Author: The Conversation

Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawing attention for its anti-censorship stance. Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter signed by 150 academics, writers and activists concerning perceived threats to the future of free speech. The letter, signed by Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Gloria Steinem and J.K. Rowling, among others, reads: The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. Debates surroundings free speech and censorship have taken centre stage in recent months. In May, Twitter started adding fact-check labels to tweets from Donald Trump. More recently, Reddit permanently…

In the US, tireless opposition to state use of facial recognition algorithms has recently won some victories. Some progressive cities have banned some uses of the technology. Three tech companies have pulled facial recognition products from the market. Democrats have advanced a bill for a moratorium on facial recognition. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a leading computer science organisation, has also come out against the technology. Outside the US, however, the tide is heading in the other direction. China is deploying facial recognition on a vast scale in its social credit experiments, policing, and suppressing the Uighur population. It is also exporting facial recognition technology (and norms) to partner countries in the Belt…

Surgical emergencies are in fact one of the main challenges when it comes to human space travel. But over the last few years, space medicine researchers have come up with a number of ideas that could help, from surgical robots to 3D printers.

As businesses around the world slowly start to reopen after being forced to shut down operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the graduates of the class of 2020 are sharpening their presentation skills and updating their resumes to look for employment opportunities. But will their polished resumes make them more competitive relative to their peers? The answer may surprise you. In today’s digitally mediated world, well-prepared resumes may not be enough to make you stand out among hundreds of candidates. Due to the increasing use of social media around the globe (especially now during #socialdistancing), many recruiters and hiring managers find…

Drones, personal flying vehicles and air taxis may be part of our everyday life in the very near future. Drones and air taxis will create new means of mobility and transport routes. Drones will be used for surveillance, delivery and in the construction sector as it moves towards automation. The introduction of these aerial craft into cities will require the built environment to change dramatically. Drones and other new aerial vehicles will require landing pads, charging points, and drone ports. They could usher in new styles of building, and lead to more sustainable design. My research explores the impact of aerial vehicles…

When Star Wars was awarded the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1978 it marked the first time the visual component of effects was differentiated from sound. Yet, even in this moment when visual effects (VFX) was first recognised by the Academy, it was already being pointed to as the destroyer of the auteur renaissance: an Hollywood era in which directors like Martin Scorcese, Stanley Kubrick and even George Lucas himself enjoyed unprecedented freedom to make the films they wanted to make with full studio backing. The financial success of films like Star Wars turned studios towards a strategy of event films. These…

The advent of 5G has raised many concerns among people, to the extent that anti-5G movements have emerged in various countries in recent months. Some extreme right-wing groups have even developed conspiracy theories linking 5G to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some activists have gone as far as setting fire to telecommunications towers in Belgium, the Netherlands and recently in Québec. A couple from Sainte-Adèle has been formally accused of setting fire to two cellphone towers; allegedly, they are behind a wave of fires that damaged at least seven towers in the northern suburbs of Montréal. The false news concerning 5G spread at lightning speed on social…

The world needs to engage seriously with China’s AI development and take a closer look at what’s really going on. The story is complex and it’s important to highlight where China is making promising advances in useful AI applications and to challenge common misconceptions, as well as to caution against problematic uses.

The stunning successes of artificial intelligence would not have happened without the availability of massive amounts of data, whether its smart speakers in the home or personalized book recommendations. And the spread of AI into new areas of the economy, such as AI-driven marketing and self driving vehicles, has been driving the collection of ever more data. These large databases are amassing a wide variety of information, some of it sensitive and personally identifiable. All that data in one place makes such databases tempting targets, ratcheting up the risk of privacy breaches. The general public is largely wary of AI’s…

Research shows that students are motivated to learn language through watching foreign language television programs. In the world of professional sports, baseball players, ice-hockey players and football managers have also claimed that television was a key resource for their language development.