Microsoft and IBM have signed the “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” pledging to the Vatican that their AI will protect the planet and its people. History is filled with secular leaders cutting such deals in exchange for the Church’s sanction for fighting a war newly deemed “holy,” or sometimes simply Read more…
It’s official: Facebook has doubled down on its goal of imposing its radical ideology on the world. CEO Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t have been more clear in his comments at a tech conference last week: “We’re going to stand up for free expression. It’s unfortunate that this is such a controversial Read more…
Clay Christensen has died. Debate about his theories should live on. His concept of disruptive innovation is a brilliant encapsulation of the role of unexpected effects on markets and businesses, often driven by technology innovation. Applied within narrow constraints, it effectively describes instances in which businesses that dominate markets don’t Read more…
We don’t need stakeholder capitalism, nor do we need to reject shareholder value. Skip the buzz worthy phrases and easy PR campaigns. Companies shouldn’t tell us they’ll do good (however defined), they should tell us what they’re doing, really and fully, and let us decide if we like it or Read more…
Boeing’s widening woes are a warning to every communicator tasked with creating or sharing company purpose. The headline in today’s New York Times says it all: Cascading Crisis Reveals ‘Sick’ Culture at Boeing. Recently revealed internal documents show employees regularly cutting corners, dissing one another and insulting customers, feeling remorse Read more…
Is it possible that lakes and forests might have rights before robots?Voters in Toledo have granted “irrevocable rights for the Lake Erie Ecosystem to exist, flourish and naturally evolve” which, according to this story, would give it legal standing to file lawsuits to protect itself from polluters (through the mouthpiece Read more…
It’s a fair bet that we’ll see more drone package deliveries in 2020, though it’s far less clear how it’ll affect privacy, liability, and noise. Alphabet’s Wing prompted a recent story in the Los Angeles Times outlining what it dubbed such “thorny questions” when it became the first company in Read more…
As many large companies prepare next year’s sustainability reports, it’s important to note that nobody cares. Well, very few people care, and they fall into three little buckets: First, specialized interest (or pressure) groups await the reports so they can check on how badly companies are falling short on whatever Read more…
The belief that development of a sentient or self-aware AI is simply a matter of enough data, connections, and processing speed is based on the premise that human consciousness is the product of material objects and processes, too. Francis Crick, the less overtly racist half of the duo who discovered Read more…
The Hong Kong government’s new ad campaign is unconvincing in what it says, and outright frightening because of what it omits. Full-page ads have appeared in newspapers around the world, apparently intended to reassure people — investors, mostly those outside of Hong Kong — that everything will be fine. There Read more…