Augmented Society Network

While two AI titans were disagreeing about AI, the one thing they did agree on was the issue of population collapse.  Population collapse not expansion is, according to Ma and Musk at the World AI Conference (WAIC) this week in Shanghai , the big problem humans will face. So not the fact that AI will think faster and dispense with humans, suggesting that we are merely ‘boot loaders’ for a higher intelligence, no that is not the main concern. The concern is that there won’t be any humans at all. I am amazed, everything I have learned or used as a measure of the planets resources and ability to sustain us has been based on the uncontrolled explosion of humankind and a rocketing population. At our recent ASN:Discussion about the future of work we discussed immigration control and its impact on an available workforce, among other things. The scarcity of workers will continue to challenge our ability to progress as a society. Changing current discourse is difficult enough but intro

Oct 24, 2019 11:00 AM – 12 noon PST Please join us for an ASN: Discussion People are coming together to work, play and share information, but increasingly on very different terms. We see opportunity and new forms of sharing taking shape, peer-to-peer decentralised networks, individuals taking responsibility for their own data security, and different more eco-friendly ways of using power. But what is emerging and is it ‘good’? The Internet’s underlying protocols (TCP/IP) were designed to decentralise sharing and to get information to its destination, come what may, nuclear war, dictators overthrown; it was supposed to be the ultimate Pony Express. But the very success of the Internet is now threatening its existence. Countries are looking inward, political unions breaking apart and long-time established powers faltering. So this is truly a time of opportunity to make technology in a form that respects individuals rights to privacy and one that is built with the welfare of th

Sept 26, 2019 11:00 AM – 12 noon PST Please join us for an ASN: Discussion In our August ASN:Discussion, when pondering evolution’s effect on a future workforce, RSA Fellow and ASN participant, Mitchell Weisburgh, surmised that iteration is key “we don’t have to deliver a be-all-end-all solution, that isn’t always required to truly bring change”. Yet, we find ourselves often wedged between those who want to determine every detail before taking step one, and those who immediately begin with the belief all will be figured out later. Much like The Unfinished Fable of the Sparrows raises this dilemma without providing an answer; how do we carry forward new paradigms, and forces of change, while not being overburdened with solving unknown variables AND be socially responsible. Join us to discuss: Preparing ourselves and our organizations to advance intelligently. Factors weighing on our requirement for iteration, and the management of forthcoming questions and concerns. Sup

Written By Zoe Camper, Las Vegas What is it like to be beaten by a machine? Not a human, or in the case of war, an army or a country, but a machine built by fellow humans. It beats you, takes your crown, and leaves you utterly defeated. Feel bad? I think so. Can the battles be fair or equal? How do we measure fairness and what equates to parity in a battle of human versus machine; they are of course, simply not the same. Challenging machines has a long and storied history, from John Henry the African American folk hero’s race against a steam-powered rock-drilling machine in the 1870’s, to Lee Sedol’s 2016 defeat at the ancient game of Go, in Seoul, South Korea, by AlphaGo, an AI built by Google DeepMind. The story of Garry Kasparov and his chess challenges against IBM go to the very heart of fairness, and highlight that humans and machines are entirely different entities. Garry Kasparov, Emperor of Chess, youngest World Chess Champion at the age of 22, holding the World Chess