AI Cryptoborgs Mine in Nuclear Wasteland

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (福島第一原子力発電所事故 Fukushima Dai-ichi ( pronunciation: genshiryoku hatsudensho jiko) was an energy accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in ōkuma, Fukushima Prefecture, initiated primarily by the tsunami following the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011. 

The research continues at break-neck speed, but will we have time to save planet Earth and humanity from the path being forged by the Cryptoborgs?

Immediately after the earthquake, the active reactors automatically shut down their sustained fission reactions. However, the tsunami disabled the emergency generators that would have provided power to control and operate the pumps necessary to cool the reactors. The insufficient cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen-air explosions, and the release of radioactive material in Units 1, 2 and 3 from 12 March to 15 March. Loss of cooling also raised concerns over the recently loaded spent fuel pool of Reactor 4, which increased in temperature on 15 March due to the decay heat from the freshly added spent fuel rods but did not boil down to exposure.

Enter the Cryptoborgs, laboratory and field tested and expendable. Advanced computer systems with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and radiation resistant materials. Things went quiet, the world was seemingly left in the dark, media and associated press advised readers to wait whilst officials worked to complete assessments of the causes and extent of damage to the nuclear facility. From an observers perspective, it was obvious a humanitarian disaster had occurred, and even more obvious that a lot was being covered up, twisted and manipulated to ulterior agendas.

On 5 July 2012, not surprisingly, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) found that the causes of the accident had been foreseeable, and that the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), had failed to meet basic safety requirements such as risk assessment, preparing for containing collateral damage, and developing evacuation plans.

On 12 October 2012, TEPCO admitted for the first time that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants. But, was there some other more sinister reason things went the way they did? As economies have been under pressure, growth rates at close to zero, have others been concocting new ways involving technological innovation in order to seek profits?

It is not coincidental, the emergence of superior machines has produced these AI organisms that have both organic “natural” and cybernetic “machine” parts. In other words, when people become cyborgs, they’re part human and part machine. The initial challenge was to overcome the radiation and make the contaminated real estate encapsulating the destroyed nuclear power plant valuable again. Discussions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have created a certain amount of unease in the local communities surrounding the disaster site, and by those who fear it will quickly evolve from being a benefit to human society to taking over. Even Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have warned of AI’s threats.

Scientists have now created biological computers inside living cells. They’ve developed a biological computer that controls how cells behave,” says Alexander Green, an engineer at Arizona State University, who developed the technology with colleagues at Harvard University. “The cells go about their normal business, replicating and sensing what’s going on in their environments, but they’ve also got this computational machinery in them that we’ve instructed them to synthesise,” he says, and the new biological circuit works just like a digital one, it receives an input and makes a logic-based decision, using AND, OR, and NOT operations, but instead of the inputs and outputs being voltage signals, they are the presence or absence of specific chemicals or proteins. The process begins with the design of a DNA strand that codes for all the logic the system will need. The researchers then inserted the synthesised DNA into E. coli bacteria as part of a plasmid, which is a ring of DNA that can replicate itself as it floats around in the cell, that served as a template for the biological computer’s machinery. The cell’s molecular machinery then translated the DNA into RNA, essentially copying the DNA code onto a different molecule, which could then be used by the cell.

Engineering and expert mining companies were employed swiftly in the aftermath and technological solutions were called for as more and more people were diagnosed with radiation sickness. Advanced machines were required to dive into leaking and contaminated wreckage, involving complex assessment of parameters, a matrix of time, heat and pressure, that all needs to be contained, paid for and generate future revenues for sustainability.

It was only a few years prior that Bitcoin was born, supposedly by a Japanese man, but who knows him personally? Bitcoin was invented by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, perhaps a first generation Cryptoborg? The cryptocurrency was released as open-source software in 2009. In the years since other cryptocurrencies have emerged into the world, with Chinese, Japanese and Korean mining operations emerging as leading proponents in the field. Originally just viewed as a geeky magic internet money for nerds, and one may recall someone ordering a pizza with 10,000 BTC in 2010 and the thought may have been fleetingly whimsical? Of course that was then, and a couple of tech geeks would use their magic internet money to have a pizza delivered.

But we are now in 2018 and the world has leapt forward dramatically, and it is almost as if few few really see what's happening? Crypto currencies have evolved since then into a full-fledged blockchain ecosystem. Projects are innovating at the protocol level allowing for immutable, permissionless, transparent, censorship resistant transactions, while doing away with the need for trusted intermediaries. 

This powerful combination of technologies has given idealists and supporters of freedom a new hope across the entire globe. However, the proliferation of ICO (initial coin offerings) hype has enabled some company founders to pen a quick white paper setting out the details of their fundraising for a quick money grab and investors to find the next flip. People want to make money, after all.

Binance just launched their crypto-fiat Uganda Exchange on June 28th. You might ask why Uganda? The revenue will be much higher in established markets. Binance’s mission is to spread the adoption of crypto to the masses. CZ, Founder and CEO of Binance says, “Uganda is a much less developed financial economy. To get crypto adopted in a country where only 11% of the population has a bank account will take years of painstaking drive. You have to educate users, build the economy, and essentially build everything from scratch.”

Meanwhile, the vast energy requirements in running mining operations have driven many mining operations to seek opportunities in cost effective locations. Japan's contaminated wasteland and other areas have become hot spots for economic "off-the-grid" mining operations. An example, nestled right between the Sea of Japan and the Ryohaku Mountains, the city of Fukui is not necessarily a tourist hotspot. But Fukui has started to become known across the world for another reason. Cheap rental prices and inexpensive electricity have driven cryptocurrency miners to the seaside city. Some residents are hoping more will come set up shop. A former lace factory in the city of roughly 250,000 people is now home to a bustling virtual currency mine. A Tokyo-based company called Alt Design is in charge of operating the 500 servers that should theoretically churn out about 200 Ethereum coins per month.

Looping back to reiterate the research continues at break-neck speed, but will we have time to save planet Earth and humanity from the path being forged by the Cryptoborgs?