pioneer

British architect Norman Foster has spent six decades pushing the boundaries of technology with awe-inspiring modernist structures from California to Hong Kong, but he is yet to be convinced by the craze for artificial intelligence."Artificial intelligence at the moment has the ability to cheat, to invent," he told AFP in a recent interview in Paris, which is hosting a retrospective of his work. "We live in a world which is physical, we inhabit buildings, streets, squares. That physicality, you can't replicate by…

Artificial intelligence could pose a "more urgent" threat to humanity than climate change, AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton told Reuters in an interview on Friday.Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as one of the "godfathers of AI", recently announced he had quit Alphabet after a decade at the firm, saying he wanted to speak out on the risks of the technology without it affecting his former employer. Hinton's work is considered essential to the development of contemporary AI systems. In 1986, he co-authored the seminal paper…

Artificial intelligence could pose a "more urgent" threat to humanity than climate change, AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton told Reuters in an interview on Friday. Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as one of the "godfathers of AI", recently announced he had quit Alphabet after a decade at the firm, saying he wanted to speak out on the risks of the technology without it affecting his former employer. Hinton's work is considered essential to the development of contemporary AI systems. In 1986, he co-authored the seminal paper…

Geoffrey Hinton, an award-winning computer scientist known as the “godfather of artificial intelligence,” is having some serious second thoughts about the fruits of his labors.Hinton helped pioneer AI technologies critical to a new generation of highly capable chatbots such as ChatGPT. But in recent interviews, he says that he recently resigned a high-profile job at Google specifically to share his concerns that unchecked AI development could pose danger to humanity. “I have suddenly switched my views on whether these…

The 75-year-old computer scientist has divided his time between the University of Toronto and Google since 2013, when the tech giant acquired Hinton’s AI startup DNNresearch. Hinton’s company was a spin-out from his research group, which was doing cutting edge work with machine learning for image recognition at the time. Google used that technology to boost photo search and more.   Hinton has long called out ethical questions around AI, especially its co-option for military purposes. He has said that one reason he chose…

If Little Richard AKA Richard Wayne Penniman, was criminally underrated for much of his career, his legacy has burned bright since his death in May 2020. Last weekend, the BBC debuted James House’s Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll, a solid, feature-length UK/US co-production that’s now on iPlayer. Meanwhile, the Dee Rees exec-produced Little Richard: I Am Everything, which premiered at Sundance back in January, is in UK cinemas.Unsurprisingly, there’s significant crossover between the docs in terms of…

It has been six decades since Ivan Sutherland created Sketchpad, a software system that foretold the future of interactive and graphical computing. In the 1970s, he played a role in rallying the computer industry to build a new type of microchip with hundreds of thousands of circuits that would become the foundation of today’s semiconductor industry. Now Sutherland, who is 84, believes the United States is failing at a crucial time to consider alternative chipmaking technologies that would allow the country to reclaim the…

Dub and reggae pioneer Jah Shaka has died, according to social media posts from close friends and collaborators. His precise age and the cause of death have not been disclosed.The singer, producer and label owner also known as Zulu Warrior was at the helm of sound system culture in London, releasing some of the scene’s most seminal records and spearheading the influential Jah Shaka Sound System, which he began operating and touring in the 1970s.With his spiritual messages and deep, rattling sounds, Shaka was revered by…

Twenty years ago, the Human Genome Project officially wrapped up. It was a feat of collaborative science that took 13 years—from 1990 to 2003—and involved researchers from around the globe.A Mononykus Hunts In ‘Prehistoric Planet’In honor of the anniversary, I spoke with Richard Gibbs, founder and director of the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center in Texas, who was one of the project’s leading figures. Gibbs shared his thoughts about the early days of studying DNA, the likely future of the genetics…

I began playing harp at 11 and the traditional path to follow with the instrument was the classical music one, where all the players I saw or studied were white. I found it quite an isolating, lonely life being the only Black person at every harp event or recital I went to. At the same time, growing up in New York, I was surrounded by hip-hop. One day I heard an amazing harp sample on a Pete Rock track and realised I could improvise and incorporate these other types of music on the instrument too. But I had no idea who…