Artificial intelligence in SF tends to be “general AI” – machines that are basically humanlike in their abilities, and in possessing consciousness, but that are either slightly less or slightly greater than humans (sometimes both at once). AI in SF, in fact, tends to be about AI as an allegory of humanity more than it is about AI-as-it-actually-might-be; robots and AIs stand in for underclasses or aggressive foreign Others. 

This is a fascinating lecture by a professor at Oxford, who has a computer science background but is in the philosophy department, about the various philosophical challenges and implications of actual AI (all of which, so far, is “narrow” AI, confined to a specific domain, rather than AGI – artificial general intelligence).

The biggest issue is that we don’t really know how to make AGI, and if we do succeed in making it we won’t understand exactly how it works or be able to predict what it will do in new situations it wasn’t designed for – even if we managed to build it correctly to our original design, which, as anybody who actually practices in the software world will tell you, tends not to happen. 

There’s also the problem that we don’t really understand how our own ethical system works, and even our best approximations aren’t susceptible to being reduced to code. Perhaps we need to make sure that robots recognise “human” as a very basic category with special value and importance (which immediately put me in mind of an Asimov story, “That Thou Art Mindful of Him”, in which the robots decide that everything they’ve learned about humanity convinces them that they’re a part of it and should have the same rights). 

One of the questions in the Q&A session is about how SF might or might not prepare us to encounter the kind of new situations that AI will bring. Dr Sandberg’s answer is that specific stories generally aren’t that useful (because they’re not about how AI really works), but the general mindset of SF – thinking about how to deal with new things and how to interact with the Other – is helpful. 

(1.5 hours, including half an hour of excellent Q&A.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8lcK2Ep1Og&feature=share

Although this collection is called “SFF Thought Starters”, most of the posts are SF-relevant. Here’s one that could prompt ideas for fantasy, though. 

Because we’re so aware of how much easier travel is in the modern era than in the past, we tend to overcorrect and think that trade over long distances used to be basically impossible in ancient times. Not at all; the Silk Road connected the Far East to the Middle East, and pigments made from lapis lazuli (at the time only obtainable from Afghanistan) were used in the Irish Book of Kells. Indonesia has legends about “Iskander” (Alexander the Great), and spices traveled from Southeast Asia to the courts of medieval Europe. There’s growing, though so far not conclusive, evidence of Roman, as well as Viking, landings in North America, and it’s pretty well accepted, I think, that Chinese explorers reached what’s now California. 

It seems there was also an “amber road” connecting ancient Scandinavia with Egypt – long before Viking mercenaries made their way down the great rivers to fight for the Byzantine Empire. 

http://io9.gizmodo.com/beads-found-in-ancient-danish-graves-match-glass-made-f-1669942793

An interesting proposal, and as vertical urban farms and other such advances become commonplace, probably a realistic one.

As a point of reference, New Zealand already has about 25% of its land area in national parks and other protected natural areas, and this is in a country where agriculture is traditionally one of the largest industries.

Originally shared by David Brin

In Half Earth, E. O. Wilson suggests that humans set aside roughly 50 percent of the planet as a sort of permanent preserve, undisturbed by man. I portrayed this happening in the future… and it will… once we get past these crises and use asteroids to get rich…

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/science/e-o-wilson-half-earth-biodiversity.html?action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

The intersection of neuroscience and the legal system. 

1. “My brain made me do it” as a criminal defense. Tends to backfire, as juries don’t want to release people into society who claim they can’t control their violent tendencies. 

2. Lie detection via neuroimaging. Current methods are not high-resolution enough to make this useful, even if you could be certain that a lie looked the same in everyone’s brain. (Besides which, eyewitnesses often sincerely believe something that isn’t true.) However, we can get basic data about people’s subjective responses to what they see, which has some degree of connection to behaviour, and we can tell to some degree what they are looking at.

3. The neurocompatibility of legal systems: to what extent does the legal system understand mental illness? Rehabilitation? Individual differences? Conflict resolution? The way the system is set up focuses on criminal law, but most people are more concerned with family, employment and community issues, which are very different in terms of how the problems get resolved. 

4. Can we decrease bias in the legal system? What distorts jurors’ ability to make good judgments? Are there ways of instructing jurors to decrease their bias against people who they see as unlike them?

5. Courtroom design: natural light, calm colours, the judge not elevated – this can lead to less escalation of conflict. (But not usually a budget priority.)

6. What legal protections exist for freedom of thought or mental privacy? Currently, the technology can’t realistically “read” thoughts, and a suspect can’t be forced into a position of involuntarily confessing, but if these things exist in future, we need corresponding legal protections. 

7. Will there be better ways in future to evaluate things like fitness to testify or fitness to be a custodial parent? 

8. It’s probably only a matter of time before portable, real-time language decoders are widespread (able to read the activation of your language centres and pick up your unspoken thoughts). The convenience factor of these will mean that people will trade privacy for that convenience. Prototype is at least 10 years away (and it may turn out not to be possible at all). Could also read nonverbal feelings that we don’t necessarily have conscious access to. Will all of this become evidence in court?

9. There is work going on about inserting memories into the brain as well as extracting things. It would be invasive, and harder to achieve than reading them, and potentially physically dangerous. However, there are other (non-mechanical) ways to implant false memories. 

10. It’s potentially possible to determine whether someone is actually feeling the pain they claim; it’s also potentially possible to assess their susceptibility to addiction. 

11. Neurological studies have been done on how judges make their decisions. There are arguments for using machine judges instead for some applications (such as dispute resolution), to decrease bias. 

12. Prediction and profiling may be possible using neurological methods. This includes determining how likely a convicted criminal is to reoffend, or determining who is a psychopath. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaTbISZPlMQ&feature=share

Smart streetlights, space sharing, vertical urban farms: these are only three of the innovations that will transform city life in the next few years. 

http://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/top-10-urban-innovations-of-2015/

Platforms like AirBnB or Uber sit somewhere between a traditional firm and a marketplace. They’re a new model of economic activity, and we’ll see a lot more of them in the future. There’s a lot of potential to equalize and democratize entrepreneurship and spread value more widely. 

There’s also a blurring between the platform and regulation – things that used to be government-regulated (like taxis and hotels) now have standards set by the platform. This brings both risks and opportunities, but it boils down to the market setting its own standards. This is partly because the platforms operate globally, under many different legal jurisdictions. The platform (which is under a kind of scrutiny that, in a pre-Internet age, companies were not under – this isn’t a point made in the video) must make choices that maintain its reputation among users and providers, or risk losing business. 

Reputation for individuals is also a key element of these platforms, but reputation is platform-specific (so Cory Doctorow’s “whuffie” looks unlikely). 

This change also involves a move from “ownership” to “membership”, and to “crowd-based capitalism”. Collaboration between the platforms, between the members, and between the providers and users is the key to creating value.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pFRIlgEdl0&feature=share

Interesting. 

“Business is now waking up to the reality that if we carry on using the natural resources of the world unsustainably, they’ll quite simply run out. With a burgeoning population, more people are living in poverty than ever before, inequalities are increasing in many parts of the world and unemployment rates are at frightening levels.

“Civil Society alone cannot solve the tasks at hand and many governments are unwilling or unable to act. While there are myriad reasons we’ve arrived at this juncture, much of the blame rests with the principles and practices of ‘business as usual’.

“These are not the outcomes we envisioned as we grew our companies; this is not the dream that inspired us. And the overwhelming conclusion we’ve reached is that businesses have been a major contributor to the problems and we, as business leaders, have the responsibility of creating sustainable solutions.

“If we leverage the many positives of business – the spirit of enterprise, innovation and entrepreneurship that has helped realise improvements in quality of life and enabled technological and scientific progress – we can create an unprecedented era of sustainable, inclusive prosperity for all.”

http://bteam.org/about/