invited and regular contributions base don submissions). The conference registration is open till October 16 using this link.
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We’re humbled that many of you want to help support our mission. To get an overview of the different ways to engage with Foresight, we created a one-pager on Getting Involved.
That said, one of the ways that you can most immediately help is to support our mission financially. Foresight Institute is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible in the US to the full extent provided by law. On this page you will learn how we have used last year’s donations. You can claim membership level matching the amount of your contribution.
Thank you,
