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Japanese anime, manga offer hints as to ‘apocalyptic’ AI, robots
By Tomoko Mitsuoka | Jun 12, 2024
Western films and cartoons tend to play up apocalyptic fears in their portrayals of AI, robotics, and other advanced tech, but Japanese anime and manga show how these might just end up blending in and becoming part of people’s everyday lives, argues AI ethicist Tomoko Mitsuoka.
Will AI one day become conscious or sentient? Nicholas Humphrey weighs in
The Yuan and the London Futurist recently sat down with Nicholas Humphrey, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics and Bye Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. His latest book, Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness explores the emergence and role of consciousness from various perspectives.
The world must navigate, embrace technological innovation, peer review
Plenty of scientific papers and patents are being published, but more disruption, greater creativity, and more high-risk, high-reward research are needed. Understanding the peer review paradox may hold the key to unlocking this, argues Adnexus Biotechnologies Inc CEO Dr Gaurav Chandra.
Innovation and Collaboration Take Center Stage at Reuters Pharma Conference 2024
The Reuters pharma conference is a central platform for pharma executives, patient advocacy groups, and other healthcare experts to share insights, exchange ideas, and be informed about evolving trends within the pharma industry, reports The Yuan contributor Oladimeji Ewumi.
Companies should do more to encourage employees to be excited about AI
As AI continues driving wholesale change, ordinary employees and others who might lose out naturally resist such upheaval. The situation is not all bad, however, and perceptions might change if workers became more aware of reasons to be excited, argues strategy Prof Timo Vuori.
When, why is AI to hang in public, and what will then ensue?
With buzzwords like AI whizzing around and pundits everywhere predicting humanity’s imminent demise, it is easy to forget that many other trends have come and gone. The world should instead take a deep breath and put things in perspective, argues thought leader Naseem Javed.
Prof Robert Skidelsky shares thoughts on Keynes, AI, and the future of workThe Yuan recently sat down with Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords and Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, for his thoughts on some of the world’s most pressing issues, including the future of AI, work, government policy, and more.
An AI apocalypse may seem inevitable, but can still be preventedFears of being rendered obsolete by machines or other new tech have lurked for hundreds of years, but are now resurfacing as AI becomes ever more sophisticated. Such jitters proved overblown in the past, but could this time be different? Prof Robert Skidelsky weighs in.
Will AI one day become conscious or sentient? Nicholas Humphrey weighs in
The Yuan and the London Futurist recently sat down with Nicholas Humphrey, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics and Bye Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. His latest book, Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness explores the emergence and role of consciousness from various perspectives.
The world must navigate, embrace technological innovation, peer review
Plenty of scientific papers and patents are being published, but more disruption, greater creativity, and more high-risk, high-reward research are needed. Understanding the peer review paradox may hold the key to unlocking this, argues Adnexus Biotechnologies Inc CEO Dr Gaurav Chandra.
VR, geolocation in 3D Earth metaverses upend gaming, education, commerce
The surge of VR and metaverses has recently ebbed, but the tideline separating virtual worlds from the real one is blurring as new tech allows users to experience our planet, gaming and other areas of endeavor in novel ways, writes thought leader Alina Tudorache.
The Yuan favorites
Emerging markets
Innovation and Collaboration Take Center Stage at Reuters Pharma Conference 2024
The Reuters pharma conference is a central platform for pharma executives, patient advocacy groups, and other healthcare experts to share insights, exchange ideas, and be informed about evolving trends within the pharma industry, reports The Yuan contributor Oladimeji Ewumi.
Emerging markets
Warren Buffett strikes a gloomy note over AI at his company’s annual confab
Warren Buffett, the éminence grise of investment, took the occasion of his company shareholders’ meeting to air his views on AI - part upbeat and part desponding. Though concededly no AI maven, Buffet’s remarks made waves nonetheless as he voiced his hopes and fears for the tech.
Emerging markets
Market power is permanent even with intense technological competition
Contrary to what one might think, the competition and ceaseless innovation that are hallmarks of today’s globalized, digital, hyperconnected world are actually increasing and entrenching market power for large, established players, argues Stanford economics prof Mordecai Kurz.
Emerging markets
AI octopus flexes its tentacles to entrench Big Tech’s hegemony
No end looms in sight to Big Tech companies’ chokehold on the digital economy, and AI’s steady rise bids fair to buttress this trend based on these corporate leviathans’ access to data and knowledge of consumer and business behavior, argues author and Law Prof Eric Posner.
Domain knowledge
Tim O’Reilly on AI development, regulation, copyright lawsuits, and more
Tech entrepreneur, professor, and author Tim O’Reilly - a major influencer in the world of AI and the driving force behind open source and Web 2.0 - recently sat down with The Yuan to give his thoughts regarding the most pressing tech-related issues facing the world today.
Domain knowledge
Can AI deliver long-awaited breakthroughs in assessing stroke risk?
Medical professionals toil hard to gauge stroke risk among aging populations earlier and more accurately. Incremental improvements have come, but big breakthroughs remain elusive as lack of access to care and AI jitters thwart efforts, as Harvard Med Fellow Rohit Agrawal, MD, MPH explains.
Domain knowledge
5G-driven AI, ML forecast traffic snarls within an ever-expanding range
AI, ML, and 5G are allying to achieve breakthroughs in traffic pattern management, easing congestion, and making highways everywhere safer, smarter, and more efficient. Purva Joshi, a PhD candidate in Healthtech at the University of Pisa, gives the green light to future mobility.
Domain knowledge
AI is advancing preventive medicine, promoting better health
AI draws much attention for transforming areas of healthcare such as cancer treatments and surgery, but its greatest impact lies in keeping more people healthy so they do not need such intervention, argues Ahmed Zahlan, a Fulbright Scholar doing his PhD on AI healthcare startups.
Generic
When, why is AI to hang in public, and what will then ensue?
With buzzwords like AI whizzing around and pundits everywhere predicting humanity’s imminent demise, it is easy to forget that many other trends have come and gone. The world should instead take a deep breath and put things in perspective, argues thought leader Naseem Javed.
Generic
Characters, data, stable power may give China the edge over US in AI stakes
China and the US are locked head-to-head in a struggle for primacy in global AI. Many factors will come to bear in deciding the outcome, but China’s intrinsic advantages in data, energy, and the nature of the Chinese language itself may prove decisive, two The Yuan editors argue.
Generic
AI might seem like HR’s savior, but it can also be a saboteur
Companies increasingly rely on AI to recruit and hire new talent, and the tech might soon be used to decide which employees to fire too. At first glance, this seems good because it reduces workloads for HR employees, but it is also controversial, writes Prof Koen Dewettinck.
Generic
AI WWI raging in Ukraine will by no means be the last
The use of AI is burgeoning in armed conflicts great and small all around the world, but most notably nowadays in Ukraine. Although still subject to technical limits, the tech looks set to soon transcend these, as warfare once again proves to be the real ‘mother of invention.’
New era
Air Canvas using Python libraries reveals much about art in the digital age
In the current digital age of advanced tech, the boundaries between art, science, and technology are increasingly blurring. Researcher Parisa Naraei describes a project exploring the concept of computer vision and its workings, with various intriguing applications.
New era
Humanity must navigate a future of freedom versus control in the age of AI
As the AI epoch advances, humans face a stark choice and must seek to strike the right balance between freedom and control by the entrenched Big Tech elites, counsels Bart de Witte, an expert on digital transformation in healthcare and founder of Berlin-based non-profit HIPPO AI.
New era
Far from being amazing, Sora seems unable to handle the truth
Sora, a text-to-video and text-to-image AI model from OpenAI, is known for creating realistic scenes. A closer look, however, reveals that many of these are not real and should not be mistaken for such, warns Gary Marcus, a best-selling AI author, entrepreneur, and professor.
New era
Meta’s massive AI course correction follows The Yuan’s sage advice
In a once in a blue moon event, Meta, name notwithstanding, seems to have bowed down to The Yuan’s urgings, turned its back on the Metaverse, and set its front towards AI, as the firm strategically re-orients itself. Award-winning tech columnist Satyen K. Bordoloi has the skinny.
Metaverse
Has the concept of the metaverse failed, or is it still too early to tell?
This, the fourth in an article series titled Life and Crime in the Metaverse, examines the metaverse today and the question of whether it will ever reach its potential. Some already view it as a failure, but it could just be a steppingstone to something bigger and better.
Metaverse
The Yuan raises the red flag, wards off incursions by GAI chatbots
As GAIs such as ChatGPT find ever-wider use, this exciting development also risks obsoleting many human functions. ‘Singularitarians’ may hail this step, but The Yuan is committed to keeping humans in the loop, and so offers this cautionary tale for our contributors’ edification.
Metaverse
Life and crime in the metaverse: Trust, trustless, and zero trust
This, the third in an article series titled Life and Crime in the Metaverse, examines the idea of trust, how to engage in online transactions and other interactions in its absence, and what this signifies in the metaverse context.
Metaverse
Metaverse healthcare system applications are based on the discovery layer
In the second part of his series of articles on the Metaverse, AI engineer Douglas Amante takes a look at what the discovery layer of the Metaverse is and how healthcare-related applications fit in as they become an increasingly integral part of people’s lives.
Brain science
Stay tuned for The Yuan’s brain science themed webinar this July!
The Yuan recently ran a three-week series of articles from April 1 to April 19, with topics examining the intersection of neuroscience and AI. The series was a great success and will be followed up in July by a webinar featuring some of the series’ outstanding contributors.
Brain science
Neurosymbolic AI injects symbolic reasoning to give DL ‘the human touch’
Neurosymbolic AI is a novel method that empowers DL to reason symbolically, while also bolstering its already renowned ability to ingest and digest reams of data. SEO content creator Ava Addams maps a new route toward more intuitive AI, and forecasts a sea change in the offing.
Brain science
Advantis Medical Imaging fuels innovation to redefine healthcare with AI
The Yuan recently spoke with Zoi Giavri, co-founder, president and chief product officer of leading medical software developer Advantis Medical Imaging to talk advances in healthcare. Eleni Natsi, a journalist focused on the transformative impact of AI, lets us in on their tête-à-tête.
Brain science
GenAI offers a peek into the future of empathetic care in neuropsychiatry
Neuropsychiatric disorders are often difficult to treat because each patient’s case is unique and there are few, if any, other comparable cases to use as references. Fortunately, GenAI, a new tech, is now changing this outlook, argues Harvard Med Fellow Rohitashva Agrawal, MD,MPH.
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Special reports
‘Terminator’ or ‘Terra-minator’? The Yuan announces its ESG manifesto
Fears of AI leapfrogging human cognition and ushering in Doomsday abound. The current impact of AI and ML, which devour vast energy, yield tons of toxic waste, and cleave deep social chasms, gleans less notice. The Yuan hereby proclaims our ESG policy to help safeguard our Earth.
How far off is true superintelligence and can it ever be achieved?
Germany came late to the European colonial race but, once united in 1867, sought to catch up, convinced of the superior genius of its Volk. Two world wars on, the country again finds itself pitted against others in a new struggle for the top. In a Bavarian town near where two old German-speaking empires met, AI Prof Patrick Glauner explores the Zeitgeist of this new Superintelligenz on day 17 of The Yuan’s intelligent discovery voyage.
The Yuan AI 2023: A year when health innovation is set to mature and consolidate
As 2023 gets underway, AI-related innovation in health tech companies is likely to be as affected by war, inflation, energy shortages, and available funding as by tech advances. Consolidation is likely, which may reduce competition, though even if trendy startups and eye-catching but risky ventures struggle, ‘boring’ innovation that often flies under the radar will continue to rack up successes. Harvard fellow Dr Rohitashva Agrawal explains.
AI will never outwit humans because it is no ‘smarter’ than an abacus is
Ancient Greeks used a marked table - abax - to calculate, but the true ‘abacus’ is a 5,000-year-old Babylonian invention diffused to the rest of the world. On day 13 of our intelligent discovery quest, writing from the East-West trade hub of Mumbai, The Yuan columnist Satyen K. Bordoloi likens seeing smartness in AI to ascribing sentience to an abacus.
Human-machine relationship needs shared understanding to thrive
The Yuan’s voyage of intelligent discovery lands back in London to end on day 18. The capital of the largest empire ever was once dubbed ‘The Smoke’ due to the notorious ‘pea-soup’ smog from its coal-burning furnaces and hearths. A new Industrial Revolution is now underway in this cradle of the first one, and Ivana Bartoletti, chief privacy officer at IT business consultancy Wipro, advises how to better close the damper on its adverse effects.
Is ChatGPT really a ‘code red’ for Google Search? Maybe not
ChatGPT has lately been the focus of a great deal of buzz and great expectations, though its real capabilities and limitations also warrant attention, especially when compared to Google’s search engine. AI scientist, best-selling author, and serial entrepreneur Gary Marcus cuts through all the ballyhoo in quest of answers.
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