FAREWELL - Unless we work out how to live sustainably, humans will be saying goodbye to the planet, in the process destroying many other species. This need not be, if we can surmount our differences and work together to beat global warming, hunger, poverty and greed. We need sustainable businesses and politicians to make this happen. Money is only a tool for making things happen. But only those who have surmounted profitability have the power to change the way we behave.

Artificial Intelligence has long been the ideal where machines can make intelligent decisions to help humans cope with everyday situations.

Without any doubt, properly developed, computers can out-think humans and robots can outperform human operatives in most tasks - once we have taught them how - though this needs a lot of work.

Indeed, a robotic society is potentially something on the horizon, where farming and fishing, home building, car building (nearly there) are all taken care of, so that people can give their time to other pursuits and not have to toil, except in gymnasiums.

Ultimately, a truly 'United Nations' would administer for the whole planet, via a Sustainable Economy program. Politicians will hate the thought of that, but once money is stabilized - perhaps linked to agricultural produce, as the new gold standard - and everyone is provided for. We would not need multitudes of committees, to reach difference and competing conclusions. We'd only need the correct decisions for all life on earth and humans as one great big family. Perchance to dream.

Computers need to be faster and peripherals needs to be sharper, for situational awareness. And of course end effectors need to be robust mechanically and reliable electronically.

AI is thus the next level of intelligence, not governed by emotion and the need to procreate and save for retirement. But thinking outside of that sphere, with a view to galactic survival of the only (presumed) intelligent species in the Universe: Us!

We should not confuse AI with programs that run specific tasks, one of which is navigating a vessel from one mooring to another, safer than a human Captain Nemo might be in the same circumstances. Though this is an advanced application of AI (Hal), that numerous people and organizations are presently grappling with - including the Cleaner Ocean Foundation. Indeed, all robots need a collision avoidance navigation system, the same as animals. Or people would keep crashing into one another.

Eventually, and most unfortunately, life on earth will cease as our sun runs out of fuel. The objective of the Foundation is to preserve the planet and life on it for as long as possible - by way of a circular economy. A second objective is to encapsulate life, such that it is preserved in a transportable state, should other planets that can sustain life as we know it are found. This ideal is of course way beyond the scope of the Elizabeth Swann project. But it is a start.