Clipboard Brief: #4

Some interesting things I came across recently —

1. How Intelligent Drones are Shaping the Future of Warfare (Rolling Stone)
   Described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms, autonomous technologies like swarm micro-drones and loitering munitions are changing the human cost of warfare. Will the absence of an international consensus to govern how autonomous technology can be developed and weaponized, lead to a twenty-first century arms race?
2. The Key to Human Consciousness — a Chess Puzzle (The Telegraph)
   A cryptic crossword published in The Daily Telegraph on January 13 1942 played a crucial role in helping allies win the Second World War (a scene in The Imitation Game depicts actress Keira Knightley solving a crossword only to find herself among code-breakers at Bletchley Park). Seventy-five years later, the same paper has published a chess puzzle to help an Oxford mathematician spot talent for an attempt to crack the code of human ingenuity.
3. A New Social Security System for the Sharing Economy (Democracy Journal)
   While the technological economy of the twenty-first century has seen some success in solving the simultaneous equation of unmet needs and unused resources, it is also changing the nature of employment by recasting full-time employees into contractors, vendors and temporary workers. The authors argue that a new economy based on micro-employment requires the accrual of micro-benefits and needs a new social contract — designed to fit flexible employment relationships — that assures shared economic security and broad prosperity.
   A 2013 article touched a similar theme in the Indian context.
4. Why India Should Scrap Parliamentary Democracy (Project Syndicate)
   Opposition MP Dr Shashi Tharoor makes a case for India to drop its parliamentary system in favour of a presidential one. “A directly elected chief executive would not be vulnerable to the shifting sands of legislative support. They could appoint a cabinet of talented officials, confident in the stability of their tenure”.
5. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the worldwide web shares his premonitions about its future — Link (The Guardian).

Two additional sources —

1. “These scientists sent a rocket to Mars for less than it cost to make The Martian. And they happened to be women. Indian women, for that matter” — Link (Backchannel).
2. The demand for fresh water is based on population and economic growth, while supply is influenced by climate and rainfall. Computed by calculating the ratio of local water withdrawals over renewable supply, this chart shows which countries are likely to face a sever water shortage by 2040 — Link (World Resources Institute).