There’s more than one way to run a road network. It’s all down to what technology you have.

Originally shared by Isaac Kuo

World-building – Technology Loss vs Technology Adaption

Roman roads were built to last. The stone and concrete roads remained usable for generations of neglect. But when they finally became unusable, the knowledge and institutions required to rebuild them were already long lost. People returned to walking on foot or horseriding (for the rich) for centuries.

Chinese roads might not have been as durable, but this ironically made Chinese road building more durable. Rather than losing the knowledge and institutions, these roads adapted to shrinking budgets. If it was too expensive to maintain full width roads, narrow roads could be maintained instead. The Chinese wheelbarrow would be an efficient transport and transportation vehicle for centuries while Europeans were walking and struggling with massive teams of traction animals.

Both of these ideas are great inspiration for world-building…

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html

Artificial senses continue to progress, for prosthetics and robotics.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Robots Will Be Able to Feel Touch With This Artificial Nerve https://suhub.co/2LZH4ic

Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh

More on UBI experiments. The fact is, UBI needs lots of time and lots of participants to have a statistically significant effect. In the end, the costs of implementing UBI may still outweigh its benefits. “The Kenya experiment is one of a handful of UBI trials in various stages of development around the world. Finland has already begun a trial, as has Ontario in Canada. Stockton, California, is planning to roll out its own experiment later this year. Although the concept isn’t new — it was first proposed by Enlightenment philosophers — it remained a fringe idea until the past few years, and governments are now starting to take it more seriously. Interest in the idea grew in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis and because of endorsements from Silicon Valley tech gurus such as Elon Musk.

[…]

For economists and public-policy scholars, the current interest in UBI provides an opportunity to conduct rigorous trials to determine whether it will produce measurable benefits. But translating a grand economic theory into workable policy is far from easy. Almost all trials have involved a small number of people or lasted just a few years, which limits their power. And there is no clear definition of success; researchers try to balance measuring potential gains in one area, such as health care, with potential offsets in another, including education and labour-force participation.

But for the growing chorus of voices calling for data-driven policy, trials such as the one in Kenya are the only way to see whether UBI actually works. “This is one of the first rigorous randomized control trials of UBI,” says Suri. “This is our chance to understand UBI and its impacts.”

[…]

Over time, the trials could generate data on the costs and benefits of UBI schemes, such as whether the initiatives reduce health-care expenditures. But Martinelli thinks that the data will show that it will cost too much to make a programme effective. “An affordable UBI is inadequate, and an adequate UBI is unaffordable,” he says.

But even a clear win in these trials won’t necessarily indicate that UBI would work in practice, says economist Damon Jones at the University of Chicago in Illinois. Because they are relatively small and most of the funding comes from private sources, the trials won’t provide a sense of whether governments could afford a big public programme or whether citizens would be willing to fork out extra taxes to fund them. “Medicine can be scaled up, but this isn’t as easy,” says Jones. A new cancer drug might extend lifespan by 3 months, which stays true whether 10 people take the drug or 10,000. In a UBI trial, 10 people receiving cash will have a very different impact on a community compared with 10,000.

Jones cautions that this doesn’t mean the UBI trials shouldn’t be done or that they will produce meaningless data, just that even the best-designed studies have inherent limitations.

Regardless of the outcomes, the trials will have an ongoing impact because they can identify potential flaws in the process, help researchers refine the questions they ask and give policymakers some of the answers they crave. If the trials succeed, “it wouldn’t just be an outlier in social policy, it would be a minor miracle”, Reich says.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05259-x

Via Rita de Heer.

For your starship, airship, and ocean-going ship inspiration.

Originally shared by Malcolm Torres

Here we have an excellent drawing of the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd ship MS Willem Ruys (1947 to 1965) later completely remodelled and recommissioned as the Achille Lauro (1965 to 1994). It’s quite a large picture which is only fitting because it’s quite a large ship with a long and wonderful history. She went round the world many times as a luxury cruise liner between Europe and Indonesia. Thank you to Rita de Heer for this picture. If you would like more information, read the colourful history of this glorious vessel here: http://www.ssmaritime.com/willemruys-part-one.htm

Afrofuturism, anyone?

Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh

“Assefa is a computer scientist, a futurist, and a utopian — but a pragmatic one at that. He is founder and chief executive of iCog, the first artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Ethiopia, and a stone’s throw from the home of Lucy. iCog Labs launched in 2013 with $50,000 and just four programmers. Today, halfway up an unassuming tower block, dozens of software developers type in silence. Their desks are cluttered with electronic components and dismembered robot body parts, from a soccer-playing bot called Abebe to a miniature robo-Einstein. An earlier prototype of Sophia, a widely recognized humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics (she appeared with late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon last year) is here too. Arguably the world’s most famous robot of her kind, Sophia’s software was partly developed here in Ethiopia’s capital.

In stark contrast to the famine-stricken images that linger in the minds of many Westerners, Addis Ababa has, in recent years, become a hub for international business and diplomacy. Glitzy new office blocks and hotels continue to rise across the sprawling capital, and while Ethiopia is still ranked among the world’s poorest countries in terms of GDP per capita, it is also among the fastest growing.

[…]

Artificial intelligence is the latest technology sweeping the world, and consultancy firm McKinsey predicts that up to 30 percent of the global workforce could be displaced by 2030 because of advances in AI, robotics, and digitization. And that’s why Assefa and other stakeholders think Ethiopia would do better to skip the manufacturing stage of development and invest instead in a high-tech workforce — including one that at the cutting edge of AI. This, he argues, would help Ethiopians find a new path to development by riding the wave of technological disruption.

“We should not start from steam and railways, or the old technologies — that is already done,” Assefa argues.

That makes sense to academics like Singh — though he also cautions that political forces are often slow to see the bigger picture. There is definitely an opportunity for developing countries, he says. “But any time we have a technological revolution, the political institutions have to catch up.””

https://undark.org/article/artificial-intelligence-ai-ethiopoia/

Do not include vulnerable AI (which is any AI) in your nuclear decision-making.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

How Will Artificial Intelligence Affect the Risk of Nuclear War? https://suhub.co/2IU20sU