Competition from artificial intelligence is a technical challenge and an existential question for historians. But what if it is also an opportunity to reclaim the profession’s humanity?
Tag: human
From South Africa to Singapore to France, the question of when or where adults can physically discipline children continues to fuel debate.
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Smile, It May Help You Live Longer
Even more so than laughter, smiling is the human trait par excellence. It’s a real language — but can we learn to understand it? Or to cultivate it? The rewards could be high, and not just to boost morale: Smiling could increase life expectancy.
The inner workings of Artificial Intelligence are impenetrable, unexplainable and unpredictable. That build in some fundamental limits to its capacity and utility.
AI is so far unlikely to trigger a global nuclear catastrophe, but it might gradually undermine humans’ capacity for critical and creative thinking as some decision-making and even writing tasks may increasingly be delegated to artificial intelligence.
The Schengen Area is not a “sieve” that lets migrants in but, as recent events have shown, it is not a fortress either. The fundamental rights of individuals will always prevail over security requirements.
Seeing Manel de Aguas can prompt a range of reactions. The connected artificial “fins’ implanted in his skull might look silly to some, inspiring to others, or just very disturbing. “I don’t feel 100% human,” the 27-year-old Catalan told the La Razón daily last week. On his Instagram page, de Aguas describes himself as a […]
As the world is distracted by COVID-19 and regional leftists turn a blind eye, the Cuban regime relaunches its secretive practice of civil-society repression.
Let’s not forget that well before COVID-19, we often referred to the “revolution” underway in the workplace. Automation, digitalization, climate change and other seismic shifts were bringing upon major changes in the ways we work. Now, the economy — and life— as we know it seem more unpredictable than ever. Yet after several months of […]
As people continue to push the boundaries in areas like AI and biotechnology, it’s worth asking what all these advances will do to our minds and bodies.
CAIRO — “Take care and hopefully see you soon. :)” I end the short letter to my family with a few requests for items to bring on their next visit, then hand it to one of my cellmates to give to his wife, who will pass it on to my mother the day after her […]
After the death in prison of deposed President Mohammed Morsi, rights organizations accuse again Egypt’s authorities of medical negligence within prisons.
The proliferation of human milk banks has raised technical, religious and political concerns. Local policymakers would benefit from an international framework to help them set regulations.
Libération, Sept. 19, 2017 Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday broke her silence on the violence in her Buddhist-majority country that has forced hundreds of thousands of minority Muslim Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. French newspaper Libération featured a picture of her with the headline “A Nobel and a massacre” splashed on […]
Women held in Syria’s government prisons report psychological abuse, sexual assault and torture. But for many, the suffering they experience after their release is even worse.
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Spotlight: The Stakes Of Aleppo
The numbers are impressive, terrifying, bone-chilling. At least 20,000 people have fled their homes in Aleppo this week alone, according to the International Red Cross, as the Syrian army and its allies make significant, and perhaps crucial, gains in the eastern part of the city, controlled mostly by jihadist fighters. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for […]
When we pet an iguana, we are taking advantage of a communication channel that already exists between iguanas. Evolution can work across species too.
PARIS — Try to imagine that an intelligent robot is out to kill you. It remembers all your passwords and has access to all your data. Equipped with facial recognition technology, it can identify you wherever you go, even though you have no idea what it looks like. This nightmare is actually possible. Drone assassins […]
Autonomous vacuum cleaners are just the beginning. As time goes by, artificially intelligent machines will play ever greater roles in our lives. Which is why now is the time to start asking some important questions.
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Kid Math Problem — Video Quote Of The Day
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Night Sky Einstein — Video Quote Of The Day
A century from now, the global population will finally begin to decline. But before that, the world must deal with the waste created by an exploding overpopulation: How do we hold on until then?
Young men who left Eritrea, by way of Libya, may have all ended up in Lampedusa, but they took many different paths getting there.
Calais, France along the English Channel has served as a hub for UK-bound illegal migrants for more than a decade. Now Egyptian, Kurdish and Albanese traffickers are fighting for control.
Philosophers debate the meaning and sincerity of social network friendships, finding affirmation or disagreement from the words of long-dead forebears. Because there’s no app for that.
Because of outdated tradition and economics, 14% of Yemeni girls are married off before their 15th birthday. But since the Arab spring, a movement is growing to stop this.
As demand for organ transplants skyrockets, a new artificial heart and other sophisticated prostheses are among the medical-tech advancements raising troubling questions.
GENEVA – It’s called simply, “Human Brain Project” (HBP), and it is as audacious as it is ambitious: 256 individual labs scattered across 24 countries in order to create a virtual human brain. Though only officially awarded a one-billion-euro grant Monday by the European Union, the debate around the endeavor has been brewing for years […]