“Getting information off the internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.”–Mitchell Kapor
This week, I feel like I’m trying to take a drink from an open fire hydrant. There’s simply a flood of news from all the usual suspects: A.I., robotics, transhumanism, flying cars, AR, VR, gene editing. Oh, don’t forget Elon Musk–he’s perpetually in the news, though he might have been upstaged by Neil DeGrasse Tyson this week.
Elon Musk–Full page ads–described by CNN as anti-Elon Musk–ran in the Sunday editions of several major news papers including the New York Times and Washington Post. They were run by a silicon valley investor who is critical of Musk’s participation in the Trump business advisory council.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson–Timed to coincide with the national march for science day, Tyson released a statement warning that America faces pending collapse if it abandons the rational, empirical world of science. (video below)
Facebook F8 conference–Speaking at Facebook’s annual F8 conference, Michael Abrash, chief science officer of Oculus Research, said that AR glasses will be hotter than smartphones in five years. Maybe he’s looking at the digital world through rose-colored glasses?
Meanwhile, at the same conference, Facebook executive Regina Dugan announced an ambitious project to enable direct brain to computer typing at 100 words per minute. She asserted that, unlike Elon Musk’s neural lace, this will be a non-invasive process. I can’t wait to be able to think-type “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy neuron.”
Genetic Editing/CRISPR–Feng Zhang, one of the co-inventors of the breakthrough CRISPR Cas/9 gene editing technique, has a new acronym for you biotech fans. SHERLOCK. It employs a relative of the Cas/9 protein designated Cas/13a and according to a paper published by Zhang and others in the journal Science, will be useful for rapid and cheap diagnosis of genetic disorders.
MiRo, the robotic dog
Robotics–The Daily Mail reported that researchers at the University of Sheffield, in England, have created a robotic dog that is designed to be a responsive companion for the isolated elderly. The article, along with a video, is available here.
Flying Cars–German company Lilium Aviation previewed its electric-powered vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicle. Essentially, a flying car. (video below)
A reminder that the Seeking Delphi™ podcast is available on iTunes, and has a channel on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook.
One of the hottest topics in foresight today is artificial intelligence. And while many of the most visible forward thinkers have been stressing over potential existential threats to all of humanity, there is a more mundane threat to all of us. That would be our world of work. As automation on the assembly line replaces more and more unskilled labor jobs, there lies the looming threat of artificial intelligence taking on skilled, professional jobs. Will A.I. kill your job? Create you a new one? Both? Neither? While the media is full of pessimism on this account, at least one prominent futurist is cautiously optimistic. Author, speaker and blogger Ian Pearson, of Futurizon thinks that, at least in the short term, A.I. will create more jobs than it kills. I talk to him about these views, as well as the longer range existential effects of A.I., in this week’s Seeking Delphi Podcast.
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