Words and Music from @billt
The Catholic Church is actively responding to the challenges posed by artificial intelligence through various teachings, but the main event is Pope Leo’s new Encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. It s the product of the wonderfully named Interdicasterial Commission on Artificial Intelligence which convened in response to a rescript signed by Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for
I gave the opening keynote at a two-day workshop looking at ways to make work that is digital, inclusive and sustainable as part of part of programme to support transformation across the European opera and dance community. It was was organised by FEDORA The European Circle of Philanthropists of Opera and Dance, a non-profit
“We must build AI for people; not to be a person,” Mustafa Suleyman’s recent essay on the importance of avoiding what he terms ‘seemingly conscious AI ‘is a welcome intervention, and much better argued than his recent book, The Coming Wave. It could be argued that it’s also a good way to put some clear
At noon today, in half an hour, there will be a two minute silence to mark VJ Day, the eightieth anniversary of the surrender of Japan and the effective end of World War Two It doesn’t get the same attention as the end of the war in Europe but it matters to me and my
I arrived to study at Cambridge University forty-six years ago, in 1979, and moved into a room at St Catharine s College, or Catz. It was Bull 51, a room at the top of Bull Hostel under a leaded roof, looking out over King s Parade (the one marked in the photo above). Three years later I
“As I write, highly civilized human beings are crafting algorithmic timelines, trying to kill my ability to focus for longer than thirty seconds. “They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. But their stock options and share prices depend on taking the most of my conscious attention as
I m editing a newsletter and I just copied and pasted a photograph I took in Savino s cafe this week of my coffee in a cup from the 2019 Venice Biennale, which I attended. And I m listening to Laurie Anderson who is standing in for Iggy Pop on 6Music, and the second song she plays is
If you have a Netflix subscription you might have come across Toxic Town, the story of how the contaminated soil from a decommissioned steelworks in the UK led to many cases of developmental abnormalities and the birth of children with affected limbs during the 1990s. The drama focused on the efforts of a dedicated solicitor
As I see in the new year quietly for once, I m remembering the turn of the millennium, a mere quarter-century ago, and being on BBC One as the nation s Millennium Bug correspondent. I spent most of the day in TC1, the main studio at BBC Television Centre in London, while an array of presenters and
I d like to feel that every reader of this blog gets value for money, so today I m going to give you a real bonus and hand back the fifteen or so hours it would take to read Nexus, the latest 500 page outpuring from Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and the sort of person