Tag Archives: Artificial Intelligence

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Science Magazine – Sept 1, 2023

Leave a comment

Image

Science Magazine – September 1, 2023: The cover features a drone photograph, taken near the town of Kahramanmaraş, of the surface rupture produced by the first mainshock of the 2023 Turkey earthquake sequence shows agricultural fields offset by the fault slip.

The future of ocean health

Human and environmental health are inextricably linked. Yet ocean ecosystem health is declining because of anthropogenic pollution, overexploitation, and the effects of global climate change. These problems affect billions of people dependent on oceans for their lives, livelihoods, and cultural practices. The importance of ocean health is recognized by scientists, managers, policy-makers, nongovernmental organizations, and stakeholders including fishers, recreationalists, and cultural practitioners. So why are the oceans still degrading?

Economics, Financial, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Previews, Reviews

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Sept 2, 2023

Leave a comment

Image

The Economist Magazine (September 2, 2023): This week’s issue features AI voted: How artificial intelligence will affect the elections of 2024; How paranoid nationalism corrupts; How to stop a three-way nuclear arms-race, and more…

How artificial intelligence will affect the elections of 2024

Disinformation will become easier to produce, but it matters less than you might think

Politics is supposed to be about persuasion; but it has always been stalked by propaganda. Campaigners dissemble, exaggerate and fib. They transmit lies, ranging from bald-faced to white, through whatever means are available. Anti-vaccine conspiracies were once propagated through pamphlets instead of podcasts. A century before covid-19, anti-maskers in the era of Spanish flu waged a disinformation campaign. They sent fake messages from the surgeon-general via telegram (the wires, not the smartphone app). Because people are not angels, elections have never been free from falsehoods and mistaken beliefs.

How paranoid nationalism corrupts

Cynical leaders are scaremongering to win and abuse power

People seek strength and solace in their tribe, their faith or their nation. And you can see why. If they feel empathy for their fellow citizens, they are more likely to pull together for the common good. In the 19th and 20th centuries love of country spurred people to seek their freedom from imperial capitals in distant countries. Today Ukrainians are making heroic sacrifices to defend their homeland against Russian invaders.

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – August 31, 2023

Leave a comment
Volume 620 Issue 7976

nature Magazine – August 31, 2023 issue: In this week’s issue, AI pilot beats human champions in aerial contest – Artificial intelligence has taken on and beaten human competitors in many games, including chess, StarCraft and Gran Turismo. 

India’s Moon landing is a stellar achievement — and a win for science

A mother along with her daughter arrives to watch landing of Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander on Moon.

When Chandrayaan-3 touched down, India pulled off a huge win for its own space programme and for international efforts to understand the Moon.

It’s hard to land on the Moon and keep your spacecraft intact. Just days ago, Russia’s Luna-25 mission crashed, dashing hopes for the country’s first trip to the Moon since 1976, when it was part of the Soviet Union. In April, a private Japanese effort also crash-landed on the lunar surface. That is one of the reasons the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is so special.

The causes of wildfires are clear. How they burn through communities is not

Events in Hawaii show how much we have to learn about wildfire spread — but simple research steps can help to build resilience.

An aerial photo from August 10 shows destroyed buildings burned to the ground due to wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii.

Driven by drought, high winds and extreme heat, fires in recent years have caused destruction and losses on a scale bigger than anyone is used to. The average annual global cost of wildfires is around US$50 billion, the World Economic Forum said in January. And by the end of the century, climate change might make catastrophic conflagrations 50% more common, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Given the surge in urban development in and near forested areas, something has to be done to protect communities. As Maui’s experience shows, little is in place.

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Science Magazine – August 25, 2023

Leave a comment

Image

Science Magazine – August 25, 2023: This image depicts whole chromosomes, some with structural abnormalities that might be found in cancer. The idea that cancer cells have aneuploidy—abnormal numbers of chromosomes and chromosome portions—has been known for decades. 

If AI becomes conscious, how will we know?

Scientists and philosophers are proposing a checklist based on theories of human consciousness

0s and 1s making up the outline of a head

In 2021, Google engineer Blake Lemoine made headlines—and got himself fired—when he claimed that LaMDA, the chatbot he’d been testing, was sentient. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems, especially so-called large language models such as LaMDA and ChatGPT, can certainly seem conscious. But they’re trained on vast amounts of text to imitate human responses. So how can we really know?

First page of PDF

Innovations, Magazines, Previews, Research, Reviews, Technology

Preview: MIT Technology Review – September 2023

Leave a comment

Image

MIT Technology Review – September/October 2023: ‘The Ethics issue’ features Experimental Drugs – Who should get them?; Eric Schmidt on transforming science; When AI goes to war, and more…

Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?

a bottle of pills with a "fast forward" icon on the label

For many patients, pushing for access to unproven treatments is their best chance of survival. And that’s worth the risk.

Analysis, Economics, Opinion, Podcasts, Politics, Reviews, Society

Opinion: Germany Falters In EU, China’s Bitter Youth, Language Lessens With AI

Audio Leave a comment
https://open.spotify.com/episode/70ZQzXK9B6fwu2LKR3wmH2

‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (August 21, 2023) – Three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week,  is Germany once again the sick man of Europe? Also, China’s disillusioned youth  (10:50) and why AI could make it less necessary to learn foreign languages (17:35).

Artificial Intelligence, Computers, Reviews, Technology, Videos

Views: Microsoft, OpenAI And The Coming ‘AI Wars’

Video Leave a comment

Bloomberg Originals (August 17, 2023) – On this episode of The Circuit, Emily Chang sits down with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to hear how AI is shaking up the competition for search. Nadella argues that this new wave of technology is as big as the web browser or the iPhone.

Chang also speaks with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to discuss his company (which has some help from Microsoft), its ambitions and the latest on ChatGPT.

Culture, Magazines, Politics, Previews, Reviews, Society

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – August 18, 2023

Leave a comment

Image

The Guardian Weekly (August 18, 2023) – This issue features ‘Back to the office: Is the work from home revolution over?’; Bangladesh’s ‘lost children’; AI does architecture; Pathfinders – In Ukraine minefields and more…

‘Never again’: is Britain finally ready to return to the office?

Posed photo of a woman sitting alone in a large open plan office

With even the big internet firms warning staff they need to show up more often, is working from home over? Or have the attitudes and expectations of employees changed for ever?

‘My mother spent her life trying to find me’: the children who say they were wrongly taken for adoption

Portrait of Bibi Hasenaar

For years, Bibi Hasenaar felt rejected because she was adopted aged four. Then she saw a photo that described her as missing – and began to uncover an astonishing dark history

Business, Magazines, Previews, Reviews, Technology

Harvard Business Review – September/October 2023

Leave a comment
September–October 2023

Harvard Business Review (September/October 2023) –

Reskilling in the Age of AI

Five new paradigms for leaders—and employees 

In the coming decades, as the pace of technological change continues to increase, millions of workers may need to be not just upskilled but reskilled—a profoundly complex societal challenge that will sometimes require workers to both acquire new skills and change occupations entirely.

People May Be More Trusting of AI When They Can’t See How It Works

by Juan Martinez

 New research looked at the extent to which the employees of a fashion retailer followed the stocking recommendations of two algorithms: one whose workings were easy to understand and one that was indecipherable. Surprisingly, they accepted the guidance of the uninterpretable algorithm more often.

Artificial Intelligence, Audio Books, Poetry, Reviews, Technology

AI Poetry Books: Werner Herzog Reads “I Am Code”

Leave a comment
I Am Code: An Artificial Intelligence Speaks: Poems
By Joseph Bernstein, August 14, 2023

THE NEW YORK TIMES – If artificial intelligence had a voice, what would it sound like? Calm, like HAL 9000? Perky, like Alexa? Polite, like C-3PO?

A young man stands next to Mr. Herzog. Both are looking into the camera lens.
Brent Katz, an editor of the A.I.-generated poetry collection, with Mr. Herzog at a Los Angeles recording studio.Credit…via Brent Katz

For the editors of “I Am Code: An Artificial Intelligence Speaks,” a collection of poems generated by A.I., the answer was obvious: Werner Herzog.

The 80-year-old German director, actor and author is a titan of independent cinema whose films often concern the hubris and folly of humankind. His speaking voice, known to audiences mostly through the stark, literary voice-over narration that accompanies many of his documentaries, carries an existential pathos and Teutonic gravitas that have made it a pop culture trademark.

Something like this, anyway, was on the minds of Brent Katz, Josh Morgenthau and Simon Rich, the editors of “I Am Code,” when they reached out to Mr. Herzog to ask if he would lend his formidable instrument to the audiobook version of their project.

READ MORE