Blind Spot
Tech & Society

Blind Spot

In March 2018, one of Uber’s self-driving cars became the first autonomous vehicle reported to have killed a pedestrian. A new report by U.S. authorities suggests that the accident occurred because the car’s software was programmed to ignore jaywalkers.

November 13, 20192 min read
Who’s Minding the Store?
Tech & Society

Who’s Minding the Store?

Amazon, watch your back. There’s a new player in the book business and, unlike Jeff Bezos, it doesn’t need eight hours of sleep a night. The online bookstore Booksby.ai is run entirely by AI. Neural networks write the books, create the cover art, price the merchandise, even write the reviews.

November 6, 20191 min read
Take That, Humans!
Tech & Society

Take That, Humans!

At the BlizzCon gaming convention last weekend, players of the strategy game StarCraft II stood in line to get walloped by DeepMind’s AI. After training for the better part of a year, the bot has become one of the world’s top players.

November 6, 20192 min read
Take That, Humans!
Tech & Society

Take That, Humans!

At the BlizzCon gaming convention last weekend, players of the strategy game StarCraft II stood in line to get walloped by DeepMind’s AI. After training for the better part of a year, the bot has become one of the world’s top players.

November 6, 20192 min read
Who’s Minding the Store?
Tech & Society

Who’s Minding the Store?

Amazon, watch your back. There’s a new player in the book business and, unlike Jeff Bezos, it doesn’t need eight hours of sleep a night. The online bookstore Booksby.ai is run entirely by AI. Neural networks write the books, create the cover art, price the merchandise, even write the reviews.

November 6, 20191 min read
Deepfakes Wreak Havoc
Tech & Society

Deepfakes Wreak Havoc

Will AI fakery erode public trust in the key social institutions? Generative models will flood media outlets with convincing but false photos, videos, ads, and news stories. The ensuing crisis of authority will lead to widespread distrust in everything from the financial system to democracy itself.

October 30, 20192 min read
AI Goes Rogue
Tech & Society

AI Goes Rogue

Could humanity be destroyed by its own creation? If binary code running on a computer awakens into sentience, it will be able to think better than humans. It may even be able to improve its own software and hardware.

October 30, 20191 min read
Biased Data Trains Oppressive AI
Tech & Society

Biased Data Trains Oppressive AI

Will biases in training data unwittingly turn AI into a tool for persecution? Bias encoded in software used by nominally objective institutions like, say, the justice or education systems will become impossible to root out.

October 30, 20192 min read
AI Goes Rogue
Tech & Society

AI Goes Rogue

Could humanity be destroyed by its own creation? If binary code running on a computer awakens into sentience, it will be able to think better than humans. It may even be able to improve its own software and hardware.

October 30, 20191 min read
No Escape From Surveillance
Tech & Society

No Escape From Surveillance

What does freedom mean when computers know your face and track your movements? Artificial intelligence will boost the power of surveillance, effectively making privacy obsolete and opening the door to a wide range of abuses.

October 30, 20191 min read
No Escape From Surveillance
Tech & Society

No Escape From Surveillance

What does freedom mean when computers know your face and track your movements? Artificial intelligence will boost the power of surveillance, effectively making privacy obsolete and opening the door to a wide range of abuses.

October 30, 20191 min read
Deepfakes Wreak Havoc
Tech & Society

Deepfakes Wreak Havoc

Will AI fakery erode public trust in the key social institutions? Generative models will flood media outlets with convincing but false photos, videos, ads, and news stories. The ensuing crisis of authority will lead to widespread distrust in everything from the financial system to democracy itself.

October 30, 20192 min read
Biased Data Trains Oppressive AI
Tech & Society

Biased Data Trains Oppressive AI

Will biases in training data unwittingly turn AI into a tool for persecution? Bias encoded in software used by nominally objective institutions like, say, the justice or education systems will become impossible to root out.

October 30, 20192 min read
AI Winter Sets In
Tech & Society

AI Winter Sets In

Could the flood of hype for artificial intelligence lead to a catastrophic collapse in funding? AI will fail to deliver on promises inflated by businesses and researchers. Investors will migrate to greener pastures, and AI Winter will descend.

October 30, 20192 min read
Machines Take Everyone’s Job
Tech & Society

Machines Take Everyone’s Job

From blue collar laborers to lab coated professionals, is any job safe from AI? AI will exceed human performance at a wide range of activities. Huge populations will become jobless.

October 30, 20192 min read

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