ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy Problem
Kate Crawford | The New York Times
“Like all technologies before it, artificial intelligence will reflect the values of its creators. So inclusivity matters—from who designs it to who sits on the company boards and which ethical perspectives are included. Otherwise, we risk constructing machine intelligence that mirrors a narrow and privileged vision of society, with its old, familiar biases and stereotypes.”
ROBOTICS: How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race
Kim Bhasin and Patrick Clark | Bloomberg
“For the new breed of robot makers, the potential market is wide open. Logistics companies that run their own warehouses started designing automatons while ambitious engineers saw the hole Bezos blew in the market and jumped in…As promising as all this technology may be, robots aren’t going to do away with human-run warehouses entirely—not yet, anyway.”
PRIVACY & SECURITY: Brainjacking, or How Hackers Can Remote Control Your Medical Implants
Charlie Sorrel | Fast Company
“The really scary stuff is when hackers manage to access brain implants, which may let them control the behavior of an individual. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a procedure that implants a neurostimulator (aka. “brain pacemaker”) into the brain. It then sends electrical impulses into the patient’s brain. If the security on these devices can be breached, then the attacker has a direct line into the brain.”
INTERNET & SOCIETY: Benghazi Report Shows the Internet Is Killing Objectivity
Issie Lapowski | WIRED
“As it becomes easier for anyone to build their own audience, it becomes harder for those audience members to separate fact from fiction from the gray area in between. As media consumers, we now have the freedom to self-select the truth that most closely resembles our existing beliefs…The country is being fed wildly different stories, all from media outlets claiming the other side is biased. So who’s right? Is there even such a thing?”
SCIENCE FICTION: Who Owns Star Trek?
Adam B. Vary | Buzzfeed
“Since its inception, Star Trek has logged 12 feature films and some 725 hours of television across six separate series, a gargantuan cultural footprint that has created generations of fiercely loyal—and vocal—fans like the Trimbles. They have sustained Star Trek, and practically invented the concept of organized fandom as we think of it today…’Star Trek is unique,’ said Moore. ‘There is nothing else that has lasted this long with this many hours of programming in this many different formats. I feel like it will outlast me.’ He laughed. ‘I just think it waits for new blood.'”
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