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The Internet of Things is already here—just not the way you expected (#futuristgerd quoted)

“Gerd Leonhard, CEO of the Futures Agency, believes companies chasing user information “will never want less data from us, and they will find it impossible to resist the mantra of ‘yes we can and so we will,’” describing it as a “huge issue looming right in front of us.” In his estimation, it’s an issue that will need to be addressed both on individual and regulatory levels.

Currently, protections for IoT consumers are too often absent. A 2014 study of connected devices and services found that 52 percent didn’t even provide a privacy policy to inform users what can be collected and how it can be used. It’s already difficult for companies to avoid the temptation of overreaching when it comes to data; it’s even harder to prevent them from crossing the line when there is no line drawn in the first place.

“The problem is similar to why oil companies were and are heavily regulated,” Leonhard says. “Data is the new oil but we have very few regulations as to who, where, when and why.””

The Internet of Things is already here—just not the way you expected
https://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/15404/state-of-internet-of-things-2016/
via Instapaper


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Techno-social engineering: will humans become ‘pervasively programmable’? Scott Allan Morrison via Boing Boing

“Scott Allan Morrison:  There would be nothing inherently wrong with this if we could be absolutely certain the companies that control this technology will act only in our best interests. But if not, we could all be susceptible to manipulation by powerful systems we couldn’t possibly understand. Some academics have even raised the specter of techno-social engineering and questioned whether we are moving into an age in which “humans become machine-like and pervasively programmable.”

Techno-social engineering is freaking insiders out
https://boingboing.net/2015/12/11/techno-social-engineering-is-f.html
via Instapaper

This is one of my key concerns in regards to exponential technological progress 

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Marc Andreessen on the IoT: ‘In 20 years, every physical item will have a chip implanted in it’

I tend to agree but don't know if this world will be heaven or hell - what to you think ?



“Andreessen is a fierce believer in the impact of this wave of software-driven sensor startups. His core thesis is that over the next 20 years every physical item will have a chip implanted in it. “The end state is fairly obvious - every light, every doorknob will be connected to the internet. Just like with the web itself, there will be thousands of of use cases - energy efficiency, food safety, major problems that aren’t as obvious as smartwatches and wearables,” he says.”

Marc Andreessen: 'In 20 years, every physical item will have a chip implanted in it'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/12050185/Marc-Andreessen-In-20-years-every-physical-item-will-have-a-chip-implanted-in-it.html
via Instapaper

 



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The US government vs Apple and Google’s: the smartphone encryption discussion

“The US government and police officials are in the midst of a misleading PR offensive to try to scare Americans into believing encrypted cellphones are somehow a bad thing.”
— Trevor Timm”

Yes... That just about says it all! This is why I like to use apple phones, btw - you pay for privacy.

Feds only have themselves to blame for Apple and Google's smartphone encryption efforts | ZDNet
https://www.zdnet.com/article/feds-only-have-themselves-to-blame-for-apple-and-googles-smartphone-encryption-efforts/
via Instapaper

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What the world will be like in 2045, according to DARPA’s top scientists (via business insider)

I tend to agree on these predictions - but I really worry about all these changes being driving by the military on the one side, and investors / money on the other. 

"I  think in 2045 we’re going to find that we have a very different relationship with the machines around us,” says Pam Melroy, aerospace engineer, former astronaut, and deputy director of DARPA’s Tactical Technologies Office. “I think that we will begin to see a time when we’re able to simply just talk or even press a button” to interact with a machine to get things done more intelligently, instead of using keyboards or rudimentary voice-recognition systems.”

Here’s what the world will be like in 2045, according to DARPA’s top scientists
https://www.businessinsider.com/darpa-world-predictions-2015-12
via Instapaper

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Europe Approves Tough New Data Protection Rules – NYTimes.com. The US-EU canyon is widening.

I think this is a very important step in the right direction - yet it will most certainly deepen the gulf between Europe and the US. Inevitable.

“Europe’s national governments and the European Parliament are widely expected to back the proposals later this week, support that is necessary for the rules to go in effect.

Among the new policies approved on Tuesday:

■ Allowing national watchdogs to issue fines, potentially totaling the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars, if companies misuse people’s online data, including obtaining information without people’s consent.

■ Enshrining the so-called right to be forgotten into European law, giving people in the region the right to ask that companies remove data about them that is either no longer relevant or out of date.

■ Requiring companies to inform national regulators within three days of any reported data breach, a proposal that goes significantly further than what is demanded by American authorities.

■ Obliging anyone under 16 to obtain parental consent before using popular services like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, unless any national government lowers the age limit to 13.

■ Extending the new rules to any company that has customers in the region, even if the company is based outside the European Union.”

Europe Approves Tough New Data Protection Rules - NYTimes.com
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/technology/eu-data-privacy.html?nytmobile=0
via Instapaper

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Open AI: An effort to democratize artificial intelligence research? Some key points

““If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow,” the researchers wrote.”

Open AI: An effort to democratize artificial intelligence research? (+video)
https://m.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/1214/Open-AI-An-effort-to-democratize-artificial-intelligence-research-video
via Instapaper



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You’re Only Human, But Your Kids Could Be So Much More – says Paul Knoepfler (Wired)

“I mean a designer baby. You would be literally designing and producing a new type of baby via the same sort of technology that is used to make a GM tomato, mouse, or monkey. The baby would be a genetically modified human or, to phrase it in an edgier manner, a GM human.”

You’re Only Human, But Your Kids Could Be So Much More
https://www.wired.com/2015/12/youre-only-human-but-your-kids-could-be-so-much-more/
via Instapaper

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The Singularity, Virtual Immortality and Consciousness: Simulation is not duplication (via Robert Lawrence Kuhn)

Totally spot-on !!

“The one mistake we must avoid,” Searle cautioned, “is supposing that if you simulate it, you duplicate it. A deep mistake embedded in our popular culture is that simulation is equivalent to duplication. But of course it isn’t. A perfect simulation of the brain — say, on a computer — would be no more conscious than a perfect simulation of a rainstorm would make us all wet”

The Singularity, Virtual Immortality and the Trouble with Consciousness (Op-Ed)
https://www.livescience.com/52503-is-it-possible-to-transfer-your-mind-into-a-computer.html
via Instapaper

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How websites and apps are designed for compulsion, even addiction. Do we need regulation? M. Schulson via AEON (relates to my digital obesity meme)

Michael Schulson via the great Aeon site 

"In the 2000s, users nicknamed the first mainstream smartphone the crackberry. In conversation, we describe basic tools and apps – Facebook, email, Netflix, Twitter – using terms otherwise reserved for methamphetamine and slot machines"

"So should individuals be blamed for having poor self-control? To a point, yes. Personal responsibility matters. But it’s important to realise that many websites and other digital tools have been engineered specifically to elicit compulsive behaviour"

"Major tech companies, Harris told me, ‘have 100 of the smartest statisticians and computer scientists, who went to top schools, whose job it is to break your willpower"

"As with the pigeons, uncertain reward can lead to obsessive behaviour. The gambling industry has been using these techniques for years, too: as Skinner himself recognised, the classic high-rep, variable-reward device is the slot machine"



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Is Hello Barbie every parent’s worst nightmare? Great debate.

“Hello Barbie isn’t a therapy doll—especially because it talks rather than providing a blank slate for the kind of role-play Smirnova describes—but it is uniquely poised to provide evidence in cases of child abuse. Jacob told the Kernel that ToyTalk, as a company, is not liable for the actions of parents. The company might stumble across some conversational data, though, during the course of tweaking program features.

“It is possible that in the act of debugging the service or responding to a support issue, we may on occasion hear or review transcripts of conversations that we can associate with a particular account,” Jacob said. “In the very unlikely situation that we did become aware of suspected abuse, we would of course comply with applicable laws and cooperate with law enforcement agencies as we deem appropriate on a case-by-case basis.””

Is Hello Barbie every parent’s worst nightmare?
https://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/15018/hello-barbie-security-concerns/
via Instapaper

#manmachine #futurisgerd

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Has technology set us free, or shackled us to our screens? Good read by Tom Chatfield — Aeon

“It’s a point that has been emphasised by much recent research into thought and behaviour. To quote from Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, ‘cognition is embodied; you think with your body, not only with your brain’. Yet when it comes to culture’s cutting edge, there remains an overwhelming tendency to treat embodiment not as a central condition of being human that our tools ought to serve, but rather as an inconvenience to be eliminated.”

Has technology set us free, or shackled us to our screens? by Tom Chatfield — Aeon
https://aeon.co/essays/has-technology-set-us-free-or-shackled-us-to-our-screens
via Instapaper



Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author 
Wired top 100 influencer https://gerd.fm/wired88
Basel / Switzerland

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The 150 Things the World’s Smartest People Are Afraid Of (some nice quotes here)




Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author 
Wired top 100 influencer https://gerd.fm/wired88
Basel / Switzerland

My new film on tech vs humanity: https://gerd.fm/techvshumanvideo

New: Future of Business book (I contributed)  https://gerd.fm/fobbook


All else via www.gerd.io
Mobile: +41797935384

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The Doomsday Invention – must read on AI

“Before the prospect of an intelligence explosion, we humans are like small children playing with a bomb,” he concludes. “We have little idea when the detonation will occur, though if we hold the device to our ear we can hear a faint ticking sound”

The Doomsday Invention
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/doomsday-invention-artificial-intelligence-nick-bostrom
via Instapaper



Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author 
Wired top 100 influencer https://gerd.fm/wired88
Basel / Switzerland

My new film on tech vs humanity: https://gerd.fm/techvshumanvideo

New: Future of Business book (I contributed)  https://gerd.fm/fobbook

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Robot revolution: rise of ‘thinking’ machines could exacerbate inequality

A lot of great nuggets in this piece - will comment in more detail later 

“Andrew Simms, of thinktank the New Weather Institute, said the rise of new technologies could be an opportunity to realise the aspirations of the economist John Maynard Keynes, who predicted in 1930 that within a century, technology would have enabled the working week to be reduced to 15 hours with the rest of the time devoted to leisure.”

Robot revolution: rise of 'thinking' machines could exacerbate inequality
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/05/robot-revolution-rise-machines-could-displace-third-of-uk-jobs
via Instapaper

My new film on tech vs humanity: https://gerd.fm/techvshumanvideo

New: Future of Business book (I contributed)  https://gerd.fm/fobbook






Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author 
Wired top 100 influencer https://gerd.fm/wired88
Basel / Switzerland

My new film on tech vs humanity: https://gerd.fm/techvshumanvideo

New: Future of Business book (I contributed)  https://gerd.fm/fobbook


All else via www.gerd.io
Mobile: +41797935384

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On artificial intelligence, jobs and growth: “Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us”. Good read and link to new BoAML report

“If you wanted relief from stories about tyre factories and steel plants closing, you could try relaxing with a new 300-page report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch which looks at the likely effects of a robot revolution.

But you might not end up reassured. Though it promises robot carers for an ageing population, it also forecasts huge numbers of jobs being wiped out: up to 35% of all workers in the UK and 47% of those in the US, including white-collar jobs, seeing their livelihoods taken away by machines.”

Artificial intelligence: ‘Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us’
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/07/artificial-intelligence-homo-sapiens-split-handful-gods
via Instapaper

Download this report : 
https://www.bofaml.com/content/dam/boamlimages/documents/articles/D3_006/11511357.pdf

Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author 

My new film on tech vs humanity: https://gerd.fm/techvshumanvideo



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Why happiness should be your business model — Good read

“There’s a new breed of entrepreneur choosing happiness before profits”

Why happiness should be your business model — The Happy Startup School https://medium.com/the-happy-startup-school/why-happiness-should-be-your-business-model-f866d92cd898 via Instapaper

Gerd Leonhard Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author

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Thomas Piketty proposes flight tax to raise climate funds (and I’d be inclined to support it)

This makes sense to me - even thought I'd be hit hard by it, myself

“Air travel should be taxed to protect the world’s vulnerable from drought, flooding and sea level rise. A €180 ($196/£130) levy on business class tickets and €20 on economy class would raise the estimated €150bn a year needed for climate adaptation.  That is one proposal by French economists Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty to address global inequalities between high-polluting individuals and the victims of climate change.

“Taxing flights is one way to target high emitting lifestyles, especially if we tax business class more than economy class,” Chancel told Climate Home. “A tax on air tickets to finance development programs already exists in some countries. What we need is to increase its level and generalise it.”

Piketty – author of Capital, a bestseller on wealth inequality – and Chancel outline huge disparities in people’s carbon footprints across the world. One-tenth of people are responsible for 45% of global emissions. “Economic inequalities are reaching record high levels and reducing them constitutes a key challenge to policymakers in the coming decades,” said Chancel.

“It’s the same thing with carbon: another huge challenge that puts our societies at risk. If we fail to address both, our societies can collapse.””

Thomas Piketty proposes flight tax to raise climate funds
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/05/thomas-piketty-proposes-flight-tax-to-raise-climate-funds
via Instapaper


Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Author, Keynote Speaker, CEO The Futures Agency

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