Petervan's Delicacies - Issue #108

The very best

About human imagination. Nick Cave answers to a Slovenian fan named Peter, but it felt like he was talking directly to me. Very much enjoyed this. It is about our potential as humans, and a sense of awe.

About billionaire Masayoshi Son spending hundreds of billions of dollars to realise an AI-powered utopia.

A long read on the hypocrisy of today's elites: they claim to want to solve the world’s problems, as long as the solutions never, ever threaten their own wealth and power

Opening keynote by Albert Wenger at DLD19, showing how for every doom scenario there is an optimist's view possible. Some of the examples are a bit simplistic IMO.

About the cozy relationship between big tech and the surveillance state. Think "Social Credit" is not possible in the Western World? Think twice.

A bit bizarre art experiment on the quest for the perfect looking self

2019 will likely see gene drives used in the wild, a universal flu vaccine, further advance of brain-machine interfaces, and more.

We need to begin a serious debate about whether artificially evolved humans are our future, and if we should put an end to these experiments before it is too late

Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect

This giant cognitive bias codex will transform your understanding of yourself.

O n July 9th, 2018, Team Human partnered with Virtual Futures for an evening of connection and conversation at JuJu’s Bar and Stage in London. Joining Douglas on stage, science fiction, fantasy, and…

Data and Society

Shoshana Zuboff’s new book is a chilling exposé of the business model that underpins the digital world. Observer tech columnist John Naughton explains the importance of Zuboff’s work and asks the author 10 key questions

Here is chapter I contributed to the Hackademic 2018 book, Anti-Social Media?: The Impact on Journalism and Society....

China wants data transmission from electric vehicles to carmakers and the government to happen even faster than it already does.

“As always, progress has not been without a price. Like the factories of 200 years ago, digital advances have given rise to a pollution that is reducing the quality of our lives and the strength of our democracy. We manage what we choose to meas...

Many people I’ve spoken to have a pretty good understanding that companies like Facebook and Google have a massive amount of data on them. And most of those people also…

In a speech at Davos, financier and philanthropist George Soros warned of the dangers of combining government and corporate AI efforts.

With 2,200 observation satellites going into orbit in the next decade, start-ups are trying to use them to churn out financially useful information that could help companies track their rivals.

Zeitgeist

« What Kind of Internet Do We Want To Build ? » This question — the title of a speech given by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at DLD19 — was an underlying theme of this annual gathering of the…

In public, executives wring their hands over automation’s negative consequences for workers. In private, they talk about how they are racing to automate.

Innovation

The Innovation Excellence community is home to articles, webinars, videos, training and education - powering growth in the innovation management profession.

We’ve talked about how to make your application to 500’s accelerator stand out, and one of the key points we mentioned was ensuring you have a solid pitch deck. But what does a good pitch deck look…

For mixed-reality experiences to take off, input will be as crucial as output. An Apple patent suggests that the company is already at work on that challenge.

Future of work

10 essays about the topic. Good stuff...

Listening to Shannon Lucas at the Ericsson Experience Center on our last nexxworks tour, I loved learning about their clear focus on people and what drives them

About 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are personally engaged in social media – neither outsourcing to ghostwriters nor ignoring the phenomenon. Why do they find the time to participate, amidst overwhelmingly full agendas? What drives them? What benefits do they realize? Quite a few, actually.

From faking their own deaths to hiring people to talk to their bosses for them, vanishing from the office without a trace is now a common method of workers quitting. But it's risky.

Internet Culture

I spent six weeks blocking Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple from getting my money, data, and attention, using a custom-built VPN. Here’s what h...

FinTech

State-run newspaper China Daily reported that officials in the Chinese province of Hebei created the app, named 'map of deadbeat debtors', which can be accessed through social media app WeChat.

BBVA, Spain’s second-largest bank, is undergoing a digital transformation to prepare itself for the 4th industrial revolution. From investing in fintech startups to using AI-enabled platforms to provide better service to its customers, BBVA is well on its way to becoming a tech company.

The term "Artificial Intelligence" was coined by American cognitive scientist John McCarthy back in 1955, initiating the whole discussion on simulated cognitive processes in machines. After the Dartmouth conference of 1956, AI became a legitimate new field of knowledge, sparking interest of intellectuals all over the

Mastercard’s practices would not allow merchants to shop around other European banks for better card transaction fees.

10 Flippin Fantastic 2019 Fintech Trends by McKinsey: Payments news and views helping corporates navigate payments technology and industry payment trends

Alipay Europe. The launch of the new Luxembourg licensed entity, Alipay (Europe) Limited S.A., was officially announced by Luxembourg Minister of Finance Pierre Gramegna on January 14, 2019 during his visit in Hong Kong.

Earthport plc (LON:EPO) - Mastercard today trumped Visa’s previously agreed offer by 10%

Banking providers can realize many financial and technological advantages by building a digital-only arm on top of their legacy business.

The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index provides the latest estimate of the total energy consumption of the Bitcoin network.

The production-weighted cash cost to create one Bitcoin averaged around $4,060 globally in the fourth quarter, according to analysts with JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Nouriel Roubini, one of the most notorious cryptocurrency critics, has stated that blockchain is “no better than an Excel spreadsheet.”

AI, Robots, Algorythms

AI Thinks Like a Corporation — and That’s Worrying. Artificial intelligence was born of organisational decision-making and state power; it needs human ethics, says Jonnie Penn of the…

After decades of promise and hype, artificial intelligence is finally becoming one of the most important technologies of our era. As AI continues to both spread and advance, will it enhance human capacities or will it lessen human autonomy and...

The explosion of data and advances in computing power are radically transforming daily life

A new study finds people less freaked out about workplace automation than in the past. But it also finds companies more confident than workers that there is enough retraining and preparing going on. The transition is going to require a bigger societal effort than is yet underway.

It has been 21 years since IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer checkmated chess champion Garry Kasparov, marking a historic moment in the development of artificial intelligence technologies. Since then…

Artificial intelligence is helping to develop flavors tweaked precisely for your age, ethnicity, and gender. Think beer and snacks as unique as your fingerprint.

The top AI influencers ahead of 2019 are driving conversations about news and trends across social media and media channels and shaping an industry.

We are in the middle of an AI boom. Machine Learning experts command extraordinary salaries, investors are happy to open their hearts and checkbooks when meeting AI startups. And rightly so: this is…

Digital Ethics

The GSMA today launched the ‘Digital Declaration’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The declaration captures key principles that serve as a guide

Dozens of senior policymakers who are trying to agree on rules for artificial intelligence gathered at M.I.T. There was even some consensus.

“We ought to respect the beautiful and create it where possible: if one can grow beautiful facial hair, one should, as it has moral worth."

Firm falls to fifth place in customer satisfaction poll with First Direct ranked best

By will.i.am. “We Need to Own Our Data as a Human Right — And Be Compensated for It” is published by The Economist

What story does your data tell about you?

Mapping different approaches to AI governance and regulation across the world

Against the backdrop of a "techlash", the CEO of Microsoft called for new global norms on privacy, data and Artificial Intelligence.

In November 2018, a Rubicon was crossed in biomedical science. Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced he had created the first “CRISPR babies” — infants whose genomes were edited before they were…

Post Capitalism

Ten years ago, the Davos conference asked the question: “What must industry do to prevent a broad social backlash?” The answer probably wasn’t “Double, triple, or sextuple the wealth of the most prominent conference attendees, while letting median household incomes stagnate ba

Art related

Master architect Renzo Piano pays homage to the glories of cinema in his daring design of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles

From bioplastic cookbooks to multispecies speculative fictions: five new web residencies by Solitude & ZKM have started, selected by curator Mary Maggic.

Aesthetics

The Body Observed, a major new photography exhibition, organised by the [Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts](https://scva.ac.uk/) and [Magnum Photos](ht...

Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves of Studio Swine discuss their approach to design and the work they are currently undertaking as part of a residency at Br...

A look at the construction of Beijing Daxing International Airport, a massive new transportation facility set to open later this year

iris van herpen takes inspiration from celestial maps with her latest collection, which she describes as an 'evolution of the human shape'.

New waves of Asian films have been underwritten, spiritually no less than financially, by a hyperactive convergence with American conditions.

His black box brought a shiver of death to the Tate Turbine Hall. Now the Polish sculptor has created some vast barriers – and cranked up the heat to protein-killing levels

this film was among the sources used by Stanley Kubrick in his 2001: A Space Odyssey.

AES+F is a collective of four Russian artists: Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, Evgeny Svyatsky, and Vladimir Fridkes.

Other

People with dementia are to be prescribed 'personal playlists' to alleviate symptoms thanks to a new 'Music for Dementia 2020' campaign