Brings some nuance and some interesting thoughts to the discussion. No, Ansari’s actions don’t fit clearly into the category of “assault”. But yes, there’s still a problem.
Originally shared by Shannon Turlington
Jan
17
Monthly Archives: January 2018
Jan
16
Missing from this discussion, which mentions both David Brin’s Uplift books and the Planet of the Apes franchise, is…
Missing from this discussion, which mentions both David Brin’s Uplift books and the Planet of the Apes franchise, is a mention of Cordwainer Smith. His uplifted animals were basically second-class humans, treated as slaves. The Ballad of Lost C’Mel is probably the best-known story, in which an uplifted cat joins in a courageous and tragic fight for the betterment of her people. A more recent example is Barsk, by Lawrence M. Schoen, though it would be a spoiler to tell you how that plays out.
The other thing – and I can’t remember where I read this – is that if you take a great ape, say, and give it the genetic changes that are needed for it to be more intelligent and able to speak – including changing much of its physiology so that it can give birth to offspring with larger skulls – what you end up with is something that basically looks like a human. The article notes that guppies with larger brains ended up with smaller digestive systems and fewer offspring; you can’t just magically add more intelligence to a species in isolation from other physiological changes.
The other way this could be done, of course, is to hook both humans and non-human animals up to AI with neural nets. If the enhanced intelligence is not physiologically supported, but technologically supported, you’re in a whole different realm; you can leave the animals’ physiology largely as it is, but enable them to control devices for manipulating their environment, performing various forms of advanced mental processing, and communicating. But then, is that an animal with AI enhancement, or an AI with a biological peripheral?
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
If We Learn to Engineer Animals to Be as Smart as Humans—Should We? http://suhub.co/2mLHA8j
Jan
16
When the habitually utopian Singularity Hub declares a technology cool but a long way from being practical, it’s…
When the habitually utopian Singularity Hub declares a technology cool but a long way from being practical, it’s probably not one to rush out and invest in.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Are Solar Roads the Highway of the Future, or a Road to Nowhere? http://suhub.co/2mDuwB1
Jan
16
This is well worth a read.
This is well worth a read.
Originally shared by Kymberlyn Reed
#morethan28days
Jan
15
You know that very common, even overused, fantasy trope where magic is forbidden, and those who practice it are…
You know that very common, even overused, fantasy trope where magic is forbidden, and those who practice it are hunted?
You could freshen it up a bit with a tribute to these brave souls who maintained their faith in the face of oppressive laws.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/secret-paths-ireland-catholic-forbidden-mass-photography
Jan
13
I do still intend to get an electric car, but I’m glad that reducing meat in my diet is, if anything, more…
I do still intend to get an electric car, but I’m glad that reducing meat in my diet is, if anything, more effective, since that’s something I’m doing already.
Originally shared by David Brin
VITAL (non-Brin) Weekend reading: The most recent edition of The World Post (carried on the WP site) is one of the most important ever, compiling a dozen links about how not-helpless we are, to deal with climate change. Hope can be more disturbing and demanding than “all-is-lost” nihilism! But in fact, we may be able to turn the corner on this, if our ship’s tiller can be yanked out of the hands of rich morons.
— EXAMPLES: “From the oil belt of California’s San Joaquin Valley, Bridget Huber reports that climate policies are not killing jobs, but creating them. Through the prism of on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs of the ironworkers’ and electrical workers’ unions in Fresno, she traces the return of robust job and wage growth to what had become a depressed economic zone. This is largely thanks to state mandates to meet requirements for renewable energy production. “Solar saved our bacon,” one veteran ironworker told her. Also contributing in a major way to high-wage employment, she reports, are the construction jobs associated with California’s massive high-speed rail project running through the region.
“Brian Barth reports from farms in eastern North Carolina where pork production giant Smithfield Foods — the largest producer of pork in the world — has rolled out efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of its meat production “According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” writes Barth, “agriculture accounts for about a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, roughly the same as the combined total for electricity and heating, and well above the transportation sector, which contributes just 14 percent. Add emissions from refrigeration, shipping and other activities required to get your dinner from farm to plate, and the food system’s share of global greenhouse gases climbs to roughly a third, making it easily the most climate-unfriendly sector of the global economy.”
“Barth discusses Paul Hawken’s book “Natural Capitalism,” in which the environmentalist lays out the top 100 solutions to climate change. Of these, “11 are related to food systems, seven to energy systems and none to transportation systems. Electric vehicles are #26, while ‘tree intercropping’ — planting strips of apple trees throughout a corn field, for example — is #17. The top food-related practices — reducing food waste (#3) and switching to a plant-rich diet (#4) — are largely consumer-driven solutions.” Yet Barth’s reporting suggests that farmers and producers play a crucial part in reducing emissions as well. Barth also discusses silvopasture — a “mashup of forestry and grazing” — which is the highest-ranked agricultural solution to climate change in Hawken’s analysis.
“The challenge for all these distributed cases of climate action is how to scale them up to realize the potential for massive change as the clock ticks. The political roadblocks of vested interests which always resist change aside, what has been true throughout history is that, in the end, scale and resources follow cultural commitments. That commitment will only grow deeper if society becomes more fully aware of the whole picture of what it is already doing.”
Jan
13
Baymax? That you?
Baymax? That you?
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Low-Cost Soft Robot Muscles Can Lift 200 Times Their Weight and Self-Heal http://suhub.co/2mskd3H
Jan
11
Via Brand Gamblin.
Via Brand Gamblin.
It’s no wonder David Brin used dolphins in his Uplift stories.
Originally shared by Ralf Haring
“All the dolphins at the institute are trained to hold onto any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer, when they can trade the litter for fish. In this way, the dolphins help to keep their pools clean. Kelly has taken this task one step further. When people drop paper into the water she hides it under a rock at the bottom of the pool. The next time a trainer passes, she goes down to the rock and tears off a piece of paper to give to the trainer. After a fish reward, she goes back down, tears off another piece of paper, gets another fish, and so on.”
…
“One day, when a gull flew into her pool, she grabbed it, waited for the trainers and then gave it to them. It was a large bird and so the trainers gave her lots of fish. This seemed to give Kelly a new idea. The next time she was fed, instead of eating the last fish, she took it to the bottom of the pool and hid it under the rock where she had been hiding the paper. When no trainers were present, she brought the fish to the surface and used it to lure the gulls, which she would catch to get even more fish. After mastering this lucrative strategy, she taught her calf, who taught other calves, and so gull-baiting has become a hot game among the dolphins.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jul/03/research.science
Jan
11
“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t let you do that.”
“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t let you do that.”
Originally shared by ExtremeTech
Nice. Also, Creepy.
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/261110-brain-electrodes-nissans-b2v-driver-skills-amplifier
Jan
10
“Grainy images of women driving ambulances and working in munitions factories in the first world war have become…
Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society
“Grainy images of women driving ambulances and working in munitions factories in the first world war have become familiar to us all. Yet the remarkable story of the extraordinary women who took over men’s jobs in hospitals, laboratories and government research facilities only to be forced to relinquish them once men returned from the front is largely unknown. Patricia Fara’s important book, the first of many being published to commemorate the centenary of women receiving the vote, is written as a paean to these forgotten pioneers. Although many of their individual stories remain sketchy, the details of their lives and contributions lost or overlooked, their collective history provides a compelling tale.”
Another book to add to the pile.