32 Digital Stories Between Two Covers: What Lies Ahead?
The book Digital Stories brings together 8 big questions of our time and 32 stories in search of the answers. You may have read some of them on this site, and here you will find them updated and enriched; others were written especially for the book. Perhaps you have already drawn back the curtain of the cover? Then I would be absolutely delighted to read your thoughts here. If not, here is what awaits you behind it!
242What's the Rush?
“Our hectic daily lives” is a cliché we repeat every day. Perhaps because it is unconditionally true. There is never enough time; they've started making the days far too short. The minutes slip away, leaving no time for quiet moments with family and friends, for a book, simply for reflection or complete relaxation… How could it be otherwise? Today, in a single day, we can take in more information than people only a few generations ago absorbed in months, even in a lifetime. Where does this constant feeling come from? Are the generations different, is there more work? Or is there simply something that keeps us under pressure? Something that keeps scaring us that we're missing the moment, even when there is no reason at all…
243Iva Gumnishka: Using AI to Give People Hope
Iva Gumnishka came back to Bulgaria from an Ivy League university with a dream: to make the most high-tech industry of all help the people who need it most, and to make that model sustainable. Her company, Humans in the loop, has spent six years giving work to refugees, people in deep poverty and people living in war zones, from Afghanistan to Venezuela, as they annotate the data that teaches artificial intelligence to see. What does it feel like to give a livelihood to 1,000 people scattered around the world?
24410 Magical Stories from Planet Earth
10 questions, 10 answers, 10 stories and 10 incredible photos. We fasten our seatbelts and set off on a thrilling journey to every corner of the planet… Dimitar Karanikolov is an architect who caught the photography bug almost by accident. He then became an undisputed master of the lens—his images have been shown by the world’s biggest media outlets, and he has won prestigious awards. He is the author of the unusual book Istorii ot planetata Zemya (Stories from Planet Earth), a photo journal in which, over 208 pages, striking photographs are accompanied by stories in Bulgarian and English and by pieces from guest authors such as Georgi Milkov. His favorite vantage point is high above. Why? That is what we are about to find out, along with who is the most fascinating character he has met on the road. Where did he feel in danger? What place (on Earth or not) does the architect-photographer dream of capturing through his lens? And why is it sometimes worth… losing your camera.
245(Rock) Stars, Programming and Aliens
He is a programmer, an astrophysicist with scientific publications and… the drummer of a rock band. A Renaissance man, only from the digital age. We have so many topics to discuss with Chief Assistant Professor Orlin Stanchev, a programmer at Kin + Carta, a lecturer at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, an explorer of distant galaxies and the drummer of the band ALI. Let's not waste any time! How are new stars born in the sky, in science, in music? We will head out into deep space to learn how artificial intelligence can help us get to know the universe. We will talk about how new technologies are fundamentally changing the paradigm of science. We will look for what music, science and programming have in common. Last but not least, we will reflect on aliens and on artificial general intelligence. Which one is coming first? Which one should we worry about more? Lift-off! 10, 9, 8, 7….
246Covid, Four Years On: Why Didn't We Learn Our Lesson?
Remember? Not so long ago we were locked in our homes, the parks were cordoned off with tape, the roads out of town blocked by checkpoints… Then the vaccines arrived, and they were going to save us or kill us. Bulgarians were dying in record numbers, we split into vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, and from there came so many other divisions… The human brain is an incredible thing: it forgets quickly and adapts to the new, to the easy. But that way many important questions vanish, pushed aside by the next “hot” topic to squabble over. Meanwhile, signals are coming from many countries that covid is back… We saw how quickly our everyday lives can be turned upside down. How fragile we are, as individuals and as a species. And it is time to look for the lessons. Could a new wave of the coronavirus come soon, or could the next microorganism appear that is able to change life on the entire planet? Have we learned our lessons? How well did we handle the pandemic? Could more human lives have been saved? How deadly did the coronavirus turn out to be? Did we overdo the measures or, on the contrary, should they have been stricter? Did the vaccines turn out to be the solution? Are we better prepared for future epidemics? Questions whose answers matter to every one of us.
247“AI Today Is Redrawing the Boundaries of the Impossible”
LivePerson… A live person? No, this one isn't alive—and that's exactly what makes it interesting. It's the name of an American company with a fascinating software project that relies on a serious team in Bulgaria. Alexander Raychev is the executive director of LivePerson and has years of experience as a manager in IT. From that vantage point, it's interesting to hear where he thinks we stand today with the much-talked-about artificial intelligence. How long will the algorithm remain distinguishable from a “live person”? Beyond all the hype, what are the optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for the development of this kind of technology?
248The Naked Truth: The Algorithms That Undress Us
You are scrolling through your feed and there is a nude photo… of you, just as your mother brought you into the world. You have never been photographed like that, and yet it all looks so real?! This can now very much happen, which is why it matters that we are ready, and that we keep asking the next question: how should we change the way we relate to what we see, so that it fits the reality technology has brought us to?
249What Is the Origin of the Bulgarians?
Who were the Proto-Bulgarians, and where did our ancestors come from: are we heirs of the Thracians, did we arrive from the distant steppes, or are we Sarmatians? How did genetics become the next great scientific leap, giving us many answers about the past and, in practice, leaving only one theory standing? Historian Assoc. Prof. Dr. Todor Chobanov, author of Proizhodat na balgarite – debatat prez XXI vek (The Origin of the Bulgarians: The Debate in the 21st Century), explains why this question still drags us into fierce arguments a millennium and a half later.
250IT, Love and Blueberries
Both of them work in IT—he is a programmer, she is a project manager. Today they also own 4,700 blueberry bushes, whose remarkable taste delighted hundreds of buyers this summer, and tend 5 decares of roses, alternating dailies with digging and talk of data science with talk of agronomy. Sometimes life really is a bed of roses; it only takes the courage to appreciate it, rethink it, believe in your dreams and forget the stereotypes.
251“We Humans Remain Creatures for Whom Owning Things Matters”
When and how will we divide up ownership of the stars? Are we, as a civilization, doomed to be driven by an endless desire to possess? Why is artificial intelligence a powerful tool and, at the same time, a fantasy destined never to become reality? Is it time to bring algorithms into humanity's eternal battle for justice? Prof. Stoyan Stavru, DSc, can immerse himself in subjects we usually find dull, fill them with meaning, explain them in an accessible and engaging way, and find an unexpected angle on topics that matter to all of us. “Challenge the law!” the legal scholar urges on his dedicated website. A graduate in law and psychology, he has a special relationship with technology and many unexpected roles: a certified mountain guide, a teacher of the Japanese martial arts jodo and aikido, host of the podcast Vox Nihili, where you can hear “whispers from the future,” and editor-in-chief of the expert legal system Lexebra.
252FM-2030: The Man Who Refuses to Die
Left or right? Up! He believed that when 2030 came, he would wake from the ice to celebrate his 100th birthday. He was convinced that by then we would have reached the heavens, settled other planets, put our petty squabbles behind us and, lifted on the wings of technology, marched onward in human evolution. Was FM-2030 right? Could the sharp-shooting basketball player still surprise us with a three-pointer of a prediction? If so, in just seven years we will be able to discuss the details with the man himself. If he really is revived, the forgotten creator of transhumanism, who picked a name like a radio station's, will surely have a lot to tell us… If not, he will become just another dreamer who overestimated humanity and ran ahead of his time.
253The Selfies That Will Save Lives
A long-underestimated technology, finally come of age, could save many lives. The Bulgarian startup Kelvin Health uses thermal cameras and artificial intelligence to catch tiny changes in body temperature that point to illness long before we feel it.
254Isus: The Programmer Who Came Out of the Ghetto
“The hardest part was taking the essence of the two worlds I live in and combining them into one. It takes a lot of emotional energy and a great deal of empathy. I’ve been rejected by Bulgarians because I’m a Gypsy, and by Gypsies because I’m ‘pretending’ to be Bulgarian. You fight to be respected on opposite fronts.” It is my pleasure to introduce Isus Kostov! To his colleagues he is simply “Jesus,” and to me he is a powerful example of how a person can defeat his surroundings, prejudice, even himself, to reach what he dreams of, however distant, even impossible, it may seem. His road begins in a Roma ghetto, and today he is a software engineer at a respected company. He taught himself online and never gave up, starting from a school he often attended hungry, in shoes with no soles. By now he has built up serious experience in the profession. “The most valuable thing programming has given me is, without a doubt, freedom,” Isus says. “It gave me the chance to get out of the difficult situation I was in and to build a life in which I’m independent and can help my family.” His next goal is to inspire more kids to chase their dreams, and not to give up when they are held down by their surroundings and their circumstances. And what might happen if stories like this changed the attitude of both our society and the IT sector toward these children?
255Virgil Dreamond, Who Now Dreams of Plugging Us Into the Computer
Elena Pavlova has been writing for as long as she can remember. Gamebook fans know her by the pen name Virgil Dreamond, the author of 25 of the masterful reads in this literary phenomenon. Why can’t she wait for the technology that will read our minds, where has science fiction disappeared to, and why did Bulgarian writers and translators end up without money even for bread?
256Is the Digital Age Waiting for Its Freud?
No matter how thirsty you are, you can't drink from a fire hose. If you don't believe it, try. The same goes for technology. We push it thoughtlessly into more and more corners of our daily lives, handing it one new role after another, until we suddenly find ourselves chained to our screens like Prometheus to his rock. Information technology is a huge opportunity. The dose makes the medicine, but… what is the dose? We will look for the answer to that question, along with another one: when will the Freud of our time appear, and who will he be? The person who will grasp the psychological challenges facing Homo sapiens at the height of the technological revolution. A Freud who will lift the taboos and make sense of the bond between people and information technology.
257Gatakka, ChatGPT the Psychologist and the Price of Critical Thinking
Ivan Vankov (Gatakka), a four-time IBM Champion, longtime tech blogger and author of free tutorials that helped many into software, has worked in machine learning, programming, team leadership, DevOps and blockchain architecture, and is now a freelance consultant to promising ventures. With his vast knowledge and wide view of the trends, he practically sketches the future. What big news is coming after the AI boom, how will machine learning change our attitude to work, and how did ChatGPT turn out to be a remarkably successful psychologist?
258Edward and the Afronauts
Of all the eternal stories, there is one we underestimate most often. Let us saddle Rocinante, greet an illegally young Dulcinea and chase the windmills of the Solar System! The renowned hidalgo Don Quixote, a few centuries later, is Edward Mukuka Nkoloso, the inventor who… very nearly beat the US and the USSR in their battle for space!
259“Then Came Electricity, and the Vampires Fled”
Magic is part of life, and if we give it up, we are left with dry, meaningless algorithms for living. But how do we keep from driving it away while we are swallowed by the stream and its deceptive momentum? Byurhan Kerim answers with his debut novel Lavandulovoto momche (The Lavender Boy), which brings together eternal themes and a modern gaze, classic Balkan plots and magical realism.
260Blockchain Democracy
These days we talk about nothing but artificial intelligence, while another of the big technological trends is developing in the shadows… Is blockchain the next step in the way we organize society? And what does the idea have to do with the ancient oracles? Technology is changing a huge part of our lives. Yet in some areas it stays on the sidelines and never quite catches up. It is clear that when it comes to how we are governed and to democracy, there are problems, and the solutions we know are outdated and inadequate for today. Before long, artificial intelligence will probably enter the paradigm too, as has already been discussed. But in the meantime, shouldn't we try to change things ourselves, as people, with the help of the technologies we already have? This one could make electronic voting, such a contentious subject in our part of the world, completely transparent. And on the other hand, it holds the potential for a far more drastic change: blockchain democracy. A way of making the decisions that concern society in a very unexpected, yet logical way.
