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Category: governance – Page 16

Google is still making its mysterious Fuchsia OS, and now it wants your help

It’s been four years, and we still don’t really know what Google intends to do with this OS.

It’s been over four years since we first found out that Google is developing a new operating system called Fuchsia. It’s unique because it’s not based on a Linux kernel; instead, it uses a microkernel called Zircon. It’s also unique because, despite being developed “in the open” on publicly browsable repositories, nobody really understands what the OS is for, and Google executives have been remarkably coy about it all.

Today, that mix of trends continues as the company announces that it’s opening up a little more by asking for more public contributors from outside its organization. Google says it has “created new public mailing lists for project discussions, added a governance model to clarify how strategic decisions are made, and opened up the issue tracker for public contributors to see what’s being worked on.”

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a dive into the code and documentation Google has made available, though there are some early UI examples. Google’s post today emphasizes that “Fuchsia is not ready for general product development or as a development target,” but it’s likely that the announcement will spur another round of analysis.

We are approaching the fastest, deepest, most consequential technological disruption in history

The next decade is going to be a transforming decade as many many technologies (some of which we all like to share in this group) are converging and maturing enough to rearrange our society in almost any aspect we can conceive.

I’m calling to those who are interested in creating and implementing an alternative model for the current social and governance systems, let’s build an open state that we can all support and trust regardless of our age, sex, geographical location, or belief system.

In the next 10 years, key technologies will converge to completely disrupt the five foundational sectors—information, energy, food, transportation, and materials—that underpin our global economy. We need to make sure the disruption benefits everyone.

Blockchain-powered ‘Smart Brain’ to govern China’s new ‘Aerospace City’

Singapore-based blockchain data firm CyberVein has become one of 12 firms participating in the construction of China’s Hainan Wenchang International Aerospace City. Construction commenced last month, with the site previously hosting a satellite launch center. Described as “China’s first aerospace cultural and tourism city,” it will be a hub for the development of aerospace products and support services intended for use in Chinese spacecraft and satellite launch missions. The 12-million-square-meter facility will host the country’s first aerospace super-computing center, and will focus on developing 40 technological areas including big data, satellite remote sensing and high precision positioning technology. CyberVein will work alongside major Chinese firms, including Fortune 500 companies Huawei and Kingsoft Cloud, and will leverage its blockchain, artificial intelligence and big data technologies to support the development of the city’s Smart Brain Planning and Design Institute.”

Blockchain firm CyberVein is partnering with the Chinese government to build a blockchain-powered governance system for its aerospace ‘smart city.’

Listen to article.

Regulating the rise of Artificial General Intelligence

If you are interested in artificial general intelligence (AGI), then I have a panel discussion to recommend. My friend, David Wood, has done a masterful job of selecting three panelists with deep insight into possible regulation of AGI. One of the panelists was my friend, Dan Faggella, who was eloquent and informative as usual. For this session of the London Futurists, David Wood selected two other panelists with significantly different opinions on how to properly restrain AGI.

As research around the world proceeds to improve the power, the scope, and the generality of AI systems, should developers adopt regulatory frameworks to help steer progress?

What are the main threats that such regulations should be guarding against? In the midst of an intense international race to obtain better AI, are such frameworks doomed to be ineffective? Might such frameworks do more harm than good, hindering valuable innovation? Are there good examples of precedents, from other fields of technology, of international agreements proving beneficial? Or is discussion of frameworks for the governance of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) a distraction from more pressing issues, given the potential long time scales ahead before AGI becomes a realistic prospect?

This 90 minute London Futurists live Zoom webinar featured a number of panellists with deep insight into the issues of improving AI:

• Joanna Bryson, Professor of Ethics and Technology at the Hertie School, Berlin, https://www.hertie-school.org/en/who-we-are/profile/person/bryson/

Continue reading “Regulating the rise of Artificial General Intelligence” | >

Homo Deus author has pandemic lessons from past and warnings for future

Historian Yuval Harari, author of Sapiens and Homo Deus, answers questions from the South China Morning Post on how the coronavirus pandemic poses unprecedented challenges in biometric surveillance, governance and global cooperation.

Yuval Harari says that unlike our ancestors battling plagues, we have science, wisdom and community on our side.

Setting the agenda for social science research on the human microbiome

The human microbiome is an important emergent area of cross, multi and transdisciplinary study. The complexity of this topic leads to conflicting narratives and regulatory challenges. It raises questions about the benefits of its commercialisation and drives debates about alternative models for engaging with its publics, patients and other potential beneficiaries. The social sciences and the humanities have begun to explore the microbiome as an object of empirical study and as an opportunity for theoretical innovation. They can play an important role in facilitating the development of research that is socially relevant, that incorporates cultural norms and expectations around microbes and that investigates how social and biological lives intersect. This is a propitious moment to establish lines of collaboration in the study of the microbiome that incorporate the concerns and capabilities of the social sciences and the humanities together with those of the natural sciences and relevant stakeholders outside academia. This paper presents an agenda for the engagement of the social sciences with microbiome research and its implications for public policy and social change. Our methods were informed by existing multidisciplinary science-policy agenda-setting exercises. We recruited 36 academics and stakeholders and asked them to produce a list of important questions about the microbiome that were in need of further social science research. We refined this initial list into an agenda of 32 questions and organised them into eight themes that both complement and extend existing research trajectories. This agenda was further developed through a structured workshop where 21 of our participants refined the agenda and reflected on the challenges and the limitations of the exercise itself. The agenda identifies the need for research that addresses the implications of the human microbiome for human health, public health, public and private sector research and notions of self and identity. It also suggests new lines of research sensitive to the complexity and heterogeneity of human–microbiome relations, and how these intersect with questions of environmental governance, social and spatial inequality and public engagement with science.

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