by Lucy Bernholz in Blueprint 2025…Philanthropy and Digital Civil Society: Blueprint is an annual industry forecast about the ways we use private resources for public benefit in the digital age. Each year, the Blueprint provides an overview of the current landscape, points to big ideas that matter, and directs your attention to horizons where you can expect some important breakthroughs in the coming year.
China’s ageing population: A demographic crisis is unfolding for Xi
by Laura Bicker in BBC…Over the next decade, about 300 million people, who are currently aged 50 to 60, are set to leave the Chinese workforce. This is the country’s largest age group, nearly equivalent to the size of the US population.
Godfather of AI’ shortens odds of the technology wiping out humanity over next 30 years
by Dan Milmo in The Guardian…Geoffrey Hinton says there is 10% to 20% chance AI will lead to human extinction in three decades, as change moves fast
Combining AI and Crispr will be transformational
by Jennifer Doudna in Wired.com…The genome-editing technology can be supercharged by artificial intelligence—and the results are already being felt.
Using emergence to take social innovations to scale
by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze on Margaretwheatley.com…Emergence is the fundamental scientific explanation for how local changes can materialize as global systems of influence. As a change theory, it offers methods and practices to accomplish the systems-wide changes that are so needed at this time. As leaders and communities of concerned people, we need to intentionally work with emergence so that our efforts will result in a truly hopeful future.
Collaboration and empathy as evolutionary success stories
by Daniel Christian Wahl in Medium.com…Spreading the story of why we care about life and the health of the whole and sharing the narrative of interbeing is culturally creative meta-design. By sharing the new and ancient story of interbeing we facilitate the emergence of diverse regenerative cultures scale-linked by empathy and cooperation.
More in this category
The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it
by Max Roser in Our World in Data…Very few think the world is making progress. In this article, we look at the history of global living conditions and show that the world has made immense progress in important aspects.
‘Never summon a power you can’t control’: Yuval Noah Harari on how AI could threaten democracy and divide the world
by Yuval Noah Harari in The Guardian… Forget Hollywood depictions of gun-toting robots running wild in the streets – the reality of artificial intelligence is far more dangerous, warns the historian and author in an exclusive extract from his new book
Apple Intelligence is coming. Here’s what it means for your iPhone
by Kate O’Flaherty in The Guardian…Apple is about to launch a ChatGPT-powered version of Siri as part of a suite of AI features in iOS 18. Will this change the way you use your phone – and how does it affect your privacy?
Global Displacement Forecast 2024
Danish Refugee Council writes in Global Displacement Forecast 2024…The fighting that has torn across Sudan since 15 April 2023 has turned the country into one of the
world’s largest displacement and protection crises, and one of the most dangerous environments for
humanitarians to operate in. The stage has been set for a long war.
Eric Schmidt’s AI prophecy: The next two years will shock you
by Azeem Azhar in Exponential View…While he doesn’t say it explicitly, it seems that Eric expects the next two years to be faster and more turbulent than the previous two.
Selling American bombs
by Tim Barker and Dylan Saba in Phenomenal world.com…An interview with Sarah Harrison on the mechanics of US foreign military sales
The wide boundary impacts of AI with Daniel Schmachtenberger
by Nate Hagens in The Great Simplification…Artificial intelligence has been advancing at a break-neck pace. Accompanying this is an almost frenzied optimism that AI will fix our most pressing global problems, particularly when it comes to the hype surrounding climate solutions.
Outage for Microsoft users knocks out systems for airlines and hospitals in chaotic day
by Adam Satariano, et al in The New York Times…Companies across the world reported disruptions, citing technical issues from a cybersecurity software update.
Chartbook 297: The American migration crisis.
by Adam Tooze in Chartbook….As the World Migration Report for 2024 confirms, the Mexico-US border is by some margin the largest single corridor of country-to-country migration in the world.
Ray Kurzweil still says he will merge with A.I.
by Cade Metz in The New York Times….The big leap, of course, is imagining how human consciousness would merge with a machine, and people like Mr. Kurzweil struggle to explain how exactly this would happen.
Canada’s big worry: A US civil war
by Alexander Burns in Politico…Justin Trudeau probably won’t ask Joe Biden if the U.S. is headed for a war between the states. But a report from within his government says it’s time for Canada to get ready.
Is AI lying to me? Scientists warn of growing capacity for deception
by Hannah Devlin in The Guardian….Researchers find instances of systems double-crossing opponents, bluffing, pretending to be human and modifying behaviour in tests
‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
by Yuval Abraham in +972 Magazine…The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal.
A national security insider does the math on the dangers of AI
by Lauren Goode in Wired…..Jason Matheny, CEO of the influential think tank Rand Corporation, says advances in AI are making it easier to learn how to build biological weapons and other tools of destruction.
Chartbook 268: “How can we not know?”: CAR and the challenge of tracking a silent crisis.
By Adam Tooze in Chartbook 268…It was at a moment when many of us were discussing the polycrisis as a concept with which to grasp the current world. Was an explosion of child deaths the ultimate indicator of crisis?