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A philosopher argues that an AI can’t be creative

A philosopher argues that an AI can’t be creative

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Sean Dorrance Kelly writes: Advances in artificial intelligence have led many to speculate that human beings will soon be replaced by machines in every domain, including that of creativity. Ray Kurzweil, a futurist, predicts that by 2029 we will have produced an AI that can pass for an average educated human being. Nick Bostrom, an Oxford philosopher, is more circumspect. He does not give a date but suggests that philosophers and mathematicians defer work on fundamental questions to “superintelligent” successors,…

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Frans de Waal embraces animal emotions in ‘Mama’s Last Hug’

Frans de Waal embraces animal emotions in ‘Mama’s Last Hug’

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Sy Montgomery writes: The two old friends hadn’t seen each other lately. Now one of them was on her deathbed, crippled with arthritis, refusing food and drink, dying of old age. Her friend had come to say goodbye. At first she didn’t seem to notice him. But when she realized he was there, her reaction was unmistakable: Her face broke into an ecstatic grin. She cried out in delight. She reached for her visitor’s head and stroked his hair. As…

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Concrete is tipping us into climate catastrophe. We need to tax it, now

Concrete is tipping us into climate catastrophe. We need to tax it, now

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John Vidal writes: Cement, the key component of concrete and one of the most widely used manmade materials, is now the cornerstone of global construction. It has shaped the modern environment, but its production has a massive footprint that neither the industry nor governments have been willing to address. Because of the heat needed to decompose rock and the natural chemical processes involved in making cement, every tonne made releases one tonne of C02, the main greenhouse warming gas. Including…

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No marine ecosystems left that are unaffected by plastic waste, study suggests

No marine ecosystems left that are unaffected by plastic waste, study suggests

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The Guardian reports: The world’s deepest ocean trenches are becoming “the ultimate sink” for plastic waste, according to a study that reveals contamination of animals even in these dark, remote regions of the planet. For the first time, scientists found microplastic ingestion by organisms in the Mariana trench and five other areas with a depth of more than 6,000 metres, prompting them to conclude “it is highly likely there are no marine ecosystems left that are not impacted by plastic…

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Putin has restored the role its intelligence agencies had in the Soviet era — keep citizens in check and destabilize foreign adversaries

Putin has restored the role its intelligence agencies had in the Soviet era — keep citizens in check and destabilize foreign adversaries

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John Sipher writes: According to this year’s National Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessment and Senate testimony by top-ranked intelligence officials, Americans can expect Vladimir Putin’s Russia to continue its efforts to aggravate social, political and racial tensions in the United States and among its allies. So, to best prepare for future Russian assaults, we should look to the past and study the mind-set of the Cold War K.G.B. — the intelligence service in which President Putin spent his formative years. The…

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Calls grow for Labor Secretary Acosta to resign as Epstein’s sex abuse victims demand justice

Calls grow for Labor Secretary Acosta to resign as Epstein’s sex abuse victims demand justice

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The Miami Herald reports: Lawyers for victims who were sexually abused as minors by multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein have formally demanded that the government vacate Epstein’s plea deal, void his federal immunity and reopen his sex trafficking investigation, the Miami Herald has learned. Lawyers Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell, who represent two of Epstein’s victims, sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida making the request in the wake of a federal judge’s ruling last…

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U.S. Cyber Command operation disrupted Internet access of Russian troll factory on day of 2018 midterms

U.S. Cyber Command operation disrupted Internet access of Russian troll factory on day of 2018 midterms

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The Washington Post reports: The U.S. military blocked Internet access to an infamous Russian entity seeking to sow discord among Americans during the 2018 midterms, several U.S. officials said, a warning that the Kremlin’s operations against the United States are not cost-free. The strike on the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, a company underwritten by an oligarch close to President Vladi­mir Putin, was part of the first offensive cyber campaign against Russia designed to thwart attempts to interfere with…

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A world that neglects to save its children can’t hope to be saved by its children

A world that neglects to save its children can’t hope to be saved by its children

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  The New York Times reports: It’s complicated being Greta. Small, shy, survivor of crippling depression, Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish girl skipping school to shame the world into addressing climate change, drew a parade of fans one Friday in February on a frozen square in Stockholm. Six Swiss students had traveled 26 hours by train to seek her support for their petition for a tougher Swiss carbon emissions law. An Italian scientist told her she reminded him of his…

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Feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss may push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point

Feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss may push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point

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Natalie Wolchover writes: Clouds currently cover about two-thirds of the planet at any moment. But computer simulations of clouds have begun to suggest that as the Earth warms, clouds become scarcer. With fewer white surfaces reflecting sunlight back to space, the Earth gets even warmer, leading to more cloud loss. This feedback loop causes warming to spiral out of control. For decades, rough calculations have suggested that cloud loss could significantly impact climate, but this concern remained speculative until the…

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Is a more generous society possible?

Is a more generous society possible?

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By Leah Shaffer In January 2016, Cathryn Townsend set out to live among “the loveless people.” So named by anthropologist Colin Turnbull, the Ik are a tribe of some 11,600 hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers living in an arid and harsh mountainous region of Uganda. Turnbull studied the Ik in the 1960s and famously characterized them as “inhospitable and generally mean” in his book The Mountain People. He documented how young children were abandoned to starve and how people would snatch…

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Costa Rica lays out ground-breaking decarbonisation plan

Costa Rica lays out ground-breaking decarbonisation plan

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Renew Economy reports: The Central American nation of Costa Rica has laid out its long-term decarbonisation plans to become one of the world’s first, if not the first, zero-emissions nations. Costa Rica’s Decarbonization Plan includes both short-term goals out to 2022 which are intended to support the country’s longer-term 2050 goals and also serves as the basis for Costa Rica’s plans to update its Nationally Determined Contributions in line with the Paris Agreement in 2020. With a population of nearly…

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Pay attention to the growing wave of climate change lawsuits

Pay attention to the growing wave of climate change lawsuits

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Vox reports: In 1998, 46 states and the District of Columbia signed on to the largest civil litigation settlement in US history, the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Stunning in its scope and scale, the agreement forced the four largest tobacco companies to stop advertising to youth, limit lobbying, restrict product placement in media, and fund anti-smoking campaigns. It also required them to pay out more than $206 billion over 25 years. Tobacco companies had in previous decades successfully swatted down…

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Labour will back a second referendum to stop Tory no-deal Brexit

Labour will back a second referendum to stop Tory no-deal Brexit

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  The Guardian reports: Jeremy Corbyn has finally thrown his party’s weight behind a second EU referendum, backing moves for a fresh poll with remain on the ballot paper if Labour should fail to get its own version of a Brexit deal passed this week. The decision to give the party’s backing to a second referendum comes after a concerted push by shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer and deputy leader Tom Watson, who fear any further delay could have led…

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