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Mining on the moon is no longer a loony idea, and Canada can capitalize on it: Heather Exner-Pirot | Macdonald-Laurier Institute – The Macdonald-Laurier Institute

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This article originally appeared in the Globe and Mail.

By Heather Exner-Pirot & Daniel Sax, February 23, 2023

The splashdown of NASA’s Orion spacecraft last month in the Pacific Ocean may have ended the successful Artemis I mission, but humankind’s return to the moon is just getting started, and with it a fantastic opportunity for Canada.

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There is enthusiasm – and funding – for more space exploration. A $100-billion-plus lunar economy beckons, and one of the most anticipated components of that economy is space mining.

Is this some pie-in-the-sky fantasy? No more so than establishing a base camp on the moon, which is what NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and other partners are preparing for as part of the Artemis program by the 2030s. China and Russia announced jointly in 2021 that they are planning the same.

Once those bases get established, they will require air to breathe and fuel to sustain operations. Producing oxygen and hydrogen from the moon’s ice and dust is more feasible than lugging them back and forth from Earth – in fact, it’s the only way. So space mining will be necessary, and we have about a decade to figure out how to do it. That’s less time than it takes to develop and build the average mine here in Canada.

Amid this urgency, Canada has a competitive edge because we know how to mine in isolated locations, and we have experience operating in space. Solutions for mining in deep, remote and extreme environments are as applicable on the moon as they are in the High Arctic. And any lessons learned would be complementary, as innovations developed for space mining could also be used to help identify and harvest resources on Earth in a more efficient and environmentally friendly manner.

The federal government recognizes the opportunity. The Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan specifically calls for the development of a space policy to foster investment and development, as the United States did with its Space Act back in 2015. And the Canadian Space Agency is already funding the development of concepts for space mining.

But mining on the moon could also lend itself to a space supply chain. One of Canada’s contributions to the next phase of space exploration will be to build the Canadarm3 for NASA’s planned Gateway program. This small space station to be placed in lunar orbit could act, in part, as a kind of gas station. Getting out of the Earth’s atmosphere is energy-intensive; before spacecraft go out to Mars or deep space, a fuel-up would be enormously helpful. That fuel would have to be sourced from mining operations on the moon.

The other scientific breakthrough announced last month was a nuclear fusion reaction in a California lab, which generated more energy than it used. Whereas current nuclear technology uses fission, which splits heavy atoms like uranium, fusion does the opposite and joins lighter atoms. Helium-3 is a light and stable isotope of helium that has two protons but, unlike the far more common Helium-4 that we use in birthday balloons, just one neutron. Using Helium-3 in fusion can produce copious clean energy with no radioactivity.

What does nuclear fusion have to do with lunar mining? The moon is a good source of Helium-3, whereas the earth has almost none. Knowing this, China brought back a sample of it from their 2020 lunar mission, Chang’e 5. In 2024 they plan to go back for more.

Because you would need so little Helium-3 to produce so much energy with fusion – theoretically, 200 tonnes could provide a year’s worth of global energy needs – there’s a compelling business case for mining it on the moon and bringing it back to use on Earth. Each tonne would be worth billions of dollars.

Space mining is indeed the stuff of science non-fiction. It is strategic and necessary, and whoever figures out how to do it first will be rewarded. With the proper supports and policies, that could be Canada, and Canadian companies. It is ours to win, a generational opportunity for Canada and its citizens that would benefit life all around our planet.

Many of us spent 2022 lamenting that, as a nation, we are too often behind the eight-ball on LNG, critical minerals and more. Let’s not let another resource opportunity slip through our fingers.

Space mining is real, and it will favour first movers. Canada has an advantage in this market; let’s make sure we treat it with ambition rather than incredulity.

Heather Exner-Pirot is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Daniel Sax is CEO at Canadian Space Mining Corp.

Source:
The Globe and Mail

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City of Pointe-Claire signs a partnership agreement with Sport'Aide – Pointe-Claire

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46 mins ago

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March 20, 2023

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At the March 14th Council meeting, the City of Pointe-Claire signed a partnership agreement with Sport’Aide. The independent non-profit organization was created in 2014 by a team of 3 people concerned by the phenomenon of violence in sports.

The organization aims to offer support and guidance services to young athletes, as well as to the various actors in the Quebec sports world (parents, coaches, sports organizations, officials and volunteers) who may have witnessed violence against young athletes.

This agreement will allow the City and the para-municipal sport clubs, the Aquatic Club and the Canoe Kayak Club, to obtain personalized consulting services and to be assisted in the development and adaptation of sport safety policies and procedures.

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“Pointe-Claire is the first city to sign an agreement with Sport’Aide, positioning it as a leader and further demonstrating our City’s commitment to maintaining a healthy, safe, harmonious and inclusive sports and recreation environment. I would like to thank our dynamic Sports and Recreation team and its director Mr. Gilles Girouard. This partnership demonstrates our proactivity and our concern for the quality of services offered to our community.” Said Tim Thomas, Mayor of Pointe-Claire

From left to right: Tim Thomas, Mayor of Pointe-Claire and Sylvain Croteau, Instigator and General Manager of Sport’Aide

Information : 514 630-1200, communications@pointe-claire.ca

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B.C. parent launches class-action lawsuit against makers of Fortnite – Vancouver Sun

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2 hours ago

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March 20, 2023

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The proposed class-action lawsuit alleges the game is designed to be “as addictive as possible” for children.

A person logs into Epic Games’ Fortnite on their smartphone. Photo by CHRIS DELMAS /AFP via Getty Images

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A Vancouver parent has launched a proposed class-action lawsuit against the makers of Fortnite, saying the popular video game is designed to be “as addictive as possible” for children.

In the lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday, the plaintiff identified only as A.B. says her son downloaded Fortnite in 2018 and “developed an adverse dependence on the game.”

The statement of claim says the game incorporates a number of intentional design choices such as offering rewards for completing challenges and making frequent updates, which encourages players to return repeatedly.

The statement says Fortnite creator Epic Games enriches itself by making content and customization options purchasable via an in-game currency, which are purchased with real cash.

The class-action lawsuit would still need approval from a judge and none of the allegations have been proven in court.

The plaintiff is seeking damages alleging the game breaches the B.C. Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act, as well as for “unjust enrichment” and medical expenses for psychological or physical injuries, among other claims.

“Video games have been around for decades, but Fortnite is unique in that the science and psychology of addiction and cognitive development are at the core of the game’s design,” the court statement says.

It describes the game as “predatory and exploitative,” given its popularity among minors.

In a written statement, Epic Games communications director Natalie Munoz said the company will “fight these inflammatory allegations.”

“These claims do not reflect how Fortnite operates and ignore all the ways parents can control their child’s experience through Epic’s Parental Controls,” she said.

As examples, Munoz said parental controls “enable guardians to supervise their child’s experience, including limiting purchases and receiving playtime reports.”

Social settings can also “default to the highest privacy option for minors” and Cabined Accounts “provide a tailored experience for younger players.”

Also, Munoz said the company has a daily spending limit for players under 13.

In the statement, A.B. says her son began playing Fortnite: Battle Royale on a Sony PlayStation 4 game console when he was nine years old. The boy, she said, soon began buying various Fortnite products while adding the game to different platforms at home, including on mobile phone and computer.

Since that time, A.B. says Epic Games “received payment for numerous charges” made to her credit card without her authorization. The statement says A.B.’s son spent “thousands of dollars” on in-game purchases.

“If Epic Games had warned A.B. that playing Fortnite could lead to psychological harm and financial expense, A.B. would not have allowed (her son) to download Fortnite,” the statement says.

The lawsuit, if approved by the court, would cover three classes of plaintiffs: an “Addiction Class” of people who suffered after developing a dependence on Fortnite, a “Minor Purchaser Class” that includes gamers who made purchases in the game while under the age of majority, and an “Accidental Purchaser Class” of users who mistakenly bought items due to the game’s design.

The lawsuit would cover all persons affected by Fortnite in Canada except Quebec, where Epic lost its attempt last month to appeal a court decision there to authorize a similar class-action suit.

In the Quebec class-action appeal attempt, Epic lawyers argued the claims that children were becoming addicted to Fortnite were “based purely on speculation,” and no scientific consensus exists on cyberaddiction.

Epic Games also said in the Quebec case that it was not given a chance to argue against the claim that minors who bought Fortnite’s in-game currency were taken advantage of.

Quebec Appeal Court Justice Guy Cournoyer said in his decision that Epic did not demonstrate any significant error on the lower court judge’s decision to authorize the class-action lawsuit in that case.

Epic said in documents made public in a separate legal battle with Apple in the United States that Fortnite made more than US$9 billion combined in 2018 and 2019.

The legal claim against the video maker in Quebec still needs to be argued in court.

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How AI could upend the world even more than electricity or the internet

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12 hours ago

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March 20, 2023

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The rise of artificial general intelligence — now seen as inevitable in Silicon Valley — will bring change that is “orders of magnitude” greater than anything the world has yet seen, observers say. But are we ready?

AGI — defined as artificial intelligence with human cognitive abilities, as opposed to more narrow artificial intelligence, such as the headline-grabbing ChatGPT — could free people from menial tasks and usher in a new era of creativity.

But such a historic paradigm shift could also threaten jobs and raise insurmountable social issues, experts warn.

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Previous technological advances from electricity to the internet ignited powerful social change, says Siqi Chen, chief executive of San Francisco startup Runway.

“But what we’re looking at now is intelligence itself… This is the first time we’re able to create intelligence itself and increase its amount in the universe,” he told AFP.

Change, as a result, will be “orders of magnitude greater than every other technological change we’ve ever had in history.”

And such an exciting, frightening shift is a “double-edged sword,” Chen said, envisioning using AGI to tackle climate change, for example, but also warning that it is a tool that we want to be as “steerable as possible.”

It was the release of ChatGPT late last year that brought the long dreamt of idea of AGI one giant leap closer to reality.

OpenAI, the company behind the generative software that churns out essays, poems and computing code on command, this week released an even more powerful version of the tech that operates it — GPT-4.

It says the technology will not only be able to process text but also images, and produce more complex content such as legal complaints or video games.

As such it “exhibits human-level performance” on some benchmarks, the company said.

Goodbye to ‘drudgery’

The success of OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, has ignited an arms race of sorts in Silicon Valley as tech giants seek to push their generative AI tools to the next level — though they remain wary of chatbots going off the rails.

Already, AI-infused digital assistants from Microsoft and Google can summarize meetings, draft emails, create websites, craft ad campaigns and more — giving us a glimpse of what AGI will be capable of in the future.

“We spend too much time consumed by the drudgery,” said Jared Spataro, Microsoft corporate vice president.

With artificial intelligence Spataro wants to “rediscover the soul of work,” he said during a Microsoft presentation on Thursday.

Artificial intelligence can also cut costs, some suggest.

British landscape architect Joe Perkins tweeted that he used GPT-4 for a coding project, which a “very good” developer had told him would cost 5,000 pounds ($6,000) and take two weeks.

“GPT-4 delivered the same in 3 hours, for $0.11,” he tweeted. “Genuinely mind boggling.”

But that raises the question of the threat to human jobs, with entrepreneur Chen acknowledging that the technology could one day build a startup like his — or an even better version.

“How am I going to make a living and not be homeless?” he asked, adding that he was counting on solutions to emerge.

Existential questions

Ubiquitous artificial intelligence also puts a question mark over creative authenticity as songs, images, art and more are cranked out by software instead of people.

Will humans shun education, relying instead on software to do the thinking for them?

And, who is to be trusted to make the AI unbiased, accurate, and adaptable to different countries and cultures?

AGI is “probably coming at us faster than we can process,” says Sharon Zhou, co-founder of a generative AI company.

The technology raises an existential question for humanity, she told AFP.

“If there is going to be something more powerful than us and more intelligent than us, what does that mean for us?” Zhou asked.

“And do we harness it? Or does it harness us?”

OpenAI says it plans to build AGI gradually with the aim of benefitting all of humanity, but it has conceded that the software has safety flaws.

Safety is a “process,” OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever said in an interview with the MIT Technology Review, adding that it would be “highly desirable” for companies to “come up with some kind of process that allows for slower releases of models with these completely unprecedented capabilities.”

But for now, says Zhou, slowing down is just not part of the ethos.

“The power is concentrated around those who can build this stuff. And they make the decisions around this, and they are inclined to move fast,” she says.

The international order itself could be at stake, she suggests.

“The pressure between US and China has been immense,” Zhou says, adding that the artificial intelligence race invokes the Cold War era.

“There is definitely the risk with AGI that if one country figures that out faster, will they dominate?” she asks.

“And so I think the fear is, don’t stop because we can’t lose.”


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