Category: Technology and Humanity
Digital Ethics: looking beyond the bottom line (interview with Gerd Leonhard at Emirates Litfest)
On the occasion of the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature where Gerd presented “Technology Vs Humanity”, Gerd was speaking with Arabian Business’ Shayan Shakeel about how he is telling governments to consider technology as a tool to truly transform and add collective human value, rather than to chase efficiency. Here is the full article, plus a … Continue reading "Digital Ethics: looking beyond the bottom line (interview with Gerd Leonhard at Emirates Litfest)"
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New Podcast: Discussing Proaction versus Precaution
Here is our latest podcast based on Chapter 8 of Gerd’s best-selling book Technology vs Humanity (Now available in 11 languages!) This week Peter and I covered the topic of Proaction vs. Precaution. Precaution means looking proactively at what might happen—the possible consequences and unintended outcomes—before we proceed with a course of scientific exploration or technological development. On the … Continue reading "New Podcast: Discussing Proaction versus Precaution"
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How efficient is your love? When AI beats Cupid (Betterhalf.ai in India)
Betterhalf.ai is an Indian company taking dating and relationships to its next level! Ravi Shankar Rajan wrote an interesting post on how AI is redefining love and making it brutally effective: “Today finding love is no longer determined by what’s going on in our lives, or by our networks. Serendipity and instinct aren’t as heavily relied … Continue reading "How efficient is your love? When AI beats Cupid (Betterhalf.ai in India)"
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Smart machines are NOT the end of human work: androrithms over algorithms!
The Future of Work Algorithms Androrithms HI and AI
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Humanity is on ‘the highway to digital dictatorship’, says Yuval Noah Harari (but it’s not inevitable)
“Well, none of this is inevitable,” he says, suddenly eager to sound a note of optimism. “We can do things on the level of global co-operation, such as an agreement against producing autonomous weapons systems. We can do things on the level of individual government, for example laws to govern the ownership and use of … Continue reading "Humanity is on ‘the highway to digital dictatorship’, says Yuval Noah Harari (but it’s not inevitable)"
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Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good (must-read via the NYT)
“Anticipated spending on experiences such as leisure travel and dining is outpacing spending on goods, according to his company’s research, and he sees it as a direct response to the proliferation of screens. The positive behaviors and emotions human engagement elicits — think the joy of a massage. Now education, health care stores, everyone, is starting … Continue reading "Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good (must-read via the NYT)"
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Ethics as a strategic business asset?
My good friend Bill Wilkie has a new post on ethics. Bill has several academic degrees in Ethics (applied, comparative, philosophical), and recently founded a company to focus exclusively on Technology and Ethics. There is some nice, fresh thinking here, putting ethics and technology into a broad historical perspective. Some examples: “It’s clear that the primary … Continue reading "Ethics as a strategic business asset?"
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Coders’ Primal Urge to Kill Inefficiency—Everywhere (Must-read via Wired.com)
In this must-read WIRED story by the fabulous Clive Thompson who is also introducing his new book here we are encountering the coders’ tyranny of efficiency. “It’s one thing to optimize your personal life. But for many programmers, the true narcotic is transforming the world. Scale itself is a joy; it’s mesmerizing to watch your new piece … Continue reading "Coders’ Primal Urge to Kill Inefficiency—Everywhere (Must-read via Wired.com)"
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When Artificial Intelligence Is Everywhere: A dystopian view for 2060 (via The Smithsonian)
As part of the April 2019 preview, The Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting series of future AI scenarios – albeit quite dystopian. The story projects us forward into 2060, which is 40 years out, our view this is way too far out to make any sensible predictions. Most of the scenarios are extrapolations of current trends. They … Continue reading "When Artificial Intelligence Is Everywhere: A dystopian view for 2060 (via The Smithsonian)"
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Is AI Ethics now a mainstream topic? Five hints from Forbes
Forbes Insights just published five posts summarizing some of the latest developments in AI Ethics. “The growing marketplace for AI ethics” post gives a good overview of the main organizations developing frameworks for AI Ethics. Under “Can AI Help Companies Do The Right Thing?”, the authors list a number of use cases applying AI to … Continue reading "Is AI Ethics now a mainstream topic? Five hints from Forbes"
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We have to stop robots from outsmarting humanity
Jaan Tallinn is a founding engineer of Skype and Kazaa. He founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and he is also a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute and philanthropically supports other existential risk research organizations. He was recently interviewed by The Guardian on the topic of AI’s potential to end human civilization. This is … Continue reading "We have to stop robots from outsmarting humanity"
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Universities compete for leadership in Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
It looks like universities around the world are engaged in a fierce competition to claim the pole-position on digital ethics, especially when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. This week, Stanford University announced its Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute (HAI). Say hi to the H.A.I.! Stanford University wants position itself as the natural hub for discussion on AI … Continue reading "Universities compete for leadership in Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence"
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Preparing For Tomorrow’s Workforce In A World Run By Machines
Gerd’s brand new post just went live on Forbes. As smart machines and algorithms begin to excel over and above human capacity, Gerd believes that we must consider what uniquely human qualities will be needed in the workforce, and how HR’s traditional performance metrics will need to shift to support this change – from measuring efficiency … Continue reading "Preparing For Tomorrow’s Workforce In A World Run By Machines"
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The dark and shady practices of Silicon Valley
Roger McNamee has been a Silicon Valley investor for 35 years and was one of the early investors in Facebook. He has just published his new book “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe.” In the video below he explains how Facebook’s data-mining really works – our hunch is that you’re not going to like it very … Continue reading "The dark and shady practices of Silicon Valley"
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The future of work is moving towards an availability economy.
Slate has a great post about the future of work – an adapted excerpt from Alex Rosenblat’s latest book Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work. The post provides some hints on how human resources are becoming resources in the real sense of the word. With a little bit of imagination, one can start … Continue reading "The future of work is moving towards an availability economy."
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New Podcast! Chapter 7: The Digital Obesity Pandemic
Here is our latest podcast based on Chapter 7 of Gerd’s best-selling book Technology vs Humanity (Now available in 11 languages!) This week Peter and I covered the topic of digital obesity. We define this as being a mental and technological condition in which data, information, media, and general digital connectedness are being accumulated to such an extent … Continue reading "New Podcast! Chapter 7: The Digital Obesity Pandemic"
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Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Build a Mind-Reading Machine
“The idea is to allow people to use their thoughts to navigate intuitively through augmented reality—the neuro-driven version of the world recently described by Kevin Kelly. No typing, no speaking, even, to distract you or slow you down as you interact with digital additions to the landscape: driving instructions superimposed over the freeway, short biographies … Continue reading "Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Build a Mind-Reading Machine"
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Mark Zuckerberg And The Tech World Still Do Not Understand Ethics
Derek Lidow writes a great piece for Forbes, Mark Zuckerberg And The Tech World Still Do Not Understand Ethics. Here’s an excerpt: “Expectations for technology startups encourage expedient, not ethical, decision making. As people in the industry are fond of saying, the tech world moves at “lightspeed.” That includes the pace of innovation, the rise and … Continue reading "Mark Zuckerberg And The Tech World Still Do Not Understand Ethics"
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From efficiency to human agency: Azeem Azhar and Gerd Leonhard on AI
Azeem Azhar and Gerd Leonhard had a good chat last week. It was a wide-ranging conversation on AI and its potential dangers to humanity – so I thought I would share a few notes on the talk. You can listen to the full podcast here. The discussion was not about the usual killer robots and singularity stuff, … Continue reading "From efficiency to human agency: Azeem Azhar and Gerd Leonhard on AI"
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The concept of the Ethical Vendor: accountable, auditable and ethical
Last week, Niccolo Mejia shared in interesting view of the usage of facial recognition in financial applications. He listed three categories: Verifying identity for loan approval, authentication for digital wallets and blockchain enabled applications, and matching similar faces for marketing campaigns. The visual that captured our attention was a screenshot from Kairos, a Miami-based facial recognition … Continue reading "The concept of the Ethical Vendor: accountable, auditable and ethical"
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