Skip to main content

A brief history of tomorrow

If you found my class interesting at all, you have to check out this a16z episode, "Brains, Bodies, Minds... And techno-religions":

https://a16z.com/2017/02/23/yuval-harari-from-homo-sapiens-to-homo-deus/




Evolution and technology have allowed our human species to manipulate the physical environment around us — reshaping fields into cities, redirecting rivers to irrigate farms, domesticating wild animals into captive food sources, conquering disease. But now, we’re turning that “innovative gaze” inwards: which means the main products of the 21st century will be bodies, brains, and minds. Or so argues Yuval Harari, author of the bestselling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind and of the new book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, in this episode of the a16z Podcast.
What happens when our body parts no longer have to be physically co-located? When Big Brother — whether government or corporation — not only knows everything about us, but can make better decisions for us than we could for ourselves? That’s ridiculous, you say. Sure… until you stop to think about how such decisions already, actually happen. Or realize that an AI-based doctor and teacher will have way more information than their human counterparts because of what can be captured, through biometric sensors, from inside (not just observed outside) us.
So what happens then when illusions collide with reality? As it is, religion itself is “a virtual reality game that provides people with meaning by imposing imaginary rules on an objective reality”. Is Data-ism the new religion? From education, automation, war, energy, and jobs to universal basic income, inequality, human longevity, and climate change, Harari (with a16z’s Sonal Chokshi and Kyle Russell) reflect on what’s possible, probable, pressing — and is mere decades, not centuries, away — when man becomes god… or merges with machine.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Marvin Minsky, AI, Math Education

The audio is too good to make this a gif. So, to be clear, this is the blog post for THURSDAY, 1/28. If you are looking for Tuesday's post, go back a post. I wanted to mention to you all that a mathematician and artificial intelligence researched named Marvin Minsky died on Sunday. Among lots of amazing things he did in his life, he wrote about math education for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. Here is that article ; I'd like you to read it for homework. Speaking of death, check out this amazing visualization ! Finally, for classwork, I would like you to go back to Tuesday's blog post, and comment on other people's homework. Specifically do you like the charts they chose? Are they interesting? Any feedback? Homework IMPORTANT: Pick which 5 (or more) variables that you will track for the Feltron project. Think about how you will keep track of them - pen and and notebook? The Reporter App? A pedometer? Also, that Marvin Minsky article is really...

Bio Homework 3/15

Read this follow up to the movie we watched in class: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/silence-of-the-bees/how-can-you-help-the-bees/36/ and write a 1 paragraph response to the movie and the reading. And remember... study study study! There's a quiz on Wednesday.

ISRP March 17th, Transformation

Theme: Transformation First, I returned work. Checked in with people who have missing assignments. I should probably grade late ones, but haven’t. Second, share any good ads. Collect homework; if you don’t have it go to Liz. To wrap up with morals, mention that some of them, from the homework, seem amoral. To make it clear that morals are about right and wrong, ask questions like: Do animals have rights? Do all humans have rights? Is euthanasia acceptable? Is lying ever acceptable? If someone else can obviously make more out of their life than I, is it moral to sacrifice myself for them if needed? Then we introduced the idea of transformation with these stories: Samsa and Seuss from This American Life: (14 min) Goo and You - Radiolab - What happens to butterflies? (17 min) Homework: Write a short, short story involving transformation. Ideally, it would have a theme, or moral. Actually, ideally it would be really good and fu...