# Key Points from #hplusroadmap IRC Discussion

• NASA's upcoming SETI announcement sparked discussion about interstellar communication technologies, with participants suggesting improved neutrino detectors as a potential advancement for future communication capabilities.

• Ben Goertzel shared a draft overview video of Humanity+ that highlighted initiatives in beneficial artificial general intelligence, the "internet of things," and anti-aging research, with an upcoming conference featuring Aubrey de Grey.

• Participants critiqued current speech-to-text technology limitations, noting YouTube's auto-transcription features remain inadequate, while speculating that artificial general intelligence might eventually solve these challenges.

• The ethics of Amazon's Mechanical Turk were debated, particularly how it enables companies to circumvent labor protections by paying per task rather than hourly wages, with applications in robotics where human workers supplement computer vision limitations.

• Open hardware initiatives were prominently discussed, including RepRap (open-source 3D printing), the Gada Prize for 3D printing of electronically conductive components, and Copenhagen Suborbital as an example of hackerspace accomplishments.

• Participants shared specialized protein function classification systems including EC numbers, PANTHER database, Reactome, and the Gene Ontology project, noting the challenge that proteins often function in multiple cellular processes simultaneously.