by Tess McClure in The Guardian…As populations move and shrink, people are leaving long-occupied places behind. Often they leave everything in place, ready for a return that never comes. In Tyurkmen, Christmas baubles still hang from the curtain rails in empty houses, slowly being wrapped by spiders. In one abandoned home, a porcelain cabinet lay inside a crater of rotted floorboards, plates still stacked above a spare packet of nappies for a visiting grandchild. Occasionally, abandonment happens all at once, when a legal ruling or evacuation sends people scuttling. But mostly, it is haphazard, creeping, unplanned. People just go.
I’m finally into ‘prepping’ and ready for the apocalypse
by Eva Wiseman in The Guardian…Piles of loo paper, a years worth of tinned goods and snake-proof boots. No wonder prepping has become a lifestyle choice
The forces of chance
by Brian Klaas in aeon…Social scientists cling to simple models of reality – with disastrous results. Instead they must embrace chaos theory
AI Snake Oil—A New Book by 2 Princeton University Computer Scientists
by Eric Topol in Ground Truths….A Counter to the Hype and Some Misleading Claims
Yuval Noah Harari on the eclipsing of human intelligence
Sean Illing of The Gray Area interviews Yuval Noah Harari…If the internet age has anything like an ideology, it’s that more information and more data and more openness will create a better world. The reality is more complicated. It has never been easier to know more about The world than it is right now, and it has never been easier to share that knowledge than it is right now. But I don’t think you can look at the state of things and conclude that this has been a victory for truth and wisdom. What are we to make of that? More information might not be the solution, but neither is more ignorance.
Scaling: The state of play in AI
by Ethan Mollick in One Useful Thing…With continued advancements in model architecture and training techniques, we’re approaching a new frontier in AI capabilities. The independent AI agents that tech companies have long promised are likely just around the corner. These systems will be able to handle complex tasks with minimal human oversight, with wide-ranging implications. As the pace of AI development seems more certain to accelerate, we need to prepare for both the opportunities and challenges ahead.
More in this category
Systemic wisdom for and beyond systems change – A critical systems perspective convening not only indigenous traditions of wisdom
by Louis Klein in EUSG.org…Systemic wisdom facilitates the re-entry of trust and love into science. And though this challenges the modern worldviews and the contemporary self-perception of sciences, it allows for translating knowing into understanding and knowledge into wisdom. We may lose the option of heroic systems change, yet we gain the possibility to realise a humanising society embedded in systemic wisdom.
Intertwined and interconnected: Can you discern?
by Janet Harvey in Invite Change.com ..Have you ever wondered about the intricate web of influences that shape your business? Are your leaders equipped with the necessary discernment and systemic thinking to navigate today’s complex landscape? In this blog, I uncover these interwoven and interconnected forces. Explore this critical topic and delve into the importance of preparedness in the face of these interconnected dynamics.
The AI age begins
by Peter Leyden in The Great Progression….The beginning of a step change in human capabilities as well as a new season of events and media coming out of ground zero San Francisco
Chartbook 262 crisis tribes – on Europe now
By Adam Tooze in Chartbook…Revisiting the politics of trauma in Europe’s election year
Visualizing the top global risks in 2024
from the World Economic Forum….From a broader perspective, key structural forces are influencing global risks looking ahead. They include technological acceleration, climate change, shifts in geopolitical power, and a widening demographic divide.
The actual risks of generative AI – extended quotes
by Peter Leyden in The Great Progression….I would say that probably even 10 years from now, if you want to get the most objective and comprehensive advice or information on any subject, you’re going to consult a machine, not a human being.
The many, many positive possibilities of generative AI
by Peter Leyden in The Great Progression…The positive counter-narrative that eventually will supersede the gloom & doom stories that are currently clouding the take off of this amazing new technology
Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
by Thor Bensen in Wired.com….The AI era promises a flood of disinformation, deepfakes, and hallucinated “facts.” Psychologists are only beginning to grapple with the implications.
The A.I. dilemma
by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin presented by Center for Human Technology….The A.I. Dilemma.
Fareed Zakaria on where Russia’s war in Ukraine stands — and much more
The Ezra Klein Show interviews Fareed Zakaria…..A lot about the world has changed since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
A.I. poses ‘Risk of Extinction,’ industry leaders warn
by Kevin Roose in The New York Times…Executives from three of the leading A.I. companies, including Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, have signed an open letter warning of the risks of artificial intelligence.
AI and the future of humanity
By Yuval Noah Harari at the Frontier Forum…..In this keynote and Q&A, Yuval Noah Harari summarizes and speculates on ‘AI and the future of humanity’
Why Peru’s crisis is worth studying closely by democracies everywhere
by José Carlos Agüero, The Washington Post…Ever since Peruvian President Pedro Castillo’s failed power grab exactly three months ago, protests have been roiling the country almost every single day.
The permaweird
The Last Men at the End of History cannot sustain any sense of collective urgency for any length of time at the important scales. And mere individual or even tribal actions do nothing to alleviate the sense of collective, even universal, crisis-in-waiting. The world is now too complex for that to work.
Why the world feels so unstable right now
For many of us, life seems to progress smoothly and predictably for much of the time. Indeed, it seems one of our biggest concerns appears to be getting stuck in a rut. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, our world is turned upside down.