Video Did Not Kill The Radio Star

So many highlights from the past few days at the SCL's Technology Law Futures Conference on 'Keeping Humans at the Heart of Technology', available online soon, but a favourite quote is that "video did not kill the radio star" (with apologies to the Buggles). 

A more fulsome report will no doubt be available shortly. In the meantime, we should all be thinking about the responsible development of 'artificial narrow intelligence' in the context of social care, driver-less cars and other autonomous vehicles (not to mention surveillance and warfare, to the extent we can influence that!). 

If we can insist on adequate transparency and appropriate rules governing risk and liability in the context of these types of projects, then maybe we'll be in good shape to deal with 'artificial general intelligence' when that comes, as well as the potential for artificial superintelligence beyond... [drum roll]... The Singularity.  

Or we could simply fade away as the machines take over.

It's up to us.

For now.

SmartPhones, the Internet and Dinner Party Etiquette

Gone are the days when dinner party conversations drifted along, unchecked for factual accuracy, against a background of music from a CD on repeat that no one could be arsed to change.

Today, hosts and guests alike punctuate the discourse with Google-searches, songs and YouTube clips from their smartphones. If you're really lucky, a large flat screen and broadband connection will be made available on or near the dinner table for those particularly graphic clips or complex Wikipedia entries.

Is the art of conversation lost, or are these digitally-supported conversations actually more informative and rewarding than their analogue forbears? Should digital devices be hung up at the door like six guns in a Wild West saloon?

I have the feeling that I'd know the answer if I drank a lot less. By 9 o'clock it's all Mandarin to me.