Overcoming Bias: Applause Lights

Read this paragraph and think about it:

I am here to propose to you today that we need to balance the risks and opportunities of advanced Artificial Intelligence. We should avoid the risks and, insofar as it is possible, realize the opportunities. We should not needlessly confront entirely unnecessary dangers. To achieve these goals, we must plan wisely and rationally. We should not act in fear and panic, or give in to technophobia; but neither should we act in blind enthusiasm. We should respect the interests of all parties with a stake in the Singularity. We must try to ensure that the benefits of advanced technologies accrue to as many individuals as possible, rather than being restricted to a few. We must try to avoid, as much as possible, violent conflicts using these technologies; and we must prevent massive destructive capability from falling into the hands of individuals. We should think through these issues before, not after, it is too late to do anything about them…

Before reading further, decide what you think of this paragraph. Then see full article in which it is embedded. I think you’ll like it.

The Twitter Zone and Virtual Geography

Venkat has just written about a new way to map all our social interactions. The innermost ring is the twitter zone, which he describes as:

The twitter zone is the zone of people about whom you get a constant stream of nonessential trivia, ranging from children’s illnesses to tastes in coffee. In previous ages, the high cost of communication meant that this mapped to your village, tribe, (or suburban neighborhood plus cubicle neighbors). Today it includes anyone who engages you in a bidirectional flow of trivia about both your lives, in a constant steady stream, so you develop a full, rich background picture of their lives. It includes some of your physical neighbors (since in this age of Bowling Alone we don’t talk to all our neighbors) and your twitter and instant messaging buddies.

See full article, which should be read in conjunction with the Monkeysphere that I had blogged about earlier.