Category: ideas

Tagged as “Industry 4.0,” (hey, at least it’s better than “Internet of Things”), this fourth industrial revolution has been unfolding over the past decade with fits and starts—largely because of the massive cultural and structural differences between the information technology that fuels the change and the “operational technology” that has been at the heart of industrial automation for decades. – Ars Technica

DeepFakes created by artificial intelligence can now credibly fool anyone into thinking they’re real. “By combining this real clip of Albert Einstein speaking, for example, with a photo of the famous mathematician, you can quickly create a never-before-seen lecture.” But imagine the ill uses this can be put to. – The Verge

David Chalmers: “Once we have a human-level artificial intelligence, there’s just no doubt that it will change the world. A.G.I.s are going to be beings with powers initially equivalent to our own and before long much greater than our own. To that extent, I’m on board with people who say that we need to think hard about how we design superintelligence in order to maximize good consequences.” – The New York Times

“We are able to empathise with nonhuman characters or intelligent machines in human-made fiction because they have been conceived by other human beings from the only subjective perspective accessible to us: ‘What would it be like for a human to behave as x?’ In order to understand machinic art as such – and assuming that we stand a chance of even recognising it in the first place – we would need a way to conceive a first-person experience of what it is like to be that machine. That is something we cannot do even for beings that are much closer to us.” – Aeon

“In the era of Donald Trump — and YouTube — the most fevered version of the case against postmodernism has become increasingly visible. That is, the claim that a coalition of critical theorists, poststructuralists, multiculturalists, feminists, queer theorists, and African-­American and other “studies” professors have successfully conspired to take over educational institutions, the media, and the U.S. government, and even to establish a new International World Order.” – Chronicle of Higher Education

The distinction is critical: Whereas addiction is something people experience mostly as individuals, social norms are shared mental states shaped by the views and beliefs of other members of the society and by our subjective perceptions of those beliefs.  – Fast Company

A new study quantifies it. “The study examined data from nearly 20,000 people in England who took part in the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment Survey from 2014 to 2016, which asked them to record their activities within the past week. It found that people who spent two hours a week or more outdoors reported being in better health and having a greater sense of well-being than people who didn’t get out at all.” – The New York Times

Journalists, politicians, and others worry that the technological sophistication of artificial intelligence–generated deepfakes makes them dangerous to democracy because it renders evidence meaningless. But what panic over this deepfake phenomenon misses is that audiovisual content doesn’t have to be generated through artificial intelligence to be dangerous to society. “Cheapfakes” rely on free software that allows manipulation through easy conventional editing techniques like speeding, slowing, and cutting. – Slate

One side attempts to mislead the public over a key issue – the safety of a drug, whether climate change is real, or whether vaccines are dangerous, for example. At the same time, the other side works to combat this misinformation campaign.  – Aeon