Aftermath News of the Week
Department of Competing End of the World Scenarios
Ian Steadman of How We Get to Next asks: “Will AI Robots Defend Us From Asteroids?”
We’ve turned to artificial intelligence and machine learning — in essence, teaching a computer how to learn by itself, so that it becomes better and better at a set task without needing a human programmer to fine-tune it. It’s not the all-encompassing AI Skynet from the Terminator movie series, but it’s along the same lines. Just ignore all that business with the nuclear bombs and time travel.
Hmm. So if Skynet protects us from Asteroids, will it be worth it? Seems like an idea for a novel.
So are robots about to take over?
Duncan Geere (also of How We Get to Next) has doubts:
Yet as our writers began exploring the topic, it swiftly became clear that the current generation of bots isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Over and over again, we learned that the technology just isn’t there for bots to forge meaningful relationships with humans. We’re still deep in uncanny-valley territory, where the harder bots try to be human-like, the worse their inevitable mistakes appear.
The only success stories seem to emerge when bots don’t try to be human at all — when they try and help interpret animal communication, for example, or form plant-like networks instead . . . In short, they’re not going to take over the world. Yet.
Actually I’m not sure if that last part follows. What makes us think that AI has to try to be human in order to take over the world?
The Walking Dead Without Zombies?
Catherine Burns reports on BBC that The Walking Dead television show “nearly had no zombies and could have been a crime show.” (CSI meets Night of the Living Dead? More great ideas…)
Interesting Book of the Week: The Sunlight Pilgrims
It’s 2020, the polar ice caps are melting, it’s snowing in Israel. Economic collapse, overflowing rivers, bodies frozen in the streets.
In this novel by Scottish writer Jenni Fagan, (author of The Panopticon), is about quirky characters in a small community who try to deal with a world that’s falling apart. Cath Barton provides a review.
Finally, from PC Magazine: Ways to Generate Power After the Apocalypse
I recommend bookmarking this so you’ll be able to refer to it as long as you still have battery power and a wifi connection. Hopefully after the apocalypse there will be fewer ads to scroll through on the slideshow too.
What did I miss? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter.
See you next week!
Lakis
