Category OpEd
In this edition, the top news starts with: Sadly, Microsoft is focusing on VR for the PC and not the Xbox… this is a step back from statements to the opposite effect last year. https://thenextweb.com/virtual-reality/2018/06/21/microsoft-says-no-to-vr-gaming-on-xbox/ GE, after more than 100… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: Hmmm… it seems some humans have figured out that deep learning is not real AI and is never going to take over the universe… unfortunately they might be on to something in… Continue Reading →
Let’s take a moment to consider the world in the early 21st Century. Some things are better than they’ve ever been, and getting better all the time, while other very dangerous trends are moving rapidly in the opposite direction. Something… Continue Reading →
The Principles of Social Futurism define Social Futurism itself, which is a movement for Positive Social Change Through Technology. As such, Social Futurism represents the intersection of social, political, and economic concerns on the one hand, and technological issues on… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: AI systems are now spotting heart attacks on emergency calls, improving the time it takes to identify cases. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-20/the-ai-that-spots-heart-attacks A real AI scientist thinks Elon Musk’s fears about the future of AI… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: NASA is making progress with growing plants in space, mostly focused on small experiments on small scales. https://www.popsci.com/nasa-growing-food-in-space A new startup is looking at some kind of centrifuge mass driver to put… Continue Reading →
The previous article introduced the concepts of Asterion and Blackstar, being the ZS–ARG formulations of Technological Singularity and its Transhuman “Event Horizon”, respectively. Part 2, below, will now explain what Convergence means to ZSers. Top-Level Goal (TLG) As… Continue Reading →
Aome people say that renowned MIT physicist Max Tegmark is totally bonkers and refer to him as “Mad Max”. But, to quote Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland, “All the best people are.” Furthermore, I am not sure if Tegmark is “mad” but I am… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: More nonsense from a company that apparently is not paying attention to the AI industry and other emotional computing systems, claiming they did it first… http://techcompanynews.com/bpu-holdings-delivers-artificial-emotional-intelligence-computing-platform-zimos/ The American Medical Association has announced… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: Bitcoin and Ethereum are officially not securities according to the SEC, primarily because they are too decentralized. https://www.wired.com/story/sec-ether-bitcoin-not-securities/ Google’s (er… I mean “Alphabet’s”) Deepmind is able to decompose a 3D space from… Continue Reading →
We live in a world which is rapidly coming to a head. Not only are promising technologies converging at an accelerating pace, but so are a number of serious risks whose convergence could easily spell global annihilation. The necessary conclusion… Continue Reading →
Dr. Anders Sandberg is a well known transhumanist, futurist, computational neuroscientist and currently a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford University. I enjoyed talking to him last time he was on Singularity 1 on 1 and was happy to have… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: AI is increasingly helping to integrate group or company processes. http://www.brinknews.com/ai-integration-a-better-approach/ All Tesla cars will get ‘full self-driving features’ with new software updates. Surely this will make driving safer… http://www.businessinsider.com/teslas-will-get-self-driving-features-with-autopilot-update-elon-musk-2018-6 Microsoft is… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: A South African university is working on an AI system designed to analyze causation. https://phys.org/news/2018-06-artificial-intelligence-causation.html Ushering in the police state and big brother, the next frontier is police and surveillance drones. Look… Continue Reading →
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in an essay in June’s issue of The Atlantic, joined a growing chorus of people warning us against a future shared between humans and advanced (i.e. so-called “general” or “superintelligent”) artificial intelligence (AI). This group includes the… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: As we build up the new machine big brother state, the US is helping with facial recognition AI, providing the added bonus of being able to implement racial profiling. https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2018/06/06/dhs-to-deploy-facial-recognition-ai-at-us-mexico-border/ … Continue Reading →
Liberal Democracy, the Third Way, & Social Futurism 1.0 The Flaws of Liberal Democracy The developed nations of the Western world are currently characterised by a political-economic system typically referred to as “Liberal Democracy“*. Up until very recently,… Continue Reading →
A couple of weeks ago Joi Ito – head of the MIT Media Lab and contributor to WIRED Magazine, interviewed me about my Transhumanist Manifesto and related topics such as life-extension, immortality, cryonics, speciesism, and ethics. Some people have said that this is the best… Continue Reading →
This piece is part 3 in a three-part series about the Great Filter concept, with a particular focus on the risks and challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century. Part 1 introduced the Great Filter idea, and part 2 reviewed… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: It turns out that the adoption of global AI, or really Machine Learning, is creating more value than competitive advantage. Most companies are not mass adopting Machine Learning and there is still a… Continue Reading →
This piece is part 2 in a three-part series about the Great Filter concept, with a particular focus on the risks and challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century. Part 1 introduced the Great Filter idea, and part 3 argues… Continue Reading →
Is the survival and flourishing of humanity important to you? If so, you should read on. Humanity now faces the greatest period of intense promise and risk that it has ever known. Over lunch one day in 1950, physicist Enrico… Continue Reading →
In this edition, the top news starts with: Thwarting the dark web at every turn, the EU has adopted the new GDPR rules which Facebook appears to be embracing; which is probably a good PR move on their part. What… Continue Reading →
Futurist values and ideals are obviously not universally shared. Far from it; despite our ideas becoming much better known in technologically advanced societies over recent years. However, concepts such as Transhumanism, Intelligence Explosion, and even Technological Singularity are increasingly handled… Continue Reading →
[MetaFiction][Alternate Reality Game][Social Futurism]* The Great Filter Looking back over the history of the 21st Century, we can see that turbulence was present from the outset. Weapons of Mass Destruction, resource shortages and climate change, civil conflicts and international tension,… Continue Reading →
This piece is part of a series exploring salient aspects of the philosophy known as “Social Futurism” (a term coined and idea developed by myself from 2011-2018). For more full and systematic exploration of these ideas, see http://socialfuturist.party & http://socialfuture.institute…. Continue Reading →
This piece is part of a series exploring salient aspects of the philosophy known as “Social Futurism” (a term coined and idea developed by myself from 2011-2018). For more full and systematic exploration of these ideas, see http://socialfuturist.party & http://socialfuture.institute…. Continue Reading →
However arbitrary the laws of physics governing the universe seem to us, they are in fact what dictated the arrangement and manipulation of matter in such a way that allowed for “Life” to form. The formation of earth’s specific entities… Continue Reading →
With transhumanism becoming more popular, the movement will spread to more mediums than computing and medicine. Fashion is one of these mediums. In my last article dealing with transhumanist fashion, I laid out a simple rubric as to what how… Continue Reading →
This piece is part of a series exploring salient aspects of the philosophy known as “Social Futurism” (a term coined and idea developed by myself from 2011-2018). For more full and systematic exploration of these ideas, see http://socialfuturist.party & http://socialfuture.institute…. Continue Reading →
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