Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Google’s New AI Tools for Gmail, Docs Can Write Drafts for You – CNET

The search giant is testing generative writing and other AI features for its Workspace apps.

By Nina Raemont, March 14, 2023 8:12 a.m. PT

James Martin/CNET

Google plans to bring new AI-powered tools to its suite of Workspace apps. In a blog post on Tuesday, the search giant said it’s starting by testing generative AI writing features in Gmail and Docs that can help people get started on the writing process.

“Simply type a topic you’d like to write about, and a draft will instantly be generated for you,” reads Google’s post. “With your collaborative AI partner you can continue to refine and edit, getting more suggestions as needed.”

The tool, Google suggests, can be used to help create things like customized job descriptions or invitations for a kid’s birthday party. The company is also exploring ways to incorporate AI tools into Slides, Sheets, Meet and Chat.

Source: Google’s New AI Tools for Gmail, Docs Can Write Drafts for You – CNET

Karen Gurney: The truth about faking orgasms | TED Talk

By Karen Gurney • TEDxLondonWomen

Screenshot…

Whose pleasure is prioritized during sex, and why?

Psychosexologist Karen Gurney explains how a lack of equal pleasure in the bedroom actually reflects broader gender inequality in society — and asks you to reconsider what dynamics are at play, even behind closed doors.

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item… see video at link…

Source: Karen Gurney: The truth about faking orgasms | TED Talk

Hitting the Books: AI is making people think faster, not smarter | Engadget

There is too much internet and our attempts to keep up with the breakneck pace of, well, everything these days — it is breaking our brains.

By Andrew Tarantola | @terrortola | March 5, 2023 10:30 AM

wenjin chen via Getty Images

Parsing through the deluge of inundating information hoisted up by algorithmic systems built to maximize engagement has trained us as slavering Pavlovian dogs to rely on snap judgements and gut feelings in our decision-making and opinion formation rather than deliberation and introspection.

Which is fine when you’re deciding between Italian and Indian for dinner or are waffling on a new paint color for the hallway, but not when we’re out here basing existential life choices on friggin’ vibes.

In his latest book, I, HUMAN: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique, professor of business psychology and Chief Innovation Officer at ManpowerGroup, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic explores the myriad ways that AI systems now govern our daily lives and interactions.

From finding love to finding gainful employment to finding out the score of yesterday’s game, AI has streamlined the information gathering process. But, as Chamorro-Premuzic argues in the excerpt below, that information revolution is actively changing our behavior, and not always for the better.

Source: Hitting the Books: AI is making people think faster, not smarter | Engadget

Human dependence, human needs, Maslow, the Circle of Seven Essential Needs | by Mike Sosteric | Medium

By Mike Sosteric, Mar 18, 2021

From article…

Greetings and welcome. My name is Michael. In this presentation, I am going to talk about six related topics. I am going to talk about the myth of human independence as well as the critical importance of meeting our human needs.

I am going to talk about Abraham Maslow’s early theory of human needs and I’ll also talk about some of the problems with the iconic “Pyramid” that is still to represent his theory.

Then, I am going to introduce you to a new more modern theorization of human needs, the Circle of Seven Essential Needs (Sosteric & Ratkovic, 2020). Finally, I am going to end with a statement bout expanding our view of human nature.

Source: Human dependence, human needs, Maslow, the Circle of Seven Essential Needs | by Mike Sosteric | Medium

The “Dazed and Confused” Generation | The New Yorker

People my age are described as baby boomers, but our experiences call for a different label altogether.

By Bruce Handy, March 2, 2023

Article screenshot…

It has long been fashionable to hate baby boomers, “America’s noisiest if no longer largest living generation,” as the Times critic Alexandra Jacobs wrote recently. But I remain on the fence.

I believe that you can appreciate the late David Crosby’s music, for instance, while not endorsing buckskin jackets, walrus mustaches, and lyrics that address women as “milady.”

What I most resent about baby boomers is that, technically, I am one. The baby boom is most often defined as encompassing everyone born from 1946 to 1964, but those nineteen years make for an awfully wide and experientially diverse cohort. I was born in 1958, three years past the generational midpoint of 1955. I graduated from high school in 1976, which means I came of age in a very different world from the earliest boomers, most of whom graduated in 1964.

When the first boomers were toddlers, TV was a novelty. We, the late boomers, were weaned on “Captain Kangaroo” and “Romper Room.” They were old enough to freak out over the Sputnik; we were young enough to grow bored by moon landings. The soundtrack of their senior year in high school was the early Beatles and Motown; ours was “Frampton Comes Alive!” Rather than Freedom Summer, peace marches, and Woodstock, we second-half baby boomers enjoyed an adolescence of inflation, gas lines, and Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech. We grew up to the background noise of the previous decade, when being young was allegedly more thrilling in every way: the music, the drugs, the clothes, the sense of discovery and the possibility of change, the sense that being young mattered.

Source: The “Dazed and Confused” Generation | The New Yorker

Neal Stephenson critical on metaverse – The Cryptonomist

By Alessia Pannone – 28 Feb 2023

from article…

Neal Stephenson, apparently the first to coin the term “metaverse,” has expressed his opinion about the future adoption of virtual worlds.

The science fiction writer and co-founder of Lamina1, a blockchain metaverse company, believes that building experiences that millions of people consider worthy in virtual worlds is quite difficult, hindering the process of technology adoption.

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