Culture and Philosophy

Don’t blame technology for persistent unemployment | Slate

John Payne 06 Oct 2013

Posting on the Slate blog Future Tense, James Bessen takes issue with the notion that technology causes unemployment, illustrating his point by debunking a pair of frequently cited examples, textile w...

Getting started in robotics, an educational concern

Claude Baumann 23 Sep 2013

I am profoundly convinced that if we are able to preserve the natural curiosity of early childhood in growing up individuals, without fail they will develop a durable attraction to science, technology...

Robohub focus: Dealing with the ‘jobs’ question

Hallie Siegel 15 Apr 2013

For the next week, Robohub will host a special focus on robots and jobs, featuring original articles from leading experts in the fields of robotics and automation. The goal of the series is to explore...

Ability to do creative, non-routine work will be a must in the coming automation era. Is this realistic for most workers?

Martin Ford 13 Apr 2013

There can be no doubt that technological progress has resulted in a far more prosperous society. Technology has often disrupted entire industries and, in some cases — as with the mechanization of ag...

There is no war other than the one we are fighting with ourselves

Federico Pistono 13 Apr 2013

Just five years ago, anybody who spoke of technological unemployment was labeled a luddite, a techno-utopian, or just simply someone who doesn’t understand economics. Today things are very different...

Robohub focus: Robots and warfare

Hallie Siegel 13 Mar 2013

For the rest of this week, Robohub will have a special focus on the use of robots in warfare. All kinds of robots are being developed for strategic defence and military action (in space, in the...

Drone filibuster delays US Senate’s vote on new CIA director

Hallie Siegel 07 Mar 2013

A US Senate vote to confirm John Brennan as CIA director was delayed by a 13-hour talking filibuster by junior Republican Senator Rand Paul. US President Barack Obama has faced criticism in hi...

The death of search (or, My dysfunctional relationship with Siri)

Mark Stephen Meadows 06 Mar 2013

This article looks at the arrival of systems such as Siri, Google Now, and Watson and claims that these systems are the search engines of the next decade because they mine intimate data. Since they ...