Artificial intelligence (AI) is seen as both a boon and a threat. It uses our personal data to influence our lives without us realising it. It is used by social media to draw our attention to things we are interested in buying, and by our tablets and computers to predict what we want to type…
A couple years ago, something strange happened. A friend and I were sitting at a bar, iPhones in pockets, discussing our recent trips in Japan and how we’d like to go back. The very next day, we both received pop-up ads on Facebook about cheap return flights to Tokyo. It seemed like just a spooky…
Independent German investigators Markus Fiedler and Dirk Pohlmann have told Sputnik Deutschland about some of the mysterious Wikipedia editors they say are responsible for ‘safeguarding’ mainstream viewpoints on the world’s largest and most influential free online encyclopedia. With Germans’ trust in the mass media on the decline, more and more people are turning to the internet for their news…
Our eyes are hardening; we can barely see our phones anymore. We must learn to look at the wider world. The eyes are unwell. Their childhood suppleness is lost. The lenses, as we log hours on this earth, thicken, stiffen, even calcify. The eyes are no longer windows on souls. They’re closer to teeth. To…
In the reviews that rolled out recently for Google’s new Clips smart camera, there were the rote things that you’d expect in all tech reviews: what was good, what was bad, and, inevitably, whether or not you should buy it. There was, however, a key idea conspicuously absent: whether or not the product should exist…
Ubiquitous IT giant Google has silently inked a partnership with the Department of Defense to militarize artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, reinvigorating fears of a Terminator-style apocalyptic scenario. Google has been secretly working with the Pentagon in order to help its 1,100-strong fleet of drones to detect images, faces, and behavioral patterns, and plans…
