Applying artificial intelligence for social good

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to help tackle some of the world’s most challenging social problems. To analyze potential applications for social good, we compiled a library of about 160 AI social-impact use cases. Read full Article

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Five Fifty: Tech for the greater good

Please create a profile to print or download this article. Create a profile to get full access to our articles and reports, including those by McKinsey Quarterly and the McKinsey Global Institute, and to subscribe to our newsletters and email alerts. Read full Article

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Elon Musk and Jack Ma clash during intense debate on the future of artificial intelligence and life on Mars

Many waited with bated breath as two of some of the greatest tech minds of the generation, Elon Musk and Jack Ma, came together at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Wednesday. As expected, the energy was high and the discussion, at times, tense. Read full Article

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September/October 2019

We will soon learn if a much-hyped, rapamycin-like drug can boost the immune response by targeting how the body ages. This publication has been writing about human longevity for at least 90 years. In some ways what’s amazing is how little has changed. Read full Article

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American Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation.

A couple of years before he was convicted of securities fraud, Martin Shkreli was the chief executive of a pharmaceutical company that acquired the rights to Daraprim, a lifesaving antiparasitic drug. Previously the drug cost $13. Read full Article

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Maths and tech specialists need Hippocratic oath, says academic

Mathematicians, computer engineers and scientists in related fields should take a Hippocratic oath to protect the public from powerful new technologies under development in laboratories and tech firms, a leading researcher has said. Read full Article

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‘Homo sapiens is an obsolete algorithm’: Yuval Noah Harari on how data could eat the world

There’s an emerging market called Dataism, which venerates neither gods nor man – it worships data. From a Dataist perspective, we may interpret the entire human species as a single data-processing system, with individual humans serving as its chips. Read full Article

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Yuval Harari: “Human beings are all algorithms!”

Published in around thirty languages, with millions of copies sold, ‘Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind’ traces the evolution of Homo sapiens, combining history and science and both delving back into our past and looking into our future. Read full Article

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Artificial intelligence is no silver bullet for governance

Gain a global perspective on the US and go beyond with curated news and analysis from 600 journalists in 50+ countries covering politics, business, innovation, trends and more. Read full Article

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Ethics, Guns And Money: Why Salesforce Is Capitalism At Its Best

Salesforce.com recently decided to bar businesses that sell military-style rifles to consumers from using its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, The Washington Post recently reported. Read full Article

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Salesforce bans companies that sell certain types of guns from using its software

Salesforce has updated its policy to turn away customers that sell a wide range of firearms to private citizens online, including a small number of existing clients. Read full Article

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We Don’t Need More Guidelines or Frameworks on Ethical AI Use. It’s Time for Regulatory Action

Recent debates over the general ethical principles underpinning autonomous and intelligent systems (A/IS) have highlighted many of the possible societal consequences of developing and deploying A/IS without proper forethought and governance. Read full Article

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Computers can’t tell if you’re happy when you smile

When humans try to figure out how someone is feeling, we use a lot of information: facial expressions, body language, where that person is, and more. When computers try to do the same thing, they tend to focus only on the face. Read full Article

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The Automated Future: Amazon Is Ready…Are You?

Knowing that automation and other technologies will soon transform its work and workforce, Amazon recently announced it will invest $700 million to provide “upskilling training” for 100,000 of its employees between now and 2025. The program, aimed at reaching a third of its U.S. Read full Article

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7 Best-Case Scenarios for the Future of Humanity

Most science fictional and futurist visions of the future tend towards the negative — and for good reason. Our environment is a mess, we have a nasty tendency to misuse technologies, and we’re becoming increasingly capable of destroying ourselves. Read full Article

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The Great Hack tells us data corrupts 

This week professor David Carroll, whose dogged search for answers to how his personal data was misused plays a focal role in The Great Hack: Netflix’s documentary tackling the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, quipped that perhaps a follow up would be more punitive for the company than t Read full Article

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Americans feel a burden to future-proof their jobs, while the French are relying on government

The popular narrative about the future of work is bleak. The sense is that many of us will be replaced by automated systems, drones, or people who are willing to work for less elsewhere. Only those with specific high-tech skills will survive. Read full Article

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Public Transit Agencies Think Rewards Programs Can Bring Back Riders

Four decades after American Airlines invented the frequent flier, loyalty programs have started to spread beyond airlines and into urban travel. Last November, Uber launched Uber Rewards, using perks like vehicle upgrades to woo and keep fickle customers. Read full Article

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How Artificial Intelligence Can Save Your Life

The machines know you better than you know yourself. Artificial intelligence is by turns terrifying, overhyped, hard to understand and just plain awesome. Read full Article

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‘True Gen’: Generation Z and its implications for companies

Long before the term “influencer” was coined, young people played that social role by creating and interpreting trends. Now a new generation of influencers has come on the scene. Read full Article

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