“Kate Crawford, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, called on the industry to add ethics to the professional training of engineers. “We need to start changing the skill set of the people who are going to be the data scientists of the future and the A.I. creators of the future,” she said.

A.I. systems are pervasive, Ms. Crawford said, pointing to a doll like Hello Barbie, which speaks and listens.

“You might think that’s a fantastic toy, that’s really wonderful,” she said. “What you don’t realize is that it is the front to this huge data ingestion machine that is taking all of those statements by that child and then using them for a whole range of purposes.””

Artificial Intelligence Is Far From Matching Humans, Panel Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/technology/artificial-intelligence-is-far-from-matching-humans-panel-says.html
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“Many new works of science fiction seem to represent a strain of pre-apocalyptic cinema, characterized by a willingness to dramatize disasters that are less hypothetical than poised to happen.”

In Pop Culture, the Future Is Almost Now
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/the-future-is-almost-now/482718/
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“As new gene editing techniques such as CRISPR make it simpler and cheaper to change organisms, there's more of a risk of accidental release of lethal diseases from labs, or intentional release by terrorists.”

If Something Is Going To Destroy Humanity, It's Going To Be One Of These Catastrophes
https://www.fastcoexist.com/3059491/if-something-is-going-to-destroy-humanity-its-going-to-be-one-of-these-catastrophes
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“Advertising might have been a necessary evil to get these companies off the ground, but there is no reason to stick with it for ever, especially if – and when – they manage to destroy all competition and make the world dependent on their platforms.”

Welcome to the new feudalism – with Silicon Valley as our overlords | Evgeny Morozov
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/24/the-new-feudalism-silicon-valley-overlords-advertising-necessary-evil
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“We peer into a future where our software spies on us, our data defines us, and our hardware reinforces existing power imbalances. What’s slowing it down are a federal agency whose remedies often feel unsatisfactory, and a cohort of attorneys whose motivations are of course capitalistic. And while it’s tempting to simply call for more federal intervention, paternalistic impulses sometimes harm the most vulnerable among us.”

You Can't Escape Data Surveillance In America
https://goo.gl/nDe9pH
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“Zuckerberg sees bots stepping in for customer service reps and personal assistants. "One way that I think you're going to see bots work, between people who are actually driving the businesses directly will need to in some way train or answer questions for people, but we can build artificial intelligence that can learn from people how to automate a lot of that and make that experience a lot faster for people who want to interact with businesses and public figures."”

Mark Zuckerberg thinks AI will start outperforming humans in the next decade
https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/28/11526436/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-earnings-artificial-intelligence-future
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“A.I. safety researchers strongly disagree: There is no reason to believe that we will be able to control generally intelligent, let alone superintelligent, systems. In fact, we have no idea of what a world with (super)intelligent machines would be like. But we have at least a good idea of potentially harmful scenarios—like, say, an A.I. gaining unilateral control of all resources—so the earlier we start thinking about it, the better.”

The Threats That Artificial Intelligence Researchers Actually Worry About
https://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/04/the_threats_that_artificial_intelligence_researchers_actually_worry_about.html
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“there’s another counterargument to be made based on the philosophy of ethics. Until an A.I. has feelings, it’s going to be unable to want to do anything at all, let alone act counter to humanity’s interests and fight off human resistance. Wanting is essential to any kind of independent action. And the minute an A.I. wants anything, it will live in a universe with rewards and punishments—including punishments from us for behaving badly. In order to survive in a world dominated by humans, a nascent A.I. will have to develop a humanlike moral sense that certain things are right and others are wrong”

The Philosophical Argument Against A.I. Killing Us All
https://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/04/the_philosophical_argument_against_artificial_intelligence_killing_us_all.html
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“This is a prelude of things to come, not only with encryption technologies, but everything from artificial intelligence to drones, robotics, and synthetic biology. Technology is moving faster than our ability to understand it and there is no consensus on what is ethical. It isn’t just the lawmakers who are not well-informed, the originators of the technologies themselves don’t understand the full ramifications of what they are creating. They may take strong positions today based on their emotions and financial interests but as they learn more, they too will change their views.”

Apple vs. FBI: The tip of the iceberg as laws can’t keep up with tech
https://wadhwa.com/2016/03/05/apple-vs-fbi-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-as-laws-cant-keep-up-with-tech/
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“In the past we put up with being annoyed and yelled at by advertising. And now we’re putting up with being spied on and guessed at, personally, as well. But we don’t have to put up with any of it any more. That’s another thing digital life makes possible, even if we haven’t taken the measures yet. The limits of invention are a lot farther out on the Giant Zero than they ever were in the old analog world where today’s media — including digital ones following analog models — were born.”

What if we don’t need advertising at all? — Medium
https://medium.com/@dsearls/what-if-we-don-t-need-advertising-at-all-cf8ae123f2d3#.q1bf3ptyn
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“The blind masses experiencing bread and circus adventures in Hyperreality while the ‘real’ world passes by entirely undetected. The ultimate triumph of inverted totalitarianism?

In inverted totalitarianism, every natural resource and every living being is commodified and exploited to collapse as the citizenry is lulled and manipulated into surrendering their liberties and their participation in government through excess consumerism and sensationalism”

Week 7 | import digest
https://malm.teqy.net/2016/02/23/week-7-2/
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“Right now, at the frontier of technology, people are deciding the future of human-computer interaction. The Myo armband is one futuristic input among many. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the United States (DARPA) has just announced that they’re developing a “cortical modem,” a direct neural interface that stimulates your visual cortex and displays information without glasses or goggles. It’s a heads-up display that plugs straight into your brain. Equal parts captivating and terrifying.

We believe that any digital input that disregards human biology — as the desktop environment did — can’t succeed in the 21st century. Our bodies are already rebelling against technology’s impact, and any device that asks us to act more like machines — by fundamentally changing our bodies, habits, vocabulary, or how we relate to one another — isn’t a sustainable option.”

Our evolving relationship with technology
https://blog.thalmic.com/the-evolution-of-computing/
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