Showing posts with label Quantum Computing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quantum Computing. Show all posts

April 2, 2023

If Pharaoh Had AI

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "If Pharaoh Had AI."

From manufacturing to customer service to law enforcement and defense, AI could one day be in the driver’s seat while we are off sunning on some remote beach in the Caribbean. As an example, just imagine a future military in which wars are fought by autonomous drones in the air and sea and killer robots on land, led by a master AI core at the Pentagon in control of all global operations, including our triad of nuclear warheads.

In short, the message for Passover isn’t just the tremendous potential of AI for the good or even the threat it poses of becoming too powerful to control, but what happens when the bad guys (dictators, despots, and megalomaniacs), like the Pharaoh of yesteryear, are dangerously using AI to enslave the world to their vision of hate and contempt for democracy, human rights, and freedom for us all?

(Credit Photo: Ilnur Dulyanov via https://pixabay.com/illustrations/square-soldier-green-red-angry-7871431/)
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October 13, 2018

10-Steps To Common Sense Defense


(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)

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October 12, 2018

Why Isn't The U.S. Keeping Up Militarily?


The United States is ranked as the most powerful country in the world:



But the U.S. spends more than the next 7-8 countries COMBINED!(See below chart from Forbes 2016)


In fact, military spending is more than half of all U.S. federal discretionary spending. 

So the question is why are we spending so much more than everybody else, is the United States getting its money's worth, and most importantly are we able to defend ourselves? 

The U.S. defense budget is going up and has been approved at $717B for 2019. 

All the other 28 NATO countries together spend less than half ($296B) as much as the U.S. alone. 

If you add NATO spending as a complement to the U.S. then the total spend on our mutual defense approaches $1 trillion!

Russia ($69B) China ($146B), North Korea ($6B), and Iran's ($16B) military spending in total pales in comparison at just $237B.

NATO as a whole is outspending Russia + China + North Korea + Iran by a factor of 4 times yet these countries are still considered major threats to us!

Despite all the truly incredible brave, hard working, and excellent men and women that serve with distinction in our military, 

Therefore, again why is it that the U.S. is spending more on what others seem to get for cheaper?  Is there significant fraud, waste, and abuse in the system?  Are we as a rich capitalistic nation simply getting fat, lazy, and stupid?  

Notwithstanding the outsized spending by the United States, incredibly from today's Wall Street Journal, there is another article about our inability to defend ourselves:
"These are admissions that the U.S. cannot proportionally and equally defend itself in space, cyber, and response to tactical and nuclear weapons except through the threat of escalation and intrusion into other domains."
Some poignant examples given:

- Our stationary land-based nuclear missiles are no match for Russia and China's mobile-based ICBMs.

- Our ten busiest U.S. ports do not have an adequate defense against an underwater nuclear missile launch.

China and Russia variously are beating us out in:
  • Quantum Communications
  • Anti-Satellite Weapons
  • Directed Energy 
  • Hypersonics 

In fact, it was just reported that China conducted its 8th hypersonic test of a plane--with this one said to capable of Mach 10--and that it is capable of carrying nukes! 

Further, our carrier group fleet and land forces are at risk with respect to Russia and China's hypersonic weapons.

Of course, EMP weapons can fry our electrical grid and a large cyber attack could disable our critical infrastructure.

Let's not even talk bioweapons--think Black Plague from the Middle Ages that wiped out 30-60% of Europe. 

Yes, some of these are asymmetric warfare, but why are we still thinking and fighting so kinetic and conventionally. 

If we are fighting the wars of yesteryear instead of the battles of today and the threats of tomorrow then what good is our military investments and assets.

To become a more capable fighting force that is less vulnerable, more capable of defending this country, and making better use of our large investment dollars here are 10-steps we need to take to transform our military; we need to transition as follows:

  1. From static land-based nuclear missiles to a fully mobile platform.
  2. From vulnerable fleets of large ships and planes to "unstoppable" swarms of miniaturized lethal drones. 
  3. From a preponderance of earth-based kinetic weapons to space-based energy directed weapons. 
  4. From having to generally choose between speed or power to using the power of speed as an "unstoppable" force of nature. 
  5. From projecting a time and space bound visible presence to a persistent invisible existence.
  6. From attempting to defend limited points of presence to establishing a "impenetrable" umbrella shield of multi-layered defenses.
  7. From reactively identifying and stopping cyber threats to proactively hunting and destroying them. 
  8. From knee-jerk instinctive putting of human lives in harm's way to matter-of-factly sending milbots (military robots) to the front lines. 
  9. From relying on the heroics and genius of individual human brainpower to harnessing in realtime "the collective" augmented by artificial intelligence into a hive.
  10. From relying on escalation of a "bigger, badder gun" to being able to fight capably in every battle arena, win in each and dominate holistically. 

Over $700B per year should buy us a lot of defense, hopefully in the future we can really use it to defend ourselves. ;-)
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March 3, 2018

QC + AI = S


Quantum Computing (QC) + Artificial Intelligence (AI) = Singularity (S)

Quantum Computing - Computers using subatomic particles to superprocess atincredible speeds and with less energy--it's similar to massive parallel processing, but in the case of Qubits, they can store more than just 1s and 0s (bits--a binary state), but rather can be both o and 1 at the same time (a "superposition").  So for very large problems ("exponential scaling"), instead of processing (computing one step at a time), you can process all options simultaneously to find the very best ("optimized") solution by eliminating all options that don't fit the algorithm.

Artificial Intelligence - Computers simulate intelligence, using language, perceiving their environment, reasoning to draw conclusions, solving problems usually done by humans, being creative, and where they can actually learn and self-improve!

Singularity - A state of runaway hypergrowth from the attainment of computing superintelligence, where computers are able to autonomously build ever smarter and more powerful machines that surpass human understanding and control leading to unfathomable changes to human civilization. 

The Information Age is giving way to the Intelligence Age, and it is all ready to explode. 

We are getting to the point of no return...

(Source Photo: Screenshot from YouTube with attribution to the move, Lucy")
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November 27, 2017

Technology Forecast 2018



Here are Andy Blumenthal's technology forecast and priorities for 2018.

1. Medical Computing - Continue the significant progress and solve the great illnesses of Cancer, Parkinson's, ALS, Alzheimers, and so many other horrible and debilitating diseases. Along with longevity, we need to alleviate human suffering and create a higher quality of living for all people.

2. Environmental Computing - Develop more and better clean technologies that can eliminate the Great Plastic Garbage Patch and other heart-breaking garbage dumps and environmental disasters around the world--clean up, breakdown, recycle, and create a more sustainable and beautiful planet for everyone to enjoy.

3. Quantum Computing - Achieve the ultimate processing power and speed of quantum computing to enable us to solve the greatest of mankind's problems including WMD, and cyber security threats as well as the overcome the transportation and colonization challenges to reach, explore, and settle the depths of outer space.
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