CategorySocial Factors
The Information Age Has Forgotten Formation
We need more than mere information. We need practices, habits, and experiences that will positively shape who we become.
Welcoming the Post-Zoom Era
The Zoom era is quickly coming to an end. How should companies re-adjust?Prior to the pandemic, few outside of technology jobs even knew what Zoom was. Now, everyone is comfortable with video conferencing. However, while the technology works better than ever, I’m starting to sense that people are done with continual video conferencing. Many people who use Zoom do so on a compulsory basis. They have jobs that require that they Zoom for meetings or they are in classes that require online attendance. Therefore, it is hard to decipher people’s attitudes towards Zoom in those circumstances. They use it because someone told them they must. However, I regularly teach at a homeschooling co-op class. Homeschoolers, especially in Oklahoma, aren’t compelled to do anything that they don’t feel comfortable with. Don’t want to Read More ›
The Wild West Seen From Another Cosmos — Sci-Fi Saturday
Jane Montana must rescue a hostage from three villains. But is Montana what she seems?“Cosmo” at DUST by Thomas Thomas (October 29, 2021, 6:58) Jane Montana, a rough and tough law-woman, is in a pickle. A gang of outlaws led by a man named Buford has kidnapped a helpless damsel. Worse, Jane has two bullets and three bad guys to confront. Review: A Wild West scenario is not usually mixed with sci fi but this short gets the Wild West atmosphere right. Montana (La Trice Harper) and the hostage Gwen (Kaylin Zeren) look very Western and the bad guys — Buford (Jeremy John Wells), Slick (Andrew Stroud), and Bart (Tony Nunes) — are straight out of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly tradition. At least one commenter felt that “Cosmo” wasn’t really sci Read More ›
FAIL: AI “Detects” Plagiarism When It Didn’t Happen
Relying on bots alone, without input from experts, has just not worked for science publicationsA consensus is emerging that the system will always need a human in the loop.
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Is Deep Virtual Reality the Next Big Market Disrupter?
When media moves from capturing attention by being different to capturing ever smaller slices of users' time, the market is ripe for disruptionHow can internet-based media consume more user time? First, they will move away from a screen interface to a voice- and face-recognition interface. But the next logical step is probably deeply immersive virtual reality seeping into everyday life.
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True Believer Loses Faith in Fully Self-Driving Cars
Levandowski sees the future—and it is tech aids for safer drivingFully autonomous vehicles—aka self-driving cars—are a techno-utopian fantasy that stands little to no chance of realization in the coming decades. The industry is slowly starting to separate that fantasy from achievable reality.
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Can AI Combat Misleading Medical Research?
No, because AI doesn’t address the “Texas Sharpshooter Fallacies” that produce the bad dataIn this week’s podcast, Pomona College’s Gary Smith, author of The AI Delusion, talks with Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks about why so many bad research papers are accepted in the science establishment and in media.
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How Can AI Help Us With What We Care About?
Instead of making us part of things we don’t care about?Despite the misguided hype, AI is just another tool. So it is encouraging to read about the ways that Japanese firm Hitachi is using AI as a tool to provide services that would otherwise be difficult or unavailable.
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Winning Tag Lines Are Hard Enough To Write…
But AI really flops at thatAI tools help us do things better, faster, or more efficiently. But they lack the mind needed to know when “I’m loving’ it” is the winning slogan—and stop there.
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Experiment: Journalists’ Reliance on Twitter “May” Lead to Pack Journalism
The odd thing is that Twitter ‘s importance may actually be on the waneMainstream media did not really understand clearly enough how their world was changing to adapt quickly when mass digital media was young.
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Did Big Social Media Kill Traditional Media?
In some ways, traditional media have co-operated with their own demiseThe problems created by new media monopolies won't be resolved by propping up traditional media, any more than modern traffic congestion would be resolved by the horse-drawn wagon.
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Jordan Peterson to Found New Free Speech Platform
Thinkspot is being developed as a free speech alternative to Facebook, YouTube, and PatreonHis proposal coincides with several recent Big Social Media decisions that have raised eyebrows.
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How Much Difference Can AI Deep Fakes Really Make in Elections?
Maybe not much and that truth should make us uncomfortable
Will Facebook’s New Focus on “Community” Groups Prevent Abuses?
When you look a little closer at the proposal, you will see that the answer is noFacebook's move to a more group-focused interface gives the appearance of stronger privacy and community orientation but the structure and logic of social media ensure that these are appearances rather than realities.
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McPathogens: Are McDonalds’ Order Kiosks Clean? Another Look
Can rebuttals exposing fake news be fake news themselves? Judge for yourself
Will Space Aliens Become a New Majority Religion?
Nearly as many young Americans believe in ET as in God, says religion profPopular culture is looking for high-tech ETs to be its saviors and Silicon Valley aspires to become those ETs. What could possibly go wrong?
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In 2018, Sci-Fi Phoned the Seventies, It Seems…
…for high-tech overpopulation scares. How else to explain Avengers’ Thanos?, asks Eric Holloway
How Do You Explain That Machines Won’t Really Think Like People?
Computation cannot become non-computational thought but it is difficult to prove that something can’t happen.