scholarly journals Catastrophic Risk from Rapid Developments in Artificial Intelligence

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Boyd ◽  
Nick Wilson

This article describes important possible scenarios in which rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) pose multiple risks, including to democracy and for inter-state conflict. In parallel with other countries, New Zealand needs policies to monitor, anticipate and mitigate global catastrophic and existential risks from advanced new technologies. A dedicated policy capacity could translate emerging research and policy options into the New Zealand context. It could also identify how New Zealand could best contribute to global solutions. It is desirable that the potential benefits of AI are realised, while the risks are also mitigated to the greatest extent possible.

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domenico D’Amario ◽  
Francesco Canonico ◽  
Daniele Rodolico ◽  
Josip A Borovac ◽  
Rocco Vergallo ◽  
...  

New technologies have been recently introduced to improve the monitoring of patients with chronic syndromes such as heart failure. Devices can now be employed to gather large amounts of data and data processing through artificial intelligence techniques may improve heart failure management and reduce costs. The analysis of large datasets using an artificial intelligence technique is leading to a paradigm shift in the era of precision medicine. However, the assessment of clinical safety and the evaluation of the potential benefits is still a matter of debate. In this article, the authors aim to focus on the development of these new tools and to draw the attention to their transition in daily clinical practice.


Author(s):  
R.W. Hofmann ◽  
B.D. Campbell ◽  
E.E. Swinny ◽  
S.J. Bloor ◽  
K.R. Markham ◽  
...  

During summertime in New Zealand, white clover experiences high levels of ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation. This frequently coincides with periods of summer drought. We investigated responses to UV-B and to the combination of UV-B and drought in various white clover populations, including New Zealand cultivars and ecotypes as well as overseas germplasm. The results were obtained under controlled environmental conditions in three independent trials. Overall, white clover growth was reduced by UV-B. The population comparisons indicated that low growth rate and adaptation to other forms of stress may be related to UV-B tolerance under well-watered conditions, but not during extended periods of drought. Flavonoid pigments that are involved in stress protection were strongly increased under UV-B and were further enhanced in the combination of UV-B and drought. The responses among these flavonoids were highly specific, with more pronounced UV-B-induced increases in quercetin glycosides, compared to their closely related kaempferol counterparts. UV-B toler ance of the less productive white clover populations was linked to the accumulation of quercetin compounds. In conclusion, these studies suggest (i) that slow-growing white clover ecotypes adapted to other stresses have higher capacity for biochemical acclimation to UV-B under well-watered conditions and (ii) that these biochemical attributes may also contribute to decreased UV-B sensitivity across white clover populations under drought. The findings alert plant breeders to potential benefits of selecting productive germplasm for high levels of specific flavonoids to balance trade-offs between plant productivity and stress tolerance. Keywords: Drought, flavonoids, genetic variation, HPLC, kaempferol, quercetin, str ess, Trifolium repens L., ultraviolet-B, white clover


2016 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 73-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.G. Scrimgeour

This paper provides a stocktake of the status of hill country farming in New Zealand and addresses the challenges which will determine its future state and performance. It arises out of the Hill Country Symposium, held in Rotorua, New Zealand, 12-13 April 2016. This paper surveys people, policy, business and change, farming systems for hill country, soil nutrients and the environment, plants for hill country, animals, animal feeding and productivity, and strategies for achieving sustainable outcomes in the hill country. This paper concludes by identifying approaches to: support current and future hill country farmers and service providers, to effectively and efficiently deal with change; link hill farming businesses to effective value chains and new markets to achieve sufficient and stable profitability; reward farmers for the careful management of natural resources on their farm; ensure that new technologies which improve the efficient use of input resources are developed; and strategies to achieve vibrant rural communities which strengthen hill country farming businesses and their service providers. Keywords: farming systems, hill country, people, policy, productivity, profitability, sustainability


Author(s):  
Peter Hoar

Kia ora and welcome to the second issue of BackStory. The members of the Backstory Editorial Team were gratified by the encouraging response to the first issue of the journal. We hope that our currentreaders enjoy our new issue and that it will bring others to share our interest in and enjoyment of the surprisingly varied backstories of New Zealand’s art, media, and design history. This issue takes in a wide variety of topics. Imogen Van Pierce explores the controversy around the Hundertwasser Art Centre and Wairau Māori Art Gallery to be developed in Whangarei. This project has generated debate about the role of the arts and civic architecture at both the local and national levels. This is about how much New Zealanders are prepared to invest in the arts. The value of the artist in New Zealand is also examined by Mark Stocker in his article about the sculptor Margaret Butler and the local reception of her work during the late 1930s. The cultural cringe has a long genealogy. New Zealand has been photographed since the 1840s. Alan Cocker analyses the many roles that photography played in the development of local tourism during the nineteenth century. These images challenged notions of the ‘real’ and the ‘artificial’ and how new technologies mediated the world of lived experience. Recorded sound was another such technology that changed how humans experienced the world. The rise of recorded sound from the 1890s affected lives in many ways and Lewis Tennant’s contribution captures a significant tipping point in this medium’s history in New Zealand as the transition from analogue to digital sound transformed social, commercial and acoustic worlds. The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly celebrates its 85th anniversary this year but when it was launched in 1932 it seemed tohave very little chance of success. Its rival, the Mirror, had dominated the local market since its launch in 1922. Gavin Ellis investigates the Depression-era context of the Woman’s Weekly and how its founders identified a gap in the market that the Mirror was failing to fill. The work of the photographer Marti Friedlander (1908-2016) is familiar to most New Zealanders. Friedlander’s 50 year career and huge range of subjects defy easy summary. She captured New Zealanders, their lives, and their surroundings across all social and cultural borders. In the journal’s profile commentary Linda Yang celebrates Freidlander’s remarkable life and work. Linda also discusses some recent images by Friedlander and connects these with themes present in the photographer’s work from the 1960s and 1970s. The Backstory editors hope that our readers enjoy this stimulating and varied collection of work that illuminate some not so well known aspects of New Zealand’s art, media, and design history. There are many such stories yet to be told and we look forward to bringing them to you.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-133
Author(s):  
S. V. Shchurina ◽  
A. S. Danilov

The subject of the research is the introduction of artificial intelligence as a technological innovation into the Russian economic development. The relevance of the problem is due to the fact that the Russian market of artificial intelligence is still in the infancy and the necessity to bridge the current technological gap between Russia and the leading economies of the world is coming to the forefront. The financial sector, the manufacturing industry and the retail trade are the drivers of the artificial intelligence development. However, company managers in Russia are not prepared for the practical application of expensive artificial intelligence technologies. Under these circumstances, the challenge is to develop measures to support high-tech projects of small and medium-sized businesses, given that the technological innovation considered can accelerate the development of the Russian economy in the energy sector fully or partially controlled by the government as well as in the military-industrial complex and the judicial system.The purposes of the research were to examine the current state of technological innovations in the field of artificial intelligence in the leading countries and Russia and develop proposals for improving the AI application in the Russian practices.The paper concludes that the artificial intelligence is a breakthrough technology with a great application potential. Active promotion of the artificial intelligence in companies significantly increases their efficiency, competitiveness, develops industry markets, stimulates introduction of new technologies, improves product quality and scales up manufacturing. In general, the artificial intelligence gives a new impetus to the development of Russia and facilitates its entry into the five largest world’s economies.


Author(s):  
Mahesh K. Joshi ◽  
J.R. Klein

New technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, machine intelligence, and the Internet of Things are seeing repetitive tasks move away from humans to machines. Humans cannot become machines, but machines can become more human-like. The traditional model of educating workers for the workforce is fast becoming irrelevant. There is a massive need for the retooling of human workers. Humans need to be trained to remain focused in a society which is constantly getting bombarded with information. The two basic elements of physical and mental capacity are slowly being taken over by machines and artificial intelligence. This changes the fundamental role of the global workforce.


This book is the first to examine the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines. As real artificial intelligence (AI) begins to touch on all aspects of our lives, this long narrative history shapes how the technology is developed, deployed, and regulated. It is therefore a crucial social and ethical issue. Part I of this book provides a historical overview from ancient Greece to the start of modernity. These chapters explore the revealing prehistory of key concerns of contemporary AI discourse, from the nature of mind and creativity to issues of power and rights, from the tension between fascination and ambivalence to investigations into artificial voices and technophobia. Part II focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in which a greater density of narratives emerged alongside rapid developments in AI technology. These chapters reveal not only how AI narratives have consistently been entangled with the emergence of real robotics and AI, but also how they offer a rich source of insight into how we might live with these revolutionary machines. Through their close textual engagements, these chapters explore the relationship between imaginative narratives and contemporary debates about AI’s social, ethical, and philosophical consequences, including questions of dehumanization, automation, anthropomorphization, cybernetics, cyberpunk, immortality, slavery, and governance. The contributions, from leading humanities and social science scholars, show that narratives about AI offer a crucial epistemic site for exploring contemporary debates about these powerful new technologies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Lara

AbstractCan Artificial Intelligence (AI) be more effective than human instruction for the moral enhancement of people? The author argues that it only would be if the use of this technology were aimed at increasing the individual's capacity to reflectively decide for themselves, rather than at directly influencing behaviour. To support this, it is shown how a disregard for personal autonomy, in particular, invalidates the main proposals for applying new technologies, both biomedical and AI-based, to moral enhancement. As an alternative to these proposals, this article proposes a virtual assistant that, through dialogue, neutrality and virtual reality technologies, can teach users to make better moral decisions on their own. The author concludes that, as long as certain precautions are taken in its design, such an assistant could do this better than a human instructor adopting the same educational methodology.


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