Latest news with #FlagshipPioneering
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Digging into claim Bill Gates got approval to 'secretly' spray RNA on crops
Claim: Tech billionaire investor Bill Gates was given approval to "secretly" spray synthetic RNA on food products in the United States through a company called Terrana Biosciences. Rating: In late July 2025, a rumor spread widely across social media platforms that billionaire investor Bill Gates received approval to "secretly" spray synthetic RNA on food crops in the United States. One Facebook post (archived) with the claim amassed over 69,000 reactions, 38,800 comments and 56,000 shares. It included images of Gates in a crop field, a close-up of him holding a vial and illustrations of mRNA vaccine mechanisms alongside visuals of planes and tractors spraying farmland. According to the post, Gates had received "approval to 'secretly' spray RNA on food products in the United States" through a new venture called Terrana Biosciences. The post further claimed that RNA would "fundamentally reprogram" crops' biology and concluded with a line reading, "Critics are now RNA can be dispersed on crops under the cover of eco-friendliness, what's preventing its hidden application on humans for 'supposed' disease control?" Users made similar claims on X and Instagram. One X post (archived) alleged that Gates was "poisoning food" after "poisoning humanity by way of bioweapons." Another (archived) stated, "Bill Gates, through his backing of Flagship Pioneering, has been given the green light to secretly spray synthetic RNA on America's food products." These claims, however, were false. There was no credible evidence that Gates has been granted approval, secret or otherwise, to spray RNA (including mRNA, a single-stranded type of RNA) on food crops in the United States. The company at the center of the rumor, Terrana Biosciences, is a newly launched agricultural venture backed by the venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering. At the time of this writing, Terrana was exploring RNA-based crop protection technology — but the company was still in the research and development phase and none of its products was approved for commercial use. There was no indication that Terrana's products were being deployed in July 2025, nor that they posed a health risk to humans. A spokesperson for Flagship confirmed over email that neither Bill Gates nor the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had any financial, advisory or operational involvement with Terrana Biosciences. The organization also emphasized that any future products would be subject to review by the relevant U.S. regulatory agencies before entering the market. How the rumor spread The rumor appeared to have originated from a July 26 article (archived) from The People's Voice — a rebranded version of NewsPunch, a website with a long history of publishing false information. The article, titled, "Bill Gates Given Green Light to Secretly Spray RNA on Food Products in America," asserted without citing any sources that Gates backed Terrana through Flagship Pioneering and was preparing to "infiltrate crops" with synthetic RNA "without public consent or oversight." Screenshots of the article quickly circulated on social media. However, no credible sources supported the notion that Gates was involved in Terrana Biosciences or that RNA products were being "secretly" deployed on crops. Claims that the technology was intended to "poison food" were also entirely unfounded. What Terrana Biosciences is actually doing Terrana Biosciences was publicly launched in early July 2025 by Flagship Pioneering, which also helped incubate the pharmaceutical and biotech company Moderna. That connection likely fueled speculation linking the company to mRNA vaccines, though Terrana's work is entirely unrelated to human medicine. According to Terrana's own press release, the company is developing RNA-based agricultural solutions focused on "enhancing crop resilience, protecting yields and addressing critical challenges in the global food system." In an interview with AgFunder News, Terrana CEO Jeremy Rapp compared the technology to a "programmable vaccine" for plants, explaining that "after being sprayed on, the RNA enters the plant through small tears in the leaves." While Terrana is designing its platform to work alongside existing chemical and biological crop protection products, Rapp said the long-term goal is to help farmers "reduce their reliance on chemistry in the future." As of July 2025, Terrana's products remained in the development and testing phase. There was no record of approval from the regulatory agencies and no evidence that any of the company's products were being used commercially or deployed at scale. Gates Foundation and Flagship Pioneering The rumor that Gates was behind Terrana likely stemmed from the fact that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded two grants in 2024 to Flagship Pioneering companies for unrelated research. One of those companies was Sail Biomedicines, which was also developing an RNA-based solution for malaria prevention. There was no evidence connecting the Gates Foundation's support to Terrana Biosciences nor any indication that Gates personally backed or approved RNA spraying projects involving food crops. A spokesperson for Flagship Pioneering also explicitly denied these claims. All in all, there was no evidence that Gates had been granted approval to "secretly" spray RNA on crops in the United States or that he had any involvement in Terrana Biosciences. The company's RNA-based solutions remain in development and have not been authorized for commercial use. Notably, Gates was the subject of similar rumors in the past, some of which The People's Voice also spread. In May 2023 we debunked a related false rumor claiming mRNA from COVID-19 vaccines had entered the food supply via genetically modified plants bred to contain it or through the consumption of vaccinated livestock. Adl-Tabatabai, Sean. "Bill Gates Given Green Light to Secretly Spray RNA on Food Products in America." The People's Voice, 26 Jul. 2025, Binder, Matt. "Fake News Sites Are Simply Changing Their Domain Name to Get around Facebook Fact-Checkers." Mashable, 31 Jan. 2019, "FACT FOCUS: COVID Vaccines Are Not in the Food Supply." AP News, 25 Apr. 2023, Kasprak, Alex. "Has Vaccine mRNA Entered the Food Supply via GMO Plants or Vaccinated Livestock?" Snopes, 3 May 2023, Marston, Jennifer. "Flagship Pioneering's New RNA-Based Crop Protection Company Could Provide 'a Huge Way to Deal with Climate Change.'" AgFunderNews, 2 Jul. 2025, "Moderna Timeline." Flagship Pioneering, Accessed 30 Jul. 2025. "No, an 'Air Vaccine' Tied to Bill Gates Was Not Approved for Use on Non-Consenting People." AP News, 11 Oct. 2023, Terrana Biosciences. Accessed 30 Jul. 2025. ---. Accessed 30 Jul. 2025. Accessed 30 Jul. 2025.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Flagship Pioneering Unveils Terrana Biosciences to Deliver Adaptive, Targeted Agricultural Solutions through a Novel RNA Technology Platform
Solutions focus on enhancing crop resilience, protecting yields, and addressing critical challenges in the global food system The company emerges after four years of platform development with an initial commitment of $50 million from Flagship Pioneering CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Pioneering, the bioplatform innovation company, today unveiled Terrana Biosciences™, a company pioneering RNA-based agricultural solutions to deliver protective and enhanced crop traits without altering the plant genome. Through its proprietary RNA technology platform, Terrana is developing targeted products designed to work at any time in a plant's lifecycle, enabling a continuous product pipeline that is adaptive and responsive to variable climate conditions and capable of generating new solutions at a fraction of the time and cost associated with conventional agriculture approaches. Flagship has initially committed $50 million to Terrana to scale operations and develop its first products in crop protection and yield. "At Flagship Pioneering, we build groundbreaking platforms that address the world's most pressing challenges. With Terrana, we are bringing an entirely new dimension of innovation to agriculture through similar RNA technology that we pioneered in human health," said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Terrana, Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. "This approach will empower farmers with precise, adaptive solutions to combat threats to crops in fields and orchards and enhance resiliency, sustainability, and productivity in the global food system." Trees and crops naturally use a vast ecosystem of self-replicating RNAs to influence trait expression. These native RNAs are abundant, diverse, and are already part of the plant's own biology, functioning like a native language that helps to communicate traits like growth, stress response, and development. Using advanced AI and computational models, Terrana has assembled a vast library of RNAs and built a design system that enables efficient assembly of novel functional crop traits, generated with unprecedented precision, versatility and speed. The platform has already created three novel technology classes, demonstrated proof of concept in tomatoes, corn, and soy, and generated a pipeline of 15+ potential products in specialty and row crops. Tools developed using Terrana's platform will enable farmers to fight and prevent disease and pests, adapt quickly to climatic conditions, and maintain soil health. Terrana's solutions are fine-tuned for amplification, mobility in plants, stability in different environments, and heritability across plant generations. Terrana's product candidates also avoid the trade-offs of existing conventional approaches, which often can be applied only at a specific time in the plant's life cycle and come with negative environmental impacts. "RNA-based technology has delivered lifesaving advancements in human health. We are now applying this same approach to reimagine what's possible for agriculture," said Ignacio Martinez, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Terrana and General Partner at Flagship Pioneering. "Using the language of nature, we can give plants new instructions, yielding adaptable solutions rooted directly in the plant's natural physiology. Our approach opens a new world of possibilities in annual and perennial crops for the benefit of farmers, people and the planet." "Today, farmers make many important and costly decisions about seeds, fertilizers and crop protection before the crop year even begins, requiring them to rely on projections and historical trends from prior growing seasons rather than responding to real-time conditions on the ground," said Ryan Rapp, Co-Founder and CEO of Terrana Biosciences and Origination Partner at Flagship. "What's more, the increased pace of climate fluctuations and disease threats far exceeds today's slow and expensive R&D processes, leaving farmers all too often behind the curve. Terrana's ability to unlock all aspects of seed and crop traits in plants enables an entirely new set of agile solutions that can be applied at any time in the growing season, from seed to postharvest. In an increasingly unpredictable environment – from wildly fluctuating global markets to extreme weather events to fast-moving pest and disease pressures – farmers need these new tools to enable timely, efficient, nimble and, critically, cost-saving decision making." In addition to Rapp, Terrana's leadership team includes Matthew Lingard, Chief Technology Officer of Terrana and Senior Principal at Flagship, Folashade Sabitu, Head of Regulatory and Ramtin Ahmadi, Vice President of Strategy and Operations. Terrana also benefits from guidance from a board of directors that includes Martinez, longtime leader in global agriculture Hugh Grant, Invaio's CEO and Flagship CEO-Partner Amy O'Shea, and Flagship's Chair of Asia Pacific and Strategic Advisor, André Andonian. To learn more about Terrana, visit About Terrana Biosciences Terrana Biosciences combines RNA technology with advanced computational biology to deliver sustainable solutions for modern agriculture. Through its proprietary platform, the company is pioneering new technology classes and generatively designing versatile RNA-based products for every aspect of plant health, from seed to stem. Founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2021, Terrana is led by an experienced team, including RNA and plant pathology experts. About Flagship Pioneering Flagship Pioneering invents and builds bioplatform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $60 billion in aggregate value. Flagship is operating with $14 billion of assets under management as of its latest capital raise, announced in July 2024. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises over 40 companies, including Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Lila Sciences, Tessera Therapeutics and Valo Health. Media Contact: press@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Flagship Pioneering Sign in to access your portfolio
Korea Herald
23-05-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
Novonesis Co-Hosts Partnering Day 2025 in Singapore to Advance Biosolutions for a Sustainable Future
SINGAPORE, May 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Novonesis, a world-leading biosolutions company, co-hosted its "Unlocking Value for a Sustainable Future" Partnering Day 2025 in Singapore on May 7 together with Novo Holdings and Flagship Pioneering. The event focused on reshaping the agriculture and food industries through biosolutions and resource recycling. Leaders from food, agri-business, and waste management explored resource optimisation, while industry executives exchanged insights into scaling innovative biosolutions. Investors identified high-growth opportunities in biosolutions and circular economy models for sustainable business impact. With the global population projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, pressure on food systems and sustainability is growing. Biosolutions offer a path forward using microbes, enzymes, and other technologies. The Partnering Day 2025 provided a platform for leaders in business, capital, and innovation to advance circular, bio-based solutions. Showcasing real-world advances including waste valorisation and resource optimisation, the event highlighted how biosolutions are shaping the future of food and agriculture. The event opened with a welcome address by Rasmus Bjørnø, Deputy Head of Mission at the Royal Danish Embassy in Singapore, followed by a keynote speech from Anders Spohr, Managing Partner and Head of Planetary Health at Novo Holdings, outlining the strategic role of biosolutions in reshaping agriculture and food systems. Representatives from three hosting companies shared their insights on what roles that biosolutions and capital play along the way to foster a more sustainable future. Lensey Chen, APAC President of Novonesis, Ignacio Martinez, General Partner of Flagship Pioneering, together with esteemed speakers from industry, NGOs as well as academia explored topics such as resource efficiency, the bioeconomy, and the importance of partnerships in accelerating the bio-revolution. Case studies highlighted how companies are using biosolutions to unlock new value streams and drive sustainable growth. With the planet's resources under growing strain, biosolutions are enabling transformation not just in fields and factories, but across entire value chains. In fields, factories, and homes, they are transforming production by unlocking sustainable protein sources and helping farmers increase efficiency while reducing the use of chemicals, fossil resources, energy, and water. Biosolutions also turn waste into high-value products, enabling economic growth in a sustainable way. Copenhagen Economics Report found that if we made more use of just some biosolutions, we could cut global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 4.3 billion tonnes. That's 8% of total global emissions. For every job created in biotech in general, additional 2 jobs are created across the value chain. Lensey Chen, APAC President of Novonesis, commented: "We know every customer's needs are unique, our portfolio of biosolutions is the market's broadest, and can be used to expand operations through greater flexibility. This is why partnership is key, I am happy to extend an invitation on behalf of Novonesis as a potential partner, we are here to help take our collaboration to a new level of performance by working together with you." Deepa Hingorani, Partner and Head of Planetary Health Asia, Novo Holdings added: "The bioeconomy holds exponential potential, and we see partnerships as essential to unlocking it. We hope today marks the beginning of deeper cross-sector collaboration and a shared commitment to shaping a more sustainable future together." Headquartered in Copenhagen, Novonesis was established in 2024 through the merger of Novozymes and Chr. Hansen—two pioneers in Danish biotechnology. With a portfolio spanning enzymes, microbes, and fermentation-based technologies, the company plays a pivotal role in advancing biosolutions across food, health, agriculture, and sustainability. Partnering Day 2025 reflects Novonesis' ongoing commitment to driving greater impact through innovation, collaboration, and science-based solutions. About Novonesis Novonesis is a global company leading the era of biosolutions. By leveraging the power of microbiology with science, we transform the way the world produces, consumes, and lives. In more than 30 industries, our biosolutions are already creating value for millions of consumers and benefitting the planet. Our 10,000 people worldwide work closely with our partners and customers to transform business with biology. Learn more at About Novo Holdings Novo Holdings is a holding and investment company responsible for managing the assets and wealth of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The purpose of Novo Holdings is to improve people's health and the sustainability of society and the planet by generating attractive long-term returns on the assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Wholly owned by the Foundation, Novo Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk A/S and Novonesis A/S (formerly Novozymes A/S) and manages an investment portfolio with a long-term return perspective. In addition to managing a broad portfolio of equities, bonds, real estate, infrastructure, and private equity assets, Novo Holdings is a world-leading life sciences investor. Through its Seed, Venture, Growth, Asia, Planetary Health, and Principal Investments teams, Novo Holdings invests in life sciences companies at all stages of development. As of year-end 2024, Novo Holdings had total assets of EUR 142 billion.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Novonesis Co-Hosts Partnering Day 2025 in Singapore to Advance Biosolutions for a Sustainable Future
SINGAPORE, May 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Novonesis, a world-leading biosolutions company, co-hosted its "Unlocking Value for a Sustainable Future" Partnering Day 2025 in Singapore on May 7 together with Novo Holdings and Flagship Pioneering. The event focused on reshaping the agriculture and food industries through biosolutions and resource recycling. Leaders from food, agri-business, and waste management explored resource optimisation, while industry executives exchanged insights into scaling innovative biosolutions. Investors identified high-growth opportunities in biosolutions and circular economy models for sustainable business impact. With the global population projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, pressure on food systems and sustainability is growing. Biosolutions offer a path forward using microbes, enzymes, and other technologies. The Partnering Day 2025 provided a platform for leaders in business, capital, and innovation to advance circular, bio-based solutions. Showcasing real-world advances including waste valorisation and resource optimisation, the event highlighted how biosolutions are shaping the future of food and agriculture. The event opened with a welcome address by Rasmus Bjørnø, Deputy Head of Mission at the Royal Danish Embassy in Singapore, followed by a keynote speech from Anders Spohr, Managing Partner and Head of Planetary Health at Novo Holdings, outlining the strategic role of biosolutions in reshaping agriculture and food systems. Representatives from three hosting companies shared their insights on what roles that biosolutions and capital play along the way to foster a more sustainable future. Lensey Chen, APAC President of Novonesis, Ignacio Martinez, General Partner of Flagship Pioneering, together with esteemed speakers from industry, NGOs as well as academia explored topics such as resource efficiency, the bioeconomy, and the importance of partnerships in accelerating the bio-revolution. Case studies highlighted how companies are using biosolutions to unlock new value streams and drive sustainable growth. With the planet's resources under growing strain, biosolutions are enabling transformation not just in fields and factories, but across entire value chains. In fields, factories, and homes, they are transforming production by unlocking sustainable protein sources and helping farmers increase efficiency while reducing the use of chemicals, fossil resources, energy, and water. Biosolutions also turn waste into high-value products, enabling economic growth in a sustainable way. Copenhagen Economics Report found that if we made more use of just some biosolutions, we could cut global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 4.3 billion tonnes. That's 8% of total global emissions. For every job created in biotech in general, additional 2 jobs are created across the value chain. Lensey Chen, APAC President of Novonesis, commented: "We know every customer's needs are unique, our portfolio of biosolutions is the market's broadest, and can be used to expand operations through greater flexibility. This is why partnership is key, I am happy to extend an invitation on behalf of Novonesis as a potential partner, we are here to help take our collaboration to a new level of performance by working together with you." Deepa Hingorani, Partner and Head of Planetary Health Asia, Novo Holdings added: "The bioeconomy holds exponential potential, and we see partnerships as essential to unlocking it. We hope today marks the beginning of deeper cross-sector collaboration and a shared commitment to shaping a more sustainable future together." Headquartered in Copenhagen, Novonesis was established in 2024 through the merger of Novozymes and Chr. Hansen—two pioneers in Danish biotechnology. With a portfolio spanning enzymes, microbes, and fermentation-based technologies, the company plays a pivotal role in advancing biosolutions across food, health, agriculture, and sustainability. Partnering Day 2025 reflects Novonesis' ongoing commitment to driving greater impact through innovation, collaboration, and science-based solutions. About Novonesis Novonesis is a global company leading the era of biosolutions. By leveraging the power of microbiology with science, we transform the way the world produces, consumes, and lives. In more than 30 industries, our biosolutions are already creating value for millions of consumers and benefitting the planet. Our 10,000 people worldwide work closely with our partners and customers to transform business with biology. Learn more at About Novo Holdings Novo Holdings is a holding and investment company responsible for managing the assets and wealth of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The purpose of Novo Holdings is to improve people's health and the sustainability of society and the planet by generating attractive long-term returns on the assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Wholly owned by the Foundation, Novo Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk A/S and Novonesis A/S (formerly Novozymes A/S) and manages an investment portfolio with a long-term return perspective. In addition to managing a broad portfolio of equities, bonds, real estate, infrastructure, and private equity assets, Novo Holdings is a world-leading life sciences investor. Through its Seed, Venture, Growth, Asia, Planetary Health, and Principal Investments teams, Novo Holdings invests in life sciences companies at all stages of development. As of year-end 2024, Novo Holdings had total assets of EUR 142 billion. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Novonesis Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
24-04-2025
- Science
- Forbes
A Discovery Every Day: What Does Superintelligence Actually Look Like?
As we start heading toward a certain critical mass with artificial intelligence, this word keeps coming up – superintelligence. It's easy to throw the word around, and talk about that point when AI becomes smarter than humans, but what does superintelligence actually look like? To find out, I asked a panel of builders and physicists, and we talked about what types of efforts are happening now to support superintelligent results. These are some of the main themes. One of the biggest ideas in today's tech world is the idea of reinventing the scientific process itself. Geoffrey von Maltzahn is part of the team at Flagship Pioneering, where a project called Lila Sciences is looking to create 'autonomous science systems' that will, as he says, allow AI to take over 'every step of the wheel' when it comes to scientific discovery. '(It's) the ability to call upon tools, to model the way that the world works, to propose a brilliant hypothesis, to autonomously design a decisive experiment, (and) to test that hypothesis in the real world,' he clarified. Geoffrey von Maltzahn, CEO, Lila John Werner Making the analogy from vibe coding to outsourcing, von Maltzahn talked about how even though human level intelligence supports everything, it's possible to bring together autonomous results for aspects like material science, chemistry, and life sciences. That, he suggested, will really have a positive effect, partly because of inherent human limitations in scientific inquiry. 'Neither our bodies, nor our brains, are really optimally suited for science,' he said, 'particularly learning about how the world works from the atoms make the same case for math. You know, try as our brains have … in the reality in life science, in chemistry, materials and more, our brains really struggle to understand what is going on … but machines are much better at matching those patterns … the implications for every single technology domain that we're familiar with are really, really amazing.' Panel on Superintelligence John Werner Here's another major part of what superintelligence is likely to be able to do: it will excel at math, even in more intuitive, abstract ways. Carina Hong, CEO of Axiom, a quantitative superintelligence moonshot company, talked about how pattern matching is not reasoning, and how traditional models don't excel in showing their work. 'Large language models, despite all the amazing post training breakthroughs, are still pretty bad at doing proofs,' she said. 'They will give you a numerical answer. In fact, they can do it really well on the American Invitational math examination. Frontier large language models achieve a 96% score. However, when you ask (the model) to show its proof, the score drops to 5%, so why is different? It's because of the way we train them … what we want to build at Axiom is to use programming language to train the machine to be able to speak the language of formal proof.' This, she says, will enable humans to trust the result of these engines, and make the world 'math-rich'. Another aspect of this is the setup. Riccardo Sabbatini is a numerical modeling specialist who works on drug discovery and more. Setting the stage for full robotic automation, he talked about a system where millions of molecular experiments can happen with no human involvement whatsoever. 'I see a transition moment between now and super intelligence,' he said, calling the interim a time of 'vibe intelligence.' 'When you look at a coder today,' he said, 'instead of going and searching in Stack Overflow every three seconds, and having to copy and paste from (one's) own old code, you have open on the right side of your screen, an LLM: this is going to do boiler plating for you. It's going to like 80% of the boring coding that has been done in the past.' You can watch the video for some additional scientific assessment of things like probabilistic database design, Gaussian curves, and the evolution of AI math. One anecdote from the panel is where Sabbatini talked about image creation models always displaying watches with the same time setting – 10 minutes after 10 o'clock. It's persistent, he said, based on the training set that the LLM gets off of the Internet. 'None of (the generated watches) will show 2:25pm,' he said of an experiment where a user asks for an image of a watch set at this time in the afternoon. 'They will always show 10:10; the reason is that the majority, if not the complete, set, of pictures of watches in the entire world, points at 10:10.' It's an advertising thing, he suggested, based on how people like to see watch faces. 'So any watch in the world has to be at 10:10, stuck there,' he said. 'You can have a pretty analog watch. You can have a classic analog watch - but you can't have a '2:25' analog watch. It is bizarre, if you think about it, such a simple concept learning thing.' That illustrates some of AI's current blind spots that the panel suggested might be solved with superintelligence, eventually. But what von Maltzahn said about the pace of scientific discovery was extremely interesting. With these new tools, he reasoned, we'll be able to speed up science as a human in endeavor: where a ground truth used to take about a year to develop, AI will free us of those time constraints. What if you could have a breakthrough scientific discovery every day? And do it easily? 'The human brain understands a really, really small fraction of how the world works,' von Maltzahn explained. 'And in fact, to understand it, we've been dividing it into sub, sub, sub specialties. So I believe something like imagination and taste for novelty is going to hang around as a human contribution for a while.' 'I believe science is going to get way more fun,' von Maltzahn said. 'If you just take the Edisonian 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, you know, we can put 99% perspiration into a new paradigm … (improving) the quality of life for scientists, and likely the quantity of output.' Panel on Superintelligence John Werner Talking about being able to source rare earth metals in new ways, and perfect a new system of chemistry that's going to change our supply chains and our scientific methods, he suggested that the 'GDP of civilization' is resting on a brand new paradigm. We've had any number of technological revolutions in the past, he argued, but this is the first intelligence revolution. What's going to happen? One such outcome, posited by von Maltzahn as he discussed changes, is that none of our human intellectual contributions to projects will be safe, if AI can do it better. 'None of us really knows in what order the sea level of intelligence will rise and subsume imagination or … logical derivation,' he said. 'But there's probably a rough boundary where, if searching for information within the repository of what is known, then that is underwater now, or will be underwater virtually immediately.' That brings me back to the eternal specter of job displacement, and the question of how we're going to re-order society around these technologies. We seem to have a vague idea that a re-ordering is needed, but not much clarity on what people are going to be doing for jobs in a business world that's dominated by capable AI. In any case, we can anticipate the likelihood of this new era of science, and everything that is going to bring us. This is something every young person should be thinking about as they study and prepare for a career – and something every public planner (or innovator, or entrepreneur) should be thinking about as they try to understand where we're going next.
