Author: The Conversation

A new era of space stations is about to kick off. NASA has announced three commercial space station proposals for development, joining an earlier proposal by Axiom Space. These proposals are the first attempts to create places for humans to live and work in space outside the framework of government space agencies. They’re part of what has been called “Space 4.0”, where space technology is driven by commercial opportunities. Many believe this is what it will take to get humans to Mars and beyond. There are currently two occupied space stations in low Earth orbit (less than 2,000km above Earth’s surface), both…

Facebook’s approach to users’ data has just been dealt a major blow from the European court of justice (ECJ). In an answer to a question from Germany’s highest court, the ECJ’s advocate general – whose opinion is not binding but is generally followed by the court – has made an essential clarification to Europe’s data protection law to confirm that consumer associations can bring actions on behalf of individuals. If followed by the ECJ, this will make it much easier for people to defend their rights against tech giants in future. Coming on the back of a decision by the European general court against Google several…

Whether it’s athletes on a sporting field or celebrities in the jungle, nothing holds our attention like the drama of vying for a single prize. And when it comes to the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), some of the most captivating moments have also been delivered in nailbiting finishes. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer was pitted against grandmaster and reigning world champion Garry Kasparov, having lost to him the previous year. But this time, the AI won. The popular Chinese game Go was next, in 2016, and again there was a collective intake of breath when Google’s AI was victorious. These…

Since early in the COVID pandemic, the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa has been monitoring changes in SARS-CoV-2. This was a valuable tool to understand better how the virus spread. In late 2020, the network detected a new virus lineage, 501Y.V2, which later became known as the beta variant. Now a new SARS-CoV-2 variant has been identified – B.1.1.529. The World Health Organisation has declared it a variant of concern, and assigned it the name Omicron. To help us understand more, The Conversation Africa’s Ozayr Patel asked scientists to share what they know. What’s the science behind the search? Hunting for variants requires a concerted…

When you enter your personal information or credit card number into a website, do you have a moment of hesitation? A nagging sense of vulnerability prompted by the parade of headlines about data breaches and hacks? If so, you probably push those feelings aside and hit the submit button, because, well, you need to shop, apply for that job, file that insurance claim, apply for that loan, or do any of the other sensitive activities that take place online these days. First, the bad news. If you regularly enter sensitive information online, chances are you’ve had some data stolen somewhere…

In the mid-1990s, there was research going on at Stanford University that would change the way we think about computers. The Media Equation experiments were simple: participants were asked to interact with a computer that acted socially for a few minutes after which, they were asked to give feedback about the interaction. Participants would provide this feedback either on the same computer (No. 1) they had just been working on or on another computer (No. 2) across the room. The study found that participants responding on computer No. 2 were far more critical of computer No. 1 than those responding on…

Disinformation has been used in warfare and military strategy over time. But it is undeniably being intensified by the use of smart technologies and social media. This is because these communication technologies provide a relatively low-cost, low-barrier way to disseminate information basically anywhere. The million-dollar question then is: Can this technologically produced problem of scale and reach also be solved using technology? Indeed, the continuous development of new technological solutions, such as artificial intelligence (AI), may provide part of the solution. Technology companies and social media enterprises are working on the automatic detection of fake news through natural language processing, machine learning…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already making decisions in the fields of business, health care and manufacturing. But AI algorithms generally still get help from people applying checks and making the final call. What would happen if AI systems had to make independent decisions, and ones that could mean life or death for humans? Pop culture has long portrayed our general distrust of AI. In the 2004 sci-fi movie I, Robot, detective Del Spooner (played by Will Smith) is suspicious of robots after being rescued by one from a car crash, while a 12-year-old girl was left to drown. He says: I…

In recent months the government has proposed cracking down on online anonymity. The idea is that attaching online posts to a person’s real name will reduce abuse and increase accountability. Online bullying and misinformation are growing problems, and government action to address them is overdue. However, limiting anonymity alone won’t make social media less toxic. It will only work combined with broader reforms to platform design and business models, which drive polarisation, negativity, abuse and misinformation. Reforms must also protect free speech and account for power imbalances between citizens and the state. The mooted changes come alongside suggestions of public funding for defamation…

If there was one impressive thing from Mark Zuckerberg’s 90-minute spiel about Facebook’s rebranding as Meta, it was his misunderstanding of what meta actually means — and how that misunderstanding is symbolic of his profound incapacity for self-reflection. The day after Meta launched — featuring Zuckerberg’s utopian promises about the metaverse — I subjected my first-year English class to a rant about how this moment has been predicted by a library’s worth of science fiction. Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash even features a virtual environment called … wait for it … the metaverse. To anyone even vaguely familiar with cyberpunk science fiction, what was comically tone-deaf about Zuckerberg’s…