Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 10861

Dismantling the idea that older generations should ‘step down’ for younger ones.

Humans are really pros at sugarcoating. If you say old people should step down for the sake of new generations, it sounds so noble and rightful, doesn’t it? What it actually means, though, is ‘We value old people less than new ones,’ and this doesn’t sound very noble or rightful. This is plain and brutal survival of the species.

Kids are (generally) cute and helpless. This is what triggers our instinct to protect them, even thought it is not the reason we do it. A species relying on reproduction to ensure its existence wouldn’t last long if it didn’t care for its children. Even if we had already developed comprehensive rejuvenation therapies, we would still be mortals; if we stopped reproducing altogether and forever, we would still risk extinction, although on a very long timescale. (In other words, we could still die one by one of other causes than ageing.) It’s the reason children are important (to us and other species): They’re potential means of reproduction. Additionally, they need special attention, because they’re not able to take care of themselves and are thus more at risk of dying before they can reproduce. That’s why most species on the planet make such a big deal out of protecting their offspring—species that don’t are less likely to stick around long enough to tell the tale.

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Artificial intelligence and drones will be key policing tools in the future amid budget and job cuts, Gwent Police’s chief constable has said.

Jeff Farrar said he foresees every police vehicle carrying a drone in the years to come and for more computers to do jobs “that do not involve emotion”.

Gwent has had £50m of funding cuts and still needs to make £9m of savings. It has also lost 300 officers since 2011.

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Science fiction has always provided an outlet where we can let our imaginations run wild about the possibilities of technological advances. Not long ago, science fiction concepts like self-aware robots, autonomous cars, or 3D printers may have been unimaginable, but we’re watching many of these things come to life before our eyes in the digital age.

Deep learning was previously a technology that seemed straight from the plot of the latest blockbuster, yet these days it’s no longer fiction and is proliferating across real-life applications. Deep learning, which falls under the umbrella of technologies known as artificial intelligence (AI), teaches machines to mimic the thought and decision-making processes of the human brain. Computers are trained using extremely large historical datasets to help them adapt and learn from prior experience, identify anomalous patterns in large datasets, and improve predictive analysis.

These techniques are becoming so popular that Gartner recently named AI and Advanced Machine Learning (which includes technologies such as deep learning) their #1 Strategic Technology Trend for 2017. The firm went on to predict that these technologies will begin to increasingly augment and extend virtually every technology-enabled service, thing, or application, and therefore will become the primary battleground for technology vendors through at least 2020.

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LOS ANGELES—The grave implications of his vanity dawning on him, local man Ed Paitz realized what an arrogant fool he’s been after skipping the moving walkway at Los Angeles International Airport, sources said Thursday. “My god, what have I done?” said a despairing Paitz, realizing that, alas, he must live with the sorrowful consequences of his own hubris and proceed down the carpeted corridor on his own two feet, watching in shame as other travelers with the humility to board the conveyor platform flowed past him with ease. “My pride—my accursed pride—has brought me to this! Like Icarus and Arachne before me, let my tale serve as a warning to all those who would surrender to the vile temptations of the ego.” At press time, redemption lay at hand, as the moving walkway was ending with a small gap before the next one began.

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If what you want to do is to apply machine learning toolkits to datasets, then you don’t need to study much. Study the field to which you want to apply machine learning, then maybe the good old text “Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques” … then when you want to apply some particular machine learning technique, look up a paper or two on that technique and read it…

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Audio engineering can make computerized customer support lines seem friendlier and more helpful.

Say you’re on the phone with a company and the automated virtual assistant needs a few seconds to “look up” your information. And then you hear it. The sound is unmistakable. It’s familiar. It’s the clickity-clack of a keyboard. You know it’s just a sound effect, but unlike hold music or a stream of company information, it’s not annoying. In fact, it’s kind of comforting.

Michael Norton and Ryan Buell of the Harvard Business School studied this idea —that customers appreciate knowing that work is being done on their behalf, even when the only “person” “working” is an algorithm. They call it the labor illusion.

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