When you perform a Google search for every day queries, you don’t typically expect systemic racism to rear its ugly head. Yet, if you’re a woman searching for a hairstyle, that’s exactly what you might find.
A simple Google image search for ‘women’s professional hairstyles’ returns the following:
Continue reading… “Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming as biased as we are”
Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, now wants to save it.
The computer scientist who wrote the blueprint for what would become the World Wide Web 28 years ago today is alarmed at what has happened to it in the past year.
“Over the past 12 months, I’ve become increasingly worried about three new trends, which I believe we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool which serves all of humanity,” he said in a statement issued from London. He cited compromised personal data; fake news that he says has “spread like wildfire”; and the lack of regulation in political advertising, which he says threatens democracy.
Continue reading… “The World Wide Web’s inventor warns it’s in peril on 28th anniversary”
Should robots pay taxes?
It may sound strange, but a number of prominent people have been asking this question lately. As fears about the impact of automation grow, calls for a “robot tax” are gaining momentum. Earlier this month, the European parliament considered one for the EU. Benoît Hamon, the French Socialist party presidential candidate who is often described as his country’s Bernie Sanders, has put a robot tax in his platform. Even Bill Gates recently endorsed the idea.
Continue reading… “Robots won’t just take our jobs – they’ll make the rich even richer”
Every week comes a new warning that robots are taking over our jobs. People have become troubled by the question of how robots will learn ethics, if they do take over our work and our planet.
As early on as the 1960s Isaac Asimov came up with the ‘Three Laws of Robotics’ outlining moral rules they should abide by. More recently there has been official guidance from the British Standards Institute advising designers how to create ethical robots, which is meant to avoid them taking over the world.
Continue reading… “Why we must teach morality to robots”
For a mother escorting her kids through the Philadelphia Zoo, it was a close encounter of the ferocious kind. Directly in front of her as she strolled down the zoo’s main walkway was a Siberian tiger, a 400-plus-lb. carnivore capable of tearing apart a wild antelope. But rather than panic, the family laughed. The tiger was out of its lair, but its pathway was at a safe, meshed-in distance from onlookers, and after a few moments of looking around, the tiger moved on.
The tiger’s trail, dubbed Big Cat Crossing, is part of a bigger initiative called Zoo360 that has changed the way humans and animals experience the nation’s oldest zoo. There’s no question the experience is compelling for the humans. On a recent visit, I watched children drop their lunches in awe of white-faced saki monkeys hanging out in the trees. I witnessed one couple stop midconversation when a gorilla lumbered overhead, and saw more than a few families startled by the appearance of a large cat that seemed eerily close to them. But the bigger impact of Zoo360, says its chief operating officer, Andrew Baker, may be its effort to transform the experience of animals in captivity.
Continue reading… “The Future of Zoos: Challenges Force Zoos to Change in Big Ways”
Jeff Hancock likes to give his Stanford University students weekend assignments that let them experience concepts discussed in class for themselves. Before 2008, he would sometimes challenge his students to stay off the internet for 48 hours and then discuss how it affected them. But when Hancock returned to work in 2009, after a year-long sabbatical, things had changed.
“When I tried to introduce the task, there was a class revolt,” says Hancock, who studies the psychological and social processes involved in online communication. “The students emphatically said the assignment was impossible and unfair.”
Continue reading… “What if the internet stopped working for a day?”
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The World Health Organization says we need to step up the fight against a dozen bacteria that are growing resistant to all the antibiotics we have to treat them.
One of the scariest features of the antibiotic resistance crisis — which has been accelerated by how we overuse these drugs — is that pharmaceutical companies aren’t developing new antibiotics quickly enough. They also often place profits ahead public health when choosing which drugs to develop.
Continue reading… “The 12 most dangerous superbugs, ranked by the WHO”
In 2012, Futurist Thomas Frey predicted that 2 billion jobs would disappear by 2030, roughly half of all jobs that exist today. Oxford University researchers reinforced this with their estimates that 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be automated within the next two decades. But which ones will robots take first?
First, we should define “robots” as technologies, such as machine learning algorithms running on purpose-built computer platforms, that have been trained to perform tasks that currently require humans to perform.
Continue reading… “Which 5 jobs will robots take first?”
Automation could replace 250,000 jobs in government over the next 10 to 15 years — with potentially one million more under threat. The UK’s public sector workforce stood at around 5.3 million in the middle of last year, and has been falling since 2009, when it stood at 6.4 million. But that could be slashed significantly if the public sector adopts a policy of automating predictable jobs, according to a report from thinktank Reform.
Continue reading… “Robots will replace over 250,000 government jobs — and that’s just the beginning”
Imagine you have a close friend you frequently communicate with via text. One day, they suddenly die. You reel, you cry, you attend their funeral. Then you decide to pick up your phone and send them a message, just like old times. “I miss you,” you type. A little response bubble appears at the bottom of the screen. “I miss you too,” comes the reply. You keep texting back and forth. It’s just like they never left.
Falling costs of electric vehicles and solar panels could halt worldwide growth in demand for oil and coal by 2020, a new report has suggested. A scenario that takes into account the latest cost reduction projections for the green technologies, and countries’ pledges to cut emissions, finds that solar power and electric vehicles are “game changers” that could leave fossil fuels stranded.
Continue reading… “Electric cars and cheap solar ‘could halt fossil fuel growth by 2020’”
When Donald Trump won the election, many in Silicon Valley were flummoxed: “How could a bigoted billionaire with no government experience and a twitchy Twitter trigger finger win the U.S. presidential election?” they asked themselves.
Continue reading… “The future of American jobs lies in the tech industry”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
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