by Dan Milmo in The Guardian…Geoffrey Hinton says there is 10% to 20% chance AI will lead to human extinction in three decades, as change moves fast
Combining AI and Crispr will be transformational
by Jennifer Doudna in Wired.com…The genome-editing technology can be supercharged by artificial intelligence—and the results are already being felt.
Using emergence to take social innovations to scale
by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze on Margaretwheatley.com…Emergence is the fundamental scientific explanation for how local changes can materialize as global systems of influence. As a change theory, it offers methods and practices to accomplish the systems-wide changes that are so needed at this time. As leaders and communities of concerned people, we need to intentionally work with emergence so that our efforts will result in a truly hopeful future.
Collaboration and empathy as evolutionary success stories
by Daniel Christian Wahl in Medium.com…Spreading the story of why we care about life and the health of the whole and sharing the narrative of interbeing is culturally creative meta-design. By sharing the new and ancient story of interbeing we facilitate the emergence of diverse regenerative cultures scale-linked by empathy and cooperation.
The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?
by Tess McClure in The Guardian…As populations move and shrink, people are leaving long-occupied places behind. Often they leave everything in place, ready for a return that never comes. In Tyurkmen, Christmas baubles still hang from the curtain rails in empty houses, slowly being wrapped by spiders. In one abandoned home, a porcelain cabinet lay inside a crater of rotted floorboards, plates still stacked above a spare packet of nappies for a visiting grandchild. Occasionally, abandonment happens all at once, when a legal ruling or evacuation sends people scuttling. But mostly, it is haphazard, creeping, unplanned. People just go.
I’m finally into ‘prepping’ and ready for the apocalypse
by Eva Wiseman in The Guardian…Piles of loo paper, a years worth of tinned goods and snake-proof boots. No wonder prepping has become a lifestyle choice
More in this category
The forces of chance
by Brian Klaas in aeon…Social scientists cling to simple models of reality – with disastrous results. Instead they must embrace chaos theory
AI Snake Oil—A New Book by 2 Princeton University Computer Scientists
by Eric Topol in Ground Truths….A Counter to the Hype and Some Misleading Claims
Yuval Noah Harari on the eclipsing of human intelligence
Sean Illing of The Gray Area interviews Yuval Noah Harari…If the internet age has anything like an ideology, it’s that more information and more data and more openness will create a better world. The reality is more complicated. It has never been easier to know more about The world than it is right now, and it has never been easier to share that knowledge than it is right now. But I don’t think you can look at the state of things and conclude that this has been a victory for truth and wisdom. What are we to make of that? More information might not be the solution, but neither is more ignorance.
Scaling: The state of play in AI
by Ethan Mollick in One Useful Thing…With continued advancements in model architecture and training techniques, we’re approaching a new frontier in AI capabilities. The independent AI agents that tech companies have long promised are likely just around the corner. These systems will be able to handle complex tasks with minimal human oversight, with wide-ranging implications. As the pace of AI development seems more certain to accelerate, we need to prepare for both the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Superbugs ‘could kill 39m people by 2050’ amid rising drug resistance
by Kat Lay in The Guardian…Child deaths from infections see ‘remarkable’ decline but AMR fatalities of over-70s likely to rise by 146%, study finds
Analysis: Drug-resistant infections are on the rise – so why aren’t we getting any new antibiotics?
A few rules for predicting the future by Octavia E. Butler
by Octavia E. Butler in Common Good Collective…So why try to predict the future at all if it’s so difficult, so nearly impossible? Because making predictions is one way to give warning when we see ourselves drifting in dangerous directions. Because prediction is a useful way of pointing out safer, wiser courses. Because, most of all, our tomorrow is the child of our today. Through thought and deed, we exert a great deal of influence over this child, even though we can’t control it absolutely. Best to think about it, though. Best to try to shape it into something good. Best to do that for any child.
The U.S. needs to pay more attention to electronic warfare
by Steven Glinert in Noahpinion…Electronic warfare (EW) is a bit of a sleeper in the US arsenal. The US invented its modern form and has used it to great effect in every war we’ve fought, especially since 1990. Indeed, if you want to know what the literal “war” in “chip wars” is, it’s this. The US spends about as much on it as its much cooler and flashier younger sibling, cyberwarfare (around $5b) and spending is due to increase. Likewise, the Chinese think of it as essential to their victory in a potential war against the US. Finally, it has become a defining aspect of the war in Ukraine, with Russian and Ukrainian forces playing a cat and mouse game between drones and electronic attacks.
The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it
by Max Roser in Our World in Data…Very few think the world is making progress. In this article, we look at the history of global living conditions and show that the world has made immense progress in important aspects.
‘Never summon a power you can’t control’: Yuval Noah Harari on how AI could threaten democracy and divide the world
by Yuval Noah Harari in The Guardian… Forget Hollywood depictions of gun-toting robots running wild in the streets – the reality of artificial intelligence is far more dangerous, warns the historian and author in an exclusive extract from his new book
Apple Intelligence is coming. Here’s what it means for your iPhone
by Kate O’Flaherty in The Guardian…Apple is about to launch a ChatGPT-powered version of Siri as part of a suite of AI features in iOS 18. Will this change the way you use your phone – and how does it affect your privacy?
Global Displacement Forecast 2024
Danish Refugee Council writes in Global Displacement Forecast 2024…The fighting that has torn across Sudan since 15 April 2023 has turned the country into one of the
world’s largest displacement and protection crises, and one of the most dangerous environments for
humanitarians to operate in. The stage has been set for a long war.
Eric Schmidt’s AI prophecy: The next two years will shock you
by Azeem Azhar in Exponential View…While he doesn’t say it explicitly, it seems that Eric expects the next two years to be faster and more turbulent than the previous two.
Selling American bombs
by Tim Barker and Dylan Saba in Phenomenal world.com…An interview with Sarah Harrison on the mechanics of US foreign military sales
The wide boundary impacts of AI with Daniel Schmachtenberger
by Nate Hagens in The Great Simplification…Artificial intelligence has been advancing at a break-neck pace. Accompanying this is an almost frenzied optimism that AI will fix our most pressing global problems, particularly when it comes to the hype surrounding climate solutions.
Outage for Microsoft users knocks out systems for airlines and hospitals in chaotic day
by Adam Satariano, et al in The New York Times…Companies across the world reported disruptions, citing technical issues from a cybersecurity software update.