Philosohpy: In the digital age

Teaching philosophy to children enables them to discover 'what is the good life'. Blease highlights that this has never been so important as now in the rapidly changing intelligent age. Blease argues that "with jobs being automated and knowledge being devalued, humans need to rediscover flexible thinking." She starts her article by acknowledging that intelligence is coming and will change the way we work: "Back in 2013, economists at Oxford University’s Martin School estimated that in the next 20 years, more than half of all jobs would be substituted by intelligent technology."

Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/philosophy-teach-children-schools-ireland?CMP=share_btn_fb

Gartner: 2017 Predictions - Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

A positive outlook for the growth of artificial intelligence within industry. Garnter highlight that a key opportunity and challenge for 2017 is: "The mainstream is adopting formerly advanced technologies faster than ever and opening the door to innovation". The difficulty for companies appears to be "not in their propensity to change, but in their ability to change at the pace the market requires"

Read more:
http://www.gartner.com/technology/topics/trends.jsp

Brain Health: Superaging

Lisa Feldman Barrett discusses brain health linked with what she descibes as 'Superaging'.  Most of the action in those that age well appears to occur in the midcingulate cortex and the anterior insula. Further reinforcing the idea of neural plasticity. The article suggests that "all brain tissue gets thinner from disuse" the age old quote thus applies "If you don’t use it, you lose it"

Read more: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/opinion/sunday/how-to-become-a-superager.html?_r=2

The Great AI Awakening : The New York Times

Lewis-Kraus has produced an insightful article detailing the recent success of Google Translate and how this was achieved through the Google Brain Project. The article discusses how Google has reorganised itself around A.I.  The article takes the reader through the theory and history of A.I and how Google has positioned themselves as A.I leaders or "A.I. first"

Read more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/magazine/the-great-ai-awakening.html?_r=0

Cognification: The Second Industrial Revolution

An enlightening talk by Kevin Kelly. He claims that one trend we can guarantee is that we are destined to make things smarter and smarter. We tend to think of intelligence as progressive, although this he claims is incorrect. Kelly believes intelligence is more like a 'symphony' suggesting there are different types of intelligence varying in strengths; variations of cognition exist. Where some types of smartness can be made greater than ours and others will not be. For example, the GPS is smarter than ourselves in getting to a location, as it is not thinking like humans. In the sense that, the GPS is consciousness free, and therefore not distracted as the human can be. Kelly states that 'AI is a new commodity' and the second industrial revolution is going to take X and add AI.

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_how_ai_can_bring_on_a_second_industrial_revolution?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2016-12-13

Cognitive Implants: Will this be the surgury of the future?

Johnson and his team at KerNEL are another bio / software startup leading the way in making a neurological implant that is aimed at assisting humans to keep up with the machine, by improving ‘intelligence, memory and other cognitive tasks'. In achieving this humans will be kept at the foreground of intelligence and at the same time according to Johnson 'dramatically' improve our lives.

Read more:
http://www.watoday.com.au/technology/technology-news/putting-a-computer-in-your-brain-is-no-longer-science-fiction-20160815-gqt94v.html

Philosophy: Not a competitor to the sciences

Take a look at Think Big’s interview with Rebecca Newberger Goldstien author of ‘Plato at The Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away’. She discusses her thoughts on ‘philosophy-jeering’ and explains the continued relevance of philosophy to the sciences. Newberger Goldstien argues that philosophy is not a competitor to science but instead plays a valuable role in examining our world of inconsistencies. Newberger Goldstien claims that philosophers since Socrates are in business of maximising coherence. Furthermore this intellectual work that philosophy undertakes is valuable to the sciences that values truth finding.


Read the full article here:
http://bigthink.com/errors-we-live-by/why-are-scientists-philosophers-fighting-again