Now, let's say you're searching on Google for videos about becoming a software developer. Instead of just typing, become a software developer into Google's search box, you will probably be better off searching for the phrase explicitly.To do this, simply enclose whatever it is you are searching for within double quotes. Example: "become a software developer."

Explicit Phrase

If you want to find pages with your search query mentioned in the URL, type allinurl: immediately followed by your search query.

Words in the URL

Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term.Simply use the site: somesite.com modifier.

Search Within a Website

Let's say you want to search for every website that cites your own website article on their website. To do this, use the link: command, immediately followed by the name of a page.Google will give you web pages that link your official website. The more specific the URL is, the fewer, more pointed results you'll get.

A Page That Links to Another Page

productivity

Productivity

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Googling Is a Skill: 4 Advanced Search Tips to Ask Google the Right Way

Wordle moved from its original web address to one run by the New York Times (NYT) last weekend and some players are not happy.﻿Those still playing the daily word game on the original website - because they downloaded it or have not refreshed their browser - are getting different words to solve from the NYT version.That is because the paper has removed five-letter words it deemed offensive.But it has denied the other big fans' complaint - that it has got harder.

Changes In The Popular Word Game

The game, which asks players to find a five-letter word each day with clues along the way, has grown in popularity from fewer than 100 players in November to millions by the end of January.The NYT denied any changes to gameplay, but it did admit that it was in the process of removing "offensive words" which included whore, slave and wench from both the list of acceptable guesses and the answers.

No More Five Letter Swear Words

Wordle isn't fun since the New York Times took over. Is it just me?

Players also ask whether the word game has got more difficult, but the paper denies it has changed.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

business

Business

Wordle: New York Times changes upset fans

“This is not a race against the machines. If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You’ll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. Ninety percent of your coworkers will be unseen machines.”

According to Kelly, much of the future technological forces are inevitable. Twelve trends will change the ways in which we work, learn and communicate. If you can position yourself to leverage these changes, you will do well in the next three decades.

The future of technology

In the future, everything will depend on upgrading. We will be perpetual “newbies” trying to keep up. We’ll be in a constant flux of learning and change. Being in constant motion, we will no longer notice the motion, and big changes can catch us off guard.  We have instant access to over 60 trillion pages on the web, from music, encyclopaedia, weather forecasts, satellite images, news, road maps, stock quotes. No one anticipated this wealth of material created by the audience. Yet the greatest accomplishments are still ahead of us. In terms of the internet, nothing has happened yet.

Becoming: Always upgrading services and subscriptions

In the future, everything will be intelligent. Genuine AI will plug into the grid, like electricity. You will take X and add AI. For example, phone cameras added computation and erased the need for glass lenses. Similar changes will happen in other areas such as chemistry, investing, music, and law. In this century, 70% of jobs will be replaced by automation - yours included. Our jobs will be to teach machines how to do our old jobs.

Cognifying: Making everything smarter using cheap AI

In the future, everything will be copied. Our previous economy was built on warehoused full of fixed goods. Now we value intangibles. Cars become transportation services. Desktop files move from webs and pages to clouds and streams. Now we don’t desire free music and movies. Instead, we want the flexibility to remix songs, sample soundtracks and link things to other things.

Flowing: Depending on unstoppable streams in realtime for everything

In the future, everything will be linked and tagged.  Wikipedia is a stream of edits and the first networked book. In the future, all information will be cross-linked. We watch our screens, and our screens will watch us.

Screening: Turning all surfaces into screens

Society will shift from one where we own assets to one where instead we will have access to services at all times. In the future, we will have everything available immediately, without owning it. Uber owns no vehicles. Airbnb owns no real estate. So whatever you need, you will be able to get the best and latest.

Accessing: You will own nothing

In the future, everything will be shared. Over 1.4 billion people share their lives on Facebook in an informational commune.  The volume of creative work in the next decade will far surpass the last 50 years. More artists, authors, musicians. Any idea, thought, or artefact can be contributed to and experienced by anyone if they want.

Sharing: Collaboration at mass scale

In the future, you won't have the time to read anything. We'll need to filter down what we like, what our friends like, the stuff we should like, and that which would surprise us.

Filtering: Harnessing intense personalization to anticipate our desires

In the future, everything will rely on remixing. For example, a Hollywood blockbuster can take a million people-hours to produce, but millions of video clips are shared every day. These clips rely on remixing. We will expect scroll-back functions. In the future, immersive environments and virtual realities will be able to scroll back to earlier states.

Remixing: Recombining parts in all possible ways

In the future, we will record everything we do - car movements, highway traffic, mail, cell phone locations, credit card transactions, internet activities, fitness data. Measuring all the aspects of ourselves will create personal treatments and medicines.  Billions of things will track themselves too.  For example. every car manufactured since 2006 records miles driven, speed, sudden braking, speed of turns, and gas mileage.

Tracking: Employing total surveillance

In the future, everything will be immersive. 
Virtual reality feels authentic. The best VR will create a deep engagement with other people, even enabling you to make eye contact with people in VR.

Interacting: Immersing ourselves inside our computers to maximize engagement

Billions of connected people are creating a new level of organisation. Wikipedia was considered to be impossible. Crazy and improbable things happen all the time, and are then broadcasted on YouTube. 
Impossible things happening now are because a new level of organisation is enabled by instant connectivity. In the future, we will have a trillion times increase.

Questioning: Promoting good questions. The improbable will be the new normal

In the future, everything will become part of one very large thing.
People will link themselves together on a planetary scale. Each time we click a link, we train the global mind. In 30 years, people will look back and say, "that was the birth of the era we are living in."

Beginning: Constructing a system connecting all humans and machines into a global matrix

Kevin Kelly - a digital visionary - describes the twelve trends of the next 30 years that will change how we live.

“A quintessential work of technological futurism.” – James Surowiecki, strategy + business, “Best Business Books 2017 – Innovation” From one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the twelve technological imperatives that will shape the next thirty years and transform our lives Much of what will happen in the next thirty years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—interacting, cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.

books

Books

“A quintessential work of technological futurism.” – James Surowiecki, strategy + business, “Best Business Books 2017 – Innovation” From one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the twelve technological imperatives that will shape the next thirty years and transform our lives Much of what will happen in the next thirty years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—interacting, cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.

Kevin Kelly

The Inevitable

Microsoft has released the first preview of its Android app support in Windows 11 to testers in the Windows Insider program. Apps will be listed in the Microsoft Store, but users will be sent to Amazon's Appstore to get them installed or updated. The apps will run in a virtual machine side by side with other Windows apps. There are only 50 apps officially available with the preview. More details on the preview, including screenshots of the setup process and Android apps running on Windows, are available.

Windows 11 Is Coming

Chrome OS Flex is a new version of Chrome OS designed to run on PCs and Macs. It is designed for businesses and schools and can be installed within minutes. The OS looks and feels identical to Chrome OS on a Chromebook, but some features may be dependent on the hardware that it is running on. Chrome OS Flex is still in early access mode. It can be booted from a USB drive without being installed.

A Leaner, More Flexible Chrome OS

The genetic variety produced through sexual reproduction provides a significant evolutionary advantage. Asexual reproduction appears to be exceedingly unfavorable in the long run. Scientists have confirmed, through an analysis of genome data, that a species of mite has reproduced completely asexually for at least thousands of years. The scientists' next step is to find out how the species survived through this method.

Science: The Beetle That Survived Thousands Of Years Without Mating

Sony’s new LinkBuds are an open-style earbud with a unique and comfortable style, fantastic voice call performance, and a transparency mode to keep wearers aware of their surroundings. The battery lasts around 5.5 hours with an additional 12 hours through case recharges. They are made using recycled materials, giving them a speckled look out of the factory. The earbuds come in black or white and weigh around four grams each.

Tech Hardware: Sony LinkBuds

Facebook employees, who have been colloquially known as 'Facebookers', will now be known as 'Metamates'. The change comes after an all-hands meeting detailing the company's new direction. Facebook is not the only company that uses these types of phrases to refer to its employees. The new nickname for workers comes with new company values such as being direct and respectful of colleagues.

Zuckerberg Tells Facebook Employees They Are Now 'Metamates'

Google search results are dying as most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust. Most people now use Google to search through Reddit posts for answers. Serving ads creates misaligned incentives for search engines, SEO has resulted in poor quality sites surfacing to the top of search results, and AI now tries to figure out what the user wants rather than through only search terms. Reddit results are more authentic as people discuss what they think without the commercial aspect other websites have.

Google Search Is Dying

Microsoft has released the first preview of its Android app support in Windows 11 to testers in the Windows Insider program. Apps will be listed in...

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

computerscience

Computer Science

product

Product & Design

Tech News 16 Feb 2022

Tesla predicted the advent of smartphones in the 21th century and it was his most proven prediction

Smartphones and Tv

"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance"

He predicted that we can ride from New York to London in few hours,  and flying machines will carry no fuel and will be free from any limitations of the present airplanes and dirigibles...Well, I must admit that the first part is very plausible, but we should wait for the second part!

Flying Machines

"It is more than probable that the household's daily newspaper will be printed 'wirelessly' in the home during the night" That was in 1920!

Wireless Printing Newspapers at Home 

He predicted the rise of the female species to become superior to men. But he didn't mean that in a favorable way. In fact, given his convictions at the time, he was frightened that women would become "victims" of their own success.

Female Superiority, For Better and Worse

Tesla predicted eugenics, and that in the future, marriages may be subject to prior state authorization. Governments can force a sterilization of an individual if they estimate that he does not have favorable genes.In my opinion, this prediction would be the most miserable if it ever comes true

Perfection of Humanity

Some predictions may come true and some not. But it's important to see how great and brilliant scientists as Tesla was imagining the future!

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Nikola Tesla's Incredible Predictions For Our Connected World

7 Things to learn if you want to create the life you want.

How To Create The Life That You Want In 1 Year?

Doing a life audit is crucial for pinpointing where to make adjustments and jumpstarting your new journey. Start by figuring out where you stand in the 8 areas of life - health, finances, personal development, career, relationship, self-care, home life and free time.What changes would you make the biggest impact in your life for each area?

1. Do A Life Audit

Your mindset is what sets the tone for everything in your life. Changing your mindset is what will change your life. What we think and believe is what we act upon.Change your perspective - From now on anytime anything negative happens, instead of feeling like a victim, ask yourself what you can change or control.

2.Make A Mindset Shift

Having a vision means we have a clear sense of purpose. It means we have a much larger picture of our business, or our life, than simply setting and reaching short-term goals and tackling problems as they come along.Visions are driven by passion and dreams, and they are reflected through real efforts to create real results.

3.Create A Vision 

Once you have your vision, the fog lifts and your roadmap starts to become clear again.But, nobody is going to drive the car for you- you got to put in the work to achieve your goals and change your own life.Consistent, daily practice is how you make that happen. If you watered the plants just a little each day, overtime your garden always grew.

4.Work On Yourself Daily

If you want to change your life, YOU aren't the only thing that has to change- your environment has to change too. For example, if you always hang out with negative thinking people, you'll tend to believe the limitations they're setting for you.However, if you hang out with other "doer's" and people who want to see you succeed, there is a much higher chance that you will.

5. Design Your Environment For Success 

Nothing will change your life faster than building new skills. Whatever the case, imagine a year where you start out having a limited skill-set. Dedicate time during your day to build your skills.Learn them via books, videos and podcasts, but don't forget to physically practice your skills too.

6. Learn New Skills And Improve Upon Your Existing Ones

The whole point of this exercise is to CHANGE. That means your thoughts and behaviours, in addition to your surroundings, will change throughout the year.You may realise that what you initially sought isn't what you want anymore.Don't get so focused on the process that you lose sight of what YOU want and most important.....having fun

7. Lastly, Enjoy The Process 

Everyone wants to live their life the way they want and that's perfectly OK. But the real question is, HOW. How can we live a life we like? Here are 7 steps you must take to create a life that yiu want to live.

How To Live A Dream Life?

Communication technology has created the expectation of people being always and instantly available. A 2021 survey found that 30% of Americans are constantly online. This is because most people have mobile phones with platforms of communication and can respond immediately. Added is that apps and social media have ingrained 24/7 communication into our lives.

Digital availability / 24-hour burden

Message-senders expect immediate replies. They may get annoyed and ride an emotional roller coaster when a message isn't immediately answered. 'Maybe something bad happened.' 'Maybe he's mad at me.' The sender may wonder why they can't just respond with a busy now, talk later. These negative feelings can increase when sending a joke or meme and expecting a quick haha or a simple emoji. Part of what cause these uncomfortable feelings is that there's no universal agreed-upon etiquette for behaviour in a 24/7 digital world.

The nagging feeling

In other areas of our lives, we have clearly defined norms we regard as 'correct.' For example, when you share big news with someone, an immediate congratulations is generally expected, while a delayed response may seem rude. In a 24/7 digital world, not everyone agrees on norms. When people get annoyed by a non-response, they may project their own norms or rules onto others as if their standards are universal.

Notification norms

If you get angry about a slow or non reply, it may help to remember that you're projecting your own anxieties on the recipient when you don't know what is going on with the other person. When you have a friend whose communication patterns are annoying, perhaps an open and honest discussion might be needed. If you find that you blood is boiling, it may be best to just put down the phone for some time.

What we can do

You sent a text – but it’s been an hour, and your friend hasn’t replied to your message yet. Why are you so angry about it?

communication

Communication

The crippling expectation of 24/7 digital availability

The term “zero-day” refers to a newly discovered software vulnerability and the fact that developers have zero days to fix the problem because it has been — and has the potential to be — exploited by hackers. Sometimes written as 0-day, zero-day definitions run the gamut: A zero-day vulnerability, also known as a zero-day threat, is a flaw in security software that’s unknown to someone interested in mitigating the flaw, like a developer. A zero-day exploit is when hackers take advantage of a zero-day vulnerability for malicious reasons, oftentimes by way of malware to commit a cyberattack.

1. Zero-day definitions:

Security software vulnerabilities can come in many forms, including unencrypted data, broken algorithms, bugs, or weak passwords. What makes a vulnerability a zero-day is when someone interested in mitigating the flaw is unaware of it, meaning an official patch or update to fix the flaw doesn’t exist. Once the vulnerability is discovered, it is no longer considered a zero-day.

2. What makes a vulnerability a zero-day?

Zero-day attacks begin with zero-day vulnerabilities, meaning flaws or holes in security software. These can result from improper computer or security configurations or programming errors by developers themselves. The whole notion of a zero-day attack is that cyber attackers exploit these vulnerabilities without developers knowing. Cyberattackers might write — or purchase from the dark web — exploit codes to spot these vulnerabilities. When they do, it’s akin to a welcome mat for a zero-day attack.

3. How do zero-day attacks work?

While software developers are constantly looking to patch security vulnerabilities we see this in the form of software updates cyberattackers are constantly seeking to exploit them. And there are many types of cyberattackers, each with its own motivations: Cybercriminals or hackers are often financially motivated Hacktivists are motivated by drawing attention to a cause social or political Corporate espionage artists are motivated by spying on companies Cyberwarfare attackers can be countries or independent malicious actors who want to compromise a cybersecurity infrastructure as an act of war

4. Who conducts zero-day attacks?

Victims, including individuals businesses, or organizations government agencies, And if you’re an everyday computer user, a zero-day vulnerability can pose serious security risks because exploited malware can infect operating systems, web browsers, applications, open-source components, hardware, even IoT devices through otherwise harmless web browsing activities. This can include viewing a website, opening a compromised message, or playing infected media.

5. Who are the victims of zero-day exploits?

Oftentimes, zero-day vulnerabilities are detected when it’s too late — when they’re exploited, that is. There are some more technical ways to identify zero-day vulnerabilities, including scanning internet traffic, examining codes of incoming files, and leveraging malware detection methods. For everyday computer users, antivirus software can take out some of this guesswork for you. What’s more, avoiding zero-day exploits and vulnerabilities from the start can go a long way.

6. How to identify zero-day vulnerabilities:

Even as we can’t always detect these vulnerabilities, we can protect our devices and data in the event an exploit does occur. Consider these proactive and reactive security measures. Keep software up to date to ensure security patches are in place and to reduce the risk of malware infection. Limit your applications because the less you have downloaded, the less data you’re putting at risk. Use a firewall to monitor and block suspicious activity, such as zero-day exploits. Educate yourself on zero-day exploits and seek out solutions when zero-day vulnerabilities are discovered.

7. How to avoid zero-day exploits and vulnerabilities:

inally, don’t underestimate the threat of zero-day exploits. Cybercriminals will seek to exploit security holes and gain access to your devices and your personal information. They can use your information for a range of cybercrimes including identity theft, bank fraud, and ransomware. Just consider these recent and headline-making examples of zero-day exploits.

8. Examples of zero-day exploits:

Google Chrome fell victim to several zero-day threats, attributed to a bug in JavaScript.

Google Chrome, 2021:

Hackers exploited a vulnerability in the video conferencing platform that allowed them to take remote control over PCs.

Zoom, 2020:

A bug in Apple’s iOS software allowed hackers to compromise devices from remote locations.

Apple, 2020:

Government agencies across Eastern Europe saw their Microsoft Windows software exploited, resulting in suspicious apps being installed, data changed, and programs compromised.

Microsoft Windows, 2019:

Individual computer users saw their bank accounts compromised after opening a Microsoft Word document containing zero-day malware.

Microsoft Word, 2017:

A self-replicating computer worm disrupted Iranian nuclear plants, taking control of computers and altering the speed of centrifuges in the plants, ultimately shutting them down. Stuxnet isn’t only one of the earliest zero-day exploits used, but it’s also one of the most famous. The zero-day attack was even made into a documentary, appropriately titled “Zero Days.”

Stuxnet, 2010:

zero-day malware or more broadly as a zero-day exploit. And they might deliver this by way of social engineering tactics or phishing. Once the zero-day exploit is downloaded on devices, the zero-day attack is executed. The havoc that ensues can include: Data is stolen Hackers taking remote control of devices Other malware installed Files corrupted Contact list accessed and sending spam messages Spyware installed to steal sensitive information Since zero-day attacks are inherently stealthy, it can take months or even years for these zero-day exploits to be realized.

Zero-day Malware 

Nowadays it is important to be aware of this kind of thing, So just Trying to add Value...

cybersecurity

Cybersecurity

Zero-day vulnerability: What it is, and how it works

We make decisions using systems that rest on ancient evolutionary gifts. The last 50 years of behavioral science have established that, in a way, the brain can be thought of as two brains: a fast-thinking brain and a slow-thinking brain. This idea was popularized in Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow .

Human Behavior Is Pattern-Based 

The fast-thinking brain is the one we’ve had for around 30 million years. We have aspects of it in common with primates and monkeys, and it is the system that allows us to make rapid decisions without having to talk it through or blow any calories. This system allows us to make all kinds of decisions, like what food we’re going to eat, what people were going to trust, and which dangers might slide into our lives.

The Fast-Thinking Brain

The other brain is the slow-thinking brain, which is a much more recent development in evolutionary terms. It’s probably only about 70,000 to 100,000 years old. This is the system that we use to make creative, cautious, rational decisions, and it’s super glitchy, according to the people who study it. It’s the system that we use to invent things like law and art. It’s also central to what we think of as being human. Researchers have discovered that we use our fast-thinking, instinctive brain most of the time, but we think we’re using our creative, cautious, rational mind most of the time.

The Slow-Thinking Brain

Pattern-based behavior turns out to have everything to do with using our fast-thinking brain. When you put that brain under pressure and starve it of some essential information, it makes all kinds of decisions in ways that we can predict using formulas. Those predictable patterns in human behavior make us ripe for exploitation by pattern-based systems like AI.

Pattern-Based Behavior And Pattern-Based Systems - Us And AI

Companies are using AI to predict patterns you don’t even know you have. You can experience this in many ways in your day-to-day life. If you let Spotify recommend a song to you, it will probably do a pretty good job. If you watch a YouTube video, the next one the platform recommends will probably be one that you would be interested in watching. There’s almost no category of technologically-driven company that isn’t trying to predict what you will do next, and they’re increasingly using AI for that purpose.

Systems “See” Patterns Where Humans Don’t

This deployment by companies is taking forms we never saw coming. It’s not just being used to recommend a song or a video you might like; it’s being used to recommend who gets a job, who gets a loan, or who gets bail. In theory, all of these things can be done by a pattern-recognition algorithm.

From A Song And A Video To A Loan And A Bail

The problem is that those algorithms are not as smart as we think they are, and we basically get addicted to using them. Through over-reliance, we would approach a place where we won’t know how to make those decisions without that kind of system involved, and those systems are going to shape our behavior in invisible ways that we will irresistibly follow.

Patterns On Top Of Patterns

AI is really just an ability to take an unstructured set of variables, a big mess of data that a human being could never take the time to look through, and find patterns. It will discern that if X and Y conditions are met, then Z outcome is probable. Take, for example, a system that distinguishes between dogs and cows. Let’s say you’ve got a room full of dogs and cows, and you ask the AI system to distinguish between them. It would find whatever variables it could that best predict the difference.

AI Is A Lot Simpler Than We Think

What’s missing from so much of the talk about AI is understanding how simple its process is. An AI might look at dogs and cows and find the easiest variables to distinguish between those two categories, such as size or basic behaviors, and so it renders a verdict. It says this is a cow, and this is a dog . The problem is we humans look at that and think, wow, this thing is amazing. It’s a dog and cow expert!  But the truth is, it doesn’t actually know anything about dogs and cows. It only knows the bare minimum information it needs for picking patterns that allow it to tell the difference.

Telling Cows From Dogs Isn’t Exactly Genius

This is true no matter what you throw at an AI system. If you have an AI system trying to determine which person in a photograph is most likely to be a security threat, it’s going to use the same comparatively stupid way of drawing a distinction that it might use to draw a distinction between dogs and cows. Yet when you ask the makers of an AI system how their algorithms know the difference between these two things, the creators may not know. They are not legally required to know, and it’s not a technical requirement for the system. They don’t really know how their AI works most of the time.

Knowing Is Being Able To Explain. AI Can’t Do That. 

In many surveys, it’s been shown that leaders of companies who rely on AI systems to make important decisions don’t care how it works because it works well enough. Combine all that with the fact that we humans are prone to believing the verdicts of systems we don’t understand, and you wind up in a dangerous situation. We take, on faith, the verdict of relatively simple systems that no one is able to actually look inside.

Judging Is Forming An Opinion. AI Can’t Do That Either. 

When Jacob Ward speaks to people who want to deploy AI for socially beneficial reasons, they complain that their clients—the museums, governments, and social service agencies that could benefit from AI—don’t have the money or the sophistication to deploy it.

Good AI Is Perfectly Possible, But Money Tends To Ruin It

For instance, one researcher was telling him that if someone gave him an AI system and access to all of the birth certificates issued in the United States each year, he could specifically identify which apartments need to be stripped and repainted to avoid lead poisoning of millions of children a year. It would be an incredibly useful purpose to put AI to. The trouble is, nobody’s making money taking lead paint out of buildings.

Benefit Is Good. But Profit Is Better. 

People are deploying AI to do things like figure out which movie script is going to be the most successful with an audience, or mediate between parents who are fighting over child custody. Those are both real uses of AI. There is an experimental system coming out that guides the conversational style between customer service agents and their clients, as well as guiding conversation style between colleagues. AI is being deployed predominantly for financial gain, but likely its greatest use could be for nonprofits.

The Real Uses Of AI Prove That

When we think about our fast-thinking brain and our slow-thinking brain, consider that nobody makes money selling to your slow-thinking, creative, cautious, rational brain. They want to sell to your ancient, instinctive, snake-detection system. They want to trigger your fast-thinking brain to do something unconsciously and instinctively. That is a huge part of how people are making money, and especially making money off of AI.

Which Mind Would You Be More Successful Selling Something To?

It is always going to be the case that AI can make us money and save us time by being deployed on a problem. There is no guarantee that it would solve the problem in an ethically viable way, but it could make a problem easier to deal with, like require fewer employees. All sorts of benefits can accrue when you sic AI on a problem.

AI, Like Our Fast-Thinking Brain, Is Certainly A Fit Fixer

As one federal judge put it to Jacob Ward, you could make the act of entering a guilty or not guilty plea far easier than it is now by deploying AI. Right now, you have to go to court, enter a plea in person, and jump through all sorts of hoops. Even though you could make that far more efficient, such as a right-or-left swipe on a phone, you don’t want to do that. The system is designed as it is in order to trigger your slow-thinking brain. You are made to stop and think about it.

But We, Like Our Slow-Thinking Brain, Are The Only Fit Judge

There are all sorts of examples of ways we could make modern life more efficient. We could make it more efficient to figure out who to arrest, who gets a job, and who gets a home loan. But should we? Maybe instead we should encode some inefficiencies, some fundamental human values, that make the difference between our ancient, instinctive selves and our modern selves who are trying to create law and rationality and art and justice. In order to be the best version of ourselves, we may need to push back against technology that is trying to make money off the people we never intended to be.

We Need To Learn Our Patterns And Preserve Our Inefficiencies

The most obvious patterns in our behavior—patterns an algorithm will use to make decisions about what's best for us—are not the ones we want to perpetuate.

Technology journalist Jacob Ward shares 5 key insights from his new book, The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back

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Googling Is a Skill: 4 Advanced Search Tips to Ask Google the Right Way

Wordle: New York Times changes upset fans

The Inevitable

Tech News 16 Feb 2022

Nikola Tesla's Incredible Predictions For Our Connected World

How To Live A Dream Life?

The crippling expectation of 24/7 digital availability

Zero-day vulnerability: What it is, and how it works

The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back

How to Get a Friend to Put Away Their Phone Without Being a Jerk

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

Googling Is a Skill: 4 Advanced Search Tips to Ask Google the Right Way

Wordle: New York Times changes upset fans

The Inevitable

Tech News 16 Feb 2022

Nikola Tesla's Incredible Predictions For Our Connected World

How To Live A Dream Life?

The crippling expectation of 24/7 digital availability

Zero-day vulnerability: What it is, and how it works

The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back

How to Get a Friend to Put Away Their Phone Without Being a Jerk

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.