Futurist Gerd Leonhard announces updated mission statement, new 2019 speaking topics: focus on digital ethics and the future of humanity
January 5, 2019 Greetings everyone, and Happy New Year! It’s been almost 17 years that I started giving talks and presentations on the future, and it’s been an amazing adventure – one that I plan to turn into a new book in 2019 (stay tuned via Twitter) I’ve done more than 1700 engagements ...
The World Is Choking on Digital Pollution
“As always, progress has not been without a price. Like the factories of 200 years ago, digital advances have given rise to a pollution that is reducing the quality of our lives and the strength of our democracy. We manage what we choose to measure. It is time to name ...
The hidden manufacturing of the self (Nicolas Carr on the new book ‘the age of surveillance capitalism’)
This is a guest post by TFA’s new curator Petervan In his excellent book review of Shoshana Zuboff’s “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”, Nicolas Carr dissects the not-so-hidden strategies of big tech companies. The review has some great quotes throughout, especially but not exclusively about Google: “And so the company began deploying its stores ...
New video: proposing a Global Digital Ethics Council
… it’s time to incorporate the negative externalities of exponential technological progress into EVERY digital business model!
Is AI a danger for Humanity? Well… it’s complicated!
In an interesting display of “Yes, No, It’s complicated”, three Indian researchers reflect whether AI is a danger for humanity. In the YES-camp, the key argument evolves around the almost exclusive focus of AI on one particular aspect of human beings: the calculative capacity. The result are (artificial) intelligences at the ...
The very first edition of my Digital Ethics newsletter is now available!
This is a new collaboration with TFA’s new curator PeterVan. Subscribe here. Read the first issue here. Welcome to my brand-new Digital Ethics newsletter, a weekly set of curated articles and must-reads from the intersection of technology and humanity, handpicked by me and my team. As many of you may know, Digital Ethics ...
Don’t believe the hype: the media are unwittingly selling us an AI fantasy | John Naughton
“The tech giants that own and control the technology have plans to exponentially increase that impact and to that end have crafted a distinctive narrative. Crudely summarised, it goes like this: “While there may be odd glitches and the occasional regrettable downside on the way to a glorious future, on ...
New video excerpt from my keynote at Netapp Insight 2018: with great power comes great responsibility #digitalethics
Download these videos via gerd.cloud Watch the complete keynote on my Youtube channel Netapp 2018-Gerd-Leonhard-Futurist-Gerd-on-Stage-Power-And-Responsibility. 50MB MP4 download
New podcast with Matt Ward: Megashifts, AI and Why the Future is More Unknowable than Ever
read more here You can listen right here on iTunes In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including: The evolution of AI and dangers of AGI Why Europe has to lead the way on privacy, data and consumer rights Why Gerd believes we need a moratorium on the future of artificial general intelligence The problem ...
The currency of humanity (Joi Ito’s Practice of Change)
In late 2018, Joi Ito, Director MIT Media Lab presented his draft Phd. dissertation on the “Practice of Change“. Organised in 6 chapters, he articulates how to intervene in complex systems. It’s a fascinating, long and deep read on how to keep our humanity at heart in this fast changing ...
Beware corporate ‘machinewashing’ of AI
“To compound the problem, the baleful effects of AI are often rooted in the very algorithms that drive many tech companies’ profit streams. Economists call such societal costs “negative externalities.” A key component of a negative externality is that the selling or buying of the product itself doesn’t price in ...
