This is a bit breathless and optimistic, and not thought all the way through. For example:

“In this future world of AI-enabled shopping, one of the most disruptive implications is that advertising is now dead.”

Uh, no. If AI is buying stuff for you because it knows your preferences, how do you develop those preferences? By looking at your friends’ preferences (and the preferences of other people you admire and trust, like celebrities), certainly, but advertising in one form or another is ultimately going to play some role.

Leaving aside the flaws, though, this is an interesting consideration of upcoming possible changes to retail.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Your Shopping Experience Is on the Verge of a Major Transformation. Here’s Why. http://suhub.co/2oXoRHZ

The effect of AI (like any tech) has a lot to do with who is using it – meaning that there will be malicious and dangerous uses as well as benign ones, which we’ll have to defend against somehow.

In other words, business as usual, but with a new set of possibilities to think about.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

New Malicious AI Report Outlines Biggest Threats of the Next 5 Years http://suhub.co/2tiDWJ1

While the headline is the equivalent of “guinea pigs and goldfish are battling it out for the future of being pets”, the article does provide a summary of the state of the play and the obstacles to adoption of both kinds of futuristic transport.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Hyperloop and Flying Cars Are Battling It Out for the Future of Transportation http://suhub.co/2FWb0Jh

http://suhub.co/2FV6dYL

Likely? Maybe not. Dystopian? Very probably (imagine a society where shallow popularity is what is most rewarded; this is not a utopia to me).

But story fodder? Oh, yes.

Via Deborah Teramis Christian.

Originally shared by As If

I give you, the Reputation Economy in UbiquiCity, which exists alongside an electronic fiat economy…

https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/03/after-technology-destroys-capitalism/

https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/03/after-technology-destroys-capitalism/

If your smartphone is part of your mind – and this article makes a strong case – then a lot of people have had their minds hacked by Russia (and various other bad actors with an agenda, of course, including profit-driven marketers).

You could take this as a starting point for an SF story in which technology and the mind were much more closely integrated than they are through words on a touchscreen.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Are ‘You’ Just Inside Your Skin or Is Your Smartphone Part of You? http://suhub.co/2GWJSsT

Perhaps your mid-future SF could depict a human scientist as mainly a feeder and interpreter of an AI who does the actual science.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

In the Future, There Will Be No Limit to What AI Can Accomplish in Science http://suhub.co/2CTXTFC

Not just gene editing, but detection of a cell’s history (radiation, antibiotics, and the like) and quick, easy detection of genetic markers for specific diseases using nothing more than a treated piece of paper.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Not Just Gene Editing—CRISPR Toolkit Expands With Trio of New Tricks http://suhub.co/2F2hkO0

Sharing to read later.

Originally shared by David Brin

Many Big Thinkers foresee AI outstripping organic humans and rendering us obsolete – at-best patronized-beloved old farts and at-worst disposable. There are some potential soft-landings, though:

1 – Merge with the machines, the dream of Ray Kurzweil and other cyber transcendentalists. There are many reasons to doubt the possibility, but none are yet decisive. So I portray it working very well, in a post-singularity society, in my story “Stones of Significance.”

2 – Augment organic brains and people to keep up. Of course my Uplift Universe is all about this, as are the “augments” in The Postman. And the “dittos” in Kiln People. And several stories like “Transition Generation” and “Chrysalis” in my collection Insistence of Vision. Those who believe our brains are “quantum” think that we have time. We probably don’t.

3 – Emphasize the one thing that works well in humans – our ability to get more done in groups, and even (sometimes) show collective, positive-sum wisdom. Louis Rosenberg suggests that our chief hope will come from developing a “hive mind.” Nor is he the first. After all, this is what Teilhard de Chardin wrote about, a century ago and it’s a recurring theme/prescription in the futures of both Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. (It really was cult-like, amid the despair following the atom bomb.)

In fact, I portray a “Macro Mind” in my novel EARTH, but it’s different. More loose and flexible and willing to accept the individuality of her human components, the way any sane person admits “I am many” and listens to the cacophony, within. Indeed, even looser — this is the key underlying the successes of Enlightenment Civilization… and it is the thing targeted by its enemies to be destroyed. (If they succeed, we’re all doomed.)

4 – Raise them as our children. We already deal with creating new intelligences who are smarter than us! We know how to do it, such that only a very small percentage of adolescents actually try to carry our their loud threats to “destroy all humans”! I portray this in EXISTENCE.

And yes, I’ve thought about this very problem, from a myriad angles, for a very long time.

https://futurism.com/keeping-humanity-must-cultivate-hive-mind/

https://futurism.com/keeping-humanity-must-cultivate-hive-mind/

A technology not without its problems, but with definite potential as well. And it would be, if nothing else, a cool throwaway mention in a nearish-future story.

I’ve just been reading Cory Doctorow’s collection Overclocked, and part of what he does that makes his stories so full-on (and distracts you from the unlikeliness) is that he tosses in throwaway references to other cool technologies that some people would wrap a whole story around, just as incidental background.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Artificial Photosynthesis Is Solar Energy’s Forgotten Cousin—and It’s Making a Comeback http://suhub.co/2opR224

A good question for any new technology is “how might this do harm?”

Not only if you’re an engineer (engineers, historically, ask this question too little), but also, of course, if you’re a writer.

Originally shared by Adafruit Industries

26 Top Researchers Compiled a Report Warning about the AI Threat

https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/02/24/26-top-researchers-compiled-a-report-warning-about-the-ai-threat/

Usually I think it sounds a little paranoid to talk about AI attacks and robots taking over. But, as this technology advances it will be a good idea to consider all repercussions.

Via Motherboard:

Nevertheless, a group of 26 leading AI researchers met in Oxford last February to discuss how superhuman artificial intelligence may be deployed for malicious ends in the future. The result of this two-day conference was a sweeping 100-page report published today that delves into the risks posed by AI in the wrong hands, and strategies for mitigating these risks.

One of the four high-level recommendations made by the working group was that “researchers and engineers in artificial intelligence should take the dual-use nature of their work seriously, allowing misuse-related considerations to influence research priorities and norms, and proactively reaching out to relevant actors when harmful applications are foreseeable.”

“Current trends emphasize widespread open access to cutting-edge research and development achievements,” the report’s authors write. “If these trends continue for the next 5 years, we expect the ability of attackers to cause harm with digital and robotic systems to significantly increase.”

On the other hand, the researchers recognize that the proliferation of open-source AI technologies will also increasingly attract the attention of policy makers and regulators, who will impose more limitations on these technologies. As for the specific form these policies should take, this will have to be hashed out at local, national and international levels.

Read more

https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/02/24/26-top-researchers-compiled-a-report-warning-about-the-ai-threat/