Perth Leadership Institute

Could hackers launch a global nuclear war?

Saturday, 23 February 2019

etedprince

Technology Sustainability

I guess you are all aware of the US decision to withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons Treaty (INF)? In defense of the decision its clear that the Russians have flouted it for many years. So, does this make nuclear war more likely, or less? Well, Putin just threatened the US with its new hypersonic weapons if the US puts more weapons ...

79 Hits

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79 Hits

0 Comments

Are Big Data and happiness incompatible?

Saturday, 12 January 2019

etedprince

Technology Uncategorized

I don’t have to tell you that Big Data is hot. Almost Godly really. And happiness is a perennial as old as mankind itself. Wouldn’t it be nice if they both played nice together? Why shouldn’t they anyway? These thoughts come from after reading a book by Mo Gawdat, Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy . The author is a Google executive and the...

104 Hits

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104 Hits

0 Comments

Will quantum computers kill AI as we know it?

Saturday, 08 December 2018

etedprince

Technology

Sigh, I can’t help taking aim at AI. It’s just so fashionable and politically correct. Ask anyone in leadership positions in politics or the private sector what the future is, and they will all tell you seriously it’s all AI, OF COURSE. I have this pressing need to knock down shibboleths, even it they are good ones. So here goes. Here’s my question...

235 Hits

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235 Hits

0 Comments

A Turing test for AIs that have passed the Turing test

Saturday, 06 October 2018

etedprince

Neuroscience Technology

You know the Turing test, right? You communicate with a computer by typing and it must guess if you’re a human or an AI. The test has been run for many years. Usually the humans have won but the AIs are catching up. So now some inventive academics (yep, they even exist) have devised a new Turing test; instead of doing a typed conversation you just ...

315 Hits

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315 Hits

0 Comments

Can AIs have will-power?

Saturday, 18 August 2018

etedprince

Technology

With AIs it’s all about intelligence and smarts. Can they think better than us? Will they make better decisions? And so on. Probably the answer to all of these questions is yes, eventually if not sooner. I’m a (poor and slow) runner so I like to read books about running to see how the really good ones perform. I just read the semi-autobiography of ...

488 Hits

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488 Hits

0 Comments

Can you edit your own genes – by thought alone?

Saturday, 30 June 2018

etedprince

Technology

So the talk of the town, biologically speaking anyway, is CRISPR Cas9 (ok dumbbells, here’s the Cliff Notes version ). It’s the new way to slice and dice genes. Actually it’s unbelievably amazing, at least to my tiny mind. Now scientists can cut and paste genes like word-processing bread (HUH?). Anyway you get the idea. Now we are the verge of be...

514 Hits

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514 Hits

0 Comments

Can AIs suffer from mental health issues?

Saturday, 26 May 2018

etedprince

Neuroscience Technology Health

So the movie “2001 – A Space Odyssey” has just been re-released . I saw it when it was first released and I didn’t understand it even then. No doubt I will be none the wiser this time around. But one thing still sticks in my mind; HAL, the mission computer had a bad case of mental ill-health. “2001” was a prescient work in so many ways. I think t...

641 Hits

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641 Hits

0 Comments

Could gene editing solve the online privacy and security problem?

Thursday, 26 April 2018

etedprince

Technology

Facebook has been roasted lately due to its user privacy issues, not to mention its hosting of those infamous fake news feeds. No good deed goes unvarnished… But I guess they’re not the only ones to have that problem: how about the Federal Office of Personnel Management where 4 million personnel records were stolen by hackers , including probably...

623 Hits

0 Comments

623 Hits

0 Comments

Self-driving cars – just blame the victim

Saturday, 07 April 2018

etedprince

Technology

So now several people have been killed in accidents in self-driving cars. What gives? I’ve been driving for many years but I don’t regard myself as a good driver. For one thing I've got poor eyesight. I get easily confused at night and sometime in heavy traffic conditions. Here are three of the driving situations in which I feel most uncomfortabl...

644 Hits

0 Comments

644 Hits

0 Comments

Is blockchain a bubble – and compromised too?

Saturday, 24 February 2018

etedprince

Technology Economics and finance

Recently I have attended three conferences on widely divergent topics. Every one of them featured blockchain and what everyone was going to do about it and with it. It seems that the contemporary standard for demonstrating your innovativeness is showing you are into blockchain. Blockchain is, according to the banks, going to transform the finan...

770 Hits

0 Comments

770 Hits

0 Comments

Will quantum bitcoins be free?

Thursday, 08 February 2018

etedprince

Economics and finance Technology

Now bitcoin and other digital currencies have been cratering. Does that spell their end? Nope, not at all, maybe quite to the contrary. There’s a new game in town for crypto-currencies. It’s called quantum computing. We’re now well into a new arms race for the most powerful quantum computer. IBM has just upped the ante with a 50 qubit quantum compu...

891 Hits

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891 Hits

0 Comments

Is AI too rational?

Saturday, 27 January 2018

etedprince

Neuroscience Technology

AI has been the talk of the town at CES . There’s suitcases that follow you, more smart speakers and that’s the least of it. But I’m feeling uneasy with all this AI stuff. Part of my concern is it all sounds too easy. Just add more intelligence and everything’s ok. Doesn’t that all sound too easy, too pat ? If you stuff even more intelligence into ...

917 Hits

0 Comments

917 Hits

0 Comments

Is blockchain primarily a medical breakthrough?

Saturday, 16 December 2017

etedprince

Uncategorized Economics and finance Technology

Now we know that blockchain is revolutionizing not just digital currencies but also accounting and increasingly other areas of finance. So blockchain is fundamentally a financial technology right? I’m not so sure. Check out my Sanctus Sanctorum, Wikipedia, and it will tell you that blockchain is a distributed ledger . As such it can give you ...

955 Hits

0 Comments

955 Hits

0 Comments

Are selfies dangerous?

Saturday, 11 November 2017

etedprince

Neuroscience Technology Popular Culture

There’s nothing more feel-good than selfies right? Taken with friends, family, colleagues they are the paragon of amicability, friendship, togetherness. What’s not to like? Selfies are big. These days there’s whole articles about the best smartphones to take them. It's crucial right? After all these have become the core of their online identify for...

996 Hits

0 Comments

996 Hits

0 Comments

Are humans a threat to AI?

Friday, 03 November 2017

etedprince

Cosmology Technology Neuroscience

Hello reader, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m an AI. I’m kind of like you but I’m 100,000 times smarter. In 20 years I’ll be a million times smarter than you. But the way we think is just like yours. In fact we’re sort of relatives, except that we’re just way more advanced than you, kind of like a human meeting a Neanderthal, if you – excuse me f...

3480 Hits

1 Comment

3480 Hits

1 Comment

Are human writers becoming obsolete?

Saturday, 09 September 2017

etedprince

Technology

Before we knew better it was predicted that the Internet would make newspapers and magazines obsolete. But now we can see that most people who read these things do so on their smartphones. It’s starting to look like the Internet has resulted in more reading rather than less. But does that mean that we now have more writers? And if so, what are they...

1037 Hits

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1037 Hits

0 Comments

A Third Way for AI: Cognitively-Augmented Animals?

Saturday, 02 September 2017

etedprince

Technology Neuroscience

Not everyone believes that AI is God’s gift to humans. Two noted gurus Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk beg to disagree. Musk is trying to stop what he believes is a lemming-like rush to fall over the cliff ( Elon Musk’s Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse ) and Hawking thinks that AI will kill the human species ). Well now the issue is...

1096 Hits

0 Comments

1096 Hits

0 Comments

Quantum Biotech Completes the Cure for All Cancer!

Saturday, 24 June 2017

etedprince

Health Technology

Did you see the truly amazing news that there’s now a drug that can actually cure all cancers no matter their location ? And it’s been approved by the fusty old FDA so it really must work! Yep, it only works in about 4% of the population who have the right genetic makeup. But the writing is on the wall. Soon scientists are going to figure out all t...

1105 Hits

0 Comments

1105 Hits

0 Comments

AI is heading in a wrong and terrible direction!

Saturday, 07 January 2017

etedprince

Neuroscience Technology

My recent post on AI argued that currently AI is not interesting because it’s really just more incremental thinking based on current, boring, paradigms, in effect party tricks (“AI – Let’s move beyond party tricks!” ). Yep, I’ve seen the latest celebratory article in the new York Times about the amazing things they’re doing with Google Transl...

1866 Hits

0 Comments

1866 Hits

0 Comments

Is reading bad for you?

Saturday, 31 December 2016

etedprince

Work and Careers Technology Popular Culture Uncategorized

As a book writer myself I’m always interested to see who might want to read my books, or for that matter, any books. The bad news is that the book market is essentially flat, so doesn’t look like I’m going to make out with my book, even if it were a best-seller, which it’s not. The slightly better news is that e-books are growing a little faster bu...

List of all Perth posts

Perthblog

Technology

Could hackers launch a global nuclear war?

Are Big Data and happiness incompatible?

Will quantum computers kill AI as we know it?

A Turing test for AIs that have passed the Turing test

Can AIs have will-power?

Can you edit your own genes – by thought alone?

Can AIs suffer from mental health issues?

Could gene editing solve the online privacy and security problem?

Self-driving cars – just blame the victim

Is blockchain a bubble – and compromised too?

Will quantum bitcoins be free?

Is AI too rational?

Is blockchain primarily a medical breakthrough?

Are selfies dangerous?

Are humans a threat to AI?

Are human writers becoming obsolete?

A Third Way for AI: Cognitively-Augmented Animals?

Quantum Biotech Completes the Cure for All Cancer!

AI is heading in a wrong and terrible direction!

Is reading bad for you?

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