Daniel Rourke /stream

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Silicon Valley is not a place known for its religiosity, yet a remarkable number of tech leaders and workers have an irrational belief in the Singularity.

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A new study strongly suggests that at least some memories are stored in genetic code, and that genetic code can act like memory soup. Suck it out of one animal and…

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For better or worse, Google Assistant can do it all. From mundane tasks like turning on your lights and setting reminders to convincingly mimicking human speech patterns, the AI helper is…

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Norman is an algorithm trained to understand pictures but, like its namesake Hitchcock's Norman Bates, it does not have an optimistic view of the world. Norman sees a man being electrocuted.

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If you plug “AI” or “artificial intelligence” into Google Image Search, here’s what you get. Electric brains firing blue with neurons. Translucent robots and robot heads, code dribbling down their foreheads…

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The gruesome new field of neuro-parasitology could provide insights into the neurological basis for behavior and decision-making — By Conn Hastings Imagine a parasite that makes an animal change its habits,…

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“There are periods when ears and eyes are full of slime,” wrote Nietzsche in 1879, “so that they can no longer hear the voice of reason and philosophy or see the…

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Whatever future comes, one thing is fairly certain, excepting total American collapse—the goods will continue to flow. By human, by vehicle, by automaton, or by some combination of the three,stuff will…

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Mandy Barker, Ophelia medustica. Specimen collected from Glounthaune shoreline, Cove of Cork, Ireland, (Pram wheel), 2015. Series: Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals, 2015 In 1816, John Vaughan Thompson was posted to…

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Let’s start by setting the record straight: mainstream comedies and dramas are great. In an increasingly complicated and frustrating world, cinema as a form of escapism is a valid move, and…

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“Men have to toughen up,” Jordan B. Peterson writes in 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos, “Men demand it, and women want it.” So, the first rule is, “Stand…

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This particular terminological game is just about up, I think, and it's no surprise that Anthropos has won again. I don't think we'll be using any word but Anthropocene to describe…

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve desired romantic relationships with boys, and then as I got older, men. Also for as long as I can remember, I’ve had sexual…

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You’re on the Spaceship Earth […] You’d better pay your fare now You’ll be left behind You’ll be left hangin’ In the empty air You won’t be here and you won’t…

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Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet. The world’s 7.6…

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Of all the buzzy 21st-century tech phrases, “machine learning” threatens to be the most important. Programming computers is slow, but we’re nearing the point where humans give the bots parameters and…

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How many times did I say it – to myself, out loud alone or out loud to others, throughout my childhood? ‘I wish I were a boy.’ The words were mine,…

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Bots are everywhere. From simple algorithms and aggregator bots to complex “artificially” intelligent machine-learning systems, they have become inescapable. Some are in chat programs.

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This is what happens when you turn the natural world into a profit-making machine. By and Jason W Moore The most telling symbol of the modern era isn’t the automobile or…

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But even after I overcame my instinct for detachment, I remained wary of the movement’s language, which was a language of binaries: women and men.

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Silicon Valley is not a place known for its religiosity, yet a remarkable number of tech leaders and workers have an irrational belief in the Singularity.

Bookmark

A new study strongly suggests that at least some memories are stored in genetic code, and that genetic code can act like memory soup. Suck it out of one animal and…

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In 1981, a remarkable book was published: After Man: A Zoology of the Future, by Dougal Dixon.

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Norman is an algorithm trained to understand pictures but, like its namesake Hitchcock's Norman Bates, it does not have an optimistic view of the world. Norman sees a man being electrocuted.

Bookmark

The gruesome new field of neuro-parasitology could provide insights into the neurological basis for behavior and decision-making — By Conn Hastings Imagine a parasite that makes an animal change its habits,…

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I logged into "Second Life" in the year 2018 A.D. It still exists, sort of. Residents and businesses began fleeing for more popular social networks long ago. Vast acres of land…

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Whatever future comes, one thing is fairly certain, excepting total American collapse—the goods will continue to flow. By human, by vehicle, by automaton, or by some combination of the three,stuff will…

Bookmark

Mandy Barker, Ophelia medustica. Specimen collected from Glounthaune shoreline, Cove of Cork, Ireland, (Pram wheel), 2015. Series: Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals, 2015 In 1816, John Vaughan Thompson was posted to…

Bookmark

Let’s start by setting the record straight: mainstream comedies and dramas are great. In an increasingly complicated and frustrating world, cinema as a form of escapism is a valid move, and…

Bookmark

For as long as I can remember, I’ve desired romantic relationships with boys, and then as I got older, men. Also for as long as I can remember, I’ve had sexual…

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WASHINGTON — As a teenager, Keoni Gandall already was operating a cutting-edge research laboratory in his bedroom in Huntington Beach, Calif.

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Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet. The world’s 7.6…

Bookmark

Of all the buzzy 21st-century tech phrases, “machine learning” threatens to be the most important. Programming computers is slow, but we’re nearing the point where humans give the bots parameters and…

Bookmark

How many times did I say it – to myself, out loud alone or out loud to others, throughout my childhood? ‘I wish I were a boy.’ The words were mine,…

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Memes and social networks have become weaponized, while many governments seem ill-equipped to understand the new reality of information warfare. How will we fight state-sponsored disinformation and propaganda in the future?

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This is what happens when you turn the natural world into a profit-making machine. By and Jason W Moore The most telling symbol of the modern era isn’t the automobile or…

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But even after I overcame my instinct for detachment, I remained wary of the movement’s language, which was a language of binaries: women and men.