Do unicorns exist? In Silicon Valley, they do. Unicorns are tech start-ups that begin with a billion dollars or more of venture capital behind them. In fact, there are more unicorns there than Harry Potter has seen in his world because, at the moment, tech is ripe with specula
I want to pose a question: How can we develop Artificial Intelligence when our own intelligence is questionable; when we can’t agree on standards of behavior or ethical goals; when we know little about how our brains work; can’t define intelligence and have no idea what consciou
Over the weekend, I had to open a new web account which required my email address and a secure password. I hate thinking up passwords. I hate recording them in a notebook, which is becoming as large as the English Oxford Dictionary. And I hate having to look up a password up each time
The amount of personal information being gathered by commercial interests should begin to worry folks, no matter how convenient it may be when Macy’s remembers your shoe size. Unfortunately, new innovations are underway which will expose an individual’s personal information beyond
Hillary Clinton’s emails, though scoured by several investigative agencies, government and private, have turned up little of interest. Mostly, she’s a woman baffled by technology. Here’s a typical exchange: (Excerpted from “Inboxes of the Rich and Famous,” by Josephine Wol
Technology continues to change the landscape faster than social conventions can adjust, which creates a gap, a lawless frontier where tech companies can do what they like. For example, who gave them permission to monetize our private information? If stalking us on the internet to dete
The world has become an uncomfortably small place. In the past, habits and cultures of other nations seemed little more than a curiosity to those of us who lived separated from the other continents by two oceans. Our friends in Canada were too like us to bear comparison and, mostly, w
Before I moved to the retirement center, I lived in a 1896 clapboard Victorian home with no central heating or air conditioning. In the winter, I kept warm by using electric wall heaters and in summer, I turned on overhead fans. The system met my needs on most days, but when summer he
While I admit to worrying about the dark side of robotics, like the loss of jobs for the worker, I rarely imagine a world populated by Terminators bent on destroying mankind. In fact, as writer Charles Taylor points out, robots are likely to improve many aspects of our lives. (“Robo
The other day my 94 year-old psychologist friend sat down opposite me as I was having lunch at the retirement center. I was munching dutifully on a slab of grilled tofu and a few roasted potatoes, nourishing stuff, but uninspiring. He looked at my plate with a blank expression. “The