Daily Archives: February 15, 2022

The Neo-Futurists The Infinite Wrench @ The Neo-Futurist Theater, 5153 N Ashland, Saturday 10:30pm, Sunday 7:00pm, 16+WHAT: Quick plays live and online!SO WHAT: The Neo-Futurists are back! Their Infinite Wrench is an ongoing, ever-changing attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes for a live audience. Now its actually a live audience that will be enjoying the performance in person! With plenty of COVID precautions in place, youll be able to enjoy the funny, disgusting, profound, terrifying, irreverent, and downright entertaining show with friends! Plan ahead as vaccination cards will be checked and booster will be required to be fully vaccinated.NOW WHAT: Join the Neo-Futurists this weekend for $10!Head over to their website to see all they have planned now that in-person audiences are a thing again! If youre still a little anxious about going out, The Infinite Wrench Goes Viral Patreon is still up and running for now and is just another great way to support the Neo-Futurists!

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The Neo-Futurists' The Infinite Wrench @ The Neo-Futurist Theater - thirdcoastreview.com

Alanoud Al Hashmi is the CEO of the Futurist Company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a company inspired by the nation's need to tackle its agricultural challenges with out-of-the-box innovations. In fact, Al Hashmi is well known for her belief in innovation and technology, and providing solutions through her team of scientists, engineers, and technologists. In addition, she is also a member of the Young Arab Leaders.

Al Hashmi completed her studies on Digital Transformation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management in 2018, and on Customer Driven Marketing at the Wharton School that same year. Currently, she's studying for her Global MBA in General Business Administration and Management at University of Manchester, which is expected to be completed by April 2022.

Since 2008, Al Hashmi has built an extensive career working on management and leadership roles at various companies. In 2021, however, she would find herself launching her own company: The Futurist Company. It was inspired by His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and his willingness to face all odds of promoting agriculture in the early days of the UAE. The company works on "future-facing" projects while providing tools and techniques to its clients.

Simply, The Futurist Company hopes to tackle food security in the future in the UAE and globally. It is helping farmers grow food in otherwise unfavorable terrains, in addition to tackling challenges such as global warming and imbalance in the ecosystem. In fact, amongst the challenges facing the UAE is food insecurity, an issue that, if left unresolved, would have been more catastrophic by the next half a century as the company has concluded.

In an interview with aeworld.com, Al Hashmi faced her initial challenge of running a company in an otherwise male-dominated industry, but she would soon find herself receiving support from men eventually. Hence, her biggest problem would end up being her company's ability to provide solutions that can tackle future issues, or "future-facing."

Undoubtedly, Al Hashmi's contributions wouldn't go unrecognized. In the fourth quarter of 2021 Bentley Motors launched the Bentley Extraordinary Women Initiative, which sought to empower a new generation of female entrepreneurs. Al Hashmi was one of several women from across the region to support the initiative.

For 2022, Al Hashmi is working to launch GAIA, food security agriculture technology aggrotech solutions aimed at tackling 13 of 17 of the United Nations SDG sustainable development goals. In addition, she will be taking part in "Operation 300 Billion," strategies for developing the manufacturing sector in the UAE.

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Emirates' Alanoud Al Hashmi: CEO of The Futurist Company - About Her

Scammer Anna Delvey is infamous for swindling the New York elite out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And in Inventing Anna, the new Shonda Rhimes Netflix show about her, she has a ridiculous tech entrepreneur boyfriend.

On the series, which stars Julia Garner in the title role and is out Friday, Annas on-screen love interest is Chase Sikorski (Saamer Usmani, Succession). Chase is introduced to the audience in episode 2, when hes giving a Ted Talk about the potential to cloud source your dreams. A tech entrepreneur, he has an app called Wake, that never gets off the ground, and he uses the cringeworthy slogan, everyone else is Woke but Chase is Wake.

As he explains in his Ted Talk, dreams are filled with meaning and magic but when we wake up in the morning, All of that knowledge just dissolves Imagine, what if instead of losing that time, you could tap into it? Could we be more connected?

The sequence feels like a satire of Silicon Valley culture, and its true that Chase and his idea to cloud source dreams are fictional. All episodes of Inventing Anna begin with the same disclaimer: This story is completely true. Except for the parts that are totally made up.

But Chase has roots in reality.

In the 2018New York magazine article about Delvey that inspired this show, her beau is mentioned just briefly, unnamed blind-item style, as a futurist on the TED-Talks circuit whod been profiled in The New Yorker. According to the profile, Delvey ran around with him for a while in 2015. Then it was 2016. The guy, whose app never materialized, moved to the Emirates, and Anna came to New York on her own.

When that profile when viral, internet sleuths honed in on two men who fit the bill.

anna delveys futurist boyfriend is almost certainly either shingy or ray kurzweil but BOTH (surprisingly?) have new yorker profiles AND Ted Talks, one Twitter user speculated, while a 2015 Slate article concurred that these were the likely candidates.

Lets break it down.

David Shing, aka Shingy, was described as AOLs Digital Prophet in a 2014 New Yorker profile. Hes an Australian marketing exec who worked at AOL, has an eccentric sense of style, and a TED Talk in which he talks about how connected this generation is which is similar to what Chase says in his TED talk in Inventing Anna. Hes currently 50 while Delvey is 31, but a 20-year age gap isnt out of the question.

Meanwhile, futurist Ray Kurzweil, who was profiled by the New Yorker in 2012, has written books on AI and transhumanism. But, hes currently 73, making a match with Delvey less likely.

However, there is one other man who checks both boxes and then some.

Hunter Lee Soik, 40, is a Korean-American futurist who got a 2013 profile in the New Yorker, actually created an app involving dreams, and lived in Dubai. Among other endeavors, he was a creative consultant on Jay-Z and Kayne Wests Watch The Throne tour and for Italian Vogue.

He spent several months reading Freud and Jung and Allan Hobson on dreams, just to figure out everyones position, and learning about researchers in Japan who are mapping the neurological processes of dreams, his 2013 New Yorker profile says. What would happen if we created a space where dreams were organized?Soik poses in the story.

A 2014 Fast Company profile explains that Soik lives out of temporarily rented homes in Berlin, San Francisco, New York, or Los Angeles often found via Airbnb and wears only black.

A Kickstarter for his app, called Shadow, has a video of him proposing to create the largest dream database in the world.

The clincher? Hes also mentioned in a 2014 post on Delveys Instagram.Its a photo taken from far away of someone lounging on the deck of a boat on the ocean. In the caption, Delvey wrote, #Ibizato#Formenteralast days of summer with@jaymacardoso@hunterleesoik.

Neither Delvey nor Soik responded when The Post reached out for comment.

If social media is to be trusted, the relationship didnt last.

While Delvey was in jail in 2021, she posted on her Instagram that she is looking for a boyfriend.

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Who is Anna Delvey's techno-bro beau based on in 'Inventing Anna?' - New York Post

As tensions mount between NATO forces and Russia as Moscow continues its saber-rattling outside of Ukraine, some are beginning to fear that geopolitical conflict might pose an existential threat to the International Space Station (ISS).

In fact, the British tabloid The Daily Express even speculated today that if things get really bad, Putin could end up instructing cosmonauts to decouple Russias modules from the ISS an act of sabotage that could doom the station to fall back down to Earth without the propulsion system on the Russian modules that help keep it in orbit.

Luckily, we have good news: Thats really, really unlikely to happen.

In theory, itd be possible to detach but I think its very unlikely to happen, Dr. John Logsdon, professor emeritus of political science at George Washington University and director of the Space Policy Institute, told Futurism. Its not my view that Russia would do this.

Logsdon was quoted by the Daily Express saying the situation near Ukraine could very well result in a Russian withdrawal from the ISS, but he tells us that he was merely speculating on a very extreme and unlikely scenario.

In reality, Logsdon tell us that there are numerous reasons Moscow would be resistant to commanding its cosmonauts to abruptly leave the ISS. For one, it would not only be a wantonly destructive act of sabotage, but self-sabotage as well. Thats because the power from the ISS and therefore the Russia modules comes from solar arrays on the US side of the station.

So if they decoupled themselves from the station, the cosmonauts would eventually find them floating in orbit with no way to maneuver their craft or keep them alive.

Russia would have to supplement the modules with a solar power system for this to even be viable, Logsdon said.

The ISS is a very interdependent facility by design and purpose,he added.

Also, the move would serve little purpose besides being a bit of petty theater which, granted, we wouldnt put past Russia. Sure, leaving the ISS in a huff would be a symbolic middle finger to the rest of the world, but what would it really matter with an actual war on its hands?

Frankly, I dont think whatever happens with the ISS is very important if indeed Russia invades Ukraine, Logsdon said. Thats the brink of World War III, so a technical facility in orbit is kind of a sideshow to that. Also, what would be the point? It doesnt do them any good.

Also, Moscow has already announced plans to build its own space station following the upcoming retirement of the ISS. Logsdon believes that their current three modules on the ISS could likely serve as core additions to the new facility so Russia almost certainly wouldnt just yeet it away before its ready to do that.

Moreover, the ISS itself is a symbol of international unity. Since its inception more than two decades ago, its remained a source of cooperation between nations regardless of geopolitical tensions and turmoil on Earth. It brought countries together in the wake of the Cold War for the purpose of bettering our understanding of ourselves and the universe around us.

As such, Logsdon believes its telling that folks are worried about the fate of the ISS at all in the midst of the crisis surrounding Ukraine. After all, if we cant agree on the pursuit of science and understanding, what can we agree on?

Its interesting that the station is symbolic enough of US-Russian cooperation that in the midst of this really threatening situation, people are worried about the station, Logsdon said. It is a symbol of working together.

More on the ISS: NASA Announces Plans to Destroy the International Space Station

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Expert: No, Russia Isn't Going Pull Its Modules to Sabotage the ISS - Futurism

After OpenAIs chief scientist brazenly claimed that some neural networks may already be gaining consciousness, others in the field are pushing back.

The backlash comes after we pointed out yesterdaythat OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever had cryptically claimed that it may be that todays large neural networks are slightly conscious.

After publication, the responses came rolling in,with some representing the expected handwringing about sentient artificial intelligence, but many others calling bull.

Every time such speculative comments get an airing, it takes months of effort to get the conversation back to the more realistic opportunities and threats posed by AI, UNSW Sidney AI researcher Toby Walsh chimed in.

Valentino Zocca, a deep learning expert whose day job is as a vice president at Citi, had a similarly hot take, claiming that AI is NOT conscious but apparently the hype is more important than anything else.

Independent sociotechnologist Jrgen Geuter, who goes by the pseudonym tante online, quipped in response to Sutskevers tweet that it may also be that this take has no basis in reality and is just a sales pitch to claim magical tech capabilities for a startup that runs very simple statistics, just a lot of them.

That take was echoed by software testing specialist Michael Bolton not the singer of the same name who joked that it may be that Ilya Sutskever is slightly full of it, or, perhapseven maybe more than slightly.

Leon Dercynski, an associate professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, ran with the same idea.

It may be that theres a teapot orbiting the Sun somewhere between Earth and Mars, he bantered. This seems more reasonable than Ilyas musing, in fact, because the apparatus for orbit exists, and we have good definitions of teapots.

Still others, including Microsoft Norway data scientist and former DeepMind researcher Roman Wepachowski responded to the news with a meme approach.

These critics, it should be noted, are not wrong to point out the outlandishness of Sutskevers claim it was not only a departure for OpenAI and its chief scientist, but also a pretty unusual comment to make, given that up to this point, most who work in and study AI believe that were many years away from creating conscious AI, if indeed we ever do.

Sutskever, for his part, seems unbothered by the controversy.

Ego is (mostly) the enemy, he said this morning.

READ MORE:OpenAI Chief Scientist Says Advanced AI May Already Be Conscious

More AI boasts:Elon Musk Says Tesla Robots Could Achieve AGI

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Researchers Furious Over Claim That AI Is Already Conscious - Futurism