… from 1959 … and still so very much adequate for today!
Tag Archives: Society
Former CIA Chief Explains How Spies Use Disguises
Found on WIRED…
AI-Winter, Plateau, Pareto-Principle?
Another article on AI, and again I found it on the platform piqd.de : Machine Learning Confronts the Elephant in the Room.
Maybe this just appears to me, or maybe it’s wishful thinking. But it looks more and more to me like the advances in AI are kind of stalling and less and less impressive lately. There are more products and services that pitch “AI driven”, but its mostly about the same few topics. Doesn’t appear too new to me.
But maybe the next breakthrough is just days or weeks away?
Or the reality is significantly more complex than scientists would like to think. Mabe the algorithms (and AI in the end is just the implementation of clever algos), just can’t keep up with our brains.
Well, just read the article linked above, I found it very interesting.
AI and the Future: Why Technology Favors Tyranny
On piqd.de I found once again an interesting Article: Why Technology Favors Tyranny. The Abstract on piqd is in German, while the original article is in English.
The internet started out to bring us all more democracy and all people the ability to participate. In the last years it looks like the big companies have taken over the power, but also the states (who complain about the big companies, and vice versa).
The technologies that emerged around the internet can only be developed and maintained with massive investment / money and evolved further. Individuals can’t really do that much themselves, and are going back to being consumers and are dependent on what is provided to them. Who has the power, has the say, and that also allows tyrants to gain more power and control over people than ever before.
Is the right? It is at least an interesting viewpoint to think about and consider.
Teamwork in the digital age
Once again on piqd I found this article: What Sets Effective Teams Apart?
I think this is a really good article. Sometimes there are jobs for the single achiever, but the majority of work can only be achieved in teamwork. To put together such teams requires a good insight into how teams work and how to foster collaboration with different personalities that make up teams.
A important part is “safety”. The safety to be able to criticize when applicable, the safety to bring up new and radical ideas and the feeling of safety when at times there is a failure… that this is not a drama.
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think – Hans Rosling
On piqd I found an interesting article on faz.de, the title “Die Welt wird immer besser: 32 gute Nachrichten” (in German). Maybe I’m an optimist, although I don’t really think so, just realist, but I really liked this article.
It appears to me that some media really live from “bad news”, like bad-news are good-news. Sometimes it feels like you really have to search for good news articles. For me, those 32 good news, were actually known, but still I hardly remember them and when reading daily news, the optimism is minimal.
In essence, that articles is a short-summary from the book “Factfulness” by Hans Rosling, who unfortunately died in February 2017. His last book was published post mortem recently in April 2018.
It appears to me that this book is well worth reading… chapter after chapter, after digesting the daily news and reset opinion.
If you can’t read that article on faz.net (as its in German) or if the article or the book are too long, I would recommend to watch this TED-Talk which takes only about 19 minutes, during which Hans Rosling summarizes a few of the facts in a very interesting way.