Is knitting the gateway to AI 2.0?
I’m sure everyone has heard of mindfulness. It’s the new religion for curing stress, of which there seems to be quite a lot. Salespeople are hardly known for being meditative, so when they pick up knitting as a (secular) religion, you know there’s something going on. The buzzword is mindful knitting, by the way. And that’s […]
Could hackers launch a global nuclear war?
I guess you are all aware of the US decision to withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons Treaty (INF)? In defense of the decision its clear that the Russians have flouted it for many years. So, does this make nuclear war more likely, or less? Well, Putin just threatened the US with its new hypersonic weapons if […]
Are Big Data and happiness incompatible?
I don’t have to tell you that Big Data is hot. Almost Godly really. And happiness is a perennial as old as mankind itself. Wouldn’t it be nice if they both played nice together? Why shouldn’t they anyway? These thoughts come from after reading a book by Mo Gawdat, Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to […]
Will quantum computers kill AI as we know it?
Sigh, I can’t help taking aim at AI. It’s just so fashionable and politically correct. Ask anyone in leadership positions in politics or the private sector what the future is, and they will all tell you seriously it’s all AI, OF COURSE. I have this pressing need to knock down shibboleths, even it they are […]
A Turing test for AIs that have passed the Turing test
You know the Turing test, right? You communicate with a computer by typing and it must guess if you’re a human or an AI. The test has been run for many years. Usually the humans have won but the AIs are catching up. So now some inventive academics (yep, they even exist) have devised a […]
Can AIs have will-power?
With AIs it’s all about intelligence and smarts. Can they think better than us? Will they make better decisions? And so on. Probably the answer to all of these questions is yes, eventually if not sooner. I’m a (poor and slow) runner so I like to read books about running to see how the really […]
Can you edit your own genes – by thought alone?
So the talk of the town, biologically speaking anyway, is CRISPR Cas9 (ok dumbbells, here’s the Cliff Notes version). It’s the new way to slice and dice genes. Actually it’s unbelievably amazing, at least to my tiny mind. Now scientists can cut and paste genes like word-processing bread (HUH?). Anyway you get the idea. Now we […]
Can AIs suffer from mental health issues?
So the movie “2001 – A Space Odyssey” has just been re-released. I saw it when it was first released and I didn’t understand it even then. No doubt I will be none the wiser this time around. But one thing still sticks in my mind; HAL, the mission computer had a bad case of mental […]
Self-driving cars – just blame the victim
So now several people have been killed in accidents in self-driving cars. What gives? I’ve been driving for many years but I don’t regard myself as a good driver. For one thing I’ve got poor eyesight. I get easily confused at night and sometime in heavy traffic conditions. Here are three of the driving situations […]
Is blockchain a bubble – and compromised too?
Recently I have attended three conferences on widely divergent topics. Every one of them featured blockchain and what everyone was going to do about it and with it. It seems that the contemporary standard for demonstrating your innovativeness is showing you are into blockchain. Blockchain is, according to the banks, going to transform the financial services […]