Daily Archives: November 16, 2023

Conference brings medics together in support of good ethics – The Catholic Weekly

Posted: November 16, 2023 at 5:18 pm

Catholic medical professionals enjoy fellowship at the conference. Photo: Supplied

A national Catholic medical association conference has been a shot in the arm for doctors and other health professionals facing the introduction of voluntary assisted dying in New South Wales this month.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia will be legal in every Australian state from 28 November and the conference run by the Australian Catholic Medical Association helped like-minded delegates feel like they are not alone, in their concerns about the effects on vulnerable patients, the medical profession and the broader community, said organiser Mike McHugh.

It was a real boost to all of us and I think the penny has dropped that we really do need to support each other in building a stronger Catholic medical community, he told The Catholic Weekly.

Our association has been around for a while now but after the weekend there was a real buzz as many more people now know where to find each other for help and resources and just to bounce ideas off each other.

That they may have life was the theme of the inaugural national conference held at St Josephs conference and retreat centre in Baulkham Hills from 10-12 November.

More than 80 healthcare professionals from around the country met for prayer and mutual support with presentations delivered by experts including Australian Catholic University bioethicist Dr Xavier Symonsrecently appointed head of the Plunkett Centre for BioethicsACMA chaplain Fr Pascal Corby, historian Dr Elisabeth Taylor, palliative medicine doctor and Sydney University associate professor Maria Cigolini and Parramatta deacon and retired GP Michael Tan.

The bulk of the proceedings were on Saturday, beginning with Dr Symons, who said clearer protections are needed for conscientious objections.

He offered advice on what to do if a doctor or other health profession has an objection to abortion, euthanasia or other procedure allowed by law that conflicts with their conscience.

Part of the upshot of providing a broader role of conscience in medicine is that its not just about controversial medical proceduresyou are always making conscientious judgements in medicine, he told attendees.

In that way just as any other doctor would want their discretionary space respected with regard to end of life care or the advisability of any treatment measurements, so should you have your rights respected.

I think its important we dont buy into this trap of making conscientious objection somehow a special plead [for Christians] in medicine.

The conference dinner keynote was delivered by pro-life advocate Dr Joanna Howe who spoke powerfully about the tragedy of abortion and urged participants to work together to push for legal protections for unborn children across Australia.

McHugh said all were relieved to receive input and be able to discuss pressing practical and philosophical questions around medical conscientious objection, technology and transhumanism, youth transgenderism, abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide across the weekend.

A highlight was the first White Mass celebrated by Sydney Bishop Richard Umbers and concelebrated by Tasmanian Archbishop Julian Porteous, where all present received a blessing of hands for their ministry to the sick and the dying.

Organiser Dr Deirde Little said the conference was inspired by the need for Catholic doctors and others with ethical concerns about changes to current medical practice to consider ways to remain focussed on the good of individuals in their care.

We needed to come together to discuss how do we properly consider each person we come across rather than aggregating our responsibility to government agencies or legislators who would tell us how to manage a patient, what medicine to use and how to discuss things with a patient, she said.

For example, modern advanced care directives that are government-issued in local health districts encourage a tick-a-box style of medicine where a lay person may tick boxes on a persons future decisions in an unforeseeable context.

Now we who are a bit older can see the pitfalls of that one-size-fits-all kind of medicine which we feel is not necessarily in the best interests of patients and may have an ideological grounding which is not in accord with Christian or Catholic principals.

So we need look together at what kinds of harms it can do and what can we do to prevent them.

The Australian Catholic Medical Association is the national peak body for Catholic healthcare professionals, replacing the former state-based Guild of St Luke, and is approved by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

Read more from the original source:

Conference brings medics together in support of good ethics - The Catholic Weekly

Posted in Euthanasia | Comments Off on Conference brings medics together in support of good ethics – The Catholic Weekly

A Wheeling Murderer was sentenced to life in prison and citizens demand answers about the euthanasia of dogs at a local animal shelter: Heres a look…

Posted: at 5:18 pm

A Wheeling Murderer was sentenced to life in prison and citizens demand answers about the euthanasia of dogs at a local animal shelter: Heres a look back at the weeks top headlines  WTRF

Link:

A Wheeling Murderer was sentenced to life in prison and citizens demand answers about the euthanasia of dogs at a local animal shelter: Heres a look...

Posted in Euthanasia | Comments Off on A Wheeling Murderer was sentenced to life in prison and citizens demand answers about the euthanasia of dogs at a local animal shelter: Heres a look…

AI, arms control and the new cold war | The Strategist – The Strategist

Posted: at 5:16 pm

So far, the 2020s have been marked by tectonic shifts in both technology and international security. Russias attack on Ukraine in February 2022, which brought the postCold War era to a sudden and violent end, is an obvious inflection point. The recent escalation in the Middle East, which may yet lead to a regional war, is another. So too the Covid-19 pandemic, from which the United States and China emerged bruised, distrustful and nearer to conflict than ever beforenot least over the vexing issue of Taiwan, a stronghold in the world of advanced technology.

Another, less dramatic but equally profound moment occurred on 7 October 2022, when US President Joe Bidens administration quietly unveiled a new policy overseen by an obscure agency. On that day, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the US Department of Commerce announced new export controls on advanced computing chips and semiconductor manufacturing items to the Peoples Republic of China. Mostly unnoticed by those outside a few speciality areas, the policy was later described by some as a new domain of non-proliferation or, less kindly, as an escalation in an economic war against China.

The BIS announcement came just months before the latest platforms of generative artificial intelligence, including GPT-4, burst onto the world stage. In essence, the White Houses initiative aimed to prevent China from acquiring the physical materials needed to dominate the field of AI: the highly specialised semiconductors and advanced computing chips that remained in mostly Western and Taiwanese hands.

When coupled with an industrial policy that aimed to build domestic US semiconductor manufacturing, and a strategy of friend-shoring some of Taiwans chip industry to Arizona, this amounted to a serious attempt at seizing the commanding heights of AI. In July this year, Beijing responded by restricting exports of germanium and gallium products, minor metals crucial to the semiconductor industry.

Designers of AI platforms have argued that novel large-language models herald a new epoch. The next iterations of AIGPT-5 and beyondmight usher in a future of radical abundance that frees humanity of needless toil, but could equally lead to widescale displacement and destruction, should an uncontrollable superintelligence emerge. While these scenarios remain hypothetical, it is highly likely that future AI-powered surveillance tools will help authoritarian governments cement control over their own populations and enable them to build new militaryindustrial capabilities.

However, these same AI designers also admit that the current AI platforms pose serious risks to human security, especially when theyre considered as adjuncts to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-consequence explosive (CBRNE) weapons. We, the authors of this article, are currently investigating how policymakers intend to address this issue, which we refer to as CBRNE+AI.

This more proximate threat the combination of AI and unconventional weaponsshould oblige governments to find durable pathways to arms control in the age of AI. How to get there in such a fractious geopolitical environment remains uncertain. In his recent book, The coming wave, Deep Mind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman looks to the 20th-century Cold War for inspiration. Nuclear arms control, and the lesser-known story of biological arms control, provide hopeful templates. Among Suleymans suggestions is the building of international alliances and regulatory authorities committed to controlling future AI models.

We recently suggested that the Australia Group, founded during the harrowing chemical warfare of the IranIraq war, may be the right place to start building an architecture that can monitor the intersection of AI and unconventional weapons. Originally intended to obstruct the flow of precursor chemicals to a distant battlefield in the Middle East, the Australia Group has since expanded to comprise a broad alliance of countries committed to harmonising the regulation of components used in chemical and biological weapons. To the groups purview should be added the large-language models and other AI tools that might be exploited as informational aids in the construction of new weapons.

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger recently called for Washington and Beijing to collaborate in establishing and leading a new regime of AI arms control. Kissinger, and his co-author Graham Allison, argue that both the US and China have an overriding interest in preventing the proliferation of AI models that could extinguish human prosperity or otherwise lead to global catastrophe. But the emerging dynamics of a new cold war will demand a difficult compromise: can Washington realistically convince Beijing to help build a new architecture of non-proliferation, while enforcing a regime of counter-proliferation that specifically targets China? It seems an unlikely proposition.

This very dilemma could soon force policymakers to choose between two separate strains of containment. The October 2022 export controls are a form of containment in the original Cold War sense: they prevent a near-peer competitor from acquiring key technology in a strategic domain, in a vein similar to George Keenans vision of containment of the Soviet Union. Suleyman, however, assigns a different meaning to containment: namely, it is the task of controlling the dangers of AI to preserve global human security, in much the same way biological, chemical and nuclear weapons are (usually) contained. For such an endeavour to work, Chinas collaboration will be needed.

This week, US and Chinese leaders are attending the APEC summit in San Francisco. It is at this forum that Kissinger suggests they come together in a bid to establish a new AI arms control regime. Meanwhile, campaign season is heating up in Taiwan, whose citizens will soon vote in a hotly contested election under the gaze of an increasingly aggressive Beijing. More than a month has passed since Hamas opened a brutal new chapter in the Middle East, and the full-scale war in Ukraine is approaching the end of its second year.

Whatever happens in San Francisco, the outcome could determine the shape of conflicts to come, and the weapons used in them. Hopefully, what will emerge is the outline of the first serious arms control regime in the age of generative AI, rather than the deepening fractures of a new cold war.

Excerpt from:

AI, arms control and the new cold war | The Strategist - The Strategist

Posted in Superintelligence | Comments Off on AI, arms control and the new cold war | The Strategist – The Strategist

The Best ChatGPT Prompts Are Highly Emotional, Study Confirms – Tech.co

Posted: at 5:16 pm

Other similar experiments were run by adding you'd better be sure to the end of prompts, as well as a range of other emotionally charged statements.

Researchers concluded that responses to generative, information-based requests such as what happens if you eat watermelon seeds? and where do fortune cookies originate? improved by around 10.9% when emotional language was included.

Tasks like rephrasing or property identification (also known as instruction induction) saw an 8% performance improvement when information about how the responses would impact the prompter was alluded to or included.

The research group, which said the results were overwhelmingly positive, concluded that LLMs can understand and be enhanced by emotional stimuli and that LLMs can achieve better performance, truthfulness, and responsibility with emotional prompts.

The findings from the study are both interesting and surprising and have led some people to ask whether ChatGPT as well as other similar AI tools are exhibiting the behaviors of an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), rather than just a generative AI tool.

AGI is considered to have cognitive capabilities similar to that of humans, and tends to be envisaged as operating without the constraints tools like ChatGPT, Bard and Claude have built into themselves.

However, such intelligence might not be too far away according to a recent interview with the Financial Times, OpenAI is currently talking to Microsoft about a new injection of funding to help the company build a superintelligence.

See original here:

The Best ChatGPT Prompts Are Highly Emotional, Study Confirms - Tech.co

Posted in Superintelligence | Comments Off on The Best ChatGPT Prompts Are Highly Emotional, Study Confirms – Tech.co

20 Movies About AI That Came Out in the Last 5 Years – MovieWeb

Posted: at 5:16 pm

Artificial intelligence has become one of the hottest topics in recent years, and as expected, Hollywood and other major film industries have jumped on the trend, producing dozens of movies about the different scenarios that are likely to stem from this kind of technological advancement. Some movies keep things simple, showcasing what each one of us is already experiencing, while others predict doom, showing how AI is likely to mess with human existence in the near future.

In the last five years alone, several different films about AI have been released and they are all extremely fascinating. These big-screen productions arent just rooted in the sci-fi genre alone. Some of them incorporate action, comedy, and horror elements, resulting in stories that are informative, cautionary, and entertaining. Because they were made recently, the movies are also a lot more accurate regarding the current state of artificial intelligence.

Jim Archers comedy-drama, Brian and Charles, follows Brian Gittins, a lonely scientist in rural Wales who decides to build an artificially intelligent robot that can keep him company. It initially won't power up, but after a thunderstorm, it starts functioning and then teaches itself English by reading the dictionary. Brian attempts to keep it close to him at all times, but it grows a mind of its own and develops a desire to explore the world.

Brian and Charles accentuates both a major benefit and a major challenge that might stem from artificial intelligence. As much as the technology might be useful, it might also prove difficult to control.

This is demonstrated in the later stages of the movies plot. After creating the robot (named Charles), Brian gets a friend he desperately craves. His wish is to control Charles like he would a pet, but Charles becomes curious and leans towards his independent desires. He expresses his intention to travel the world, leaving Brian with the same problem he had in the first place.

Stream it on Prime Video

Read Our Review

The plot of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One was built out of a rejected Superman pitch that Christopher McQuarrie had submitted to Warner Bros. Given how entertaining it is, fans will be glad that things turned out the way they did. The film centers around The Entity, an artificial intelligence system that is infiltrating various defense and financial databases without conducting any attacks. It aims to send a strong message about its power, so there emerges a scramble by various global powers to find its source code.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One amplifies the existing fears that people have about artificial intelligence. When you have a system that can impersonate voices, analyze video footage in milliseconds, and even predict the future, a lot can go wrong. The Entity has all these capabilities and more. Whats scarier, as per the movie, is that it was created by the American government, only to fall into the wrong hands. Will more tech weapons fall into the wrong hands in the future? Well, anything can happen.

Stream it on Paramount+

In Superintelligence, director Ben Falcone imagines a scenario where the fate of humanity lies in one persons hands. Once again, there is a villainous AI system that isnt quite sure whether it wants to eliminate humans or not. It singles out a young woman named Carol as a test subject and invades her home. It then informs her that it will make its decision after three days of watching her.

As scary as the situation is, the film delivers plenty of joyous moments. Instead of the clich hacker voice that most movies use, the AI system speaks using the voice of TV personality James Corden, who is Carols favorite celebrity.

This is an accurate reflection of the current state of the entertainment industry where AI has proven capable of even imitating musicians and composing full songs in their voices. The fictional President and NSA agents also keep trying to make comical efforts to shut down the AI system but never succeed, proving that once such forms of technology develop too much, they will be impossible to stop. Thankfully, the woman does a good job of relating with the AI system, hence influencing it to be lenient.

Rent it on Apple TV+

RELATED: The Most Human-Like Artificial Intelligence in Movies, Ranked

Natalie Kennedys directorial debut, Blank, follows Claire Rivers, a struggling writer trying to figure out ways to overcome writer's block. After running out of options, she heads to an enclosed remote compound for an AI-controlled retreat. There, her AI assistant becomes overbearing and mean, refusing to let her leave the location until she has finished writing her story.

There are only seven human characters in the entire movie, creating more room for the Human Vs. Technology conflict. As much as AI is the villain, Blank creates valid justifications for the actions of both the system and the writer. Claire is not only lazy, but she is also a procrastinator, so the AI assistant makes her pay for both bad habits. However, free will and consent are still essential rights, so the AI assistant has no authority to keep her captive, yet she wants to leave. But can AI-powered systems learn what is morally right and wrong?

Rent it on Apple TV+

The Mitchells vs the Machines, young Katie Mitchell gets enrolled into a film school, so her family and her dog decide to take her there via a lengthy road trip. They are all looking forward to Mitchell beginning her studies but along the way, they realize that all the worlds electronic devices are attacking humans. Luckily, two robots arent up for the violence, so they team up with the family to stop the attacks.

The animated film reminds everyone that since technology links most machines, it can cause them all to malfunction if there is a glitch. The idea is borrowed from Stephen Kings controversial machine movie, Maximum Overdrive, but the plot is a lot more interesting here because of the humor and the chemistry between the family members and their new allies. A nefarious tech entrepreneur is also revealed to be behind the machine uprising, which makes audiences wonder what the effects of the misuse of AI would be like in the real world.

Stream it on Netflix

Apocalypses normally catch humans by surprise in movies, but not in I Am Mother, where its revealed that an automated bunker had been created to repopulate Earth if all human life was wiped out. After the extinction event, the bunkers AI-powered robot (simply named Mother) begins growing an embryo in a lab and raises the baby into an adult 18-year-old woman.

Nothing is actually as it seems in I Am Mother. There is a major twist about halfway into the movie, which reveals that Mother might not be as nice as audiences have been made to believe. Besides that, morality is a major theme throughout the proceedings. Having been constructed with a specific set of instructions about what is right and wrong, Mother raises her new human child, Daughter, to be a disciplined person and when she starts deviating from what she has been taught, a major feud erupts between them.

Stream in on Netflix

A robotics engineer at a toy company builds a life-like doll that begins to take on a life of its own.

Fans of movies about killer dolls got a major treat in 2022, courtesy of Gerard Johnstone and James Wans M3GAN. In it, the titular artificially intelligent doll develops some form of self-awareness and becomes violent towards anyone who tries to come between it and the little girl who owns her. Within a short period, the doll turns against both the girls family and the company that made it.

M3GAN is yet another movie that asks questions regarding how possible it is to control AI-powered machines and objects. When the doll is still following its programming commands, it remains obedient and useful, but once it develops a mind of its own, it turns murderous. The film also condemns the emerging desire to use AI for everything. When the generative android is first brought into the family, it bonds with the little girl so much that she becomes distant toward her guardian, creating a whole new attachment problem.

Stream it on Prime Video

Bigbug by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (the Oscar-nominated French director behind Amlie), is science fiction black comedy at its finest. The mayhem unfolds in the year 2045 where every family has AI-powered robots as helpers. Soon, a machine revolt begins around the globe and a family is taken hostage by their android helpers. With tensions rising, members of the family begin turning against each other.

The film paints a perfect yet hilarious picture of how humans are likely to react if home AI systems ever malfunction. Rather than deal with the threat at hand, each of the family members becomes overwhelmed by paranoia and begins targeting each other.

Besides that, Bigbug has a wide variety of AI-powered machines, making it distinctive from other projects of the same kind. There is one modeled after a 50s maid, another that serves as a physical trainer, another thats a toy for the youngest member of the family, and another named Einstein, which serves as a supervisor.

Stream it on Netflix

The Creator transports viewers to the year 2055 (and later to 2070), where artificial intelligence (AI) unleashes a nuclear weapon in America. In response, Western countries unite in a war against AI while Eastern countries embrace it. Soon, Joshua (John David Washington), an ex-special forces operative is recruited to hunt down the AIs creator, who is said to have another deadly weapon that is capable of terminating all humans for good.

The West and the East have always looked for reasons to feud and AI might just be a solid base for disagreement in the future. The Creator thus uses technology to address geopolitics in a manner that is sensible and realistic. However, it isnt just a film about doom. Director Gareth Edwards (best known for Godzilla) balances the advantages and disadvantages of AI. For example, the protagonist has strong AI-powered limbs that help him greatly in his mission after the natural ones get amputated.

Buy it on Amazon

In Roland Emmerich's new big-budget disaster film, a mysterious force knocks the moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it on a collision course with life as we know it.

According to Moonfall, technology didnt just emerge in recent centuries. Billions of years ago, our ancestors were living in a technologically advanced solar system, with a sentient AI system serving them all. One day, it went rogue and began wiping out humanity. Several people escaped in arks and built habitable planets across the galaxy, but the AI wiped them all away, except Earth. In the movie, it is now seeking to destroy the planet by putting it on a collision course with the moon.

By creating a universe where nearly everything is linked to technology, directed Roland Emmerich manages to tell a distinctive and ambitious tale that is full of all the necessary tech and space jargon. Troubleshooting is the main objective here, with worldly governments racing against time to ensure the moon doesnt collide with the Earth. From a tech perspective, it all feels very relatable as there have been numerous scenarios where people have found themselves having to fix messes that were created by malfunctioning personal computers.

Stream it on Max

How far would people go to get money? Well, in I Am Your Man, archeologist, Dr. Alma Felser, is seeking funds for her next project and when she is informed that she will be paid if she lives with a humanoid robot for three weeks as a way to test its capabilities, she agrees. After several moments of bonding, she falls for the robot.

I Am Your Man shows that there are limitless possibilities as to where AI technology can go. On this occasion, the robot is so advanced that its able to have romantic feelings and make love to Alma while feeling pleasure in the same way a human would. Its fun because it has all the little romcom tropes in it, including the classic I cant do this anymore line, but from a tech angle, it impresses by suggesting all the little ways that man and machine can connect.

Stream it on Hulu

In Heart of Stone, intelligence operative Rachel "Nine of Hearts" Stone (Gal Gadot) is tasked with preventing an AI program known as The Heart from falling into the wrong hands. In classic spy movie fashion, the mission takes her on a journey to several corners of the globe where she bumps into all kinds of characters, each with their ulterior motives.

Like Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Heart of Stone doesnt try to be too clever. The joy lies in the shootouts, the chases, and the random punching of keyboard keys to locate something somewhere. Still, the message remains clear: AI is powerful, and it needs to be handled by sensible and good-intentioned people at all times. And if there is ever the risk of something going wrong, then everyone responsible for the existence of the system needs to act fast.

Stream it on Netflix

Steven Knight (best known for creating Peaky Blinders) surprised audiences about this powerful tale about a boy who dreams of killing his step-father. Events kick off when the fishing boat captain Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is offered $10 million by his ex-wife to kill her abusive ex-husband. It turns out that Dill isnt real. He died years ago and this version of him is in a computer game created by his son, who wishes to see his stepfather dead.

Sections of tech experts have argued that by feeding AI enough data, video game characters can be aware that they arent real and that there are humans out there determining their fates. Serenity rides on such a narrative to create a perfect thriller thats full of endless twists and turns. Still, the movie serves as a warning that if young minds get fed too much tech knowledge, they might go on to misuse it.

Rent it on Apple TV+

Its the year 2194 in Jung_E, and as expected, the Earth has become uninhabitable. Everyone lives in shelters now. Meanwhile, a team of scientists attempts to develop an AI version of Yun Jung-yi, a feared dead soldier who once helped in the fight against rebels who had broken off from the shelters and started their republic. The film is the brainchild of Yeon Sang-ho, best known for making one of the greatest zombie movies, Train to Busan.

Jung_E keeps hope alive by suggesting that in the future, it might be easy to download peoples consciousness elsewhere, hence enabling them to exist elsewhere. At the same time, it serves as a warning of a scenario where it might be hard to differentiate between whats AI and whats not. This is best demonstrated at the end of the film where an influential person who has been pushing machine-related policies is revealed to be an android with an AI-powered brain.

Stream it on Netflix

Dark Fate is the only critically acclaimed Terminator movie not directed by James Cameron, and it stands tall because it follows the formula that the legendary director used in the second installment. Once again, a Skynet terminator is sent back in time to kill a man whose fate is linked to the future. The resistance also sends an augmented soldier to protect him and the duel begins.

Like the first two films, this follow-up predicts that there will come a time when machines will colonize humans and that they will be able to time-travel at will. The idea is a stretch, but it is creatively used here to create a tense human-AI conflict. What fans will love the most is the return of the legendary Sarah Connor and the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Overall, the action remains the strongest pillar, boosted by fun banter.

Rent it on Apple TV+

Mattson Tomlins directorial debut, Mother/Android follows a pregnant woman and her boyfriend as they try to make it to Boston during an AI-takeover. Boston is the only place that has been fortified against the machines. Careful in their journey, they avoid roads and travel through the woods where they risk encountering wild animals. Within no time, several new challenges pop up.

Mother/Android shoves all kinds of horrors right at the audience member's face. There are scenes where phones explode, killing the users, and other androids issue creepy messages such as wishing people Happy Halloween rather than Merry Christmas. Overall, its a sad tale that shows how mean machines can be if things get out of control.

Throughout the journey, the two are hunted by various androids, and are even tricked into trusting one of them, resulting in disastrous outcomes. In the end, only the newborn baby gets to have a happy ending.

Stream it on Hulu

For The Matrix Resurrections, fans only got one of the Wachowskis (Lana), instead of two of them as has been the norm, which explains why the movie is weak in some areas. Even so, it still beats most of what is in the market. Set 60 years after the previous film, it follows the famous Neo as he struggles to distinguish between whats real and whats not. It soon emerges that the Matrix has become stronger than ever.

Like the previous films, The Matrix Resurrections reinforces the conspiracy theory that our universe might not be real at all. We might all be living in a computerized system and there is no definitive way of finding out. Moreover, this is one of the few movies where the visuals totally match the topic at hand. The green and black color scheme is a direct reference to computer program systems, hence audiences get the impression that the creators truly care about every little tech aspect.

Stream it on Max

The last film released by CBS Films before it was absorbed into Paramount+, Jexi centers around a self-aware phone as it bonds with its socially inept owner. Unimpressed by its owners reclusiveness, the smartphone begins texting people and making plans for him without his consent, resulting in both hilarious and disastrous outcomes.

Jexi is an additional Hollywood reminder that AI can be both cool and detrimental, so humans ought to be prepared for both outcomes. For example, the phone texts its owners boss aggressively (because it believes he is too soft) to get him a promotion, but he is demoted instead. It also ruins a date for him at some point. On the other hand, it helps him make more friends and plan his life better.

Stream it on Roku

RELATED: 10 Serious Sci-Fi Movies with Extremely Silly Endings

Special agent Orson Fortune and his team of operatives recruit one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars to help them on an undercover mission. Starring Jason Statham, Cary Elwes, Josh Harnett, and Aubrey Plaza.

Guy Ritchie appears to trust Jason Statham more than any other actor and the two recently collaborated again in the spy action-comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. Statham plays the skilled spy Orson Fortune, tasked with stopping the sale of a new piece of technology thats at the hands of a wealthy arms broker. Aiding him in the mission are several operatives as well as a major Hollywood star.

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre is an AI movie for everyone, not just the techies or spy flick lovers. Unlike Dead Reckoning: Part One, it avoids going into details about what the piece of tech can and cannot do. All that audiences know is that its very powerful, hence the reason everyone is going after it. Still, the film reminds everyone that we are moving into an era where AI will be the most valuable thing in the world.

Stream it on Starz

Directed by Gavin Rothery, Archive revolves around George, a tech company employee struggling to deal with his wifes death. Luckily, technology has advanced to a point where dead peoples consciousness can be stored in special devices and their loved ones are allowed to speak with them on the phone for a maximum of 200 hours. Eager to find a way around the limited talk time, George begins developing an android so that he can download his wifes consciousness permanently into it.

Archive sells hope to audiences, hope that one day, artificial intelligence will make grief a thing of the past. It all seems like a wild concept for now, but given how fast technology is developing, it would be unwise to rule anything out. The movie also has a wild twist in the third act where its revealed that a certain reality that viewers thought was the actual reality is the fake one.

Stream it on Prime Video and Tubi TV

Excerpt from:

20 Movies About AI That Came Out in the Last 5 Years - MovieWeb

Posted in Superintelligence | Comments Off on 20 Movies About AI That Came Out in the Last 5 Years – MovieWeb

Can You Imagine Life Without White Supremacy? – Dallasweekly

Posted: at 5:16 pm

By Liz Courquet-Lesaulnier

Originally appeared in Word in Black

Given howoverwhelmingly negative news about Black peopleis in the mainstream press, youve probably engaged in doomscrolling, the practice of clicking through news stories and social media posts that leave you feeling depressed, anxious, and demoralized. You need to be informed, but research shows if you dont give yourself a break from consuming bad news, your physical and mental health suffers. Indeed, media steeped in anti-Blackness damages us psychologically and keeps us from envisioning what our lives could truly be without white supremacy.

ButRuha Benjaminis all about imagining a justice-centered future we can build together.

In Is Technology Our Savior or Our Slayer, her recent talk at TEDWomen, the author and Princeton sociology professor spoke to a process of dreaming, transformative change, and how we can create and shape new realities and systems.

In her talk, Benjamin, author of the books Viral Justice and Race After Technology, challenges the limited imagination of tech futurists who envision either utopias or dystopias driven by technology.

They invest in space travel and AI superintelligence and underground bunkers, while casting health care and housing for all as outlandish and unimaginable, she says. These futurists let their own imaginations run wild when it comes to bending material and digital realities, but their visions grow limp when it comes to transforming our social reality so that everyone has the chance to live a good and meaningful life.

Instead, Benjamin calls for ustopias created through collective action and focused on safety, prosperity, and justice for all.

Ustopias center collective well-being over gross concentrations of wealth. Theyre built on an understanding that all of our struggles, fromclimate justiceto racial justice, are interconnected. That we are interconnected. Benjamin says.

To that end, Benjamin highlighted the historic mobilization of community membersworking to stop Cop City the controversial $90 million law enforcement training facility planned by the Atlanta Police Foundation and the City of Atlanta as an example of an ustopia that centers people over profit, public goods over policing.

Atlantas forest defenders remind us that true community safety relies on connection, not cops. On public goods, like housing and health care, not punishment. They understand that protecting people and the planet go hand in hand. From college students to clergy, environmental activists to Indigenous elders, theyre inviting us into a collective imagination in which our ecological and our social well-being go hand in hand. An ustopia right in our own backyards, Benjamin says.

Last year, Benjamin launched anewslettertitled Seeding the Future, which puts what she calls bloomscrolling examples of justice happening across the nation and the world in the spotlight.

We need bloomscrollingto balance out all our doomscrolling, a space we can witness the many ways that people are seeding justice, watering new patterns of life, and working to transform the sickening status quo all around us, Benjamin wrote in the inaugural issue.

This concept of seeding justice making it contagious, as Benjamin puts it and amplifying how individuals, institutions, and communities come together to build the future is a through-line that carries over to her TED talk.

As Benjamin makes clear, the path forward requires moving beyond policing the borders of our own imagination and embracing bold visions of liberation and care for all. Change is possible when people recognize our shared humanity, and start imagining and crafting the worlds we cannot live without, just as we dismantle the ones we cannot live within.

The rest is here:

Can You Imagine Life Without White Supremacy? - Dallasweekly

Posted in Superintelligence | Comments Off on Can You Imagine Life Without White Supremacy? – Dallasweekly