scholarly journals Understanding Intelligent Systems

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Rosenblat ◽  
Tamara Kneese ◽  
danah boyd
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
Harvard Business Review ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Automated Systems ◽  
Physical Risk ◽  
The Right ◽  
Century Science ◽  
20Th Century Science

Throughout the 20th century, science fiction portrayed a robotic future in both utopian and dystopian ways. The reality of automated systems, intelligent systems, and “robots” in the workforce, however, is much more mundane, even if it is undoubtedly disruptive. The same set of technologies that empower employees to be more effective or bear less physical risk can displace a workforce in other sectors, or undermine economic systems. Unrepentant fear and hope often obscure the complex socio-technical dynamics of intelligent systems in the workplace, yet moving beyond this is critical to developing the right framework for navigating the development of such systems. This is especially important at a moment when the results of a recent canvassing survey of widely-quoted technology builders, analysts, and other insightful figures by the Pew Research Center (Smith & Anderson, 2014) on robots prompted Walter Frick (2014) at the Harvard Business Review to exclaim that, “Experts have no idea if a robot will steal your job.”

Vertical cities: Representations of urban verticality in 20th-century science fiction literature

Urban Studies ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 923-937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Hewitt ◽  
Stephen Graham
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Urban Analysis ◽  
Century Science ◽  
20Th Century Science

This paper seeks to intersect two recent trends in urban research. First, it takes seriously the recognition that established traditions of research concerned with urban space have tended to privilege the horizontal extension of cities to the neglect of their vertical or volumetric extension. Second, the paper contributes to the resurgence of interest among social scientists in the validity of fiction – and especially speculative or science fiction – as a source of critical commentary and as a mode of knowledge that can exist in close reciprocity with non-fictional work. From these two starting points the paper develops a reading of the dialogue between the representations of vertical urban life that have featured in landmark works of 20th-century science fiction literature and key themes in contemporary urban analysis.

The appointment of W. H. Bragg, F. R. S. to the University of Adelaide

1985 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-99 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Good Friend ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Research Career ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Experimental Physics ◽  
Useful Life ◽  
The University ◽  
Century Science ◽  
20Th Century Science

TWO of the more important figures in 20th century science have been William Henry Bragg (1) and his elder son William Lawrence Bragg (2). Less fully studied and understood are the formative years of W. H. Bragg’s academic and research career, which were spent in Australia, where, in addition, W. L. Bragg was born, raised and educated. W. H. Bragg was appointed Elder Professor of Mathematics and Experimental Physics in the University of Adelaide late in 1885; at the age of 23 years and very soon after he graduated from the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. It may be conceded that such a young man needed time to mature and to learn the ways of the academic world, but nevertheless it seems curious that his first 17 years in Australia should have involved little more than wide social popularity, a passion for golf and painting in water-colours, ‘bicycle tours and picnics during the long lazy summer vacations by the sea’, a flirtation with X-rays, and generally ‘ a pleasant and useful life as a popular teacher and good friend in the Adelaide community’ (3).

Making 20th Century Science

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 241-243
Author(s):  
Olival Freire
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Century Science ◽  
20Th Century Science
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