Kenneth Cukier reviews “Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI,” a collection of essays edited by John Brockman.
A Review of Possible Minds
Posted in robotics/AI
China is the world leader in facial recognition technology. But is the state using it to violate the human rights of its citizens?
David Marcus has written a post intended to give “clarity” to the critics of Libra, the blockchain network Facebook is trying to seed.
First, to those who say the system is not really decentralized: “We totally get the point,” Marcus wrote in the July 3 post. “But it was important to start with trusted entities that could operate in a regulated environment and with the operational expertise required to ensure the integrity of the network in its foundational stage.”
He reiterated that “we’re committed to gradually transitioning to a permissionless state in the years to come,” and added that in the meantime, “I’d argue that one hundred geographically distributed, industry-diverse organizations is quite decentralized.” ( There are only 28 so far, however.)
Lost NASA footage from the moon landing
Posted in space
Squirrels mislabeled as sea lions and dragonflies confused with manhole covers are challenging algorithms to be more resilient to attacks.
Despite mistakes like failing to stop data on 50m of its users being harvested without permission, Facebook now wants to convince the world is can be trusted.
The social network says it will behave better from now on.
Amberley Levine Photo
Posted in space
