Maybe Sex Robots Will Make Men, Not Women, Obsolete

Dear Friends.

Every now and then I try to share a few of the many articles that pass my desk about future tech. It’s fascinating stuff indeed and I could spend days reading about what different countries and researchers are doing.

Having said that, I’m not at all sure I want too much more tech in my life. I don’t know about you but the more I have, the more complicated life tends to get. And I find myself deleting apps, simplifying my daily routines and deleting the many news feeds I really don’t read.

Mind you, I also got a VR headset for Christmas so….. Yeah, the kid in me can’t resist something bright, new and shiny. I’ll get back to you with how much I really wind up using it.

Alexa, What Are You Doing with My Family’s Personal Info?

I don’t have any smart devices in our home because I’m still not convinced I want/need them in any reasonable way. My only experience with them was over dinner in a friend’s home, one of them started talking. It was responding to something said in the conversation even though it hadn’t been aimed at it. “Always listening” just creeps me out and here’s another take on this from Scientific American.

Read it here.

This Neural NetThis This Neural Network Built by Japanese Researchers Can ‘Read Minds’

Now, this is a bit creepy too. “The new technique, dubbed “deep image reconstruction,” moves beyond binary pixels, giving researchers the ability to decode images that have multiple layers of color and structure.”

Read it here.

The Age of Em

I have not read this book but I did watch the videos on this page and they were enough for me. The age of em is basically the theory by some computer AI people that the first really smart robots will be human brain emulations or “ems.” Fascinating thoughts.

Read it here.

Can AI Diagnose Your Health?

Here’s Another Sci Am article worth reading about how AI Deep Learning examines retinal scans to predict different health states and how it processes health scans.

Read it here.