The History of Everyone and Everything - May/June 1999
He invented 'genetic geography' and tracks human migrations around the globe. But critics now charge that Luca Cavalli-Sforza wants to go too far. From the beginning, we humans have refused to stay put. Our earliest wanderings took us out of Africa, the birthplace of our species, and across the globe. Some groups migrating into Asia turned left and colonized Europe, supplanting the Neanderthals who lived there. Others veered right and rambled across Asia, then into Australia or the Americas. Fascinated by these ancient journeys, an Italian scientist in the 1950s had an idea: trace mass migrations not just through archaeological digs, but by tapping into the genetic clues in modern people's blood. Now 77 and an emeritus professor of genetics at Stanford, Cavalli-Sforza is considered one of the world's most distinguished geneticists. How is it, then, that Cavalli-Sforza now finds himself accused of cultural insensitivity, neocolonialism and "biopiracy"? New data?
10 Reasons an Artificial Intelligence Wouldn't Turn Evil
Awesome post.. I'm now more afraid of having my limbs chopped off, despite your skilled arguments against such a fate. Some general thoughts on the matter - I see no reason why an AI, or any set of AIs, wouldn't be susceptible to some form of irrationality, or even emotions of a very alien kind. - I tend to fear indifference as a destructive potential in powerful AIs, more than evil. Okay, yeah, if the AI is educated via message boards, we are all nuked.
10 Golden Lessons from Albert Einstein
Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving - Albert Einstein Albert Einstein was an amazing physicist. He figured out so many universal principles and equations that he was way ahead of his fellow scientists at any point of time. But he is also remembered for another thing; a quality which made people call him a genius: his words. 1. Most people don’t try new things because of their fear of failure. 2. 30 years from now, you won’t possibly remember what chapters you had in your science book; you’d only remember what you learn on your way. 3. When you reflect on how far we humans have come from the prehistoric caves to mind-blowing technological advancements, you would feel the power of imagination. 4. Creativity and uniqueness often depends on how well you hide your sources. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Artificial Intelligence will not kill us all | WISDOMINATION
Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking are worried the human race might be replaced by robots. A couple of problems with that: They never said that, until the news got exaggerated (to put it mildly) by clickbait science & tech tabloids.Although they did not say it, others did – and I disagree.It might be a good thing. From the top: such scandalising journalism is enormously irresponsible, because it warps public perception of science and technology into a cartoon, increasing the risk that important research and groundbreaking discoveries with incalculable benefits to human knowledge and well-being will (again) be opposed by misinformed screaming baboons. There is a gigantic difference between “AI researchers agree we need to develop this in beneficial and controlled ways”, which is what the open letter actually says, and “TWO GREATEST MINDS ALIVE SAY ROBOTS WILL KILL US ALL!” Now, onto the second point. An important distinction Strong AI is proper, self-aware* machine intelligence. Why common sense?
The Motivation Tool Chest
5 Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed
Cracked.com's new book is now on sale. What follows is one of 22 classic articles that appear in the book, along with 18 new articles that you can't read anywhere else. Psychologists know you have to be careful when you go poking around the human mind because you're never sure what you'll find there. Oh, we're not talking about the occasional psychopath who turns up. The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953) The Setup: Solomon Asch wanted to run a series of studies that would document the power of conformity, for the purpose of depressing everyone who would ever read the results. Subjects were told that they would be taking part in a vision test, along with a handful of people. The Result: Questions the subjects were asked were like the puzzle shown here: All they had to do was say which line on the right matched the one on the left. Yet, sadly, 32 percent of subjects would answer incorrectly if they saw that three others in the classroom gave the same wrong answer. "Wait, you're right! C.
9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier
Happiness is the only true measure of personal success. Making other people happy is the highest expression of success, but it's almost impossible to make others happy if you're not happy yourself. With that in mind, here are nine small changes that you can make to your daily routine that, if you're like most people, will immediately increase the amount of happiness in your life: 1. Start each day with expectation. If there's any big truth about life, it's that it usually lives up to (or down to) your expectations. 2. The most common source of stress is the perception that you've got too much work to do. 3. I'm not talking about a formal, wrapped-up present. 4. Arguments about politics and religion never have a "right" answer but they definitely get people all riled up over things they can't control. 5. Since you can't read minds, you don't really know the "why" behind the "what" that people do. 6. Sometimes we can't avoid scarfing something quick to keep us up and running. 7. 8. 9.
“Doomsday Seed Vault” in the Arctic – Bill Gates, Rockefeller and the GMO giants know something we don’t (2007)
One thing Microsoft founder Bill Gates can’t be accused of is sloth. He was already programming at 14, founded Microsoft at age 20 while still a student at Harvard. By 1995 he had been listed by Forbes as the world’s richest man from being the largest shareholder in his Microsoft, a company which his relentless drive built into a de facto monopoly in software systems for personal computers. In 2006 when most people in such a situation might think of retiring to a quiet Pacific island, Bill Gates decided to devote his energies to his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest ‘transparent’ private foundation as it says, with a whopping $34.6 billion endowment and a legal necessity to spend $1.5 billion a year on charitable projects around the world to maintain its tax free charitable status. So when Bill Gates decides through the Gates Foundation to invest some $30 million of their hard earned money in a project, it is worth looking at. Did we miss something here? John H.
The Art of Getting Started
This is my first blog for , and I've decided to begin at the beginning. Like many writers, I dread the start of a new piece of work, or, to put it more accurately, I dread the of the start. To begin anything is to open myself up to the possibility of failure and disappointment, two things nobody enjoys very much. Ideally, I would only ever embark on projects that were guaranteed to be perfect both in conception and execution, and were therefore also guaranteed to be anxiety-free, but as it is I am a real person doing real things in the real world, so my choice is to face the anxiety - the feeling I mentioned earlier - or never get anything done ever. Perfectionism is, apparently, functional for some people. I would even say that sometimes it works for me: its time comes later on, though, at the editing stage, when a knack for spotting problems and a certain finicky to detail are actually quite useful for a writer. More often, though, it's caused me grief .
