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Gerd Leonhard

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giving people in the region the right to ask that companies remove data about them that is either no longer relevant or out of date.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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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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If You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Crazy: a good read on privacy in the networked and AI’ed world, via The Atlantic

“Around the same time, I looked into changing my car-insurance policy. I learned that Progressive offered discounts to some drivers who agreed to fit their cars with a tracking device called Snapshot. That people ever took this deal astonished me. Time alone in my car, unobserved and unmolested, was sacred to me, an act of self-communion, and spoiling it for money felt heretical. I shared this opinion with a friend. “I don’t quite see the problem,” he replied. “Is there something you do in your car that you’re not proud of? Frankly, you sound a little paranoid.””

If You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Crazy
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/if-youre-not-paranoid-youre-crazy/407833/
via Instapaper



Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author 

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

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The age of love, sex, and robots: TechRepublic Podcast, episode 15 – TechRepublic

“TechRepublic recently wrote about an academic conference on 'Love and Sex with Robots' being declared illegal, which brings up lots of larger ethical questions about robots and artificial intelligence.

That's the main topic of episode 15 of The TechRepublic Podcast, with Jason Hiner, Bill Detwiler, Erin Carson, Hope Reese, and I.”

The age of love, sex, and robots: TechRepublic Podcast, episode 15 - TechRepublic
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-age-of-love-sex-and-robots-techrepublic-podcast-episode-15/


Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author 

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

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Inside the Pentagon’s Effort to Build a Killer Robot

“The defense program DARPA is working to create an artificial brain—but what will it mean for humanity if it succeeds?”

Which raises at least one technical problem regarding artificial intelligence and autonomous hunter-killer drones. “I think robot assassins are a very bad idea for a number of reasons,” Kenyon asserts. “Moral and political issues aside, the technical hurdles to overcome cannot be und

Inside the Pentagon's Effort to Build a Killer Robot
https://time.com/4078877/darpa-the-pentagons-brain/

This is only the first of many issues facing us in the near future 



Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author 


All else via www.gerd.io

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Google is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to enhance search results: the RankBrain is here

“Corrado says RankBrain is different from the “hundreds” of signals and technologies that contribute to Google’s Search algorithms in that it actually learns and improves over time.”

Google is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to enhance search results
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-rankbrain-2015-10


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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Cognitive Computing in the New Era of Discovery – About IBM Watson

“At the same time, Watson Discovery Advisor will incorporate Watson question-answering capabilities, optimized for discovery. After people create new insights, they can engage in dialogues with the system to clarify their thinking and test propositions. The idea is that humans will collaborate with machines in new ways that deliver better results than people or computers could produce on their own.”

Cognitive Computing in the New Era of Discovery - A Smarter Planet Blog
https://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2014/08/watson-e-discovery.html




Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist

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

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