Partners of Humans: A Realistic Assessment of the Role of Robots in the Foreseeable Future

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Aleksander

As robots are generally thought to perform human-like tasks, they depend on the successes of information technology in the area of artificial intelligence to succeed in such pursuits. But robots, through their anthropomorphic character and their weighty presence in science fiction, attract the attention of the press and the media in a way that, at times, blurs the distinction between the actual state of the art and exaggerated claims. This makes it hard to assess the true functional positioning of robots, how this is likely to move forward and whether the outcome of progress could be detrimental to human society. The aim of this paper is to review the actual level of competence that is being achieved in robotics research laboratories and a plausible impact that this is likely to have on human control over life and jobs. The key thesis here is that cognition in machines and even an artificial form of consciousness lead to operations in a set of tasks (the ‘algorithmic’ category) which is different from that available to truly cognitive and conscious human beings (the ‘life-need’ category): that is, in the paper it is argued that a major category error (Ryle in The concept of mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949) looms in predictions of serious threats to humanity. As far as a threat to jobs goes, it is argued that early attention to education and re-skilling of humans in the workplace can lead to an effective symbiosis between people and robots.

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-53
Author(s):  
Marlou Schrover ◽  
Tycho Walaardt

This article analyses newspaper coverage, government policies and policy practices during the 1956 Hungarian refugee crisis. There were surprisingly few differences between newspapers in the coverage of this refugee migration, and few changes over time. The role of the press was largely supportive of government policies, although the press did criticise the selection of refugees. According to official government guidelines, officials should not have selected, but in practice this is what they attempted to do. The refugees who arrived in the Netherlands did not live up to the image the press, in its supportive role, had created: there were too few freedom fighters, women and children. This article shows that the press had an influence because policy makers did make adjustments. However, in practice selection was not what the media assumed it was, and the corrections were not what the media had aimed for.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Topić ◽  
Ralph Tench

This paper analyzed the coverage on the anti-sugar debate and the supermarket industry in the British press, in a period between 2014 and 2015. Using social responsibility of the press theory and a qualitative two-tier content analysis, we first conducted a documentary analysis of public relations materials (press releases and surveys published by Action on Sugar as a main anti-sugar advocate in the UK), and then we traced these public relations materials in the press coverage. We also analyzed whether some sources are preferred more than others by focusing on the nature of quoted sources and whether the media give a voice to everyone, both the anti-sugar activists and the relevant industry figures who claim that sugar is not the only reason for the current obesity problem in the UK. The results show that the media have not given a representative voice to the industry but only to the anti-sugar NGOs, thus opening a question of journalism standards and the extent the press could be considered as socially responsible in this particular case.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (03) ◽  
pp. C02 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Autzen

Scientific institutions have for a long time known the importance of framing and owning stories about science They also know the effective way of communicating science in a press release This is part of the institution’s public relations. Enhanced competition among research institutions has led to a buildup of communicative competences and professionalization of public relations inside the institutions and the press release has become an integrated part of science communication from these institutions. Changing working conditions in the media, where fewer people have to publish more, have made press releases from trustworthy scientific institutions into free and easily copied content for the editors. In this commentary I investigate and discuss the communicative ecosystem of the university press release. I especially take a close look at the role of the critical and independent science journalist in relation to this corporate controlled communication


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1and2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. G. K. Sahu ◽  
Shah Alam

We are living in a mediated world where every aspect of human life is getting affected by images of media. Consciously or unconsciously, knowingly or unknowingly our attitudes, values and belief systems are getting increasingly influenced by media. Some media critics expressed serious concern over the influence of the media in our everyday life. In the contemporary media saturated world, the agenda of the media becoming the public agenda. It is in this context, the news media play an important role in shaping public opinion and creating consciousness on different issues. Keeping in view of the importance of the news media in the contemporary society, the paper makes an attempt to ascertain the agenda setting role of the press towards women’s issues. For the purpose two mainstream dailies- one from the English and the other from the Urdu language newspapers purposively taken and their contents related to women’s issues have been subjected to detailed analysis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Mason ◽  
John Hajek

Abstract Across most predominantly English-speaking countries, classroom-based language education plays an important role in the internationalization of young citizens. However, the quality of language learning opportunities in many countries is less than ideal. The development of language education policy is influenced in part by broader societal perceptions of language, and these perceptions are often reflected and shaped by the media. The case of Australia is an interesting one for focus, because media and policy attention to the discipline is high, and yet to date there has been no comprehensive analysis of its representation. To fill this gap, the authors subject 261 news articles from Australian newspapers between 2007 and 2016 to mixed-methods content analysis, guided by Ruiz’s three orientations to language. The results show that language is positioned as a problem, and as an economic resource, but not as a social resource, nor as a right of everyday citizens. The ideological positioning of language in the press has implications for the perceptions of the role of language education, and for student uptake.


Author(s):  
Susana Guerrero Salazar

The press and social networks constitute the most recurrent platform for debate on the subject of “women and language”. The media discourse on this subject covers many aspects that have not yet been addressed in depth, including the discourse that is generated when the academic dictionary is taken as a point of reference. This article analyses sexism (or not) of some definitions in the dictionary through a press corpus obtained from the Hemeroteca Virtual de las Lenguas de España (HEVILE), which has allowed us, in the first place, to catalogue the words and definitions related to women which have been news in recent years and, therefore, the object of debate; secondly, to verify the beliefs and linguistic attitudes regarding the role of the Academy and its dictionary in society; and, finally, to decide what effects the debate generated (especially through social networks) on the latest changes carried out in some of these definitions.


Author(s):  
Yetti Herawati ◽  
Linda Astuti ◽  
Maryaningsih

Government Public Relations could serve as a means or channel of government agencies in running relationship with the press, including the Local Government of Bengkulu province. This study aimed to see at how public relations play this role. The method used in this research was descriptive qualitative method in which the data collection was conducted by semi- structured interviews to research subjects. It’s possible for researchers to develop questions appropriate to the situation and condition so it was possible to get complete data. From the research, the role of PR in the Bengkulu Provincial Government ran good relationship with the press. The good role of the public relations could be demonstrated by the implementation of most of the series of activities such as: building and maintaining a good relationship with the press, served and understood the media, press interviews, broadcast rebuttal, filling out the important public section in the press, and documentation.Keywords : Public Relation Role, Mass Media Relation 


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-259
Author(s):  
Kamila Kamińska-Chełminiak ◽  

The aim of the study is to present selected aspects of the history of censorship in Poland during the Stalinist period (1948−1956). The article presents the circumstances of the establishment of the censorship office in Poland — the Central Office for the Control of Press, Publications and Events (GUKPPiW) — which was set up in January 1945 and operated throughout the period of the Polish People’s Republic, until April 1990. The article also gives an answer to the question about the role of the so-called Soviet advisers who came to Lublin in December 1944 and took full control of the process of creating state censorship. The employees of the Soviet censorship sent from Moscow were tasked with creating an institution that would control the media and operate according to the mechanisms established in the USSR. In the process of organizing the censorship apparatus, the Polish communists played a marginal and servant role towards the Soviet military (including General N. Bulganin) and advisers who came from Moscow. The most important decisions were made by the employees of Glavlit, whose recommendations were treated by the management of the Polish Workers’ Party as orders. Glavlit officers, who arrived in Lublin in December 1944, recruited censorship employees, developed instructions for them, rules for publishing and issuing printed works and drafted a decree on the control of the press, publications and performances, a draft order of the minister of public security regarding the introduction of censorship. The work also describes the process of recruiting censors, as well as the reasons and scope of censorship interventions.


Author(s):  
Artani Hasbi

The Qur'an speaks of human beings as closely associated with the laws of history. Many verses contain a suggestion to human about the role of history. Humans have to adjust the provisions that have been established on the facts and reality that clear and complete. Conditions set by God is a "dying" for a society / nation. The people can get the victory, but also can suffer defeat. "....if you get injured (in battle), verily others (enemies) also received a similar injury. The days of the victory, We (God) shifts (the victory) among men". (Qur'an, Ali Imran, 3: 140). Qur'an as if to say: do not fancy that God's victory is a right reserved for humans, (know) the victory is natural for human rights, for anyone who has met the requirements to achieve the win according to the laws of history and in accordance with the provisions of Allah (the laws) are applied in reality, not just theory syar'i. Winning and losing is a discussion about the man with all the dynamics. Even the Qur'an highlights the human society that is more clean and pure to appear in the stage of history to win the war, despite all the engineering and deceit, intimidation and torture. The truth will still prevail. The Qur'an reminds destruction, if they are not able to take a role in the dynamics of history, and not capable of taking the minutes of the Lord in playing its historical role. Legal history will show that the community / nation who are unable to carry out the minutes of the Lord will soon sink, then counter posed other nations that have prepared themselves with superior capabilities, so as to play a historical role as a witness of human civilization. The ordinance of God shows the linkage between victory and success, if the fulfillment of the requirements and able to achieve it.


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