Gary Marcus is a good person to introduce this topic.

Submission Statement

"Europe should design and implement a European Space Mission to establish an independent European presence in Earth orbit, lunar orbit, on the Moon, and beyond, including a European Commercial LEO Station, Cargo and Crew Capabilities for the Gateway and the Moon, and sustained presence on the lunar surface."

It's worth noting although this comes from ESA's own self-appointed advisory group, we don't know how much of its recommendations will be followed. However, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher has been talking lately about the need for big changes at ESA.

The full report is a 21 page PDF, available here.

Hey u/NinjaMoreLikeANonja I cross-posted this to r/futurology, there might be some questions there too ?

Submission Statement

We are used to anything space-based requiring massive engineering efforts and equally massive budgets.

This is interesting as it points to a future where cheap manufacturing could predominate. No doubt, there would still be a need for huge and complex engineering efforts, but if some useful space-based resources could be made this easy, wouldn't they quickly increase in number? Particularly as cheap reusable rockets predominate in the launch sector.

>>In past industrial revolutions, machinery has also replaced human labor but productivity gains did not all accrue to owners of capital—those gains were shared with labor through better jobs and wages. Today, for every job that is automated all productivity gains go to the owners of capital. In other words, as AI systems narrow the range of work that only humans can do, the productivity gains are accruing only to the owners of the systems, those of us with stocks and other financial instruments. And as we all know well, the development of AI is largely controlled by an oligopoly of tech leaders with inordinate power in dictating its societal impact and our collective future.

What is interesting about this article is how blunt it is in stating current AI use is unethical. Especially considering the source, The Carnegie Council For Ethics in International Affairs. I am especially impressed that the authors do not automatically accept the premise that AI will generate more jobs than it replaces. That question is more often brushed under the carpet and ignored by academic think tanks.

I've asked the authors of this article to do an AMA with r/futurology. If anyone reading this could facilitate that, I'd be grateful if they could DM me here, or message the Mods.

>>If that method can be scaled up

I don't think there's any technical issue with it being scaled up, the researchers say as much in the original paper.

The issue is cost.

Will it produce the rare earth elements as cheaply as the mined product?

If supply-chain security is an issue, then maybe consumers might have to accept higher prices from non-Chinese sources.

Submission Statement

"This system is expected to become economically feasible in the near future, as the demand and market prices for REEs are likely to rise significantly in the coming years"

It will be interesting to see what price this can be commercialized at. One of the themes of the 2020s is supply-chain security, and China being the dominant source for so many critical elements is a vulnerability. The EU has billions of €'s in funding set aside for circular economy initiatives. Bringing this to market seems a strong contender for that support.

Submission Statement

With the caveat that this tech might be decades away, there are a lot of intriguing possibilities to consider with OI.

People have often wondered about the merger of humans & AI. If that were to happen, it sounds much easier to merge with a biological substrate designed off of something we already possess.

Submission Statement.

Using CRISPR tech to influence epigenetics could lead to some fascinating possibilities. We think of CRISPR influencing the latter part of the "Nurture Vs. Nature" pairing that defines us. What if it could reprogram some of the first part too?

However not all scientists are convinced that this technique may deliver much.

Submission Statement

This looks like a much more palatable way to do brain-computer interfaces than the radical surgery techniques some like Neuralink have suggested.

It's interesting to wonder how quickly this might be commercialized. As the article points out, there are many companies around the world trying (with various degrees of success) to bring human-body/electronic interfaces to market, especially for the control of prosthetic limbs.