Originally shared by David Brin
See a cool video about the Planetary Society’s Project Light sail, that will expand from a mere bread loaf cube-sat to 32 square meters and launch humanity (at last!) into the era of interplanetary sailing.
http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/video/scitech/lightsail-2-animation.html
http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/video/scitech/lightsail-2-animation.html
The author of this article has a utopian hope – but he recognises that it won’t happen by accident.
To get this future, we’ll have to restructure our relationships (including our economic relationships) in the present, and put a lot more emphasis on emotional intelligence.
Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger
A thoughtful piece by Kai-Fu Lee about the effects of AI on work. As he rightly points out, the AIs we are building, and that we are likely to be able to build over the next several generations, are “narrow” AIs – ones which can do a specific task well, but have no comprehension beyond that. I’m more confident than he is that we’ll make significant steps towards “general” AI in our lifetimes, but I agree with him that those won’t be the things affecting our economy or world in the near future.
When it comes to the question of the jobs which will be (and are already being) displaced by these AIs, Lee wisely avoids either overly optimistic or pessimistic perspectives. But he spends the last part of the article making a compelling case for the increasing importance of a type of work which humans are particularly suited for: emotional labor.
He talks about this in several contexts, but a good example is a doctor delivering a serious diagnosis. While a computer may be able to diagnose more accurately than a human within our lifetimes, with things like this the delivery of the diagnosis, and the human interaction which accompanies and follows it, is supremely important.
Historically, emotional labor has been “invisible” labor, unrecognized, unpaid, and unappreciated. But our increasing recognition of it is happening at a time when our need for it is increasing, as well. It wouldn’t surprise me to see this become a substantial economic sector in the future, just like the service, manufacturing, and agricultural sectors.
Some such jobs already exist, of course, from child care to therapy to sex work. And the flexibility of the Internet may offer new outlets for this: if you could pay someone to just listen to you for a while and not be a jerk, or get paid by someone for the same, would you?
https://www.wired.com/story/a-blueprint-for-coexistence-with-artificial-intelligence/amp
Via Winchell Chung.
Originally shared by Eric Berger
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Intel Jumps Into Brain-Like Computing With Self-Learning Chip http://suhub.co/2xEFDBc
Via Charlie Kravetz.
Originally shared by Alfred Poor
The #FDA has approved #human trials of a #brain #implant that could restore #vision for the #blind. #healthtech #wearables
Losing one’s sight has profound impact on a person’s life, not the least of which is a loss of independence and mobility. Many researchers are working on ways to restore vision, using strategies ranging from replacement implants for damaged retinas to…
http://healthtechinsider.com/2017/09/20/retina-implant-receives-fda-approval-human-trials/
I did an improv class a few years ago, and it was great. Increased my confidence and freed up my imagination and responses to other people.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
The Best Leaders Know a Complex World Demands an Improvised Response http://suhub.co/2wXlTEC
I listened to this very moving podcast on my way home yesterday.
It’s about a Somali main who becomes a political prisoner of the regime and is kept in solitary confinement. His only human contact is when his friend in the next cell teaches him how to tap out code, letter by letter, on their shared wall.
Then his friend gets a book. Anna Karenina. And he reads it to the guy. All 800 pages. By tapping it out, letter by letter, on the wall.
And it helps him in completely unexpected ways that are thought-provoking from a writer’s POV.
FanLit occasionally (by arrangement) republish my reviews. This was a book I particularly liked.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish the sequel, which was all the angst all the time. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it.
Originally shared by Fantasy Literature (FanLit)
Magonia: What YA should be like – Readers’ average rating: Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley Come for the wonderful voice (and attitude) of Aza Ray, the teenage narrator. Stay for a suspenseful plot, vivid characters, and fantastical worldbuilding. Magonia (2015) is one of those books that, while still partway through the sample, I knew I wanted to buy. It’s difficult to create a truly original character voice, but Maria Dahvana Headley pulls it off with Aza Ray. She even pulls it off again…
Via Jess Nut.
Originally shared by Erika RS
A friend of mine complained the other day on Facebook (in a joking context, but knowing his politics he was semi-serious) about not getting anything for his rates (city taxes).
This is an otherwise highly intelligent man who drives every day on roads that are not flooded, not full of potholes, and not wandered by stray dogs, leading past buildings that are earthquake-safe, food businesses that won’t give him food poisoning, well-stocked libraries, well-kept parks, clean public toilets, thousands of street trees, and well-used community centres, to give a non-exhaustive list of what he gets for his rates.
The thing is, unless you’ve worked in among that infrastructure, as I have, it tends to be invisible. Nobody thinks about stormwater until it’s flooding their house – nobody, that is, except the stormwater engineers whose daily job is to stop it from flooding your house.
This article reminds us of that.