AI, Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, Human Behavior

Artificial intelligence hates the poor and disenfranchised

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The biggest actual threat faced by humans, when it comes to AI, has nothing to do with robots. It’s biased algorithms. And, like almost everything bad, it disproportionately affects the poor and marginalized.

Machine learning algorithms, whether in the form of “AI” or simple shortcuts for sifting through data, are incapable of making rational decisions because they don’t rationalize — they find patterns. That government agencies across the US put them in charge of decisions that profoundly impact the lives of humans, seems incomprehensibly unethical.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Big Problems, Computer Security, Future

8 predictions for the near-future of artificial intelligence

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An artificial Intelligence project utilizing a humanoid robot from French company Aldebaran and reprogramed for their specific campus makes its debut as an assistant for students attending Palomar College in San Marcos, California, U.S. October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

No one disputes the potential impact AI will have across a wide range of business sectors.

At this year’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC) in Tianjin, China, PwC unveiled a report detailing eight significant predictions for the future of artificial intelligence (AI), called 2018 AI Predictions – 8 insights to shape business strategy. No one disputes the potential impact AI will have across a wide range of business sectors, and PwC has drawn on its own research and experience to lay out what it believes the short-term future holds for this exciting and sometimes anxiety-raising technology.

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Latest News, Science & Technology News, Space, Space Flight

Japan just became the first country to deploy rovers on an asteroid

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The Hayabusa 2 mission is visiting an asteroid 200 million miles from Earth to collect samples. The mission profile involves a lot of robots, bullets, and explosives.

In 2014, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft on a four year journey to Ryugu, an asteroid nearly 200 million miles from Earth. The spacecraft has been in orbit around the asteroid since June and early Friday morning dispatched two rovers to the asteroid’s surface.

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Business, Employment, Future, Science & Technology News

World Economic Forum- The future of jobs

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Key Findings

As technological breakthroughs rapidly shift the frontier between the work tasks performed by humans and those performed by machines and algorithms, global labour markets are undergoing major transformations. These transformations, if managed wisely, could lead to a new age of good work, good jobs and improved quality of life for all, but if managed poorly, pose the risk of widening skills gaps, greater inequality and broader polarization.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution unfolds, companies are seeking to harness new and emerging technologies to reach higher levels of efficiency of production and consumption, expand into new markets, and compete on new products for a global consumer base composed increasingly of digital natives. Yet in order to harness the transformative potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, business leaders across all industries and regions will increasingly be called upon to formulate a comprehensive workforce strategy ready to meet the challenges of this new era of accelerating change and innovation.

NOTE: Read Futurist Thomas Frey’s column on “Future of Work: The New Age of Employment” here.

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Automation, Business, Driverless vehicles, Food, Shopping

Startup inks ‘world’s largest deal’ for driverless grocery deliveries

 

Whether or not your grocery delivery arrives in a van with a driver behind the wheel may not matter much to you, but an increasing number of companies are nevertheless investing heavily in autonomous delivery vehicles in the belief that they’ll improve efficiency and create significant cost benefits in the long term. Yes, you’ll have to wait and see if those savings will be passed on to you, the customer.

Udelv, a San Francisco-based startup that has already used its autonomous vans to make more than 700 driverless deliveries in the San Francisco Bay area, recently inked what it claims is the world’s largest deal for a grocery delivery service using self-driving vehicles.

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Great New Product, Healthcare, Inventions, Science & Technology News

Breakthrough opens door to $100 ultrasound machine

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UBC researcher Carlos Gerardo shows new ultrasound transducer Credit: Clare Kiernan, University of British Columbia

Engineers at the University of British Columbia have developed a new ultrasound transducer, or probe, that could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners to as little as $100. Their patent-pending innovation—no bigger than a Band-Aid—is portable, wearable and can be powered by a smartphone.

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Analysis, Crazy Stuff, Medicine, Science & Technology News

Scientists gave MDMA to octopuses- and what happened was profound

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When humans take the drug MDMA, versions of which are known as molly or ecstasy, they commonly feel very happy, extraverted, and particularly interested in physical touch. A group of scientists recently wondered whether this drug might have a similar effect on other species—specifically, octopuses, which are seemingly as different from humans as an animal can be. The results of their experiment, in which seven octopuses took MDMA, were “unbelievable.”

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Fashion, Latest Trend, Shopping, women

The secret global network of private super jewelers

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An elite group of artists are growing in influence and reach. Here’s the key to cracking their codes.

Pictured above: Hemmerle emerald, agate, and sapphire necklace; diamond and bronze bangle, and earrings, all with ancient Egyptian faiance amulets.

I call them the Super Jewelers. They create only a limited number of one-of-a-kind pieces. They sell only by appointment. They work with the rarest of stones and the most innovative of materials, and for only the most discerning of people. Their names are spoken frequently by those fluent in the secret language of jewelry snobs, but otherwise they are purposefully unknown.

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Business, Employment, New Viewpoints

What happens when you let employees pick how much they want to be paid? This company decided to find out.

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Smarkets CEO Jason Trost lets employees pick how much they want to get paid. Smarkets

Smarkets, a betting startup based in London, lets employees pick how much they want to get paid.

The system works through social consensus, and each employee’s salary information is published in the company’s internal wiki.

There are pros and cons to the process, but ultimately it works, Smarkets CEO Jason Trost said.

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Biotech, cutting edge, DNA, Medical Breakthrough

Scientists grow full-sized, beating humanity hearts from stem cells

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It’s the closest we’ve come to growing transplantable hearts in the lab.

Of the 4,000 Americans waiting for heart transplants, only 2,500 will receive new hearts in the next year. Even for those lucky enough to get a transplant, the biggest risk is the their bodies will reject the new heart and launch a massive immune reaction against the foreign cells. To combat the problems of organ shortage and decrease the chance that a patient’s body will reject it, researchers have been working to create synthetic organs from patients’ own cells. Now a team of scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School has gotten one step closer, using adult skin cells to regenerate functional human heart tissue, according to a study published recently in the journal Circulation Research.

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Coding, Historical Perspectives, Military, Science & Technology News, women

The Woman Who Smashed Codes: The Untold Story of Cryptography Pioneer Elizebeth Friedman

 

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How an unsung heroine established a new field of science and helped defeat the Nazis with pencil, paper, and perseverance.

While computing pioneer Alan Turing was breaking Nazi communication in England, eleven thousand women, unbeknownst to their contemporaries and to most of us who constitute their posterity, were breaking enemy code in America — unsung heroines who helped defeat the Nazis and win WWII.

Among them was American cryptography pioneer Elizebeth Friedman (August 26, 1892–October 31, 1980). The subject of Jason Fagone’s excellent biography The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies (public library), Friedman triumphed over at least three Enigma machines and cracked dozens of different radio circuits to decipher more than four thousand Nazi messages that saved innumerable lives, only to have J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI take credit for her invisible, instrumental work.

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App, Entertainment, Internet, Music

Spotify will now let artists directly upload their music to the platform

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Spotify has announced a new beta feature that will allow independent artists to upload their music directly to the platform instead of through a label or digital aggregator. Normally, artists who aren’t signed to a major label (which can directly upload music to Spotify) have to pay a fee to a third-party service like Tunecore to upload their music to Spotify. The upload feature will be contained within the service’s existing Spotify for Artists platform, which, among other things, allows artists to view data about their listeners and directly submit their songs for editorial playlist consideration.

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.