New research puts us back where we started. The foxes are tame. But why are they tame? Other foxes are decidedly not tame. Why is it so easy to “tame” dogs and cats but not wolves and bobcats?
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George Orwell identified two characteristics of a totalitarian state that offer insight into its central intellectual weaknesses.
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Smaller Western countries, dependent on high-tech cooperation and the promise of huge markets in China, have muted their protests over Hong Kong and even accept Chinese government censorship in their own territories. That can put them in conflict with their own stated values.
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Turning AI loose on some of these vexing problems should give literary scholars more to write about rather than less. The AI verdict may not always be right but it is bound to be food for thought.
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The problem is, WeWork is not a technology company. Neither is Airbnb or Uber. They all use software via the internet to leverage surplus physical space, whether the space is in an office building, a private home, or a privately owned car.
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Some of the recent conflicts around algorithms and ethnicity are flubs that social media entrepreneurs will regret. Others may endanger life.
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From time immemorial, we have endowed what we find in nature with our own characteristics. That is called mythology. The people who think that salad is murder or beg plants to forgive their sins are not helping the environment; they are incorporating a mythology into their lives
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George Montañez, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College, took issue with Kurzweil’s claim that AlphaGoZero needed no instructions to beat humans at the game of Go: “For a system like this to work, a human must define the incentive structure, also encoding the assumptions.” The sheer power of a computing system does not cause it to do anything at all.
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One controversy in animal psychology centers on whether or not an animal can recognize itself in a mirror. But a number of scientists are beginning to doubt that the mirror test shows animal self-awareness.
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Advocates point to the success of Kurzweil’s past predictions as evidence that his Singularity is indeed Near, as his 2005 book predicts or Nearer, as his forthcoming one (June 2020) does. But questions bubbled to the surface.
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Kessler told his audience at the COSM National Technology Summit that Big Tech companies are so vulnerable that, for legal reasons, the United States is the only safe place for their headquarters.
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“People envision a future delivering mobility as a service,” Bryan Mistele of INRIX told the COSM Technology Summit, contrasting the Millennials’ approach with that of earlier generations who tended, at the same age, to see driving as a form of freedom.
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Fuetsch asks us to think of 3G (2001) and 4G (2010) internet as the difference between a junior high school rock band and a high school rock band: “The high school band is a lot louder and a lot faster.” And 5G? “It is a 40-piece orchestra. A wide spectrum of abilities but tight structure and control.”
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Facebook wants to start minting its own money. Amazon is said to be thinking about it. Bitcoin has many enthusiasts. But what determines the value of money in a digital age?
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Mundie, former Microsoft Chief Research & Strategy Officer, formerly told his audience that Big Data will enable each person to be “completely understood” by machines that can produce a computer facsimile of each detail. It would be far too complex for human physicians to make sense of, he said.
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About the Big Tech companies, he says, “The story is not that they have done a lot of bad things but that they have not done enough good things. That remains the core challenge of Silicon Valley.”
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The fabled Economist also chimed in, sniffing that Smith’s team’s result was “too farfetched for a sitcom”… but didn’t dispute it.
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Just any available data swatched into systems may embody prejudices that only become evident in use.
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Trade wars are important even if they often sound boring compared with other news. One panel at COSM will examine the underlying issues in the ongoing trade spats between the United States and China.
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When a cat feels secure, he develops relationships with humans and dogs. But he won’t be either your servant or your master; just your housemate—and maybe at last your old friend.
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