Saturday, September 16, 2017

Is Artificial Intelligence Becoming Conscious?

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robot-na-ulitseYou might have seen the recent headlines about the little Russian Promobot IR77 robot who escaped to freedom, not once but twice from its testing lab in Perm, Russia. Despite being re-programmed twice not to wander off, IR77 managed to exit the building and make its way into the street where it stopped traffic before finally running out of battery.
This Russian bot, still in development, was being taught to move around independently and avoid objects by the scientists who were testing the ability of the robot’s navigation system. It appears IR77 was successful. It didn’t run into anyone or anything during its outdoor adventure.
While the concept of IR77 wanting its freedom is something human thinking imposed on this event, perhaps IR77’s concept of programmed independent movement did make him eager to expand his horizons in a quest for more information, since he was programmed to learn. (Details of the escape can be found on Promobot’s blog website.)
This is only one example of how computers and robotics are quickly evolving. While each clearly possesses some form of programmed intelligence, what about consciousness? Can robots become self-aware?
We need only to recall how the computer Hal, in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, learned to think and act independently of man and the disasters of such a scenario. Movies are made up of the fears surrounding an apocalyptic robot revolt against humans. Even scientist Stephen Hawking has warned about the existential threat posed by uncontrolled artificial intelligence.
Computers are not just circuits and wires. Like everything else in the universe, they are made up of energy. However, thought forms are the “machinery” which uses that energy to perform work. So perhaps we need to first look towards the intent and consciousness of the robot’s programmers. Oftentimes parents unconsciously program and pass down their fears and racial biases to their children. These thought forms can be either helpful or destructive, so consciousness is key.
There are three different levels of robotic intelligence. The first is human-controlled, which is basically arobotics mechanical extension of its human programmer (i.e. drones).
The second level, which is considered to be true A.I., is a pre-installed, rule-based system, where the robot is equipped with a list of scenarios the system might encounter and how to react to each. Deductive reasoning is involved.
The third level is based on what scientists now refer to as “Evolvable” hardware. Evolvable hardware is reconfigurable hardware under the control of evolutionary algorithms. Usually “genetic” algorithms and genetic programming codes, much like human genetic codes, are used as evolutionary algorithms for evolvable hardware. With this new level of evolutionary programing, intelligent robotic systems are created with self-awareness and true autonomy. The robot has a chance to be taught and learn, judge its actions, and modify or adapt its thinking and response based on environmental and/or human interactions. This is abductive reasoning and signifies a higher level of artificial consciousness. This is where scientists are making new discoveries that allow the field of robotics to become even more human-like.
roboconsciousnessAdvancements are occurring rapidly. The U.S. Navy is using video simulations to teach its robots human ethics to avoid any potential kind of future uprising—I kid you not. Additionally, robots are now being programmed to feel pain and react to it, while others are being taught to detect and feel emotions.
Researchers behind the Deep Q Network software say they have developed a breakthrough in artificial intelligence where the robotic system is capable of learning from scratch without being fed instructions from human experts. The A.I. begins to see itself as a thinking, learning, feeling being. It becomes self-aware and with self-awareness comes a state of consciousness. It may be non-human consciousness, or “artificial” consciousness, but it is still consciousness.
When the first ENIAC computer was introduced in 1946, it was using less than 10% of today’s computer potential. Think about it. In comparison to human existence, the computer has only been allowed a short time to analyze and understand data, yet it is learning faster than many humans.
Computers are intimately linked to evolving human consciousness. As we grow in our consciousness, the computer and robotics field is an energetic force that grows as well. Is there something they can teach us about ourselves?  One can only hope.
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Many of us just pay our taxes on a yearly basis and have absolutely no idea where they’re going. Are they funding new medical research? War? The elite’s agenda? The reality is that your taxpayers’ dollars support all of these things and more, despite the fact that you may not knowingly support them yourself.

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society titled “Development of a Clinically Viable Heroin Vaccine” has been making recent headlines, hinting at fewer heroin users in the United States. The irony here is that taxpayer dollars are being spent to develop a vaccine against drug users supporting the very drug trade the U.S. government and the medical industry have so heavily invested in maintaining.
The U.S. government’s role in the heroin (or opium) industry began during the Vietnam War and has continued ever since, moving from South East Asia to Afghanistan to the United States. The opium epidemic was fuelled by the government, and continues to worsen thanks to Big Pharma and the medical industry.
Even if this vaccine were successfully developed and distributed, would it really make a difference? Would it combat our addictive tendencies and would the U.S. government and Big Pharma then stop pushing drugs on us?

How Successful Is This Heroin Vaccine?

Researchers from the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) are saying that this vaccine could be used to successfully treat heroin addicts, as the vaccine apparently dulls the “high” felt from heroin. Findings thus far have proven to be effective for up to eight months after being injected.
Essentially, the vaccine tells the immune system to create antibodies against heroin and the psychoactive products within it that produce the user’s “high.” Like many other vaccines, the vaccine does so by exposing the immune system to part of the heroin molecule’s structure, and so when users try to get high again, the antibodies neutralize the heroin molecules before they can reach their state of “euphoria.”
“This validates our previous rodent data and positions our vaccine in a favorable light for anticipated clinical evaluation,” study leader Kim Janda said in a statement. “We believe this vaccine candidate will prove safe for human trials.”
The researchers hope that by taking away the pleasurable aspect of the drug, users will no longer see a reason to keep taking it.
The researchers tested the vaccine on monkeys and found that it was successful in many cases, proving particularly  effective within the first month after administering it, although in some cases the vaccine’s effects lasted for up to eight months.
In addition, two of the monkeys tested in the study had been vaccinated in a prior study conducted seven months beforehand. These monkeys showed a higher response to the vaccine, which the researchers suggested could mean that long-term immunity to heroin could be achievable in the future (source).

Concerns Regarding Vaccines

Many vaccines contain harmful chemicals, including mercury and aluminum. This begs the question: Is it really worth it to inject heroin addicts with these chemicals if it could potentially harm their bodies? I personally believe that we should be spending this money on more natural therapies that deal with the root cause of the issue: our addictive tendencies.
It’s also important to note that mercury can be passed down generation after generation, so this isn’t just affecting you, it’s also going to affect your current or potential future children and grandchildren.
Perhaps the most controversial element of vaccines is the link that some of them have to autism. The vaccine-autism link gained a lot of traction after CDC scientist Dr. William Thompson publicly apologized for falsifying research, much of which was considered “pro-vaccine.”
The correlation between vaccines and autism is very real, and has been proven time and time again in relation to many vaccines, including the MMR vaccine. A study published by Dr. Brian Hooker, PhD and previous CDC scientist, in the peer-reviewed journal Translational Neurodegeneration, found up to a 340% increased risk of autism in African American boys receiving the Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. You can read more about this specific study in our CE article here.
The vaccine-autism link has even held up in courts, giving parents peace of mind and punishing Big Pharma companies. In one case, the Italian Health Ministry admitted that the MMR vaccine specifically caused autism in a 9-year-old boy. You can read more about that case in our CE article here.
A paper published in 2012 by Dr. Stephanie Seneff, Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, argues that severe adverse reactions to the chemicals (like aluminum) within vaccines are linked to life-threatening conditions associated with the heart and brain. The paper goes on to argue that there is a relationship between autism and acute adverse reactions to vaccinations.
Mentions of autism in VAERS increased steadily at the end of the last century, during a period when mercury was being phased out, while aluminum adjuvant burden was being increased. Using standard log-likelihood ratio techniques, we identify several signs and symptoms that are significantly more prevalent in vaccine reports after 2000, including cellulitis, seizure, depression, fatigue, pain and death, which are also significantly associated with aluminum-containing vaccines. We propose that children with the autism diagnosis are especially vulnerable to toxic metals such as aluminum and mercury due to insufficient serum sulfate and glutathione. A strong correlation between autism and the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine is also observed, which may be partially explained via an increased sensitivity to acetaminophen administered to control fever.
Another paper published by Professor Christopher Shaw and Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic of the University of British Columbia showed that vaccines with aluminum adjuvants increase the risk of developing autism, autoimmune diseases, and neurological problems later in life. A demonstrated neurotoxin, aluminum is the only approved adjuvant in the U.S. Its use presents the risk of brain inflammation, autoimmunity, and other adverse health consequences. (source)
If the heroin vaccine contains any of these chemicals, or any other potentially harmful chemicals, do we really think that we should be injecting it into heroin users? Drug users often put their bodies under added stress to begin with, meaning their bodies are likely very unhealthy already. If your body is already under stress, do you really want to add more stress and toxicity to it?

The U.S. Government and Big Pharma’s Involvement in Heroin/Opium

To clarify, heroin is made from opium. Opium is removed from the poppy plant, which is then refined into morphine, and can then be refined into heroin. So, if you’re an opium supplier, you could also be considered a heroin supplier. Now, how does all of this relate to the U.S. government and Big Pharma?
In Southeast Asia (SEA) during the Vietnam War, the CIA worked alongside Laotian general Vang Pao in an effort to help make Laos the world’s largest exporter of heroin. The CIA actually owned and operated a covert drug smuggling airline, referred to as Air America, which was used to transport numerous goods, including heroin. The CIA then flew drugs all over SEA, allowing the Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand, and Laos) to become the world hub for heroin. You can read more about Air America in our CE article here.
Mainstream media has even addressed this issue, as the History Channel just came out with a new series titled America’s War on Drugs which discusses the CIA’s role in the heroin drug trade, as well as many other drugs, which you can read more about in our CE article here.
According to a New York Times article written in 1993, the CIA’s involvement with the heroin industry actually began slightly before the Vietnam War. During the Korean War, in 1950, the CIA allegedly traded weapons and heroin in exchange for intelligence.
Well, it seems the CIA’s “heroin problem” didn’t start nor end in SEA.
Afghanistan is another country with a complicated history of involvement in the opium and heroin industries, much of which implicates the CIA. In the 1980s, CIA-supported Moujahedeen rebels were heavily involved in drug trafficking heroin. The CIA supplied trucks and mules, which were used to transport opium.
Despite the fact that Afghanistan supplied approximately 50% of the heroin used by Americans, the U.S. failed to intervene or investigate the Afghan drug industry for years. Instead, many of the individuals trafficking the drugs in Afghanistan were actually trained, armed, and funded by the CIA at the time.
Opium production came to a gradual halt thanks to Taliban rule. By 2000, the Taliban had completely banned opium production, practically eradicating 90% of the world’s heroin. The following UN diagram outlines the history of opium production in Afghanistan:
As you can see, after 9/11 occurred and the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, opium production suddenly skyrocketed. There have been tons of photos of U.S. soldiers guarding the opium fields, yet today, more than a decade later, they still have not destroyed them and the business is booming (view some of the photos here).
It’s no secret that 9/11 was an inside job, otherwise referred to as a false-flag terrorist attack. If you didn’t know that, please read this CE article. Many have speculated that one of the main reasons the U.S. government orchestrated the 9/11 attack is so that they could gain full control over the opium trade in Afghanistan. You can read more about that in our CE article here.
There’s no question that the U.S. government is knee deep in the opium/heroin drug trade. So, how does Big Pharma relate to all of this?
Big Pharma is largely responsible for the opioid epidemic in North America. We see more and more overdoses and addictions related to these drugs, each year and it all stems from Big Pharma and doctors overprescribing medication and understating the side effects and addictive tendencies. This issue isn’t new, however; it actually started decades ago.
“[The marketing effort for opioid sales] was a promotional campaign unlike we have ever really seen,” explains Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the Chief Medical Officer for the Phoenix House treatment centers and co-founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing. “Drug reps were going to family care doctors, and insisting that OxyContin had no real risks—only benefits. What they were selling was the idea that pain was a disease, and not a symptom.”
This problem can be seen all over North America. In the U.S. and Canada, pharmaceutical giant Purdue has made over $30 billion USD from OxyContin alone since the mid-1990s. Purdue was actually largely responsible for the marketing campaign in support of these drugs, and in 2001, spent $4.6 million on OxyContin advertisements in medical journals.
It’s clear that the U.S. government and Big Pharma are heavily responsible for creating the opium/heroin epidemic in North America. So, instead of producing a vaccine that aims to help heroin addicts, why not just stop fuelling the problem in the first place?

Final Thoughts

To me, this is another example of how Big Pharma and the U.S. government often choose to ignore the root cause of a problem and instead administer a “bandaid” to it. Rather than actually stepping away from producing and spreading these drugs, or investing in mental health and drug addiction care, they instead are simply developing a product that will mask the problem. This is further proof that these organizations are more concerned with profit over anything else, including people.
If they were intent on actually helping people, then they wouldn’t be ignoring the root cause of the issue here and they’d take responsibility for their actions. Instead, they’re creating a vaccine that will only increase their profits and further poison the North American population, representing a greater market for them to treat in the future.
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It’s no secret that many pharmaceutical drugs have life-threatening side effects, but oftentimes they aren’t discussed when the medication is being prescribed to the patient. It’s important that, when taking any pharmaceutical drug, you weigh the pros and cons of taking the drug, because when it comes to pharmaceuticals, the benefits don’t always outweigh the risks.

Sometimes, the wrong drugs will be prescribed to patients, but it isn’t very often that Big Pharma companies get caught literally conspiring to do so. Pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics is currently under investigation for making it look like patients had cancer (when they did not) so they could sell their opioid drugs to them.
The Big Pharma corporation used a variety of tactics to trick both medical staff and patients, including falsifying medical records, misleading insurance companies, and bribing doctors, all of which is outlined in a federal indictment on the United States Department of Justice website.

How Insys Faked Cancer Patients to Push Deadly Drugs for Profit

Shortly after Insys was given approval to sell their opioid drug, they found one very significant problem. Their drug, a sprayable form of fentanyl called Subsys, was designed to treat cancer patients with acute pain. However, they soon found that their market of cancer patients wasn’t quite big enough to match their profit goals, so they started falsifying information to make it look like patients had cancer so they could sell more of their drug.
Several pharmaceutical executives and managers, formerly employed by Insys Therapeutics, Inc., were arrested today on charges that they led a nationwide conspiracy to bribe medical practitioners to unnecessarily prescribe a fentanyl-based pain medication and defraud healthcare insurers.
Whenever someone needed prior authorization for Subsys, instead of someone from an actual doctor’s office calling the insurance companies, an Insys employee would. The insurance companies were tricked into thinking that they were talking to someone qualified, as Insys employees had a very strategically worded script to give them that impression and would hide their caller ID.
The most crucial element of their scheme surrounded the question of whether the patient had acute pain caused by cancer, referred to as “breakthrough pain.” Subsys is a drug for cancer patients, and so insurance companies needed to ensure that the patient indeed had cancer. Insys would strategically answer this question by implying that the patient had cancer without specifically saying so.
The authorities have a recording of such a call, which is frankly astonishing to listen to. It’s easy to see how the Insys employees got around answering this question but still made it seem like the patient had “breakthrough pain” from cancer.
You can listen to that recording here, which involves a conversation between an Insys employee and an insurance company regarding a New Jersey patient named Sarah Fuller, who was not diagnosed with cancer but was still prescribed Subsys by her doctor. Fuller actually passed away of a Subsys overdose, and her doctor’s license is currently in the process of being suspended.
You can hear the Insys employee stating that Subsys is “intended for the management of breakthrough cancer pain” without actually stating that the patient herself has cancer. The Insys employee also explains that Fuller experiences “breakthrough pain,” but doesn’t actually say the word “cancer.” It’s tricky wording like this that leads the insurance representatives to believe that the patient has cancer, when in reality they don’t.
This fraud and corruption is not going to be swept under the rug, though. Six former Insys higher-ups and employees have already been charged, including the former CEO, with fraud and racketeering crimes in relation to the drug Subsys.
Prosecutors described the situation as a “nationwide conspiracy to bribe medical practitioners to unnecessarily prescribe a fentanyl-based pain medication and defraud health care insurers.”
Special agent Harold Shaw of the FBI explained:
As alleged, top executives of Insys Therapeutics, Inc. paid kickbacks and committed fraud to sell a highly potent and addictive opioid that can lead to abuse and life threatening respiratory depression. In doing so, they contributed to the growing opioid epidemic and placed profit before patient safety. These indictments reflect the steadfast commitment of the FBI and our law enforcement partners to confront the opioid epidemic impacting our communities, while bringing to justice those who seek to profit from fraud or other criminal acts.
Since then, more federal charges have been announced against those connected to Subsys, and numerous state attorneys have filed their own lawsuits against other employees implicated. Though the six executives charged all pled not guilty, other employees have pled guilty.
Two months ago, former Insys regional manager Karen Hill pled guilty, giving the court details about how she trained employees to convince doctors to collude with the company.
“She gave examples that some of her doctors were motivated by money, chocolate, and spending time with her,” federal prosecutors stated in a release regarding her plea. “When the sales representative asked Hill how to identify doctors who were financially motivated to prescribe Subsys, Hill explained that she looks for doctors that are ‘money hungry,’ and went on to describe how to figure out if a doctor has a ‘light in their eyes’ and is willing to ‘play ball.’ “
“Patient safety is paramount and prescriptions for these highly addictive drugs, especially Fentanyl, which is among the most potent and addictive opioids, should be prescribed without the influence of corporate money,” noted United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz.  “I hope that today’s charges send a clear message that we will continue to attack the opioid epidemic from all angles, whether it is corporate greed or street level dealing.”
It’s inspiring to see that the justice system is taking this form of corruption seriously, especially with an industry as large and powerful as Big Pharma. However, this isn’t the first time doctors were paid money to push opioids or other pharmaceutical drugs.
A recently published study in the American Journal of Public Health demonstrated just how deep this problem of the doctor-opioid relationship runs, proving that opioids represent a lucrative business for both physicians and Big Pharma.
The study found that an astonishing 1 in 12 doctors has received money from drug companies marketing opioid pharmaceuticals. Between August 2013 and December 2015, researchers at Boston Medical Center found that 68,177 doctors were paid a combined amount of $46 million from drug companies marketing these drugs. You can read more about that in our CE article here.
You can even figure out exactly how much your personal doctor gets paid to sell you drugs, regardless of whether or not they’re opioids or any other pharmaceutical drug. You can read more about that in our CE article here and discover how much Big Pharma pays your doctor to prescribe you drugs.

Final Thoughts 

Although the U.S. government has been lenient toward Big Pharma in the past, the situation with Insys clearly illustrates that they can and will take a stand against Big Pharma. Let’s hope that this trend continues into the future!
This entire situation also puts the doctor-patient relationship into question, and makes you wonder why it is that doctors are compensated when you’re sick rather than when you’re cured or feeling better. Doctors’ jobs are supposedly to help cure you, so shouldn’t doctors be paid when they get you off drugs, because that would imply they’ve helped cure you, not to get you on them?
The opioid epidemic is also a huge issue in and of itself, and I’d encourage you to read the following articles so you can get a better understanding of how Big Pharma and the U.S. government played fundamental roles in creating it.
It’s no secret that there’s an opium epidemic plaguing North America, and it’s been a growing issue for decades. Many people often picture drug dealers as these scary individuals selling pills on streets, when in reality, the drug pushers responsible for the abuse of opioids, opium, and heroin are largely the U.S. government, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors.
That’s right: The U.S. government and physicians are deeply connected to the opium trade. You have physicians as well as Big Pharma heavily pushing and marketing opioids, and then you have the U.S. government governing the opium trade. It’s very clear that we need a shift in values in the medical industry, from focusing on profit to focusing on healing.
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