Singularity Hub

The cell phone ride hail apps like Uber and Lyft are now reporting great success with actual ride-sharing, under the names UberPool, LyftLines and Lyft Carpool. In addition, a whole new raft of apps to enable semi-planned and planned carpooling are out making changes. The most remarkable number I have seen has Uber stating that 50% of rides in San Francisco are now UberPool. With UberPool, the system tries to find people with overlapping ride... read more

DNA codes for life as we know it, but in recent years, scientists have discovered more uses for the molecule. Because DNA is foldable and “sticky,” they've begun making microscopic shapes called DNA origami. Over the last decade or so, researchers have improved at this DNA art, and now, Caltech scientists say they used DNA to sketch a glowing masterpiece — a replica of Vincent van Gogh’s famous painting “The Starry Night”— on a canvas the size... read more

There’s never been a better opportunity to see the future first-hand. Join the most innovative minds in business and technology, along with Singularity University faculty and alumni at the first-ever SU Global Summit, August 28-30, in San Francisco. The future is incredibly hard to predict, but not for the reasons we normally think. The truth is, not only are new technologies advancing quickly, but how they’re converging and influencing one another kicks the pace up another... read more

As every child knows, the world is a place of wonder, magic and adventure. A walk through the forest becomes a journey into the lair of an ancient dragon or a hunt for ancient treasure. An abandoned house is consumed by dark spirits who must be avoided. An old wardrobe is a portal to another world. When we were young these stories became as real to us as the ground beneath our feet. And although... read more

When someone types your name into Google, suppose the first link points to a newspaper article about you going bankrupt 15 years ago, or to a YouTube video of you smoking cigarettes 20 years ago, or simply a webpage that includes personal information such as your current home address, your birth date, or your Social Security number. What can you do — besides cry? Unlike those living the United States, Europeans actually have some recourse. The... read more

What’s in a face? Doctors say health. Psychologists say personality. Anthropologists say evolution. For me, it’s identity. Arguably, no other body part is as intimately tied to a sense of self as our unique visage. It’s part of the reason we often look so different in photos, which are horizontally flipped compared to how we see ourselves in the mirror. Even such a slight change — one that reflects reality — can feel jarring, because... read more

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Exclusive: Why Microsoft Is Betting Its Future on AI Casey Newton | The Verge "Microsoft's historical instincts about where technology is going have been spot-on. But the company has a record of dropping the ball when it comes to acting on that instinct...The question looming over the company's efforts around AI is simple: Why should it it be different this time?" THE FUTURE: Why We Need to Pick Up Alvin Toffler’s Torch Farhad Manjoo | The New... read more

If 3D printing is already impacting manufacturing today, what breakthroughs could bioprinting — or printing any mix of organic and inorganic materials — achieve tomorrow? In a recent video, a basic prototype of the Aether 1 bioprinter is shown printing two bones connected by a tendon using six materials that include synthetic bone, conductive ink, stem cells and graphene oxide. While bioprinted organs are still a long way off — this video offers a glimpse... read more

Are you a technology enthusiast? A ravenous consumer of online content? Have you ever thought about joining Singularity Hub’s dynamic and future thinking team? If so, now’s your chance. We’re searching for an associate editor and a web production editor to join our team of sharp and quirky tech optimists. We’re a vibrant team of critical thinkers, tech enthusiasts, and skeptical optimists. The idea of entering a lively group that asks “why” (a lot) should excite you! We’re big thinkers,... read more

A couple years ago, a friend told me he didn’t eat meat because he believed that in the future advanced AI would learn from us and treat humans the way we had treated less powerful species. He said he didn’t want to give AI any reason to treat him the way most humans treated the animals we ate. He was sort of kidding…but he also wasn’t. In the past, we relied on animal products to survive... read more

Could you imagine a robot takeover beginning anywhere other than a major automobile factory? It only makes sense—car plants are already some of the most automated, robot-packed spots on the planet. "ANA" is a recent sci-fi short film exploring this human-machine apocalypse scenario. In the film, we experience the moments leading up to the beginning of the end through the eyes of a nondescript factory worker who appears bored and made mostly irrelevant because of... read more

I'm constantly inquiring about the impact of exponential change over the next 20 years. An equally important question is, what won't change over the next two decades? For entrepreneurs, understanding what is constant and what is changing can give you an enormous competitive edge over those who don't. Constants: Lessons from Amazon's Jeff Bezos The first time I heard this question answered was from Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos. Jeff was on stage at a press event, and a reporter... read more

“Magnetic pull.” We often use the phrase to describe attraction, but only in a figurative way. After all, unlike homing pigeons, humans don’t have the power to perceive magnetic fields. Or do we? According to a small group of maverick scientists, the possibility of finding working compasses within our bodies ranges from “not surprising” to “overwhelming.”  The idea that humans can sense magnetism has been floating around in fringe academic circles for decades, mostly relegated... read more

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy Problem Kate Crawford | The New York Times "Like all technologies before it, artificial intelligence will reflect the values of its creators. So inclusivity matters—from who designs it to who sits on the company boards and which ethical perspectives are included. Otherwise, we risk constructing machine intelligence that mirrors a narrow and privileged vision of society, with its old, familiar biases and stereotypes." ROBOTICS: How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race... read more

A Tesla blog post describes the first fatality involving a self-drive system. A Tesla was driving on autopilot down a divided highway. A truck taking a left turn off the highway crossed into the Tesla's lane perpendicular to the car. A white truck body against a bright sky is not something the camera system in the Tesla perceives well. The truck's clearance was high, so when the Tesla did not stop, it went under the truck and the windshield... read more

Technology can be awkward. Our pockets are weighed down with ever-larger smartphones that are a pain to pull out when we’re in a rush. And attempts to make our devices more easily accessible with smartwatches have so far fallen flat. But what if a part of your body could become your computer, with a screen on your arm and maybe even a direct link to your brain? Artificial electronic skin (e-skin) could one day make... read more

When it comes to modern consumer electronics, we all seem to be obsessed with finding an electrical outlet to charge up. That’s because the lithium-ion batteries that power our smartphones, laptops, and other gadgets have a performance problem: with each charge, they become less efficient, eventually becoming too unstable to function. Now chemists from Texas A&M have uncovered what causes batteries to slowly die: instead of flowing freely, electrons coupled to lithium ions are getting... read more

Miniaturization is one of the most world-shaking trends of the last several decades. Computer chips now have features measured in billionths of a meter. Sensors that once weighed kilograms fit inside your smartphone. But it doesn't end there. Researchers are aiming to take sensors smaller—much smaller. In a new University of Stuttgart paper published in Nature Photonics, scientists describe tiny 3D printed lenses and show how they can take super sharp images. Each lens is 120 millionths of a meter in... read more

Let’s face it: most of us suck at managing money.

According to a National Bureau of Economics working paper published this March, roughly three quarters of all American households carry some form of debt. 40% haven’t paid off their credit cards. Nearly half have no savings at all. And the US isn’t alone: Canada, the UK and Australia are in roughly the same debt-ridden neighborhood.

There’s no doubt that we’re bad with money. But according to Richard Thaler, an economist at the University Chicago, we’re not (entirely) to blame.

Economists have traditionally looked at human behavior through a distortion field, he explains. Through this lens, they build financial models and market theories based on a caricature of our actual species. The economists’ human, homo economicus, in a nutshell is hyper-rational, makes logical decisions without emotion, and always goes after the optimal outcome regardless of cost to others.

There’s just one problem. We’re not a bunch of Vulcans. If you’ve ever hit up a grocery store hungry and ended up with crap loads of junk food, you know the model’s wrong.

Unlike homo economicus, the human psyche runs on biases and emotions that often jeopardize our best intent. Our brains are not rational computers; our decisions vary widely with hunger, hormones, sleep and other physiological functions, often below our state of consciousness.

As Nobel Prize winning-economist Daniel Kahneman famously wrote in Thinking, Fast and Slow, “you think with your body, not only with your brain.”

Money and homo economicus may thrive in harmony, but money and homo erectus make an ill-matched pair. And as our financial system evolves but our emotions don’t, the relationship is bound to get even more complicated.

Most of us experience a sense of physical attachment when we shell out actual paper bills for goods. Yet with credit cards, bitcoins, PayPal, Venmo, Stripe, Square, Google Wallet and ApplePay — just to name a few — becoming increasingly popular, the act of spending is becoming alarmingly abstract.

According to cognitive scientists, when we consciously uncouple from physical money, we lose track of how much we’ve spent. One study in the Journal of Consumer Research, for example, shows that consumers using credit cards pay less attention to the price of the item, instead shifting focus to its perceived benefits. Another study, led by psychologist Dr. Ross Steinman at Widener University, found that the simple swap from cash to card boosts spending by 12-18%.

This effect, aptly named “decoupling,” is a recipe ripe for impulse spending. With the recent explosion in mobile and peer-to-peer purchasing, the situation is only going to escalate.

Our relationship with money is ripe for a complete overhaul. This got London design company Method thinking: since the root of the problem lies in our emotions, why not make them central to an entirely new class of bank — the “Bank of Physiology”?

Method’s radical idea marries two unlikely fields: banking and the quantified self.

A “hypothetical institute at the convergence of healthcare and personal finance,” the Bank of Physiology tracks many aspects of your physiology, such as hormone fluctuations, in an unobtrusive way as you go about your daily routine. The data is then used to draw up a profile of your spending patterns.

Why can’t real banks work in a similar way—benefitting both our physical and financial health?

It sounds like a far-fetched idea, but so did the concept of wearable devices and apps that automatically tracks and uploads your steps and sleeping patterns. Companies like Fitbit receive mountains of information on your daily movement patterns, which they then use to generate weekly reports to encourage more exercise.

How much can hormones actually influence financial decisions? A lot, according to Method. In several studies looking at hormone levels and risk taking, researchers found that high levels of testosterone and cortisol make stock traders take substantially more risks. In the real world, these “subterranean shifts in risk appetite” can shake up the financial system, often in unpredictable ways.

Method believes human hormones and emotions can also contribute to the solution.

“What if you could look back at patterns in our hormones from [the] previous week or month and maybe see when you are doing things like comfort spending,” says Method’s creative direct Philip O’Dwyer.

“Maybe you could see that you had higher estrogen levels and that’s why you were buying extra stuff. That could potentially be interesting,” he says.

Devices that currently track and analyze hormone levels don’t yet exist, but according to O’Dwyer, the parts are there. As proof-of-principle, the team rigged up a conceptual toothbrush that collects your saliva twice everyday as you brush your teeth. Hormones in the saliva are then analyzed in real time — perhaps using “lab-on-a-chip” technology implanted in the toothbrush — and the data is uploaded into the cloud. By syncing with your daily spending, an app could then give you a glimpse into how you spend on a certain hormonal profile.

Method also envisions a biological upgrade to our chip-and-pin machines.

Rather than just taking our credit card information, these machines could evolve to collecting a small blood sample “to track dominant hormones at the point of purchase.” An app could potentially warn you to rethink your decision if your cortisone levels are high, for example, or if your hormonal status falls into the “rage spending” range, whatever that means to your body.

An app that allows us to witness, for ourselves, the interplay between hormones and finances would be extremely informative. But Method’s social experiment doesn’t stop there.

The real change is forging a link between physiological data and spending not just for consumers, but also for banking institutions.

Calling them “banks” really isn’t fair. Our vision of a future bank isn’t the numbers-only institutions we visit today. Instead, the new service lies at the crossroads of finance and healthcare, explains Method.

In essence, these are “teaching banks” — institutions that not only help you with your investments, but also stealthily give you cognitive behavioral therapy to quell brash spending habits.

This necessitates a whole new cast of hybrid workers, from “bank general practitioners” who assess their clients’ physical and economic status, to “wellbeing financial mentors” who prescribe healthy habits aimed at balancing out-of-whack hormones and, in turn, promote financial stability, explains Method.

It could come as an unobtrusive app notification: “your stress hormones are high, you have x bills coming up, based on your previous selected preferences, we encourage you to engage in 30 minutes of meditation.”

Would it work? Maybe — if there’re enough incentives. What if maintaining healthy physiological measures was tied to your interest rates or credit card perks? For the system to really take off, however, society needs a shift in how we regard these banks of physiology: not just money keepers, but also therapists.

Without doubt, Method’s idea is innovative, if somewhat creepy. Would I really want to give my financial advisor a complete detailed picture of my health?

It sounds like a huge breach of privacy, but then we already hand over private medical information to insurance companies and doctors, with the assumption that they will use the information for our needs. Similarly, many people are fine with genetic testing companies such as 23andme to use their genetic data for future research. Would Method’s “Bank of Physiology” — an economic extension of medical care — be viewed any differently?

Of course, there’s no evidence that Method’s thought experiment will come to pass. Even so, the idea of a radically different financial system — one that incorporates a core human trait — is inspiring.

“We wanted to take a step back from…everyday problems and really think about some of the major trends that we felt were going to affect…experiences in the future,” says O’Dwyer.

Maybe incorporating emotions into our banking system is a great idea. Maybe it isn’t. But one thing is for sure: our relationship with money is poised for a radical change.

Interested in learning more about the future of finance? Join leading manufacturing experts at Singularity University and CNBC's Exponential Finance conference June 7-8, 2016 in New York.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: It’s Too Late—We’ve Already Taught AI to Be Racist and Sexist
Jordan Pearson | Motherboard
" 'To some extent, you can think about the AI as a human child,' Clune said. 'You don’t want a child to hang out with racist or discriminatory people, because it will parrot those sentences and predispositions.' It’s inevitable that AI, just like a real human, will eventually be exposed to some very bad ideas, intentionally or not. It needs to be taught how to ignore them."

LONGEVITY: The Immortality Hype
Adam Piore | Nautilus
"In the months and years ahead, the scientific progress—and hype—around aging are likely to grow...The biggest reason for optimism, however, may well be the relentless march of aging itself...'Baby boomers are about to create a silver tsunami in cancer that we are unprepared for. So you bet that those of us who are boomers are going to be pushing the pipeline, putting money in aging research, because we want it all figured out before we really fall into it.' "

CYBERNETICS: What a Self-Made Cyborg Taught Me About Body Hacking
Selena Larson | The Daily Dot
" 'You have to confront your relationship with technology when you implant something with yourself, but before that you’ve probably been on the computer most of the day, been on your phone the rest of the day, conducted most of your relationships through the internet,' Moe said. 'You’re already interlaced with technology in less-physical and immediate ways.' The ultimate question is what comes next, after technology makes the leap from our fingertips to the skin beneath them."

BIG DATA: Scientists Are Just as Confused About the Ethics of Big-Data Research as You
Sarah Zhang | WIRED
"Unlike medical research, which has been shaped by decades of clinical trials, the risks—and rewards—of analyzing big, semi-public databases are just beginning to become clear. Outside of academia, companies like Microsoft have started to institute their own ethical review processes...After all, modern tech companies like Facebook, OkCupid, Snapchat, Netflix sit atop a trove of data 20th century social scientists could have only dreamed up."

SPACE: The Red Planet Is Not Always Red
Rebecca Boyle | The Atlantic
"The story of Mars is also a fable for Earth. Understanding the Martian climate, and what causes its ice ages, can help us learn more about why they happen here—at a time when the intricacies of Earth’s climate are of great concern...Isaac Smith has been looking at Texas-sized curlicues in the Martian ice caps for eight years, trying to connect them to the planet’s climate history. He found something that surprised him: The polar ice cap is active. Ice is constantly piling up and eroding, not just in one spot but everywhere." 

Image credit: Shutterstock