Climate. Ecosystems. Economic Wellbeing. Employment. Energy Systems. Food Systems. National Governance. Health & Wellbeing. Human Life. Sector Disruptions. Tech Infrastructure. Trust & Identity. When Urban Developers Lose Touch with Reality. Ciudad Valdeluz, Spain, 2014.Christopher Marcinkoski Cities don't usually pop up out of nowhere.
For centuries, urban areas grew in incremental steps as populations blossomed and the economic climate steadily got better. That's changing. Speculative urbanization refers to the phenomenon where developments form at a rapid rate — not in response to demand, but in anticipation of it. In places like China and India, suburban housing compounds, vanity infrastructure projects, and office parks are constructed to generate economic gains, attract urbanites, and project an image of influence and competitiveness. Over the last decade, architect and urban designer Christopher Marcinkoski has investigated the cultural and economic triggers responsible for speculative urbanization. He hopes his research serves as a warning to urban planners and governments. Alcorcón South Extension, Alcorcón, Spain, 2002.PNOA It might be time for designers and elected officials to rethink how cities expand.
Researcher Explains His Biggest Fears About the Future of AI. As an artificial intelligence researcher, I often come across the idea that many people are afraid of what AI might bring.
It’s perhaps unsurprising, given both history and the entertainment industry, that we might be afraid of a cybernetic takeover that forces us to live locked away, Matrix-like, as some sort of human battery. And yet it is hard for me to look up from the evolutionary computer models I use to develop AI, to think about how the innocent virtual creatures on my screen might become the monsters of the future. Might I become “the destroyer of worlds,” as Oppenheimer lamented after spearheading the construction of the first nuclear bomb?
I would take the fame, I suppose, but perhaps the critics are right. Maybe I shouldn’t avoid asking: As an AI expert, what do I fear about artificial intelligence? Fear of the unforeseen That resulted in systems that could never be completely understood, and could fail in unpredictable ways. Fear of misuse. Super-Intelligence & Eternal Life: Transhumanism's Faithful Follow it Blindly into a Future for the Elite. The rapid development of so-called NBIC technologies – nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science – are giving rise to possibilities that have long been the domain of science fiction.
Disease, ageing and even death are all human realities that these technologies seek to end. They may enable us to enjoy greater “morphological freedom” – we could take on new forms through prosthetics or genetic engineering. Or advance our cognitive capacities. We could use brain-computer interfaces to link us to advanced artificial intelligence (AI). Nanobots could roam our bloodstream to monitor our health and enhance our emotional propensities for joy, love or other emotions.
Backing Up Consciousness for the Survival of Humanity. We may live in a Universe that is expanding but the one constant in our world is that it seems to be heading toward the extinction of the biological human species.
Not getting into mass extinction events like a global pandemic, nuclear war, a major sunburst, there are things happening that can seriously impact the future of the human race. There is a lot of talk about global warming, man-made or not, but there is no denying that something is happening. “In 2016, surface temperatures on Earth were the warmest that they have been since modern recordkeeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This is the third year in a row that a new global temperature record has been set. The UK Met Office and Japan Meteorological Agency have announced similar findings.” (1) According to NASA and many Scientists, sea levels are rising because of arctic ice melt. What makes someone human? Human & Ecological Costs of Bitcoin & the Blockchain.