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A.I. is translating messages of long-lost languages
MIT and Google researchers use deep learning to decipher ancient languages.
- Researchers from MIT and Google Brain discover how to use deep learning to decipher ancient languages.
- The technique can be used to read languages that died long ago.
- The method builds on the ability of machines to quickly complete monotonous tasks.
Should you defend the free speech rights of neo-Nazis?
Former president of the ACLU Nadine Strossen discusses whether our society should always defend free speech rights, even for groups who would oppose such rights.
- Former ACLU president Nadine Strossen understands that protecting free speech rights isn't always a straightforward proposition.
- In this video, Strossen describes the reasoning behind why the ACLU defended the free speech rights of neo-Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, 1977.
- The opinions expressed in this video do not necessarily reflect the views of the Charles Koch Foundation, which encourages the expression of diverse viewpoints within a culture of civil discourse and mutual respect.
How doctors really decide who lives and who dies
Should doctors allow their expertise to trump patient's personal goals — or should they yield to it?
- Our health care system right now prizes efficiency, rather than embedding an ethics committee throughout a patient's treatment.
- The challenge of being a medical ethicist is bringing "airy" concepts into clinical practice.
- Sometimes the solutions to ethical issues become established via legal precedent.
Elif Shafak - the story no one hears
"We live in an age in which there is too much excessive information, less knowledge, and very, very little wisdom." Elif Shafak has faced trial and investigation in her native Turkey for giving voice to the voiceless in her novels. We talk about her book THREE DAUGHTERS OF EVE and the fight for nuance in a world of binaries.
- "To say that there are two stories to the same issue…doesn't mean [they] have the same power. Sometimes one of those stories will be the story that no one hears….that is suppressed and erased and forgotten and pushed to the margins."
- "I think faith is way too important to leave it to the religious. Just like politics is way too important to leave it to career politicians. And I've started to believe that technology is way too important to leave it to tech companies and monopolies."
After four years and just over 200 conversations for this podcast, I'm feeling the need for a new kind of politics. One that would champion uncertainty, fragility, emotional vulnerability against the tyranny of opinions that push us one way or another. I used to think that art was sufficient for this purpose. After all, it was books like J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey or Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, bands like the Smiths and the Velvet Underground that gave a much younger me courage to embrace ambiguity as a great teacher.
Art's an open door, but you have to walk through it. And it's the politics and culture around you that shape your ability to do so. We're hurting and hungry for connection. Sick of misunderstanding and violence. I think this is true all over the world. I think it runs so deep it's like an underground river, one whose presence we can only guess at from the contours of the surface earth.
I'm very happy to be talking today with Turkish-born global citizen, novelist and activist Elif Shafak. She's the author of HONOR, THE FLEA PALACE, and THREE DAUGHTERS OF EVE, among many other books. In her writing and public speaking, she's one of the most eloquent voices I know of this new politics that doesn't fit easily on any flag.
Surprise conversation starters in this episode:
Colonizing space will require gear that doesn't exist yet. But they're in the works.
What will it take to conquer our immemorial space dream?
- Our best bet for frolicking among the stars will come from building O'Neill space colonies.
- Landing on and terraforming distant worlds such as Mars is fraught with greater technical and biological difficulties.
- Advances in radiation shielding, space construction and propulsion are needed for any sort of space colonization effort.
Recently, Tron appears to have been at the center of the latest fake news scandal to hit the crypto world. It started on July 8, after Twitter user Hayden Otto posted a tweet stating that Chinese police were raiding the Tron offices in Beijing. The accompanying video initially seemed credible, showing uniformed police in an office that also displayed the Tron logo. The implication was that police were raiding Tron for participating in a scam.
However, this was far from truth, as Tron founder Justin Sun quickly jumped in to clarify. Protesters had stormed the offices, after finding out that a project called Wave Field Super Community was actually a Ponzi scheme (the project had associated itself with Tron, despite the company' attempts to dissociate itself). The police presence was, in fact, there to monitor the situation and protect Tron's employees.
Despite fast action on behalf of the company, Tron's price immediately plummeted. The incident wiped over $100m from Tron's total market cap in the space of just a few hours which it later recovered.
A recurring problem
Unfortunately, the Tron incident isn't the first case of fake news plaguing the digital currency space. In May, Primitive Ventures founder Dovey Wan outed a fake news scam in China. The report appeared to indicate that Craig Wright had transferred funds out of a BTC wallet known to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto and transferred it to Binance, thereby confirming that Craig Wright is indeed Satoshi.
This relates to an ongoing point of contention between Craig Wright and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ). The latter had delisted Craig Wright's Bitcoin SV coin from Binance a few months back following Wright's repeated (and unproven) claims that he was Satoshi Nakamoto. Again, the fake news had a market impact, as the value of BSV spiked immediately after the "news" broke.
Neither are these new incidents. Back in 2017, a Steemit writer had warned of the market impact of fake news. They cited a story that had circulated, stating that the IOTA project had partnered with Microsoft and Cisco. In fact, IOTA had only been in talks with those companies. The writer warned:
"This is a PRIME example of how virality with news about popular currencies can create massive, artificial pumps that are destined for a short life once the inaccuracy is revealed for what it is."
While some may dismiss these rumors as frivolous, the truth is they can inflict severe damage on markets. Investors can quickly lose trust and dump their holdings, causing markets to nosedive in response. The Tron and Bitcoin SV incidents are illustrative of just how easily this can happen.
Navigating the sea of fake news
It's not just necessarily a crypto problem, although crypto-Twitter seems to be an unhealthy source of truth for many in the industry. One problem with Twitter is that it becomes a breeding ground for fake news because projects are competing with one another. However, one project losing value doesn't equate to others gaining. This isn't how markets operate.
Nevertheless, traditional markets are also often subject to ups and downs depending on rumors and misinformation. Elon Musk caused shockwaves in the financial markets last year when he suddenly tweeted that he was taking Tesla private at $4.20 per share. He wasn't - resulting in the SEC taking swift action against him.
Because of incidents like these, 40% of Americans report fake news as one of their serious concerns in making investment decisions. Even seemingly reputable brands like Walgreens have faced SEC action for misleading investors.
However, crypto is far more volatile in general than the traditional markets, meaning fake news disproportionately affects market swings. With the influx of institutional money into crypto, we need more reliable sources of news and information than just Twitter. If markets continue to fluctuate so violently, it may ultimately cause institutions to pull their money out. This would be catastrophic for the digital asset space, which is only just starting to gain a veneer of credibility with big investors.
Is there an answer?
Some sources, Mark Zuckerberg included, point to artificial intelligence algorithms as the solution to the fake news problem. In the future, it may be possible that crowdsourced intelligence will help to reduce the instances of fake news. But currently, AI algorithms aren't advanced enough to differentiate all the levels of human nuance contained in even the shortest texts.
The cryptocurrency media operates at breakneck speed, resulting in reporters often picking up stories and reporting them as rumors, asking questions later. The mainstream media only tends to report on significant events in crypto and doesn't track every story. Therefore, crypto media needs to take responsibility for putting facts before clickbait headlines.
However, individuals can also take steps to ensure that they are applying reasonable doubt to tweets and clickbait headlines they see online. If you read an outrageous claim online, check multiple sources, and verify the author before sharing it. Check to make sure the website or Twitter account isn't a spoof or a fake. If something seems inauthentic, don't give it the oxygen of publicity.
In the end, there is no easy solution to the fake news problem. It's down to each individual and entity to take responsibility for what they post, what they share, and what they choose to believe and the markets will do what the markets will do. But let's try and make sure that as much as possible is based on facts, rather than fake news.
The global financial system is under an increasing amount of pressure to get with the times and evolve to the needs of its customers. Crises like the 2008 housing bubble's collapse, and failing currencies in places like Venezuela and Zimbabwe saw people looking for alternatives to traditional banking and financial systems.
Many people turned to Bitcoin as a solution, liking its ability to be used as an international payment system without involving third parties or governments.
Although Bitcoin has gained momentum primarily in the last three years, due to mass media and public attention, it's been around for over a decade.
Back in 2010 - 2014 cryptocurrencies were not well known and their primary reported use was as a tool for buying guns and drugs on the dark web.
Soon, innovators and techies saw the potential in cryptocurrency not just as a tool for the tax evader and shady buyer, but also as one which could benefit users with fast, stable transference of value.
The general public realized there was nothing to fear from Bitcoin, and people from all walks of life, fed up with the system, as well as with banks and high fees, started doing their own research. Once individuals started taking an interest, cryptocurrencies were on the rise.
It was the massive spike in interest and public awareness that forced banks, governments, and companies on the scale of IBM, Microsoft and Amazon to look into digital currencies and their underlying technology. These last three years have laid a fascinating foundation for what could be the future of money.
Piquing Mainstream Interest
Around three years ago news about early miners and investors seeing their thousands of accumulated Bitcoins turning into millions of dollars started cropping up as the price grew steadily.
Overnight millionaires were popping up everywhere as the price of Bitcoin rose to $1,000. Suddenly, Bitcoin was being bought by amateurs, and by investors seeing a chance at achieving the getting-rich-quick dream.
Bitcoin was easy to get, easy to trade, and seemed like a good option to make money as the interest in the digital coin was making the price bubble upwards. It took Bitcoin less than a year to 20x its value through 2017 - which should have been a warning sign to any cautious investor.
With all the hype, initial coin offerings (IPOs with cryptocurrency) started popping up everywhere. Blockchain companies would create a token for their business and then put it to market for investors to buy up in the hopes of making massive returns on their investment.
On the one hand, ICOs disrupted the venture capital model in a way not seen before, with companies able to fund their venture within minutes, hours and days beyond their expectations and without all the regulation traditional companies experienced. They had the opportunity to self-fund with thousands of investors around the world, eager to invest in the cryptocurrency gold rush.
On the other hand, however, the space became packed with scammers and amateurs eager to grab at the opportunity for funds in the unregulated space, often with no intention of paying back their investors in any way. People were throwing money at the flimsiest of projects, not doing their due diligence and with little knowledge of the company's model for success. In the past few years many ICOs, some of which raised millions in capital have failed, taking the money with them while others were purpose-built scams.
The predominance of blockchain
The hype caused a bubble that quickly popped and, from $20,000 Bitcoin dropped to lows of $3,000 in 2018 kicking off a long bear market, and burning many speculative investors.
The bear market made many newcomers back off, some leaving the market altogether and some holding on to a few Bitcoins in the hope it would turn. The bear market was bad for many of those who invested, but was on the whole a good thing for cryptocurrency as it caused people to stop using Bitcoin as the speculative asset it was never intended to be.
With fewer people crowding the space, enterprises and regulators were able to enter and focus on what they found to be most important about the cryptocurrency, it's underlying technology, blockchain.
Suddenly, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, and others were building blockchain divisions. Banks, who once laughed at the ecosystem, were now hiring blockchain engineers, adding incredible legitimacy to the space.
Regulators now saw that blockchain, and digital tokens had a lot of value and could be separated from the scams and hacks often seen in the ICO markets. Regulators wanted to work with the technology and businesses wanted to leverage it for their systems.
The second coming
Having taken a massive hit through 2018, the cryptocurrency market started relying on the legitimacy that its technology - blockchain - had gained. Suddenly, after mostly losing gains, a few cryptocurrencies began gaining momentum in early 2019.
Soon, positive news about the cryptocurrency market saw the public's interest return - only this time, the interest was based on more than speculation, it was backed by big institutionalized money.
The media started labeling the first quarter of 2019 as the 'Cryptocurrency Spring' which excited investors as well as businesses. People had predicted that an institutional buy-in would propel the space once again, and it looks like 2019 is becoming the year for enterprises exploration of cryptocurrencies.
Eyal Hertzog, Co-founder and Product Architect of Bancor and long time cryptocurrency enthusiast talks about his predictions for the future of cryptocurrencies:
"Cryptocurrencies as we know them today are only the tip of the iceberg. In the future, we'll see tokens for everything from artists and artwork, to neighborhoods, charities, startups and more, creating new network models and embedding localized incentive structures into online and offline communities across the globe,".
"Right now, the Libra project represents a watershed moment as Facebook, one of the largest corporations in the world, has entered the fray along with giants like eBay, PayPal and Visa."
Bitcoin has now passed the $12000 mark and is showing no signs of slowing down in its return to the good graces of the public.
Hopefully, with regulation on the way and legitimate establishments at the helm this time around, the crypto market will become a steadier, more reliable space for real companies and new technologies to flourish, bringing transactions into the 22nd century and changing the financial systems we use for the better.
