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The Advancing Technology/Singularity Thread

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KI4MVP

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I know we had a singularity thread, but I couldn't find it, so I'm starting this thread which is about technological advances that are happening now or can happen in the next several years.

Here are a few topics to get the thread going.

1 - Artificial intelligence - Seemingly overnight this has become pervasive (even cell phones now have 600 gigaflop AI engines built in) and it's only going to get much, much better. The rapid advances in self driving cars is one example. Here's another

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJMhz7JlPvA


2 - Energy - Puerto Rico pretty much lost their entire power grid. This is the way we should be rebuilding that, but apparently aren't.

View: https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/922840234143952899


Also, in the news yesterday, see through solar

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMhdpWMDp04


3 - Medicine. I just saw this yesterday. We have mapped the human genome and have discovered specific genes that cause specific diseases. We now have technology available called CRISPR that can selectively replace individual genes.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pp17E4E-O8
 
I'm currently working on a computer vision based AI project right now, oddly enough... My best friend works with CRISPR in her research facility. Interesting set of topics, but, really goes to show how close we are to a technological singularity given the ubiquity of these advancements.
 
I'm currently working on a computer vision based AI project right now, oddly enough... My best friend works with CRISPR in her research facility. Interesting set of topics, but, really goes to show how close we are to a technological singularity given the ubiquity of these advancements.

rdsADgv.gif
 
It is highly probable that CRISPR will bring back a number of extinct species.

The mammoth is the likeliest candidate because no viable cell has been found to use in traditional cloning methods.

Of course, it won't be a mammoth, strictly speaking, but a replicated mammoth if one borrows the Star Trek term.
 
It is highly probable that CRISPR will bring back a number of extinct species.

The mammoth is the likeliest candidate because no viable cell has been found to use in traditional cloning methods.

Of course, it won't be a mammoth, strictly speaking, but a replicated mammoth if one borrows the Star Trek term.

I have all kinds of questions about CRISPR. Just how large of a scale can it work on? If an adult has the gene that makes them susceptible to Alzheimer’s presumably a quite large percentage of brain cells would have to be revised. Is it capable of that kind of coverage.

If I heard right, One talk I saw said it can be used to deactivate HIV that has already infected a cell. For this to be effective you presumably would need complete coverage. Is that possible?

If these things are possbible, then it should be possible to dramatically eliminate a vast number of diseases with genetic factors. For example a number of genes have been linked to increased risk of breast cancer. And the post cancer treatment for people with those genes can be brutal.

@gourimoko ?
 
I have all kinds of questions about CRISPR. Just how large of a scale can it work on? If an adult has the gene that makes them susceptible to Alzheimer’s presumably a quite large percentage of brain cells would have to be revised. Is it capable of that kind of coverage.

If I heard right, One talk I saw said it can be used to deactivate HIV that has already infected a cell. For this to be effective you presumably would need complete coverage. Is that possible?

If these things are possbible, then it should be possible to dramatically eliminate a vast number of diseases with genetic factors. For example a number of genes have been linked to increased risk of breast cancer. And the post cancer treatment for people with those genes can be brutal.

@gourimoko ?

I'll forward your questions on and get a response tonight hopefully.
 
One thing I nearly made a separate topic in my first post is transportation. Two major changes to our cars (by cars I mean trucks, SUVs, etc), are happening simultaneously.

One change is the move away from internal combustion engines. As of mid year there were 2 million electric cars worldwide (just a tiny fraction of the at least 1.2 billion vehicles in the world). The percentage should rapidly ramp up. One reason is consumer demand is growing. For example, Tesla has 500k preorders of their Model 3. Another reason is many manufacturers have committed to rapidly expanding their number of electric models. And a final reason is multiple countries have set deadlines when they will ban sales of new cars that use gas or diesel.

One advantage to the change is lowering carbon emissions. Another advantage is full electric vehicles should have several multiples longer lifespans than cars with internal combustion engines.

The other change is autonomous driving. There is a chart that defines the automation levels

Driveless-car-scale_grande.jpg


Multiple manufacturers are shipping cars with level 2 automation. Turn on cruise control and they handle acceleration, deceleration, breaking, staying in your lane (including when the highway curves), and can change lanes (when it's safe) if you turn your blinker on. They can even park themselves. They also continuously monitor for safety issues and can take appropriate measures to avoid accidents and take measures to minimize injury risk if an accident can't be avoided (such as someone rear ending you at a stop light).

The best anyone ships is Level 2, one company is shipping what they call Level 3 in a few months (but it only works under 37 MPH, which is both mostly useless, and really no different from other companies level 3).

However, there are also multiple companies with limited deployment of fully autonomous ride sharing services. Uber in Pittsburgh, Waymo in phoenix, Apple is planning an autonomous employee shuttle system. These system require extra hardware added to a car.

Tesla, on the other hand, added the hardware to their cars before the level 3/4/5 software was ready. So if/when they finish and test the software, it's a over the air software update for cars already on the road. And they are planning an nationwide Uber like service for their level 5 vehicles when the software is done. Potentially half a million model 3 cars can be available for ride sharing whenever the owner isn't using it. You can let your car make money for you while you're sleeping, on vacation, at work, etc.
 
CRISPR 2.0 is Here, and it’s Way More Precise
It could one day be used to treat a range of inherited diseases.

You’ve probably heard of the molecular scalpel CRISPR-Cas9, which can edit or delete whole genes. Now, scientists have developed a more precise version of the DNA-editing tool that can repair even smaller segments of a person’s genome.

In two studies published today, one in Nature and another in Science, researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard describe a new way to edit DNA and RNA, called base editing. The approach could one day treat a range of inherited diseases, some of which currently have no treatment options.

The human genome contains six billion DNA letters, or chemical bases known as A, C, G and T. These letters pair off—A with T and C with G—to form DNA’s double helix. Base editing, which uses a modified version of CRISPR, is able to change a single one of these letters at a time without making breaks to DNA’s structure.

zUz4mcU.jpg

President Trump's inherited pathological idiocy may one day be treatable

That’s useful because sometimes just one base pair in a long strand of DNA gets swapped, deleted, or inserted—a phenomenon called a point mutation. Point mutations make up 32,000 of the 50,000 changes in the human genome known to be associated with diseases.

In the Nature study, researchers led by David Liu, a Harvard chemistry professor and member of the Broad Institute, were able to change an A into a G. Such a change would address about half the 32,000 known point mutations that cause disease.

To do it, they modified CRISPR so that it would target just a single base. The editing tool was able to rearrange the atoms in an A so that it instead resembled a G, tricking cells into fixing the other DNA strand to complete the switch. As a result, an A-T base pair became a G-C one. The technique essentially rewrites errors in the genetic code instead of cutting and replacing whole chunks of DNA.

“Standard genome-editing methods, including the use of CRISPR-Cas9, make double-stranded breaks in DNA, which is especially useful when the goal is to insert or delete DNA bases,” Liu said on a conference call with journalists on Tuesday. “But when the goal is to simply fix a point mutation, base editing offers a more efficient and cleaner solution.”

Liu said base editing isn’t meant to be a replacement to traditional gene editing with CRISPR, but rather another option for altering the genome in an attempt to correct disease. If CRISPR is akin to a pair of scissors, base editing is more like a pencil, he said.

Previously, researchers had created base editors capable of making the opposite kind of swap—changing a G into an A. Substitutions of a G for an A in certain parts of the DNA represent about 15 percent of disease-associated point mutations. In September, Chinese researchers reported that they used one of these editing tools in an embryo to remove the genetic mutation that causes anemia.
Working in cells taken from patients, Liu and his colleagues used their base-editing tool to correct a point mutation that causes hereditary hemochromatosis, a disorder that causes the body to absorb too much iron from food. This excess iron can build up over time and cause liver cancer and other liver diseases, diabetes, heart disease, or joint disease.

Liu and his team also used the base editor in human cells to induce a mutation that suppresses sickle-cell anemia. In both studies, they detected virtually no off-target effects, or unwanted DNA insertions or deletions, which are a concern with the traditional way of using CRISPR to edit entire genes.

In the new Science study, Feng Zhang, of the Broad Institute and MIT, used a similar base-editing method to target individual letters in RNA, DNA’s chemical cousin. RNA naturally degrades in the body, so editing RNA wouldn’t result in a permanent change to a person’s genome.

Ross Wilson, of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, says base editing may eventually be a better way to treat some diseases. He says a single base pair is like a word in a paragraph of text. With conventional CRISPR technology, you would have to replace the whole paragraph.

“It’s a lot of DNA to move around,” he says. With base editing, you could just change the single word.

Liu says he’s hopeful that base editing of DNA and RNA could be used as complimentary approaches for a “broad set of potential therapeutic applications.”

His lab is exploring base editing to fix blood disorders, neurological disorders, hereditary deafness, and hereditary blindness.


https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609203/crispr-20-is-here-and-its-way-more-precise/
 
CRISPR 2.0 is Here, and it’s Way More Precise
It could one day be used to treat a range of inherited diseases.

You’ve probably heard of the molecular scalpel CRISPR-Cas9, which can edit or delete whole genes. Now, scientists have developed a more precise version of the DNA-editing tool that can repair even smaller segments of a person’s genome.

In two studies published today, one in Nature and another in Science, researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard describe a new way to edit DNA and RNA, called base editing. The approach could one day treat a range of inherited diseases, some of which currently have no treatment options.

The human genome contains six billion DNA letters, or chemical bases known as A, C, G and T. These letters pair off—A with T and C with G—to form DNA’s double helix. Base editing, which uses a modified version of CRISPR, is able to change a single one of these letters at a time without making breaks to DNA’s structure.

zUz4mcU.jpg

President Trump's inherited pathological idiocy may one day be treatable

That’s useful because sometimes just one base pair in a long strand of DNA gets swapped, deleted, or inserted—a phenomenon called a point mutation. Point mutations make up 32,000 of the 50,000 changes in the human genome known to be associated with diseases.

In the Nature study, researchers led by David Liu, a Harvard chemistry professor and member of the Broad Institute, were able to change an A into a G. Such a change would address about half the 32,000 known point mutations that cause disease.

To do it, they modified CRISPR so that it would target just a single base. The editing tool was able to rearrange the atoms in an A so that it instead resembled a G, tricking cells into fixing the other DNA strand to complete the switch. As a result, an A-T base pair became a G-C one. The technique essentially rewrites errors in the genetic code instead of cutting and replacing whole chunks of DNA.

“Standard genome-editing methods, including the use of CRISPR-Cas9, make double-stranded breaks in DNA, which is especially useful when the goal is to insert or delete DNA bases,” Liu said on a conference call with journalists on Tuesday. “But when the goal is to simply fix a point mutation, base editing offers a more efficient and cleaner solution.”

Liu said base editing isn’t meant to be a replacement to traditional gene editing with CRISPR, but rather another option for altering the genome in an attempt to correct disease. If CRISPR is akin to a pair of scissors, base editing is more like a pencil, he said.

Previously, researchers had created base editors capable of making the opposite kind of swap—changing a G into an A. Substitutions of a G for an A in certain parts of the DNA represent about 15 percent of disease-associated point mutations. In September, Chinese researchers reported that they used one of these editing tools in an embryo to remove the genetic mutation that causes anemia.
Working in cells taken from patients, Liu and his colleagues used their base-editing tool to correct a point mutation that causes hereditary hemochromatosis, a disorder that causes the body to absorb too much iron from food. This excess iron can build up over time and cause liver cancer and other liver diseases, diabetes, heart disease, or joint disease.

Liu and his team also used the base editor in human cells to induce a mutation that suppresses sickle-cell anemia. In both studies, they detected virtually no off-target effects, or unwanted DNA insertions or deletions, which are a concern with the traditional way of using CRISPR to edit entire genes.

In the new Science study, Feng Zhang, of the Broad Institute and MIT, used a similar base-editing method to target individual letters in RNA, DNA’s chemical cousin. RNA naturally degrades in the body, so editing RNA wouldn’t result in a permanent change to a person’s genome.

Ross Wilson, of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, says base editing may eventually be a better way to treat some diseases. He says a single base pair is like a word in a paragraph of text. With conventional CRISPR technology, you would have to replace the whole paragraph.

“It’s a lot of DNA to move around,” he says. With base editing, you could just change the single word.

Liu says he’s hopeful that base editing of DNA and RNA could be used as complimentary approaches for a “broad set of potential therapeutic applications.”

His lab is exploring base editing to fix blood disorders, neurological disorders, hereditary deafness, and hereditary blindness.


https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609203/crispr-20-is-here-and-its-way-more-precise/
This was great until I read "virtually no off target changes" then I got really worried it needs to be perfect of its messing with genomes in vivo
 
It is highly probable that CRISPR will bring back a number of extinct species.

The mammoth is the likeliest candidate because no viable cell has been found to use in traditional cloning methods.

Of course, it won't be a mammoth, strictly speaking, but a replicated mammoth if one borrows the Star Trek term.
Give me some fucking dinosaurs. I love dinosaurs
 

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