The web roundup for this month is a sequel to last month’s roundup on Mind, Consciousness, and Artificial Intelligence. I will address another interface between machines and minds, at the “hive mind” or the collective buzz of the internet, and the ways in which human limitations can be transmitted to the artificial minds that we beget. (And this one …
Tag Archives: Scientific Research
Book Forum––Carlo Caduff’s The Pandemic Perhaps
This article is part of the series: Book forum
Carlo Caduff’s The Pandemic Perhaps: Dramatic Events in a Public Culture of Danger (University of California Press, 2015) is a story of the influenza pandemic that never was. Caduff tells this story from an American perspective through his encounters with scientists and other actors who engage in the august work of “preparedness,” but in doing so, often draw upon …
Mind, Consciousness, and Artificial Intelligence
This month’s web roundup comes through a bit late – paradoxically- due to technical difficulties (my computer died!). Although I will be able to recover most of my files, the past days were a reminder of just how much we depend on technology to go about our lives, including saving our work, our thoughts and ideas… which leads me directly …
Web Roundup: 2015
As the year winds up, many publications around the web are doing “highlights of 2015”-type lists, so I thought I’d compile some of these to give a bit of shape to the end of the year, and to draw attention to a few things you might have missed.
Science outlined the 2016 US budget that was just passed, focused specifically …
Web Roundup: A busy month for Pharma…
This month it was hard not to pay attention to what was happening in the world of Pharma, where several cases came to light illustrating just how murky and contested the role of one of the most powerful industries in the world is in shaping not just business practices, but collective social and moral consciousness as well.
A recent Gallup …
Web Roundup: Empathy in the news
The capacity of individuals to imagine another’s perspective or personal agenda, and our own ability to feel anger, despondency or frustration in response to their pain and distress, has been singled out as something to consider in multiple stories and studies found on the web this month. Is empathy a choice, or something less conscious? Is it always a good …