Dunning and Kruger: The Power of Not Knowing
Psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning are the creators of the famous theory that describes so much of today's online communication so well. It can also help us understand the problems piling up in the way we get our information online. The theory is simple but revealing, just like the experiment it was born from. You've surely heard of it, but it's worth digging a little deeper into its meaning and learning its instructive story.
82Steve Jobs Is Risen!
Did you catch Steve Jobs as a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast a month ago? Oh, it was fascinating. “Computers have the power to be 1,000 times more important than they are today. I throw my computer out the window every few years just to make sure it works.” Steve was in his signature form, visionary and funny, as he told some truly curious stories from the history of Apple. But wait… didn’t Steve Jobs pass away? So what? The interview is perfectly real. It was generated by artificial intelligence. What’s the big deal, it’s interesting, isn’t it? Want to chat with Einstein? No problem, technology makes even that possible. Are we ready for the moment when computers can imitate us so well that we won’t be able to tell ourselves apart? How is it possible, and is it right, to try to “resurrect” people by creating, one way or another, copies of them that are indistinguishable from the original?
83Facebook → Instagram → TikTok… What Comes Next?
Social networks keep evolving as technology advances, generations change and countless other forces come into play. So what comes next? What will the social networks that rule after today's giants fade look like, what kind of content will they offer, and how will they win us over? Social networks have become the greatest technological and social phenomenon of our time, and they still promise more than a few surprises…
84Ai-Da and the Lords: Is a Robot That Passes for Human on Its Way?
Is the time coming when we'll pass robots indistinguishable from ourselves? Is it even possible, what are the biggest obstacles, and are there dangers ahead if we succeed? The news that the innocently smiling Ai-Da dropped in for a chat with the British lords caught everyone's eye, though her colleague Sophia has long been a star of the genre, having even been granted citizenship. How far has technology come in creating the perfect humanoid robot, and is Ai-Da really so different that she can talk as an equal with the members of an almost thousand-year-old institution?
85An Experiment: Has AI Learned to Translate Yet?
Is the technology finally here for high-quality translation, including to and from less widely spoken languages like Bulgarian? DeepL boasts of being “the world’s most accurate translator,” and plenty of people already use it every day, but how will it handle classic passages by Tolstoy, Murakami, Remarque or Gospodinov? Will we end up lost in translation, or is translation one more field where we can now rely on artificial intelligence, so that the money spent on the kids’ private language lessons turns out to be thrown to the wind?
86Anonymous or Troll: Who Is Hiding Behind the Profile?
Who are you? The person behind that supposedly authentic profile across from me? First we were anonymous by default, then it became the norm to put our real names behind the hate we spew on social media. Is anonymity freedom, or does freedom come when you always know who is on the other side, and where is the line heading next?
87A Future Without Crime, or a Digital Concentration Camp?
Algorithms, it turns out, can already predict when and where a crime will happen. Countless lives could be saved this way. Humanity could be forced to bid farewell to that age-old dark side of its own—crime. And what about the justice system? In China, some verdicts are already officially decided by artificial intelligence, and its rulings are challenged only when there is serious evidence. Does this mean the end of judicial errors, legal tricks, the imperfections of the field? Will we put John Grisham out of work? Or will we end up in the terrible final scene of a famous novel—a man and a woman are talking when a steely voice behind them says, “You are the dead”? If every crime can be predicted or justly punished, will our lives become incredibly peaceful? Or will we find ourselves in an over-controlled global concentration camp?
88“Sometimes I’ll Come…”: How AI Illustrated 10 Classic Bulgarian Verses
What illustrations could artificial intelligence draw from the works of Botev, Debelyanov, Boris Hristov and Georgi Gospodinov, and how would image-generating algorithms interpret classic lines of Bulgarian literature? This kind of AI has been a hit in recent months, a striking example of what technology can already do, and it has given rise to a new skill: describing an image so precisely that the algorithm generates exactly what you expect. So what happens when we “feed” it the stanzas of proven masters? Here are the fascinating results!
89Experiment: Can AI Do Our Writing for Us?
There is no doubt that we already read algorithm-generated texts every day. How does it work in practice? Are there AI-based programs ready to take the bread from the mouths of people who work with words? Reporters, editors, proofreaders, copywriters, digital marketers, writers, translators… which of them could be the first to be “replaced”? I meet several of the most popular apps for generating and processing text. Here is what they have to show.
90GPT-4 Is Coming, and It Promises to Change Everything
In the much-hyped world of artificial intelligence, there is hardly an algorithm more famous than GPT-3. It showed that AI is capable of miracles in a great many fields. And now the next generation is on its way. Although it is running late compared to the original expectations, GPT-4 is expected to be unveiled very soon. Can we get even more out of it? How does it differ from its predecessor? In which fields do we expect it to work wonders?
91Divide and Rule, Online
Could any of the most meaningful events in our history, whose undisputed benchmark is the Unification, have happened in the age of social media? In a time when the online world shapes our consciousness even more than our offline being does, is it really worth repeating the famous line “Unity makes strength”?
92The Internet of Forgetting
Do you know the capital of Madagascar? Who cares—if for some reason you ever need it, the omnipresent Google will tell you everything about it in three seconds. Not so long ago we all “carried” the phone numbers of family and friends in our heads. The web has forever changed our relationship with knowledge. Storing facts is no longer a priority for our brains; today the ability to find what you need quickly and accurately has replaced actually knowing. What challenges does this shift create? Why does it bring both serious opportunities and countless risks? Is it changing us even… as a species?
93This Site Uses Cookies… So How Should We Answer?
We see the question in the headline every single day. But how should we answer it? Which cookies should we accept and which not? Does our decision matter, and can we change it? And what are these notorious cookies anyway? GDPR. We've all heard of it, and I'm convinced it must be an abbreviation of some Latin curse; if it isn't, it deserves to be adopted into Latin in the language's next release. While every tiny website is forced by law to obey the infamous regulation to the letter, the pages of the giant companies where we spend hours every day show it to us once and that's that. How did we get here? Is it worth reading the questions every site asks us about cookies? Are there more sensible solutions?
94GAN: AI Has Started Making Up… People
Take a good look at these faces. You will never meet these people in real life, because… they don’t exist! The images were “made up” by an algorithm called GAN, which lets artificial intelligence create new images based on the data it is fed. Two neural networks compete in the good old plot of good cop, bad cop: the first tries to imitate the target, and the second judges when it has succeeded.
95Optimus for Optimists: What Can Musk's Robot Do?
“Very soon, physical work will be a matter of choice,” Musk insists. The first version of Optimus is expected to be unveiled in September—a robot that, according to its creator, has the potential to become a bigger business than even Tesla. The promise is that within two years it will go mainstream and “free” people from a whole range of chores. What else is worth knowing about Optimus?
96Start…Up! What on Earth Is That?
How does an investment with a return of… 200,000 percent sound to you?! One that is perfectly legal and has nothing to do with mythical figures like pyramids and pharaohs. Only with fairy-tale heroes. Modern technology is like a fairy tale. It has created a huge new economic sector where miracles happen. Yes, quite literally: unicorns fly, angel investors stroll about, and millions of dollars are the smallest unit of measurement. We are talking, of course, about the world of startups. Let's sum up the most important things worth knowing about it.
97DALL·E, Draw Me a Sheep!
This picture was created by an algorithm. “A tiger anxiously waiting for its dentist appointment,” read the instructions it was given. DALL·E certainly deserves serious attention. It may lack the waxed mustache and the eccentricity of its namesake Salvador, but it does thrilling things. With the help of artificial intelligence it turns a description into an image, and with such precision and creativity! The rest of the examples will leave you amazed…
98Where Did All the Hate Come From? Is There a Way Out?
I've read the headline, and I already hold an extreme opinion. Time for a nasty comment—let the hating begin! But where did all this aggression come from, why must we answer rudely even when we merely disagree with the person behind the other profile, and is there any way to save ourselves from the exhausting hate of online conversation?
99The Incubator Baby
Could the moment be approaching when babies are born from artificial wombs? More and more research teams promise a breakthrough in a field that may turn out to be the answer to low birth rates in the Western world. But are we ready for a time when parents can watch together as their baby grows in a high-tech incubator? Not just technologically, but emotionally…
100RoboGod: What Should Artificial Intelligence Believe In?
If one day we create a technology indistinguishable from a human, will it… believe in God? What will its God look like? Might it try to become God itself? Or… simply be God? Technology and religion have always had a complicated relationship. But will they find the road to the future and to the survival of the human species together?
